Glenn Sacks: Shriver Report Does Hatchet Job on Fathers, Family Court Reform Movement

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Shriver Report has a section about men and fathers called "Has a Man’s World Become a Woman’s Nation?" written by feminist sociologist Michael Kimmel.
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Kimmel ignores altogether the many legal, social and cultural barriers between fathers and children. For Kimmel, the separation of children from fathers is all about men’s “irresponsibility.” If men just cared about their children, so the story goes, all would be well. There are some men who avoid their parental responsibilities. Some women do, too. But Kimmel never mentions the crucial issues today's fathers face. These include: maternal gatekeeping; visitation interference; the use of fraudulent restraining orders as a tool to separate fathers from their children in divorce/custody; unrealistic child support orders; and parental alienation.
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Martha Burk, the Chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations who led the effort to open the Augusta National Golf Club to women, concurs. Burk, who was named Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year in 2003, explains that shared parenting provides women with greater economic freedoms and opportunities. She calls the current child custody system "mother ownership of children" and says that under this "harmful societal norm" judges "mindlessly award [sole] custody to the mother," to the detriment of all parties.

Kimmel denigrates the importance of fathers, writing that the idea that fatherlessness harms children is based on “a catalog of specious correlations masquerading as causal arguments.” This ignores a mountain of responsible research that shows beyond a doubt the value of fathers to children, including that of Sarah McLanahan, Rebekah Levine Coley, Irwin Garfinkel, Kathryn Edin, Ross Parke, Armin Brott, Ronald Mincey, and numerous others.'