Men's Rights

In a post at Roger Ailes

http://rogerailes.blogspot.com/2005_06_12_rogerailes_archive.html#111875963668630131

Roger takes Madam Schafly, the notorious scold, to task for some of her comments about women who make false claims of domestic violence to gain advantage in divorce and custody actions. Mrs. Schafly raises a valid point, however, and the issue should not be delegitimized simply because she has raised it.

I have quite a bit of experience in domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, divorce and child custody from almost all the angles (I have never been a judge), and I feel qualified to hold forth on this issue. Two points should be made clear at the outset:

1. Some men (and women) are abusive b*****ds from which their mates and their children want protection.
2. Some women (and men) make false accusations of abuse against their mates for various reasons, perhaps to gain advantage in a divorce or custody proceeding or just out of plain spite.

These are the facts, and any just system for dealing with domestic violence should take these facts into account. Victims of abuse in want of protection should not be confronted with too many obstacles at the outset. It is fitting and proper, therefore, that they be able to obtain temporary orders of protection with minimal proof, including their own testimony. This protects legitimate complainants while doing relatively little harm to the accused, provided that an early hearing date is scheduled. This aspect of the system in many states is not particularly problematic.

The system breaks down, however, at the next stage, that of the so-called evidentiary hearing. In all too many cases, the courts fail to require any further proofs at this stage and will continue the restraining order solely on the basis of the complainant's accusation. This decision is bolstered in many cases by teams of social workers in the courthouse, many of whom are trained in the school of thought that women never lie about domestic violence. Abusers are smooth talkers, often charming and credible, so the social workers say, and victims are so cowed by them that they may seem incredible and inconsistent in their testimony when confronted by the accused. What is a court to do? If the order is lifted and someone gets killed, there will be hell to pay. The safe course is to continue the restraining order and require the accused to come up with proofs of his own innocence. Perhaps he can be ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation at his own expense, and a guardian can be appointed to investigate the allegations of abuse. In the meantime, he can stay away from his children or at best have supervised visits until he establishes that he is not a danger to the children. This will take months.

At best, the father will be vindicated and win unsupervised visitation with his children, but his bid for custody and visitation will be tainted by the accusations of abuse, and that he has not been the caregiver for some months, through no fault of his own, will be held against him. Meanwhile, the false accuser will not be held to account for her actions. This unjust situation arises, in large part, because the judges, their social worker advisors, the psychologists, and even the guardians have all been trained in the "women never lie about domestic abuse" school.

The "women never lie" school serves to prioritize and privilege protection of women and children over the rights of fathers to due process. An argument might be made that this is the least harmful way in the aggregate to deal with the situation, especially if false accusations are rare. A few innocent men will be raped by the system in the name of protecting large numbers of women and children from violence. If, however, false accusations are not so rare, the system is completely broken and is designed to dispense injustice.

Even if false accusations were historically rare, I submit that the system as designed encourages false accusations, especially in the case of working class and lower class families where accused men cannot afford to vindicate themselves. No proof is required, much is to be gained by the accuser, and there is no risk to the false accuser. This is an invitation to perjury.

The issue at stake is usually stated as "women never lie" versus "women are lying whores", and this statement of the case is close enough to the heart of the matter to have persisted as the frame for discourse for decades. It is a dead end. I would reframe the issue in terms of "how can we protect women and children from abuse while protecting men from false accusations?" One way to do this without unduly increasing the risk of violence might be to provide for harsh consequences for women who make unfounded allegations of abuse. Perhaps, criminal sanctions could be enforced. Granting custody as a matter of course to falsely accused fathers might also help to attack the dynamic that leads to false accusations by impacting both the potential gain and the risk to the accuser.