The fathers' rights movement is a movement whose members are primarily interested in issues related to family law, including child custody and child support, that affect fathers and their children.
Many of its members are fathers who desire to share the parenting of
their children equally with their children's mothers—either after divorce
or as unwed fathers—and the children of the terminated marriage. The
movement includes men as well as women, often the second wives of
divorced fathers or other family members of men who have had some
engagement with family law.
Many members did not have experience in law or politics. However, as their goal of having equally-shared parenting time, was being negated, unjustly by family courts, they took it upon themselves to become educated in all areas of family law, including child custody and child support.
Though it has been described as a social movement, members of the movement believe their actions are better described as part of a civil rights movement.
The movement has received international press coverage as a result of high-profile activism of their members. It has become increasingly vocal, visible and organised, and has played a powerful role in family law debates.
Many members did not have experience in law or politics. However, as their goal of having equally-shared parenting time, was being negated, unjustly by family courts, they took it upon themselves to become educated in all areas of family law, including child custody and child support.
Though it has been described as a social movement, members of the movement believe their actions are better described as part of a civil rights movement.
The movement has received international press coverage as a result of high-profile activism of their members. It has become increasingly vocal, visible and organised, and has played a powerful role in family law debates.
Demographics
The fathers' rights movement exists almost exclusively in industrialized countries, where divorce has become more common. It emerged in the West from the 1960s onwards as part of the men's movement with organizations such as Families Need Fathers, which originated in the 1970s.
In the late twentieth century, the growth of the internet permitted
wider discussion, publicity and activism about issues of interest to
fathers' rights activists. Factors thought to contribute to the development of the fathers' rights movement include shifting household demographics
brought about by rising divorce and falling marriage rates, changes in
the understanding and expectations of fatherhood, motherhood and
childhood as well as shifts in how legal systems impact families.
Fathers' rights groups in the West are primarily composed of white, middle or working class, heterosexual men. Members tend to be politically conservative but do not share a single set of political or social views and are highly diverse in their goals and methods. Members of the fathers' rights movement advocate for strong relationships with their children and focus on a narrowly defined set of issues based on the concerns of divorced or divorcing men. Women, often new partners including second wives or other family members of men who have had some engagement with family law and mothers without custody, are also members of the fathers' rights movement, and fathers' rights activists emphasize this. Two studies of fathers' rights groups in North America found that fifteen percent of their members were women.
The fathers' rights movement organizations Families Need Fathers and the Lone Fathers Association have campaigned for fathers' rights over many decades. Longer lasting organizations appear to result from the longterm dedication and commitment of key individuals. Other fathers' rights groups have tended to form and dissolve quickly. Internal disagreements over ideology and tactics are common, and members tend not to remain with the groups after they have been helped.
Political and social views
The
fathers' rights movement has both liberal and conservative branches,
with different viewpoints about how men and women compare. Although both
groups agree on the victimization and discrimination against men, they
disagree on why men and women differ (nature versus nurture) and traditional gender roles.
The liberal version believes the differences between the sexes are due
to culture and supports equality between men and women; in contrast, the
conservative branch believes in traditional patriarchal/complementary families and that the differences between genders are due to biology. Ross Parke and Armin Brott view the fathers' rights movement as one of three strands within the men's movement
that deal almost exclusively with fatherhood, the other two being the
good fathers' movement and groups forming the Christian Men's movement –
the Promise Keepers being the largest.
Warren Farrell,
a veteran of the women's, men's and fathers' movement since the 1970s,
describes the fathers' rights movement as part of a larger "gender
transition movement" and thinks that, similar to women in the 1960s,
fathers are transitioning from gender-based to more flexible family
roles. Farrell also believes the movement helps children by increasing
the number who are raised equally by both parents, which in turn
increases the children's social, academic, psychological, and physical
benefits—in his opinion it becomes a children's rights issue with fathers acting as advocates.
Movement
Members of the fathers' rights movement assert that fathers are discriminated against as a result of gender bias in family law; that custody decisions have been a denial of equal rights; and that the influence of money has corrupted family law.
The movement's primary focus has been to campaign (including lobbying
and research) for formal legal rights for fathers, and sometimes for
children, and to campaign for changes to family law related to child
custody, support and maintenance, domestic violence and the family court
system itself. Fathers' rights groups also provide emotional and
practical support for members during separation and divorce.
Some fathers' rights groups have become frustrated with the slow
pace of traditional campaigning for law reform; groups such as the
originally UK-based Fathers 4 Justice
have become increasingly vocal and visible, undertaking public
demonstrations that have attracted public attention and influenced the
politics of family justice. Following protests, some fathers' rights activists have been convicted of offenses such as harassment and assault. Fathers' rights groups have condemned threats and violent acts, with Matt O'Connor
of Fathers 4 Justice asserting that his organisation was committed to
"peaceful, non-violent direct action" and that members caught engaging
in intimidation would be expelled. An example of this was in January 2006, when Matt temporarily disbanded the group after it was revealed that a fringe subsection of members were plotting to kidnap Leo Blair, the young son of Tony Blair, the former UK Prime Minister. According to the police, the plot never progressed beyond the "chattering stage". Four months later the group was refounded.
Some desperate members of the fathers' rights movement, most notably Thomas Ball have advocated violent action to get the message across, just before he self-immolated himself on the steps of a courthouse in Keene, New Hampshire, he wrote in his 15-page "Last Statement" that fathers should burn down courthouses and police stations.
Main issues
Family court system
According to the BBC, "Custody law is perhaps the best-known area of men's rights activism". Members of the fathers' rights movement state that family courts are biased against fathers and shared custody.
Stephen Baskerville is an associate professor of political science, president of the American Coalition of Fathers and Children
and fathers' rights advocate and defines court-determined custody as
not a right to parent one's children but as the power to prevent the
other partner from parenting.
He states that the outcome of divorce is overly one-sided and is
initiated by mothers in more than two-thirds of cases – especially when
children are involved. He also states that divorce provides advantages
for women such as automatic custody of the children and financial
benefits in the form of child support payments. Members of the FR movement also state that family courts are slow to help fathers enforce their parental rights, and are expensive and time-consuming.
Baskerville has also stated that family courts are secretive, censoring and punitive towards fathers who criticize them.
He also claims that employees and activists within the courts support
and benefit from the separation of children from their parents and that family law today represents civil rights abuses and intrusive perversion of government power.
Others contest these conclusions, stating that family courts are biased in favor of fathers
and that the lower percentage of separated fathers as custodial parents
is a result of choices made by fathers rather than bias of family
courts. According to sociologist Michael Flood,
father's rights activists have exaggerated the disparity in custody
awards between mothers and fathers, and ignored the fact that in the
vast majority of cases, fathers voluntarily relinquish custody of their
children through private arrangements; either because they are willing
to do so, or because they do not expect a favorable court ruling.
Stating that "children need two parents" and that "children have a
fundamental human right to an opportunity and relationship with both
their mother and father", members of the fathers' rights movement call
for greater equality in parental responsibility following separation and
divorce. They call for laws creating a rebuttable presumption
of 50/50 shared custody after divorce or separation, so that children
would spend equal time with each parent unless there were reasons
against it.
They point to studies showing that children in shared custody settings
are better adjusted and have fewer social problems such as low academic
achievement, crime, substance abuse, depression and suicide, and state that shared parenting is in fact in the best interests of the child.
Warren Farrell states that for children, equally shared parenting with
three conditions (the child has about equal time with mom and dad, the
parents live close enough to each other that the child does not need to
forfeit friends or activities when visiting the other parent, and there
is no bad-mouthing) is the second best family arrangement to the intact
two-parent family, followed by primary father custody and then primary
mother custody, and he adds that if shared parenting cannot be agreed
upon, children on average are better off psychologically, socially,
academically, and physically, have higher levels of empathy and
assertiveness, and lower levels of ADHD, if their father is their
primary custodial parent rather than their mother.
Members of the fathers' rights movement and their critics
disagree about the correlation of negative developmental outcomes for
children to sole custody situations. Social scientist V. C. McLoyd
states that father absence covaries with other relevant family
characteristics such as the lack of an income from a male adult, the
absence of a second adult, and the lack of support from a second
extended family system and conclude that it is the negative effects of
poverty, and not the absence of a father, that result in negative
developmental outcomes.
On the other hand, Professor Craig Hart states that although the
consequences of poverty and having a single parent are interrelated,
each is a risk factor with independent effects on children,
and Silverstein and Auerbach state that the negative outcomes for
children in sole custody situations correlate more strongly to
"fatherlessness" than to any other variable including poverty.
Members of the fathers' rights movement criticize the best interests
of the child standard currently used in many countries for making
custody decisions, which they describe as highly subjective and based on
the personal prejudices of family court judges and court-appointed
child custody evaluators, and that courts are abusive when more than half custody is taken away from a willing, competent parent.
Members of the fathers' rights movement including Ned Holstein state
that a rebuttable presumption of shared parenting is supported by a
majority of citizens.
Baskerville writes that proposals to enact shared parenting laws are
opposed by divorce lawyers, and he says that "radical feminist" groups
oppose shared parenting because of the possibility of domestic violence
and child abuse.
Mo Yee Lee states that joint custody arrangements are good for children only if there is no conflict between the parents.
Some feminist groups have stated that if shared parenting were ordered,
fathers would not provide their share of the daily care for the
children. The National Organization For Women
also questions the motives of those promoting shared parenting, noting
that it would result in substantial decreases in or termination of child
support payments.
Stephen Baskerville states that shared parenting has been
demonstrated to reduce parental conflict by requiring parents to
cooperate and compromise, and that it is the lack of constraint by one
parent resulting from the ability of that parent to exclude the other,
that results in increased parental conflict.
He further states that only when child support guidelines exceed true
costs do parents ask for or seek to prevent changes in parenting time
for financial reasons, adding that any argument that a parent is asking
for increased parenting time to reduce child support is at the same time
an argument that the other parent is making a profit from child
support.
Stephen Baskerville describes no-fault or unilateral divorce
based on no fault as a power grab by the parent that initiates the
divorce and he also states that fathers have a constitutional right to
shared control of their children and through political action they
intend to establish parental authority for both parents and for the
well-being of their children.
Members of the fathers' rights movement state that a rebuttable
presumption for shared parenting preserves a child's protection against
unfit or violent parents.
Pro-feminist sociologist Michael Flood
states that supporters of shared parenting use it only as a symbolic
issue related to "rights", "equality", and "fairness" and that the
father's rights movement is not actually interested in the shared care
of their children or the children's wishes, adding that fathers' rights
groups have advocated policies and strategies that are harmful to
mothers and children and also harmful to the fathers themselves. In contrast, social scientist Sanford Braver states that the bad divorced dad image is a myth that has led to harmful and dangerous social policies.
Child support
Members of the fathers' rights movement campaign for the reform of
child support guidelines, which in most Western countries are based on
maintaining the children's standard of living after separation, and on
the assumption that the children live with one parent and never with the
other.
Activists state that the current guidelines are arbitrary, provide
mothers with financial incentives to divorce, and leave fathers with
little discretionary income to enjoy with the children during their
parenting time.
In the US, fathers' rights activists propose guidelines based on a Cost
Shares model, in which child support would be based on the average
income of the parents and the estimated child costs incurred by both
parents.
Laura W. Morgan has stated that it focuses on the relative living
standards of divorcing parents rather than the best interests of the
children and financially supporting them at the same level after
divorce.
Solangel Maldonado states that the law should value a broader
definition of fathering for poor fathers by reducing the focus on
collecting child support and encouraging the informal contributions
(such as groceries, clothes, toys, time with the children) of these
fathers by counting these contributions as child support.
Members of the fathers' rights movement state that child support
should be terminated under certain conditions, such as if the custodial
parent limits access to the children by moving away against the wishes
of the other parent, gives fraudulent testimony, or if paternity fraud
is discovered, adding that two men should not have to pay child support for the same child.
Stephen Baskerville states that it is often difficult for fathers
in financial hardship or who take on a larger caregiving role with
their children to have their child support payments lowered. He also
states that unemployment is the primary cause of child support arrears,
and further states that these arrearages make the father subject to
arrest and imprisonment without due process.
Stephen Baskerville states that the purpose of child support
should be publicly determined, and enforcement programs must be designed
to serve that purpose, observing the due process of law.
Supporters of the fathers' rights movement assert that some women
make false claims of domestic violence, sexual or child abuse in order
to gain an upper hand in divorce, custody disputes and/or prevent
fathers from seeing their children, and they state that lawyers advise
women to make such claims.
They state that false claims of domestic violence and child abuse are
encouraged by the inflammatory "win or lose" nature of child custody
hearings, that men are presumed to be guilty rather than innocent by
police and by the courts,
Lawyers and advocates for abused women assert that family court
proceedings are commonly accompanied with allegations of domestic
violence because of the prevalence of domestic violence in society
rather than as a result of false allegations of domestic violence. They
also assert that domestic violence often begins or increases around the
time of divorce or separation.
Academic critic, Michael Flood, argues that fathers' rights groups have
had a damaging impact on the field of domestic violence programming and
policy by attempting to discredit female victims of violence, to wind
back the legal protections available to victims and the sanctions
imposed on perpetrators, and to undermine services for the victims of
men's violence.
Stephen Baskerville asserts that when child abuse occurs the
perpetrator is not likely to be the father, and that child abuse most
often occurs after the father has been separated from his children.
Baskerville proposes that domestic violence and child abuse must be
adjudicated as criminal assault, observing due process protections, and
that government funding for programs addressing these issues must be
made contingent on such protections.
Parenting time interference
Glenn Sacks states that some mothers interfere with the father's parenting time and that such interference should be stopped. Sacks and Jeffery M. Leving
state that parenting time interference can result from the custodial
parent's relocation beyond a practical distance from the noncustodial
parent and they campaign for a rebuttable presumption prohibiting such
relocations.
Fathers' rights activists have also advocated for the inclusion
of parental alienation syndrome, a proposed syndrome developed by Richard A. Gardner that alleges unjustified disruption of the relationship between a parent and a child is caused by the other parent. Neither PAS nor PAD are accepted by any legal or mental health organization. Despite lobbying, parental alienation syndrome was not included in the draft of the DSM manual that was released in 2010, though parental alienation disorder does appear as a "Condition Proposed by Outside Sources" to be reviewed by a working group.
No-fault divorce
Stephen Baskerville
states that laws establishing no-fault divorce did not stop at removing
the requirement that grounds be cited for a divorce, so as to allow for
divorce by "mutual consent"; it also allows either spouse to end the
marriage without any agreement or fault by the other. Phyllis Schlafly states that no-fault divorce should be referred to as unilateral divorce.
Stephen Baskerville states that laws establishing no-fault
divorce can be seen as one of the boldest social experiments in modern
history that have effectively ended marriage as a legal contract.
He states that it is not possible to form a binding agreement to create
a family, adding that government officials can, at the request of one
spouse, end a marriage over the objection of the other.
He states that no-fault divorce has left fathers with no protection
against what he describes as the confiscation of their children.
Baskerville states that fault has entered through the back door
in the form of child custody hearings, and that the forcibly divorced
spouse ("defendant") is presumed guilty.
Similarly, other members of the fathers' rights movement believe that
men fail to get appropriate recognition of their innocence as a result
of no-fault divorce. Baskerville describes a proposed amendment of no-fault divorce laws that would create a rebuttable presumption
that custody of any minor children be awarded to the respondent [who is
innocent or does not wish to divorce] regardless of gender. He also
notes the predictions of Tim O'Brien, the author of the proposed
amendment, who states that the proposed amendment would result in a
plummeting divorce rate and reduced negative consequences for children.
Stephen Baskerville proposes "reasonable limits" on no-fault divorce when children are involved. Some members of the FRM support the end of the no-fault principle in child custody and divorce decisions. Some members of the fathers' rights movement state that the availability of divorce should also be limited.
Government involvement
Stephen
Baskerville states that governments throughout the United States and
other democracies are engaged, by accident or design, in a campaign
against fathers and fatherhood, which in his view, lies at the root of a
larger problem that threatens marriage, destroys families, devastates
the lives of many children, and undermines parents, democracy and accountability.
Baskerville also states that it is the removal of the father from the
family through divorce that initiates problems for which the government
is perceived as the solution rather than the problem, and that these
problems are then used to justify the continued existence and expansion
of the government.
Members of the fathers' rights movement state that modern divorce
involves government officials invading parents' private lives, evicting
people from their homes, seizing their property, and taking away their
children.
Parental and reproductive rights
Fathers' rights advocates have worked for the right of unwed,
otherwise fit, fathers to get custody if the mother tries to have their
child adopted by a third party or if child welfare authorities place the child in foster care.
Fathers' rights activists seek a gender-neutral approach in which unwed
men and women would have equal rights in adoption issues, an approach
that critics state does not sufficiently acknowledge the different
biological roles in procreation and pregnancy, and the disparity in
society's social and economic structures.
In the US, some states have passed laws to protect the rights of unwed
fathers to custody. Courts have increasingly supported these rights,
though judges often require evidence that the father has shown interest
in, and given financial and emotional support to, the mother during
pregnancy.
Some fathers' rights advocates have sought the right to prevent women from having an abortion
without the father's consent, on the basis that it is discriminatory
for men not to have the ability to participate in a decision to
terminate a pregnancy. This option is not supported by any laws in the United States. Fathers' rights advocates Jeffrey M. Leving and Glenn Sacks have stated that "choice for men is a flawed solution." Advocates have also expressed the desire to have a "financial abortion"
in which the option exists to sever all responsibility for child
support for an unwanted child. Commenting on this, legal scholar Kim
Buchanan states, "The only way men's lack of a pregnancy opt-out can be
framed as a gender injustice is to accept that men have a right to visit
the consequences of unprotected sex (or contraceptive failure)
exclusively on their female partners." However, some feminists, such as former president of the feminist organization National Organization for Women, attorney Karen DeCrow, have supported the "financial abortion" concept.
Parental leave
Pressure from father's rights groups, among others, have in several
countries resulted in gender-neutral program(s) eligible for parental
leave. While historically, maternity benefits were given to mothers
based on the physical biology of childbirth, including the need to
protect the health and financial well-being of the woman and child,
parental leave benefits emphasize gender-neutral child-rearing, the
benefits of the participation of fathers in children's care, and redress
discrimination against men who wish to be involved with their infants.
Terminology
Some
fathers' rights activists object to the term "visitation", which they
see as denigrating to their level of authority as parents, and instead
prefer the use of "parenting time".
Criticism
Some
legal scholars and feminist writers have accused the fathers' rights
movement of putting the interests of fathers above the interests of
children, for example, by suggesting that it is acceptable for fathers
to withdraw child support if they are not given access to their
children, or by lobbying for changes in family law that would allegedly
heighten children's exposure to abusive fathers, and would allegedly
further endanger mothers who are victims of domestic violence.
Another criticism is that father's rights activists allegedly
incorrectly maintain that the courts are biased against fathers while in
reality the vast majority of cases are settled by private agreement and
fathers voluntarily relinquish primary custody of their children, which
explains the lower percentage of custodial fathers; and that the "bias"
of courts is in favour of the primary caregiver, not mothers per se.
Researchers Martha Fineman, Michael Flood,
and others have criticized the movement for allegedly perpetuating
negative stereotypes of women as deceptive, vindictive, and
irresponsible as well as the stereotype that women are out to take
advantage of men financially.
Notable commentators
Public supporters of the fathers' rights movement and their issues include Live Aid founder Bob Geldof, Irish writer and journalist John Waters and Karen DeCrow, former president of the National Organization for Women. Other notable commentators include:
