International Women’s Day
Today is International Women’s Day, a day to recognize women’s achievements around the world, to look back on past struggles and look ahead to new areas of achievement for women.
I never thought much about stereotypes and sexism while I was growing up. Looking back, I see now that being raised in a traditional home with traditional stereotypes caused me to not see some of the brainwashing that goes on when raising female children. My mother always told me that when I go to college, no matter what I decided to do, I should also get a teaching certificate to “fall back on” or to “supplement the family income” after my children are older.
I shattered my mother’s dream for me by having a child without being married, and deciding to raise that child alone. I further shattered her dream by having a child with a man who is biracial, making my child also of mixed race.
I saw prejudice, bigotry, racism, sexism, and plain old hatred of women during my custody trial. The same stereotypes that exist in business also exist in the family court. A man has a strong personality and uses profane language? Well, he’s just a good old boy trying to get ahead. A woman behaving the exact same way? She’s one of those hysterical ball busting bitches who must have PMS every day of the month. A woman who dares to point this out to someone is one of those nasty “feminazis.”
A mother who shows emotions and fights for her children, sometimes going up against the system? She has mental and anger issues, and must need psychiatric counseling.
Sexism exists. It is evident in the family courts today. So many father’s rights groups proclaim that it’s just that men are now getting more rights than they used to in the family court system. Unfortunately, over 80% of all custody cases that go to trial end in a change in custody, no matter what the circumstances. Ninety percent of those cases that are brought by men result in custody being awarded to the man. I have seen so many cases where a man is unable to see his children regularly because of his work schedule, so he is awarded custody to make it easier for him to see his children. Meanwhile, a child is removed from the only home he’s ever known. During my custody trial, I asked my attorney, a woman, why she didn’t challenge the judge’s obvious bias against women and have this case reassigned. Her response? She would never be able to practice law in that county again. “There are only two judges in this county,” she told me, “and anyone who upsets the judge will never win another case.”
This judge ruled on family law matters with the following background, which is well known. His father was a judge, was an alcoholic and cheated on his wife. When his wife eventually left him, he fought her for custody. His son, this current judge, wanted to live with his father because he was a teenager and wanted to hang out in the bars with his father. His mother fought back, but didn’t have the money to continue fighting. The father was awarded custody and this current judge resented his mother for years. His mother continued to try to get custody of him, and continually told her son that his father was a drunk, a liar and a cheat. Locals tell me that he patched up his relationship with his mother after his father died, but the underlying lesson in this story is something very frightening: This man presides over custody trials. He is known for being a father’s rights advocate. I have watched him award custody to men who don’t even have a job or a home for the child and I have seen him give a 6-month-old baby to a man the week before Christmas when the man has never even held the baby, forcing a new mother to lose the opportunity to spend the first Christmas with her baby.
I have sat through trials where women try to prove that the man is abusive, and when she expresses concern about the man being alone with her child, the judge reprimands her by saying, “why did you have a baby with a man you’re afraid of? You slept with him, and now you don’t think you should pay the consequences?”
Call me a man hater. I don’t hate men. In fact, I love men, and I’m also raising one. Speaking out about sexism and unacceptable behavior of men does not make me a man hater. International Women’s Day? Pffft. Why don’t we have an International Men’s Day? Boys, that’s every day for you.
An attorney once told me that a woman who wants to adequately defend herself in family court needs a criminal lawyer, not a family lawyer. This is so true. Unfit mothers are not the ones losing in family court. These women do not neglect their children. These women are you and me. It is happening, much too often, and while it’s easy to live in denial and say, “Oh, she must have done something. No judge would take a child away without reason.” I was one of those people. You’ll stop saying it when it somehow affects you or a person close to you. The sooner people stop saying these things, and more importantly, believing them, the sooner we make progress for all of us. We’ve come a long way, baby. But we still have a lot of work to do to change society’s viewpoints in so many ways towards women.
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