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**rohara** · #39 22nd-July-2009

I wrote this to Ms. Klots I hope she writes back I will post anything that she sends:

Ms. Lotz,
I have just read your piece about Antimisandry.com that you wrote for Salon.com. I am a member of Antimisandry.com and I would like to comment on your mention of both Fathers for Justice and Antimisandry.com in that order.
Your overall depiction of Fathers for Justice was dismissive and downright demeaning. Sure, you may think it ridiculous that a bunch of guys who haven’t been allowed to see their kids, in some cases years, might want to get a little angry about it and set up a publicity stunt to bring the public’s attention to what is by any measure the most out of control family court system in the world. The British political fetish of playing to the anti male hysteria that hold all men suspect in family court proceedings is one of the prime examples of misandry in the entire English speaking world. These guys don’t have politicians or media executives hanging on their every word much like a lot of women’s groups do. Very few people give a damn about them unless they themselves become divorced fathers whom, if they are lucky, only get to see their kids six hours out of every week. So they do what other groups with few resources and no public sympathy have done for ages: they pull a stunt. Ever hear of the Boston Tea Party?
I took exceptional offence to your analysis of F4J activities in saying that their “behavior did nothing to suggest they were responsible fathers.” Let me explain something to you. You are NOT in any position to gage their suitability as fathers. The suitability of a father is not determined by some back handed sentiment that comes out of a columnists pen or an academic paper or the courts for that matter. It comes from an internal mechanism that is found in the bond between father and child. It is something profoundly private and sacred. Something that you or I have no business criticizing on as you are not a man and I, as of yet, am not a father. You baulk at Geoff Hibbert as he climbs an overhead traffic sign on a busy highway and over a cell phone shouts to journalists that he is fighting for his daughters right to see her father. That says a lot about his suitability as a father to me. I know a lot of women who would have loved to have had a father like that growing up but didn’t…….through no fault of their fathers.
Your critique of Antimisandry.com was equally as shallow. There are many members on that site and it is visited by over 16000 people each day. As a group of individuals they are as diverse as any crowd in any airport terminal. The one thing that all of the men and women that log on their have in common, with the exception of the occasional feminist who is welcome to stay and chat for a while, (an inclusive feature that I rarely see in any feminist oriented website or blog anywhere) is the realization that men have a pretty raw deal in the developed world right now. Yes, I can just hear your eyes rolling around in your head. But let me give you some facts once they’ve got done playin around up there:
-for the same crime, men are far more likely to be prosecuted, convicted and are given far greater sentences than women
-Men die on average seven years from every major cause of death where as in 1926 that gap was less than a year. Yet there is no department of health for men while there are eight government offices for woman’s health. Only one out of three public health dollars goes toward men.
- We live in a society in which when a woman is having trouble fending for her children the only thing she needs to do is hold out her hand and she gets a check drawing from taxpayer funds. If a divorced man has trouble supporting his he gets thrown in jail. Yep, no taxpayer support for him.
- We live in a society in which custodial parents, almost always women, can withhold important documents like medical records and birth certificates from the non-custodial parent. This means that there is no audit or accountability to the non-custodial parent. If a non-custodial parent suspects that the child/ren’s health needs aren’t being met there is nothing that they (he) can do about it.
- We live in a society that loves to chant the mantra “In the Best Interests of the Children.” But the child support system is not about children. It’s about money. Let me explain: Divorced man writes check out to the COURT. Then the court gets its cut, it always does, and receives federal matching funds for every dollar they get to boot. Then the MOTHER gets the check from the court. Is she accountable for what she does to the money? NO! The court could not care less if 90% of the money goes to shoes, a new Firebird or the new boyfriends drug habit. As long as they get their money they don’t give a shit about the kids. And they are forever protected by the perception that they are acting in….yes…you guessed it- “the best interests of the child.” And the ignorant bovine public eats it up without question.
- We live in a society in which one parent -the mother- gets to decide whether or not the child even gets to breathe its first breath or not. She can also lie about being on birth control and there is no accountability. If she is unmarried she decides whether or not to put the child up for adoption. Heck she can go to any hospital, fire station or police station and just drop the kid off and walk away. If she decides to keep the child, and yes it is she and only she who gets to decide, who has to fork out the cash for the next 18 to 20? Yup, you guessed it, the man. Furthermore the man has absolutely no negotiating power at all and ultimately no say in the child’s future. The court decides how much he will pay, and as mentioned above they get matching funds from the government so they have every incentive to jack up the numbers. The amount of child support isn’t based on the child’s needs it is based on what the court decides the father is worth financially, even if he isn’t worth that much. If he loses his job or otherwise has financial problems he loses his driver’s license, loses business license, and gets thrown in the can. And just to put a cherry on top of the whole thing, he gets his face and name posted on a pizza box so the whole world can ridicule him for the human being that he is.
- Men are falling way behind in both secondary and post secondary education. Why? Simple, they are being choked out for lack of available funds to men as opposed to the copious amount of money being made available for women to attend school. Furthermore, places of learning have become incredibly hostile towards men. Don’t believe me? Dress up like a man and spend a day at the nearest state college campus and try to apply for any financial aid other than a loan or a measly $600 Pell grant.
-There has been created in society a classification of crimes to which a reverse onus applies: sexual assault/abuse. In other words those who stand accused of rape are in effect guilty until proven innocent. And when it is proven that their accusers lied, the accuser rarely pays any consequences while the accused is left with a life in shambles. You can eventually get on with your life if you have been raped, with some help of course, but you can never recover from being falsely accused of raping someone.
You don’t think this happens all of the time? The FBI has itself said that it estimates the proportion of rape claims that turn out to be false hover at around 25-30%. Some people estimate that it may be as high as 40% in some jurisdictions.
You make the predictable assertion that we are all blaming everybody else for our ills and infer that we should just “man up to it.” But men did not do this to themselves did they? I don’t think so. Is it right to not complain when something is most definitely wrong and needs to be corrected? NO! To say nothing is to make things get a lot worse.

I appreciate you reading my long winded comments and look forward to your response
Respecfully
rohara

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