Please note in the following, I'm NOT in any way saying that men are the downtrodden of society (far from it) or looking to stand up as an advocate/crusader. I'm providing a few references from a quick Google search in answer to the challenge of "prove it" and I have a tendency to run on and be pedantic. I do, however, stand by the central thesis of my earlier post that there are many constructs in Western society that are very much gender-biased and that some of these do indeed affect men negatively regardless of the fact that there are apparently many more that affect women negatively.
- the fact that it's easier for the woman to gain custody of the child(ren) in a divorce than the man and that, in some areas, the man almost has a "guilty until proven innocent" burden of showing not only why the woman should not have custody but why he would be a better choice than some third party
Is this a fact?
From what I have seen (and I'll grant that I'm not an expert in this particular area and don't intend to become so, I just know the anecdotes that I've collected over time and a few things that Google has helped me find) it appears to be so. As with all things, it's difficult and messy to tease out the details. Specifically, the question comes up of how to determine the rate at which custody is granted. For example,
page 2 of this US Census Bureau report from 2007 says that 82.6% of custodial parents are mothers. On the other hand,
the Massachusetts SJC study cited in this article says that fathers get primary or joint custody 70% of the time when they fight for it in court. As the second article points out, it leaves unaddress the question of those fathers who decide not to fight for custody because they feel the deck is stacked against them because of things like the Census Bureau statistics and it doesn't really break down statistics on how many men fight for custody and what the outcomes are. Then you have
places like this where the statistics sometimes have citations, but the question of bias is very prominent, so who knows how that colors perceptions one way or another. I guess what I'm saying is that there is an unquestionable gender-based disparity with regards to which parent the kids live with after the divorce and that I have seen some (admittedly weak) data that suggest a bias in the courts which has lead me to generalize more widely from the anecdotes that I have heard. I'm qualifying my position here a bit and narrowing my brush a bit more than the first off-the-cuff statement, but I still contend that there's a need for a brush of some width.
- the tendency on domestic disturbance calls, where both partners have been fighting/trading blows and it is he-said/she-said about who started it, to take the male away in handcuffs rather than the female or both
You have any proof of this tendency being the case, any studies? Any written police procedures?
Somethings saying that police will not arrest someone who assaulted someone just because she is a woman?
Even if the man wants to press charges?
Do a lot of episodes of COPS count? Seriously though, I don't know of any official written policy statements that say "when it doubt, arrest the man".
This report shows that an offender had a 99% increased likelyhood of being arrested if he was male (see exhibit 8 ) but it claims no gender bias in in arrest rates without looking at all into how police arriving on the scene are determining who the "offender" is in the first place. Here's where I apply a bit of common sense (and a few episodes of COPS) though. If you're a police officer arriving on the scene of a domestic disturbance call to find a 110-pound woman with a black eye and scratches and a 210-pound man with a black eye and scratches and both are claiming that the other punched them, who do you arrest? The man? The woman? Both? Just leave and let them work it out on their own? I'm betting most cops, being prudent, will arrest the man as he is seen as more dangerous because he larger and male; especially if it's a state with a law on the books saying someone has to go away in handcuffs.
- the fact that even if both a husband and wife have careers and there are no kids, in some jurisdictions, the husband must still pay alimony to the wife in the event of a divorce - seriously, how is this holdover from the 1800s that assumes a woman can't survive without the support of a man (even when she has a well-paying job) still in existence?
Is this a fact?
Which jurisdictions is this the case?
Actually, it's the case in many jurisdictions. Check out
this calculator to find out how much you'll owe your spouse each week after a divorce. I know that HuffPo is generally a suspect source, but
this article that I found with Google has lots of links to data, examples, and references. If you need more evidence that alimony and other divorce-related financial institutions based on the idea that a woman is nothing without a man still exist, you have only to look at the gossip tabloids about celebrity divorces and reports of prenups for marriages. Why is it that two rich celebrities should have to pool all their resources in the marriage and divide it 50/50 when they divorce after a handful of years when they could just divide it proportionally based on relative amounts of assets brought into the marriage? I contend that it's part of a holdover of outdated sexist laws from Elizabethan England and earlier.
- the social norm responsible for the stay-at-home dad who takes his kids to the park getting the stink eye from everyone else there as a potential child molester.
You have anything other than anecdotes to support this?
I have taken my kids to the park literally thousands of times--many parks in numerous neighborhoods (neighborhoods where neither I nor the kids are known) in several States. Weekdays and weekends.
I don't get the "stink eye', and see plenty of other fathers in the parks with their children.
Of course my experience is anecdotal, I suppose our anecdotes cancel each other out.
OK, you've got me here. There are no research articles that I could find about the systematic study of the "stink eye" at public parks. This is anecdotes from friends, seeing it in action myself, and hearing lots of talk radio were hosts and callers are wondering aloud about why anyone would want to be a stay-at-home dad and "why that guy with no children wants to work with young kids". Hell, it's all over popular culture with things like "Mr. Mom" and "pedophile Scout masters" and such. Where do these things come from if not a widespread bias in society.
