I never thought much about gender. I never felt limited by my sex, nor entitled because of it. The "F" printed on my driver's license never had any conscious impact on my decisions in life, whether it was to go to college or not have children. My marriage was defined by relative strengths and weaknesses, a dance of interests and abilities, rather than by historical societal norms. I never thought much about gender. Until I got divorced, that is.
Once I was divorced, people assumed that I was enlisted in a war -- "us against them" -- pitting Mars against Venus. This was a war I wanted no part of, but because I was perceived to be involved, I decided that I needed to be informed.
I fall into the category of the 66 percent of divorces that are filed by women. A statistic I never knew and never wanted to know. I might have been the partner to initiate the divorce in the legal sense, but I was only responding to my husband's abandonment. I wondered how many divorces were actually desired by the woman, a far more telling statistic, but one that is often hidden behind the closed doors of a marriage.
The 1999 study, Towards Understanding the Reasons for Divorce (Wolcott and Hughes) sheds some light. According to their research (the most recent I was able to find), 64 percent of women felt like they initiated the split whereas only 23 percent of men took on that responsibility. These numbers are interesting; they show that regardless of what behaviors or thoughts led to the split, men more often feel like they are the ones being left.
When news of my divorce seeped out of my immediate circle, assumptions were made about the reasons for the split. Again, I was ignorant of the role of gender and caught off guard by the conjectures formulated by people who had never stood in my kitchen, much less my bedroom. According to Wolcott and Hughes, these top five reasons men and women leave marriages:
Men
Communication 33.3%
Incompatibility 22.6%
Affair (either self or partner) 19.7%
Financial 4.7%
Physical/Mental Health 4.7%
Women
Communication 22.6%
Affair (either self or partner) 20.3%
Incompatibility 19.8%
Alcohol/Drugs (either self or partner) 11.3%
Violence 9.6%
What strikes me are the similarities between the two sides; they are much more alike than they are different. And, despite the common perceptions, sexual incompatibility only accounted for <2% of the male responses and financial reasons for the split were indicated by <4% of the women. I guess men are interested in more than sex and women don't just care about money.
According to the research, men are more likely (25.8%) than women (19.2%) to feel that the divorce was not fair. Much of the perception of fairness has to do with the allocation of resources and subsequent financial status. The statistics regarding the financial implications of divorce for men and women are quite interesting. According to the Pew Charitable Trust 2012 Fact Sheet, almost half of women experience a substantial decline in income after a divorce, down from 63 percent in the 1970's. About half of men also suffer from an income decline, but this has increased from 30 percent in the last 40 years. These statistics show that the negative financial implications from divorce have become more equitable in recent years, and that financial hardship is faced almost equally by men and women, although their perceptions may differ due to the relative changes.
Equity has also begun to seep into the courts. According to a 2012 Reuters report, almost half of divorce attorneys have seen an increase in women paying child support and/or alimony. This is in line with women garnering greater earning power and more men taking on the task of child care. Our relationships are no longer delineated by gender and our court rulings should reflect that reality.
Divorce may feel like a battle between you and your ex, but there is no reason to turn it into a war between men and women. Divorce hurts us all and the statistics can only hint at the heartbreak buried beneath the surface. There are differences in the experience, but the similarities are much more profound. We all face the loss of a partner. We all struggle with trying to make sense of a new reality. We all have to work to understand our own part in the demise of the union. We all hurt and we all can heal. So instead of signing up for the war against the opposite gender, perhaps we can learn from our shared experiences and work on healing together instead of being angry alone.
Follow Lisa Arends on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stilllearning2b
In the end, there is an individual left representing a single piece of data, an individual with more going on than the numerical or categorical symbol assigned to them.
What man or woman likes to be just a number? For the man who wasn't abusive, it has to feel like an attack when women bring up abuse or cheating (the generalization women give for why they leave). For the woman whose husband didn't even want custody (basically walked out and into his new life without a thought), it is hard to hear how biased the system is in her favor (another generalization)? It may often be true, but when it doesn't fit you, it is an attack. If it is you, you may deflect your guilt and be unable see the reality the other real person faced (as opposed to data with no body).
I can say that it has helped me to actually meet some of the men who have faced having their wive's file, losing their kids, etc. Some men filed too, often for good reasons. Face-to-face we are more than data.
Any time divorce occurs, the assumption is 'he must have been doing something.' If domestic violence is alleged, the father is jailed, no matter how flimsy the evidence. If the mother wants custody, she gets it. If the father wants custody, unless he has $25,000 and unquestionable proof that the mother is unfit, he gets to be an occasional visitor in his children’s lives.
Of course, there is no way whatsoever he can escape responsibility for his children. Divorced fathers are assumed to be 'deadbeat dads' -- an offensive and inaccurate term if ever there was one. If they seek to see their children more often, it’s assumed they merely want to avoid child support payments.
Claims that fathers love and miss children, that children love and miss and suffer from the absence of fathers, that mothers routinely initiate divorce in pursuit of their personal happiness over the strident objections and to the profound and lasting detriment of every other family member including grandparents and in-laws -- these claims are brushed aside.
Face to face, the face of gender bias in family law is hideously, demonically, nightmarishly ugly. Until you’ve seen it yourself, you can’t imagine. Hence, numbers -- which, of course, are still disbelieved. But it won’t last forever.
Perhaps the single most convincing piece is the clear fact that you never, never hear of a woman who is dissatisfied with her marriage volunteering herself to leave her home immediately and without any hope of ever returning, become an occasional visitor in her children's lives and surrender a third or so of her income for the next decade or so to her former sworn life partner. When it's her husband -- and, let's not forget, children -- paying the price for her search for emotional fulfillment, however, divorce seems a more appealing option.
Let's remove the gender bias that virtually guarantees the women who drive divorce custody of children, homes and former partners' future income and make divorce and custody equitable for children, fathers, grandparents, in-laws and society at large.
Calling it a "war" allows the attacking gender to justify engaging in war-like tactics. (Was Poland at war with Germany in 1939 ... was Kuwait at war with Iraq in 1991.)
Divorce is a time-tested legally-sanctioned way for a divorcing wife to attack with no justification the relationship that the divorcing father has with the children of the divorcing household ... for financial gain.
That is how divorce is "sold" to women by divorce lawyers -- attack and win control/big money.
Divorce is built on layers of fictions and assumptions -- all of which favor women.
Gender bias and outdated notions of parenting and parental roles drive the outcomes in divorce cases.
E.g., child support obligations are not based on expenses but on income percentages (that transform child support into back-door alimony). Child support payments do not have to be spent on the children (no accountability for the recipient).
The central fiction: All mothers are good mothers to their children.
The reality: Half of mothers are below average. By percentage there are far more below-average mothers (selfish/greedy) in divorce courts than in the general population.
==> Restructure divorce to be based on reality rather than as a fiction-based means for a wife to take custody/control of children for her personal profit regardless of the quality of her parenting.
That means that more than half of women do NOT experience any substantial decline in income.
Divorce in suburban utopia America is pretty much of a scam ... a money grab or grub.
That is really all it is about.
Selfish/greedy and impatient people doing a selfish/greedy thing and then using defamation and disparagement and blame and other fictions as a justification.
If what you say is true, then it's ironic that women are responsible for initiating 2/3 of all divorces.
The problem is that in the present divorce system greedy/antagonistic divorce lawyers and greedy/dishonest divorcing spouses can and do very well for themselves with virtually no concern.
Why should divorce court be a place where the greedy/dishonest can moon?
Who says that divorce must be that way?
I have joint custody/equal placement of my daughters -- an outcome which they and I are very happy. I am a fit and loving parent in a house less than a mile from their school. That was a logical outcome. I proposed it at the start of the (three-year) divorce case as part of a comprehensive total settlement proposal that was ignored by all divorce lawyers.
My ex-wife as a divorce strategy remained (remains) unemployed and attempted to stage conflicts with me in an effort to "win" the divorce case. She is employable but the child support payments are enough for her to live on; she has a full-furnished house with no mortgage.
Antagonistic divorce lawyers were able to prolong the case and bill over $100,000 in total.
Bad system.
The gender bias of divorce courts is legend.
"Our study found that not a single father thought that the system favored them in the slightest and 3/4 thought that it favored mothers. And mothers tended to agree that the system was slanted in their favor." Braver, "Divorced Dads", 1998.
"Supporting the views of fathers and in opposition to the claims of many writers (e.g. Weitzman, 1985) the legal system was generally thought of by the attorneys (both male and female) to be biased in favor of mothers and against fathers."
Braver, "Experiences of family law attorneys with current issues in divorce practice", 2002
Proportion of Respondents Answering “Always or Usually” ( in percentages)
Issue, All Attorneys, Male Attorneys , Female Attorneys, Judges
(n = 3,859) (n = 2.81 1) (n = 1,048) (n = 720)
~
1. Are custody awards made based on the assumption that young children
belong with their mothers? 49.9 56.0 33.6 15.0
2. Do courts give fair consideration to fathers? 31.1 27.3 41.1 45.4
3. Do courts favor the parent with financial standing? 5.9 4.0 10.7 3.2
4. Is custody denied due to employment outside the home? 1.4 0.6 3.2 1.3
Dotterweich, "NATIONAL ATTITUDES REGARDING GENDER BIAS IN CHILD CUSTODY CASES", 2000.
Two points to re-examine:
Brinig and Allen's study about women doing the majority of divorce filings was published in 2000, based on statistics gathered from 1990-1999. Currently, women initiate about 75% of divorces (Bureau of Labor & Statistics)
Also, the statement: "According to a 2012 Reuters report, almost half of divorce attorneys have seen an increase in women paying child support and/or alimony."
This was not a scientific study, self reporting attorneys thought things were changing. While it might appear they are, the 2010 US Census shows no appreciable change in custody percentages - still locked in at 83% females getting custody, 8% males, (balance goes to foster homes/relatives).
Since the ratio of fathers getting custody of children has not changed to much extent in fifty years, it does not follow that more women are paying child support. An increase of women paying child support would only follow if more males were given custody, and that has not happened.
The Census Bureau tracks custodial parents - the one the kids live with most of the time - thus custodial parents are 83% mothers and 8% fathers. Custodial parents receive child support.
Joint Custody has become a meaningless term. A father who gets "joint custody" soon learns that the "custodial parent" has all of the power, if for no other reason than the custodial parent will have the kids (and child support) nearly all the time while the non-custodial parent will typically be allowed to see his kids only four days a month (every other weekend) and one short mid-week visit for dinner. It's hard to be an active part of your children's life when you are limited to four days a month...
The custodial parent can "gate-keep" or alienate the kids with impunity, can spend the child support on other things besides the kids with no interference, and can move across the city, across the state, even to another country and there is little the non-custodial parent can do to stop it - even though he/she was awarded joint custody.
Joint custody is like the Vice President of the United States - it sounds impressive but doesn't amount to squat unless the president/custodial parent dies.
Father's Rights advocates want SHARED PARENTING to be the default legal starting point in divorce, where children spend equal time with each parent. The Brinig/Allen study mentioned above came to that conclusion too.
Morrisfactor hits it on the nose. Because the census does not track non-custodials almost every piece of information on custody and child support is skewed. If the custodial parent states that the NCP didnt pay child support then there is nothing to refute it. Hence you also have the over inflated numbers on arrearages or percentages of NCPs paying child support. I encourage you to look at Dr. Sanford Bravers work. His study, which was federally funded showed that women...not men...when taken in equal numbers are 66% more likely to default on child support even though they are granted custody and conservatorship in about 93% of cases.
Women's groups in California voted against legislation to prevent unjustified moveaways by custodial parents and have voted against proportional services and resources for male victims of domestic violence in that state as well. There are countless other examples where women's groups have acted similarly in other states.
Despite the equality rhetoric of feminists, the legislative record of many of these and other women's groups is really all about keeping old fashioned entitlements and other benefits for women, especially in marriage and divorce.
That's the real "gender war" and that's likely behind the deep antipathy more and more American men have towards marriage and divorce.
Look at N.OW. stand against shared parenting (just defeated in New York with heavy lobbying by NOW) and their stand against Parental Alienation being in defined in mental diagnostic handbooks. Those, and other anti-male policies are clearly posted on their website.
Divorce happens because women get the man's money without the man, and because women know that there is a high probability that they will get full custody of the couple's sons and daughters and the family home.
It's a whole big Divorce Incentive entitlement package for women.
And the PEW report does not account for the head of household tax benefits women get along with the primary custody they are favored to receive.
I would say women do have economic incentives to divorce, especially since custody confers a high likelihood of getting child support, the marital home and in many cases alimony. That thesis is well supported by a large body of data:
www.unc.edu/courses/2010fall/econ/586/001/Readings/Brinig.pdf
That is unquestionably incentive for women to file for divorce, and correspondingly correlates with the fact that most divorces are filed by women.
If that situation was reversed, and most women knew that post-divorce they would have "visitation" not custody, and the children would live primarily with their father, would most women still file for divorce?
Extremely unlikely.
Christina
It is immature to imagine marriage as an achievement that must be protected, instead of a
relationship that may or might not last.
It is immature because the entire PERMANENT marriage hoax is based on immaturity...cinderella and the prince lived happily ever after...til death do you part.
When marriage is felt to be the point, the relationship is relegated to secondary.
When there is a child, the relationship between the child and BOTH parents must be absolute.
Reasonable enlightened parents do not allow whatever hostility between themselves to interefere
vs the joy of parenting...nor do they let sexual politics play games like lets you and him fight.