Gender bias and child custody

I get in trouble whenever I write about this, and I'm likely to upset most of the readers once again.

One of the biggest debates in child custody matters is over which gender is targeted.

The conventional wisdom is that fathers are generally discriminated against.

I've been in court several times in the past few months in hearings between my wife and I. She has custody and I only get visitation. I have watched countless divorces end with the mother getting custody. Recently a father showed he knew every detail of his son's life. Likes, dislikes, favorite toys, shows, etc. Only goes to work and spends time with his son. Mother admitted to partying, could only say she "played" with her son and knew nothing about him. Father was trying for primary custody but would settle for joint. Judge ruled for the mom and gave her primary and dad gets visitation every other weekend. How can a father be there from birth to divorce and then get screwed like that? Why do judges feel they are God and can just remove a father from a child's life?

If you ask feminists, they will tell you the court system is a product of the patriarchy.

The truth is that each side has statistics they can point to make their case.

The last census I looked at found a whopping 85% of custody arrangements gave primary custody to the mother.

While true, feminists will argue that most of those arrangements are just that: arrangements.

The two sides agreed.

Meanwhile, multiple studies have found that when a case goes to trial the father usually wins.

While mothers are custodial parents 82.5 percent of the time, it may just be because fathers aren’t asking for that job. A study in Massachusetts found that fathers who actively sought primary or joint custody obtained it more than 70 percent of the time.

Most men’s rights groups are not familiar with this study, and they dismiss it when it is brought up. They will question its fairness- it was done by the Massachusetts judiciary- say that it’s old {it is done in the 1980s} or say that Massachusetts is different from the rest of the country- it is not.

Joan Meier found something similar.

The study found that when mothers raised abuse issues and fathers countered with claims of alienation, fathers won 72% of the time. They won 73% of cases involving domestic violence reports; 69% of cases involving child abuse allegations and 81% of those with child sexual abuse reports.

Meier is written off by men’s rights groups as a feminist, and her conclusions are also dismissed.

Here’s the truth.