Six dozen educators, mental health experts, and family law professionals have condemned Fox's Bad Dads and endorsed our campaign. The endorsement statement reads:

"The undersigned believe that Fox's Bad Dads provides a distorted and counterproductive view of divorced and separated fathers. Moreover, it is harmful to children to publicly humiliate them by depicting their fathers as not loving or caring for them. We respectfully request that Fox cancel this ill-conceived show."

To view the list of endorsers, click here.

If you are an educator, mental health expert, or a family law professional who would like to endorse our campaign, click here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Dartmouth Students Rebel Against Feminist Professor's Manbashing, She Reacts by....Suing Her Students! (Part I)

"[The students] staged a rebellion..."

From Joseph Rago's Dartmouth's 'Hostile' Environment (Wall Street Journal, 5/5/08):

"After a winter of discontent, the snapping point came while Priya Venkatesan was lecturing on 'ecofeminism,' which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so – actually, empirically so. But 'these weren't thoughtful statements,' Ms. Venkatesan protests. 'They were irrational.' The class thought otherwise. Following what she calls the student's 'diatribe,' several of his classmates applauded.

"Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was 'fascist demagoguery.' Then, after consulting a physician about 'intellectual distress,' she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation.

"Such conduct is hardly representative of the professoriate at Dartmouth, my alma mater. Faculty members tend to be professional. They also tend to be sane.

"That said, even at – or especially at – putatively superior schools, students are spoiled for choice when it comes to professors who share ideologies like Ms. Venkatesan's. The main result is to make coursework pathetically easy. Like filling in a Mad Libs, just patch something together about "interrogating heteronormativity," or whatever, and wait for the returns to start rolling in...

"Why not? It's effortless, and there are better ways to spend time than thinking deeply about ecofeminism.

"The remarkable thing about the Venkatesan affair, to me, is that her students cared enough to argue. Normally they would express their boredom with the material by answering emails on their laptops or falling asleep. But here they staged a rebellion, a French Counter-Revolution against Professor Defarge. Maybe, despite the professor's best efforts, there's life in American colleges yet."

When I was in college 25 years ago I remember my roommate telling me about a recent lecture on "ecofeminism" in his class. The feminist professor's thesis was "just as men rape women, they rape the earth."

So here the male students in the class (the small percentage who make it to college these days) had been listening to this anti-male nonsense class after class and finally did what they should do far, far more often--they challenged it. Rather than engaging in debate, the feminist professor pretended to be a victim, cancelled classes for a week, scurried off to another school to teach, and is now suing her students. It is also quite possible that some of those who rebelled against the feminist professor were female students who've not yet been poisoned with the anti-male bigotry relentlessly pushed in Women's Studies classes.

I'm sure the professor also has/will have plenty of scurrilous things to say about the despised male rebels. One advantage though--whereas in family court women often have free rein to vilify the men who they feel done them wrong, in this case most if not all of what transpired must have happened in front of witnesses. I'll be surprised if her lawsuit goes anywhere, but you never know.

Maybe Dartmouth will settle with her and give her a hefty welfare check just to go away--after all, she is an oppressed female, and an oppressed "woman of color" to boot. In the politically correct college world, that gives her a vast advantage over her male students, though I'm sure she would never acknowledge it.

Thanks to Jean Valjean, a regular poster, for sending me the story.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Dartmouth Students Rebel Against Feminist Professor, She Sues Her Students--Part II, Students' Evaluations of the Professor

Background: In Dartmouth Students Rebel Against Feminist Professor's Manbashing, She Reacts by....Suing Her Students! (Part I), I discussed how a group of Dartmouth students rebelled against a feminist professor and her manbashing. The professor, rather than engaging in debate, pretended to be a victim, cancelled classes for a week, scurried off to another school to teach, and said she is suing her students.

Maureen O'Connor of the IvyGate blog checked and posted some of the student evaluations of the feminist professor. One wrote:

"Professor Venkatesan refuses to answer questions, does not respond to questions, and lectures by reading off her notes in front of her. She did not make me a better writer, she did not explain the concepts well, but she did manage to make my life a living hell."

Another wrote:

"She offered no help in class or in office hours for papers. When handed a hard copy she read the paper, said it was great, but then gave terrible grades to many students. Later on she began refusing to grade papers and gave the reason that judging by our peer editing abilities we didn't need her help on papers. She missed/cancelled 5 or 6 classes and as a result the syllabus was squished into 3 weeks and she changed the final project about 4 times. A TERRIBLE CLASS."

According to O'Connor, "last we checked, Venkatesan's course had fourteen reviews on the Dartmouth Student Assembly's student evaluations website, under the following titles:

Worst teacher I have ever had - Written by a 2011

Interesting - Written by a 2011

WORST PROFESSOR EVER DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS - Written by a 2011

save yourself now - Written by a 2011

a tad ridiculous - Written by a 2011

Interesting Material but Prof. is hard to follow - Written by a 2011

Terrible class, terrible prof - Written by a 2011

Interesting Material, Bad Prof. - Written by a 2011

If she teaches here... - Written by a 2011

WORST CLASS EVER - Written by a 2011

interesting topic, boring prof - Written by a 2011

Do NOT take this course - Written by a 2011

HORRIBLE - Written by a 2011

insecurity, ego, and more - Written by a 2011"

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

A Dairy Queen Ad that Feminists and Men's Activists Agree on...

I've never liked the ad genre of "pretty woman uses her beauty power to take advantage of  hapless guy--isn't he a fool, ha ha ha," but this Dairy Queen commercial goes even beyond that. I'd say more but it's better that you just watch it. Note that the "gentleman" is said to be "wearing a donkey shirt."

I actually first saw this commercial at www.feministing.com, where Jessica Valenti--to her credit--criticized it in her post Womanhood: Getting dudes to buy you stuff.

To watch the ad, click here.

To watch a couple other anti-male Dairy Queen commercials, see my blog posts Dairy Queen's Kit Kat Blizzard Ad and Another Anti-Male Dairy Queen Commercial. 

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

His Side with Glenn Sacks Radio Commentary: Pitfalls for Child Support Obligors Who Launch Their Own Businesses

My recent His Side with Glenn Sacks radio commentary for KLAA AM 830 in Los Angeles discusses the pitfalls faced by child support obligors who launch their own businesses.

To listen to the commentary, click here or on the audio button below.

To learn more, click here.

His Side with Glenn Sacks radio commentaries are broadcast daily on KLAA AM 830, a 50,000 watt talk station in Los Angeles and Orange County. KLAA AM 830 is owned by Arte Moreno, owner of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

From 2003-2005, His Side with Glenn Sacks ran in a syndicated talk show format in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Seattle, and other cities. To listen to show archives, click here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Parental Alienation: 'The Judge must be reminded that the relationship deteriorated when the child had little contact with the parent'

Background: J. Michael Bone (pictured) is an eminent authority on Parental Alienation, and I've often quoted his work in my newspaper columns on the issue.

Starting in late April Michael is going to be doing a four-part Teleseminar on how targeted parents can overcome Parental Alienation. The 4 week telewebcast series begins Tuesday April 29 from 8:30 - 9:30 p.m. EDT, and runs each Tuesday through 5/20. To register, click here or go to www.overcomingparentalalienation.com.

Below is Part II of my Q & A with Dr. Bone. Part I can be seen at 'Mental health professionals who don't understand Parental Alienation will find small imperfections in the targeted parent as an explanation for the child’s alienation...'

Glenn Sacks: What are the key things that a parent who is the target of Parental Alienation needs to do in order to get their judge to understand what is really happening in their case?

Dr. Bone: I believe that the most important issue to keep in mind pertains to the history of the relationship between the child and the alienated parent.  In these cases, this relationship will be dramatically different before and after the separation, or soon thereafter.  The audience (the Judge) must be repeatedly reminded that the relationship between the child and the parent deteriorated during the time when the child had little or no contact with that parent.  This exactly the opposite of what one would expect if the child had become resistant to seeing a parent who had, let's say abused them.  Therefore the historical picture, one that clearly and vividly conveys the relationship between the child and the targeted parent, and how quickly it fell apart, for reasons that do not justify the child's reaction, is the issue that the judge must be made to wrestle with.

Glenn Sacks: Dr. Bone, you warn parents who are targets of Parental Alienation not to agree to "Counter-Productive Recommendations." What are some examples of this?

Dr. Bone: Recommendations that do not work are those that do not cause the damaged and alienated relationship to be healed and returned to normal.  In many PAS cases, these recommendations are outpatient counseling.  

It is not uncommon for Family Law Judges to believe, and reasonably so, that counseling could and should be helpful.  However, when parental alienation is present in the PAS form, such outpatient counseling often turns into a format for the child to act out their alienation to the therapist.  Under these circumstances, the child’s job becomes the convincing of the therapist as to why they should not see that parent.   

If the therapist does not understand the PA dynamic, they will most likely be pulled into the alienated view of the child.  If the therapist does understand the PA phenomenon, then the child will begin to protest the therapy and will begin to say things such as it “...is not helping.”

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Activism Opportunity in Support of Our Campaign Against Fox's Bad Dads

Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker (pictured) of the Washington Post Writers Group recently came out with a scathing piece criticizing Fox's Bad Dads and supporting our campaign protesting the show. Her column--'Bad Dads' a Bad Idea (5/2/08)--has run in 300 newspapers over the past week.

I suggest that readers write Letters to the Editors of some of those papers to explain why you oppose the stigmatization of divorced fathers in Bad Dads.

Below we looked up the contact information for 16 of the papers. The version of Parker's article which ran in the paper is on top, followed by that paper's Letters to the Editor email address.

Also feel free to post your letters as comments on this blog post.

Beating up on fathers once again (Baltimore Sun, 5/5/08)
letters@baltsun.com

'Bad Dads' show a bad idea (Detroit News, 5/4/08)
letters@detnews.com 

Kathleen Parker: 'Bad Dads' fosters unfair stereotype (San Antonio Express, 5/4/08)
letters@express-news.net

'Bad Dads' a bad idea (Orlando Sentinel, 5/4/08)
insight@orlandosentinel.com

Parker: 'Bad Dads' TV a bad idea (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 5/6/08)
letters@star-telegram.com 

'Bad Dads' is a bad idea (Norfolk Virginian Pilot, 5/6/08)
letters@pilotonline.com

New reality TV series bounty hunts bad dads (Denver Post, 5/2/08)
openforum@denverpost.com 

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

A Leading Child Support Enforcement Official's View of Fox's Bad Dads

"Child Support Intervention (CSI) was the first private agency to begin broadly publicizing the names and identifying information, including pictures, of deadbeat parents.  The practice began in February 1995 and was covered by much of the media (CNN and Time included) when the first billboard was erected in Fort Worth, Texas. 

"The first deadbeat portrayed owed over $20,000.  Of course, he threatened to sue but could not find a lawyer to handle the case.  The reason is simple: He owed the money."--Michael 'Doc' McCoy, former director, CSI 

I am introducing a new feature on my blog--"The Child Support Official's Viewpoint." The feature will be authored by Michael 'Doc' McCoy, a prominent former child support official and one of the pioneers of the private child support collection industry.

McCoy was the Founder and Managing Director of Child Support Intervention (CSI) in Fort Worth, TX from 1991 to 2002, and held a leadership position in the American Child Support Collection Association from 1993 to 1999. He retired from CSI in 2002 and currently lives in China. He has often been a commenter on www.glennsacks.com under the name "Doc."
 
McCoy has on occasion been a critic of the private child support industry and an internal reformer--to learn more, see SmartMoney magazine's Mother's Little Helpers (8/2/02).

In the selection below, McCoy defends Fox's pilot reality show Bad Dads, which has been the target of our highly-publicized protest campaign.

Why Fox Won’t Be Sued over Bad Dads
By Michael 'Doc' McCoy
 
Child Support Intervention (CSI) was the first private agency to begin broadly publicizing the names and identifying information, including pictures, of deadbeat parents.  The practice began in February 1995 and was covered by much of the media (CNN and Time included) when the first billboard was erected in Fort Worth, Texas.  The first deadbeat portrayed owed over $20,000.  Of course, he threatened to sue but could not find a lawyer to handle the case.  The reason is simple: He owed the money.  After appearing on the billboard, television cameras were allowed into family court to document him being sentenced to jail for contempt of court. 
 
What goes on in family court is a matter of public record, unless of course the records have been sealed.  As a result, if someone is delinquent in their child support obligation they can be labeled a “deadbeat” and publicly exposed without fear of liability to those who are doing the exposing.
 
CSI went on to expose deadbeats on nightly news television programs throughout the country from time to time.  Again, numerous threats of law suits.  Again, no law suits were ever filed.  The simple reason is that CSI ensured that their information was 100% correct.
 
The deadbeats that are exposed in this manner have typically been brought to court previously on contempt of court proceedings.  At the conclusion of those proceedings a judgment confirming the arrears is issued.  It is relatively easy to determine then if the judgment has been satisfied, or attempts to satisfy the judgment have been made as the obligor is instructed to send all payments through the public agency.

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

James Rhoades: 'Predatory Marital Gigolo' or Loving Father?

Background: According to TIME magazine, "For nearly two years, James Rhoades...has been fighting to establish in law what science and fact already have shown beyond any doubt: He is the biological father of the boy dubbed J.A.R...the boy's mother, J.N.R., whom Rhoades met while taking an online graduate course...was — and still is — married to another man, who was stationed at a Pensacola Air Force base during their affair in 2005. And that's the problem.

"[A] divided Kentucky Supreme Court told Rhoades that he could not press his paternity claim, no matter what evidence of fatherhood he might have, because J.N.R. was, and remains, a married woman...The decision has left Rhoades devastated. 'What I wanted was not just to see my son but to participate in his life. He is my son and I love him.'"

In my recent blog post If there were ever a guy in a no-win situation, it's James Rhoades, I explained that I "have mixed emotions about Rhoades and his case." Ned Holstein tackles the difficult case in his recent blog post Sanctity of Marriage, or Discrimination Against Dads? Rhoades is pictured with his son above.

In a recent post, fathers' rights activist David R. Usher called Rhoades "a predatory marital gigolo." I quoted from Usher's article and linked to it so my readers can see Usher's perpsective and judge for themselves. However, Usher took his article down and asked me to remove the quotes. My quotes were fair use but, as a favor, I have removed them.

Rhoades' reply and the readers' comments are below. As I noted earlier, I remain ambivalent about Rhoades and his case.

 James Rhoades' Rebuttal to Dave Usher
 
David R. Usher in his post "The James Rhoades Case: Mercenary Gigolo Does Not Make Three" has leveled many stinging accusations against me as a man and as a father. He has called me a mercenary gigolo, marital gigolo, disgusting individual, creep, redundant father, marital invader, mercenary gigolo du-jour, and marital offender. Of course I've never met Mr. Usher nor have I ever spoken to him, never-the-less he insists on insulting and belittling for trying to participate in my son's life.
 
Usher asserts with his diatribe that I be considered not as a father but rather as someone who should be on a "marital offenders" registry. He claims that the 2nd husband of my son's mother is the father of my son and that I should have no rights or should not be identified to my son as his father. He also says I should be held responsible for the financial expenses and mental torture I've inflicted on Mr. Ricketts. He concludes his post by saying, "...save fathers' rights for good men who did nothing wrong."
 
I believe Usher has characterized me and my intentions unfairly. I have admitted that engaging in an affair was wrong and take full responsibility, however, that should not bar me nor my son from continuing the father son relationship we had for the 1st three months of my son's life. Why should I be stripped of a relationship with my son because he was conceived during an affair? How does that make me a non-father? The facts are undeniable, which prove I'm my son's father. To say that I should go to jail for having an affair is very different from saying I should be stripped of my fatherhood.

According to Usher's views there should be no blended families nor should we recognize unmarried fathers who have children. Usher has in one sweeping blow declared I don't deserve any rights because a married woman had my son. Furthermore, he has concluded I'm a bad man and I should wear a scarlet "A" around my neck. In his diatribe he neglects to consider the implications upon my son or the value and importance of the truth. A truth my son deserves to know and will know, for one day my son will discover the truth and will discover how much I love him.

I'm not asking to be initiated into the men's movement that Usher promotes--rather, I seek a place in my son's life. 

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

'Our pastor makes us husbands get on our knees on Mother's Day and beg for forgiveness...husbands write all the things we've done wrong and give it to their wives'

"[There's a] difference between how we handle Mother's Day compared with Father's Day in church. If it's like in years past, it won't be pretty.

"This Sunday we will extol the value and benefit of motherhood, which is great. But in some churches, this will be done by degrading Christian husbands, which is not great. 'Our pastor makes us husbands get on our knees on Mother's Day and beg for forgiveness. I don't want to do it again this year,' one reader tells me. Another writes, 'Our minister makes husbands write on paper all the things we've done wrong. Then we're suppose to give it to our wives and pledge that we won't do them anymore.'

"Most preachers will not be this heavy-handed. They will wait till Father's Day (Sunday, June 18) to tell men how to be better fathers. Of course there's nothing wrong with this message when taken as an isolated event. But when compared with Mother's Day, we'll discover that for some reason many ministers believe that fathers need correction on Father's Day (and Mother's Day) but women don't. Why this double-standard?

"Because much of the church sees men as a problem to be fixed when compared to women, not a gender to be appreciated."

I've often complained about anti-male bias among Christian conservatives, supposedly defenders of fatherhood and families. My friend Paul Coughlin, a prominent Christian writer and author of No More Christian Nice Guy: When Being Nice--Instead of Good--Hurts Men, Women, and Children, is one of the few Christian writers willing to take the Christian establishment to task for this.

Paul's excellent 2007 Mother's Day Crosswalk article Pastors, Don't Use Mother's Day to Bash Dads--is excerpted above. Also, see my blog post Anti-Male Bias among Christian Conservatives.

I'm not normally a fan of Dr. James Dobson, but Coughlin gives us a nice quote from him. Coughlin writes:

"[I]f there is a problem with their marriage, Christian men have been told by these sources that it is automatically their fault. Dr. James Dobson is one of a few authors brave enough to confront this false message.

"He writes in Love Must Be Tough that men are saddled with the unrealistic expectation that 'any sadness or depression that a woman might encounter is her husband's fault. At least he has the power to eradicate it if he cares enough. In other words, many American women come into marriage with unrealistically romantic expectations which are certain to be dashed. Not only does this orientation set up a bride for disappointment and agitation in the future, it also places enormous pressure on her husband to deliver the impossible...Marital conflict always involves an interaction between two imperfect human beings who share the responsibility to one degree or another.' Sadly, Dobson's common sense is drowned out by other and more shrill voices."

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

'We had joint custody until I got a job as a firefighter..I never expected that would be used to take away custody'

"Nine years ago Chris Hobbs and his wife divorced. At the time the two had joint custody. Then, Chris got a job as a Huntsville Firefighter.

"'So when I became a firefighter in January of 2005, the last thing I would have expected that would be used as a basis of a lawsuit and then that would be used to take my child away from me,' said Hobbs. But that's what has happened in the end result as we stand right now.'
 
"His hours as a firefighter changed his schedule, but Chris never thought it changed his ability to be a parent. The courts didn't see it that way when his wife filed for primary custody.

"'I have standard visitation which isn't followable because of my job as a firefighter,' said Hobbs...

Reader Chris Hobbs has been pushing to get more time with his 11-year-old son Blake, and has been doing well promoting his cause. The full article is Why is a Man Posting Signs Against a Local Judge? (5/7/08).

There's also a TV interview with Hobbs which can be found on www.whnt.com. One of the things I liked about Hobbs' interview is that he stressed that he wasn't doing this out of a personal grudge against the judge, he was doing it for his son.

Hobbs' website is http://www.whyjudgelittle.com/. He is pictured above with his son--with the judge in the middle.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Dan Oppenheimer: Men v. Women--Who’s screwing who, and to the benefit of whom?

"[There's] fairly strong evidence that in many ways it sucks much more, at this point in American history, to be a man than to be a woman, and very compelling arguments that it’s still women who are getting the shaft from the patriarchy much more than it is men who are getting the shaft from any kind of gynocracy."--Dan Oppenheimer

Dan Oppenheimer of the blog Masculinity and its Discontents, who wrote several posts for The Feminist Dissident, discusses the recent Vanity Fair article Men Evolving Badly: American manhood is in crisis (4/21/08) in his latest submission below.

Men v. Women--Who’s screwing who, and to the benefit of whom?
By Dan Oppenheimer

James Wolcott, a critic who I admire, has a surprisingly unsatisfying review in this month’s Vanity Fair of a number of books on the masculinity crisis. Wolcott writes:

"The American man is in a sorry way. And here I thought it was just me mewling into my milk dish. But, no, my brother-men are hurting and hiding behind the adobe walls of foolish pride, unheard, unseen, unattended—until it’s too late. If the books banked around me are halfway credible, a large-scale crisis has befallen the American male, a prolonged batting slump that has bottomed into pathos, self-recrimination, and pathological dysfunction. It is a silent epidemic, a shadow plague of frustration, festering anger, and doubt, the misery held inside until it erupts into the headlines or fills up the cardiac unit. Its toll is indicated in everything from the suicide rate (four times as many men commit suicide as do women) to testosterone dips (a study in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found a substantial decline in male testosterone levels between 1987 and 2004), to porn-addled masturbation to the point of glazed stupor (the ick-perfect cover photo of Robert Jensen’s Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity presents the partially shown face of a young man against a backdrop of bathroom tiles, his mouth ajar after presumably selfishly entertaining himself)."

Wolcott continues, describing the claims offered in these various books, and name-checking, among others, the one and only Glenn Sacks (who gets a lot of love in Guy Garcia’s The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future.) What he doesn’t do, and I understand this at the same time that I was disappointed by it, is render a persuasive judgment of what it all means or how to assimilate it into our picture of the universe.

He makes two true, but disappointingly dry, points (it’s not that points shouldn’t be dry, it’s just that what makes Wolcott great is his acute psycho-cultural insight; he makes really wet points). The first is that in the realm of the super-elite, it’s clear that men still run the show. He writes:

"In his informative, provocative guide to the 'global power elite,' Superclass, David Rothkopf spells out the eight key rules for admission into the atrium of the Davos gods, among them 'Attend an elite university' and 'Get rich.' Topping the advisory list: 'Be born a man.'

"'There is no group as disproportionately under-represented among the members of the superclass as women. On a planet where 51 percent of the inhabitants are women, the global power structure is still locked in the dark ages on this issue. Only 6.3 percent of the superclass are women.' Corporate boardrooms are still predominantly boys’ clubs—'As of 2007, there were only thirteen women chief executives among Fortune’s top five hundred, twenty six among the top one thousand.'”

His second point is that it’s really the economy, stupid, that, “The primary threat to the psychological well-being of most men (and women) isn’t sexual or pop-cultural but economic, the fear that a single swing of the ax could render one destitute and undo everything one has attempted to build.”

What he doesn’t get into is the subjective emotional experience of gender relations in America, and how they radiate out into the political culture (and vice-versa). He doesn’t clarify at all the painful ambiguity that’s flummoxed me so much in trying to navigate between the fairly strong evidence that in many ways it sucks much more, at this point in American history, to be a man than to be a woman, and the very compelling arguments that it’s still women who are getting the shaft from the patriarchy much more than it is men who are getting the shaft from any kind of gynocracy.

I’m still left wondering: Who’s screwing who, and to the benefit of whom? Or is everybody screwing everybody, to the benefit of no one? Wolcott’s answer, I suppose, is that it’s the super-elite who are screwing everyone, using whatever divisive tools they have at their disposal—racism, sexism, classism, reverse-racism, reverse-sexism, reverse-classism, xenophobia, multiculturalism, political correctness, political incorrectness, etc.—to set all the different categories of sub-people against each other so that no one notices that the only ones really making out are Greg Marmalard and the other boys in the Davos Phi Davos fraternity.

To the extent that this quasi-Marxist, the base determines the superstructure kind of perspective is true, it does point to where there could be, or at least should be, some overlap between men and women in trying to address a gender situation that doesn’t seem to be working out all that well for any of us who aren’t members of the superclass [universal health care, for instance, might ease some of the painful insecurity that adds stress to so many marriages, and paid maternity and paternity leave would enable mothers and fathers to devote more attention to both their children and to each other in the (usually very stressful) early months after a child is born].

I guess my instinct, at the end of the day, though, is that in addition to whatever conspiracies or establishments or oppressive classes are out there screwing us to advance their own interests, there’s also a pretty substantial chunk of what’s going on that’s just effed up in a way that serves no one’s interests.

We’re a neurotic society. We just don’t know how to be normal, how to be excellent to each other (as Bill & Ted recommended), how to find some sane equilibrium between individualism and the common good, how to nurture the entrepreneurial dynamism that fuels the growth of our economy while also providing enough economic security to the masses so that it doesn’t feel like we’re all climbing over each other to get to the top. In a lot of ways, we just suck.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Dr. Warren Farrell's Shared Parenting Evidence Kit--What You Need to Win Shared Physical Custody Dr. Warren Farrell, a top expert on children of divorce now offers a complete evidence kit to help you win shared custody.  The DVDs, audio CD and electronic files summarize the best scientific research available collected over decades.  Scientific research has proven that children do far better with near equal time with both parents with minimal conditions.  This video set was developed to educate parents, judges, lawyers, psychologists and other divorce professionals. Most judges are doing exactly what is worst for children with sole-custody.  Submitted as evidence this will maximize your chances. Divorce Reform groups call(508) 381-1450 to use as fundraiser. www.BestInterestofChildren.org

Help for Michigan Dads Michigan family law attorney Mindy L. Hitchcock has experience fighting for noncustodial parents against Michigan's abusive FOC. Her holistic approach to divorce gets results for her clients while avoiding the scorched earth approach to law that leaves families emotionally and financially devastated. Lady4Justice.com

Hero Father Dies Saving Daddy's Little Girl

Most fathers would do anything to protect their children, and here's another example.

Like hero fathers James Kim and Albert Collins, Chicago father Joseph Richardson gave his life to save his child.

From Mitch Dudke's Dad died saving his little girl: Father's last act protected 4-year-old from crash (Chicago Sun-Times, 5/7/08):

"With an out-of-control car bearing down, Joseph Richardson grabbed his 4-year-old daughter and held her up out of harm's way.

"It was his last act -- and one that apparently saved his daughter's life.

"Richardson, a 39-year-old father of three, was killed Monday evening by the car, driven by a man who police say was drunk.

"The car pinned Richardson and his daughter Kaniyah against a wrought iron fence at 95th Street and Wentworth, police said.

"Kaniyah survived and was listed in critical but stable condition Tuesday evening at Comer Children's Hospital, where a spokeswoman said she was doing well.

"'He held the baby up to keep the car from destroying the baby, but it totally destroyed him,' said Richardson's father, the Rev. L.V. Richardson.

"Richardson was walking his daughter to a McDonald's for burgers at 6:40 p.m. Monday when a 1990 Chevy Cavalier jumped a curb and careened towards them, police said, citing witness accounts.

"He grabbed his daughter just before the car slammed the two into the fence, police said...

"Joseph Richardson, the father of two girls and a boy, all under the age of 11, was described as a devoted father. His other love was music. He was a gifted pianist and organist and performed in choirs at Cottage Grove Baptist Church and Greater Revelation Missionary Baptist Church, where his father ministers. His idols were Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, his family said..."

Read the full article here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Author Says Divorced/Separated Dads Owe Their Exes a Mother's Day Gift

This article by Rebecca Eckler, author of Toddlers Gone Wild!, is so offensive in so many ways it's hard to know where to begin.

Here's one. Rebecca writes:

"On behalf of my four-year-old, who has a Yahoo account in her name, I recently sent an e-mail to her father, who lives in Alberta.

"'Hi Daddy,' I typed, as my daughter was fast asleep. 'Mommy has been talking about Mother's Day. I only have 143 pennies in my piggy bank. She's the best mommy ever. She's been pretty exhausted. I'd like to get her something nice. Can you help? Love you.'

"It was a slightly pathetic, but possibly cute, way of reminding my daughter's father about Mother's Day.

"On what is perhaps the Hallmark holiday of all Hallmark holidays, what's a single mother to do to get some sort of recognition? It's certainly not going to come from a child who still licks glue and is too young to understand the concept.

"But modern single mothers, whether they've chosen to be single, still get along with the father of their children, or have no contact with the father at all, are finding new ways to make Mother's Day special (and, in some cases, more fruitful)...

"As for me, the e-mail worked. I'll be at a spa, thanks to my four-year-old's request via her mother's e-mail."

I love that--mom is so entitled to even more of dad's money that she brags in the national media about her need to "remind my daughter's father about Mother's Day," as if it's his problem.

Here's another:

"All mothers of young children rely on gifts made by someone else. For the single mom, feeling the need for something more than a crumpled card in a knapsack - something that comes with a gift receipt - presents a particular dilemma. You can't very well hand over $20 to your three year-old to do your shopping.

"So some have learned to lobby on their own behalf.

"'I've drilled it into him,' says Toronto-based Vanessa Craft, the author of Out of Character, about her three-year-old daughter's father, who lives in England.

"Growing up, Mother's Day, like most holidays, had always been recognized in my house. So it's a big deal. I even remind my daughter's father that on her birthday I should also get something, for the fact that I gave birth,' Ms. Craft says.

"'Her dad knows to make me cards, at the very least, on behalf of our daughter,' says Ms. Craft, adding, 'I've never had a bad Mother's Day being a single mom.'"

Huh? Her ex owes her a Mother's Day gift?

One other note--in both cases (Rebecca Eckler and Vanessa Craft) the children are very young and the fathers live far away. Rebecca dumped the father of her child, to whom she was engaged to be married, for another man. I don't know what happened in Vanessa's case, but statistically the odds are good that she was the one who initiated the divorce/breakup. In both cases it was probably the women who moved away. So having already severed most of the loving bonds between the fathers and their little children, the women now feel deprived and entitled to even more from dad.

Here's a third section:

"Stacey Otis, a single mother of three, says that without a partner there is 'such a greater connection with your children,' and that Mother's Day is always 'awesome.'

"She celebrates the day at her house, or at one of her siblings' houses, and has turned it into 'Family Mother's Day.'

"Unlike many of my mother friends, who moan about husbands forgetting Mother's Day entirely, or who complain about partners not even giving them two hours of alone time, Ms. Otis says, 'My Mother's Days are always special. When my kids get excited to give me what they made at school, it's like gold. When you know all you have is each other, it makes the day really special.'"

So Stacey Otis' kids are better off because they don't have a dad? That's odd, since being without a dad greatly increases their chances for most youth pathologies, including drugs, crime, teen pregnancy, and dropouts.

And of course Stacey is better off, because all of her friends' husbands are louts who spend much of the their time working to support their wives and children. And Stacey's excessively critical female attitude probably gives you a good clue as to why her and Rebecca's and Vanessa's relationships ended, too.

The full article is--get this--Get what you want this Mother's Day. Twist the ex's arm (Globe and Mail, 5/6/08). To write a Letter to the Editor of the Globe and Mail about this piece, click on Letters@globeandmail.com.
 
Thanks to Luc Chagnon, a Canadian reader, for sending the article.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Volunteer(s) Needed for Men's Activism Journalism Project

I'm looking for a reader or two to volunteer to do a men's activism journalism project which is long, long overdue, and which will be of interest to those who read this site. Upon completion, the project will become a permanent fixture on my website and will be available for reference by other activists and the media.

The project will take a fair amount of work and must be done in a serious, journalistic manner. The authors of the project will be credited publicly for their work if they want, or they can choose to remain anonymous if they prefer. The project will be done under my direction and will be the property of Sacks Media Group, LLC.

If you are interested, click here and send us your name, phone #, and a brief explanation of why you're interested and why you're a good candidate for the job. Either I or my assistant will contact you.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

The Feminist Dissident: 'Men's Activists tend to look at all feminists as man-hating, out of touch, and wielding great institutional power'

The purpose of "The Feminist Dissident" is to give feminists a chance to speak directly to my audience, and my audience to debate the issues with them in a civil manner. To read previous entries, click here.

Contributors include/have included Micky M. (aka Michelle), Dan Oppenheimer and Jamie Berger of the blog Masculinity and its Discontents, and Hari Narayan Singh Khalsa (aka Harq-al-Ada). If you are a feminist and are interested in submitting a blog post, please email me at glenn@glennsacks.com.

(Re: the name, Hari explains "I have decided, with the help of Glenn, that I have outgrown the pseudonym for the purposes of this site.  From now on I will go by my actual name instead of Harq al-Ada.")

Recognizing Distinctions
By Hari Narayan Singh Khalsa (aka Harq-al-Ada)

You may notice that I use the word “they” to describe feminists, as well as Men's Rights Activists (MRAs).  Though I often have a feminist perspective on a given issue, I only partially identify as a feminist; I see society as more complex than can be encapsulated in a feminist worldview.
  
It is often said in social psychology that people tend to recognize differences within their own group while assuming people in another group are all the same.  It is largely a matter of familiarity; distinctions become more clear with more contact.  In the few years I have visited Men’s Rights boards, I have come to identify several possible sub-groups. 

There are those who focus on fathers’ rights and those with a broader approach.  There are liberals and conservatives, Nice Guys (TM) and pickup artists, egalitarians and male supremacists.  Feminists do not tend to give you the credit of heterogeneity.  To most of them, all of you are male supremacists who are probably aligned with the political Right (the latter is not automatically a bad thing, in my view).  Theirs is not a fair characterization, but it goes both ways.

MRA’s tend to look at all feminists as man-hating, out of touch, and wielding great institutional power.  While this describes some feminists, it does not allow for the most basic of distinctions, that of generation. 

The Third Wave feminists I usually read tend to be pro-Obama, sex-positive and take the acceptance of men as decent people as a given.  They certainly give the occasional nod to their forbears (who maintain the institutional power) but have their own voice.  They recognize that the world they inherited is more equal than the one that came before, and are good at isolating those things that have yet to be resolved.  Insofar as they can continue to move beyond the perspective of the past, they will have much to offer the world.

Distinguishing by generation alone ignores far more complexity, but it is a start.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Holstein on the James Rhoades Case: Sanctity of Marriage, or Discrimination Against Dads?

In my recent blog post If there were ever a guy in a no-win situation, it's James Rhoades, I discussed the James Rhoades case. Ned Holstein tackles this difficult case in his new blog post Sanctity of Marriage, or Discrimination Against Dads? Holstein writes:

"James Rhoades had an affair with a married woman, from which a child resulted. For three months, the married mother allowed Rhoades to visit the child secretly, and he wanted to help raise the child. Then she cut him off, and he went to court. Near the end of April, the Kentucky Supreme Court decided that he had no parental rights, despite DNA proof of his fatherhood.  Thus, he will have no custody rights, or visitation, or even knowledge about the child, nor will he have to pay child support. To read the full news article, click here.

"The Court struggled with this case, deciding it by a mere 4 to 3 vote in which 5 of the 7 justices wrote separate opinions. That’s not surprising, as the case will fracture the opinions of readers here as well.

"This case is like a hologram, which looks entirely different depending on the angle from which you view it.

"One way to look at gender-related law is to ask yourself, 'How would this decision look if the sexes were reversed?'

Read Holstein's answer and the full blog post here. Rhoades is pictured with his son above.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Best Wishes,
Glenn Sacks
GlennSacks.com

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