When Judges Exhibit an Anti-Woman Bias: a Case Study
This court filing describes a judge who fits a stereotype which unfortunately is fairly common in courts and it causes blatant misogyny.
Over the weekend, I quickly checked out one of hundreds of family court related Facebook pages.
I found a document which caught my eye.
One thing which people will notice if the checked out some of the material put on social media by victims of family court is the mountain of raw data.
Audio recordings, video recordings, documents, and court filings are all over the place.
As I have stated, I think the system is ripe to fall and this is another example.
The victims have taken it upon themselves to go to rallies and document it, videotape their encounters with Child Protective Services and others, and- sometimes secretly- tape court hearings.
They are also putting damning court records on-line.
Together it’s a little like a food recipe: mixed the right way it will explode take hold and finally penetrate the mainstream, drawing enough attention that real and substantive change will have to be made.
What’s in the court filing is shocking enough, but what’s really shocking is that the attitude of this judge is one of many judges.
They are dismissive of child sexual and/or physical abuse disclosures, and they use the worst female stereotypes to justify their behavior.
None of their judgment is rooted in law, but merely their own biases.
If a politician or other celebrity was caught speaking this way their careers might be over, but because judges get far less scrutiny, they can speak in open court in blatantly
Meanwhile, judicial oversight boards- which are supposed to hold judges responsible for this type of behavior- are generally feckless.
This document is timely given my coverage yesterday of the misleading Tweet by an Ohio NPR station.
That tweet suggested that most times in Ohio women get sole custody.
It’s an outdated view of the divorce and family court system, pushed by the father’s rights movement to try and lobby for 50/50 custody laws.
As such, this type of bias goes under the radar: who would expect a judge to be anti-woman when everyone supposedly knows that men get screwed in divorces?
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