Phyllis Schlafly
High Profile Member

Family courts routinely deprive men of their fundamental right to parent their own children by charging them with a wide variety of trivial offenses. Family courts generally uphold feminist demands to kick a man out of his own home, and take control of their children and his money, based on a woman’s unsubstantiated allegations. A major weapon in this ongoing battle between men and women who don’t get along is the Violence Against Women Act. This law was passed in 1994 as a payoff to the radical feminists for helping to elect Bill Clinton President in 1992.

The Violence Against Women Act shows the hypocrisy of noisy feminist demands that we kowtow to their ideology of gender neutrality, to their claim that there is no difference between male and female, and to their opposition to stereotyping and gender profiling. There is nothing sex neutral about this law. It is based on the proposition that there are, indeed, innate gender differences: men are naturally batterers and women are naturally victims. This law is not designed to eliminate or punish violence, but to punish only alleged violence against women. Most of the shelters financed by the Violence Against Women Act do not accept men as victims.

This law has been known from the getgo as “feminist pork” because it puts $1 Billion a year of U.S. taxpayers’ money into the hands of the radical feminists. They have set up shop in domestic violence shelters where they promote divorce, marriage breakup, hatred of men, and false accusations, while rejecting marriage counseling, reconciliation, drug-abuse treatment, and evidence of mutual-partner abuse. There is no accountability for the taxpayers’ money spent in these shelters. This law provides the woman with free legal counsel to pursue her allegations, but not the man to defend himself. He is on his own to find and pay a lawyer.


Contributing Editor, Phyllis Schlafly, is the Founder and President of Eagle Forum. Used with permission.

I originally posted this here: LINK

The feminists are going through one of their periodic soul-searching psychological examinations of what the women's liberation movement did or did not do for them, and why they are not happy with the result. Feminist dominance in newspapers, magazines, book publishers, television and academia makes it easy to command a full media rollout for their agonizing.

The media are glad to divert public attention from the failure of Barack Obama's Stimulus to create jobs. So, we have ponderous discussions: Maria Shriver's report (with help from a liberal think tank) called "A Woman's Nation Changes Everything," a Time Magazine cover story headlined with the double entendre "The State of the American Woman," Gail Collins' book When Everything Changed, and articles from all the feminist columnists.

We wonder if it's just a coincidence that this torrent of words immediately preceded Halloween. The writers are scared of their own research because it contradicts much of their gender-neutral ideology.

These well-educated writers long ago identified the major goal of the women's liberation movement as getting more wives out of the home and into the labor force. Carolyn Graglia's landmark book, Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism, explains that the chief purpose of the feminists was to make the role of fulltime homemaker economically untenable and socially disdained. She analyzed the writings of the feminist intellectuals and she documents their attempts to ostracize fulltime homemakers as childish "parasites."
The feminists have been strikingly successful with this goal; women are now half the labor force, and 40% of women are essential family breadwinners.

In the current recession, the majority of workers laid off have been men (especially from construction and manufacturing). Jobs where women predominate have not been much affected.

Even so, the feminists demanded that the Obama Administration give half the Stimulus jobs to women rather than to the shovel-ready work that was the reason for passing the Stimulus funds. Whatever the feminists demand from the Demo
crats they get, and the Stimulus money was directed to jobs in education, health care, and social services. The feminists' tactics to divert Stimulus jobs to women were described in the July 2009 Phyllis Schlafly Report.

So what are the feminists complaining about? Now that women are half the work force, they want workforce rules to be changed to be more female-friendly. (These are the same feminists who have been saying for years that there is no difference between male and female.) Feminists demand that the taxpayers provide high-quality daycare and paid family leave, that new laws prohibit employers from ordering women to work overtime (as men are often required to do), and probably that men should be forced to assume half the household and baby-care duties.

The feminists are still crying about President Richard Nixon vetoing a federal program to make daycare a middle-class entitlement. But Nixon's action was popular then and still is, because the majority of Americans don't want their tax dollars to pay for babysitters for other people's children.

No doubt this will come as a shock to the feminists, but Time Magazine reports that "a majority of both men and women still say it is best for children to have a father working and a mother at home."

Women's percentage in the labor force keeps rising because of who is going to college and who drops out. Thirty years ago, the ratio of males to females on college campuses was 60-40; now it's 40-60, and women receive the majority of college degrees.

But the feminists are griping because women students choose humanities majors that lead to lesser paid jobs than male students, who in larger numbers choose math, science and engineering. The feminists want government to remedy this gender difference by bribing women with taxpayers' money to make other choices. (Feminists claim that there are no gender differences, but they demand government intervention to override women's choices.)

The feminists push hard for what they call "Title-Nining," using Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in schools and colleges, to force equal numbers of women in all athletic programs. Since this misuse of Title IX was initiated by radical feminists in Jimmy Carter's Education Department, the feminists have forced colleges to eliminate thousands of men's teams, including many championship teams and more than 450 wrestling teams. Now the feminists are Title-Nining science and math departments. Using phony charges of gender bias, they are directing millions of dollars of federal and university money to override women's choices in order to increase the number of women in math and science at the expense of men.

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The American Bar Association is a special-interest group like any other association representing its members. The Chamber of Commerce represents corporate interests, such as seeking cheap labor to keep the cost of wages low, and the National Education Association represents the education industry's interests, such as seeking more public funding to create more school jobs.

The ABA represents lawyers who seek to win their cases, especially if they are profitable and result in verdicts that order transfers of money. We can therefore assume that ABA publications are not disinterested research, but are meant to promote the litigating and financial interests of lawyers.

A good example of a special-interest publication is called "10 Myths About Custody and Domestic Violence and How to Counter Them," which was produced "for use in litigation" by an ABA subgroup called the Commission on Domestic Violence. "10 Myths" is designed to teach lawyers how to win money verdicts against fathers by using false or misleading arguments masquerading as objective research.

The same techniques can theoretically be used against mothers, but fathers are the chief targets because they more frequently have greater financial resources than mothers. Litigation is often stimulated by the search for deep pockets.

The commission's website notes this disclaimer: "The ABA Commission on Domestic Violence does not engage in research, and cannot vouch for the quality or accuracy of any of the data excerpted here." Too bad the "10 Myths" flier doesn't include this disclaimer, too, because most of it lacks both quality and accuracy.
A nonprofit research and education organization called Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting, or RADAR, has just published a detailed analysis of "10 Myths." The association's report, which can be found online, proves that "10 Myths" uses bogus statistics and is "profoundly and systematically biased ... unworthy to be used as a foundation for legal practice or public policy."

"10 Myths" denies the big problem that false allegations of domestic violence and child abuse are frequently used by women to win child custody, and that children can be coached to betray their fathers. "10 Myths" ignores the problem that family courts regularly deny custody and issue restraining orders against men based on a woman's unsubstantiated say-so and without giving the man fundamental due process rights.
RADAR shows that "10 Myths" sells the feminist falsehoods that only fathers engage in domestic violence and child abuse. The document consistently selects language to portray fathers negatively.

Dr. Stephen Baskerville's landmark 2007 book, "Taken into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family" (Cumberland House), poignantly describes how attorneys advise divorced wives seeking child custody to accuse the father of abuse and obtain a restraining order barring him from the family home, knowing that she will never be punished for false accusations.

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., has rushed to the aid of women who want free lawyers to help them make domestic violence accusations, and of lawyers seeking income from those cases. He is the lead sponsor of an extravagant new boondoggle called the National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network Act (S.1515).

Biden's bill would give $2 million a year to the ABA commission that wrote "10 Myths" in order to create a national domestic violence volunteer attorney network referral project. Biden wants the taxpayers to pay the lawyers' student loans.

Biden's bill will channel an estimated $55.5 million of taxpayer money to lawyers and the special-interest ABA commission will be in the catbird seat. The bill will authorize federal funding to create and maintain an electronic network, provide mentoring, training and other assistance, and set up a legal coordinator's office in each state to match lawyers to victims.

Biden's bill will give a half-million dollars to the National Domestic Violence Hotline to train feminists in coordination with the ABA project. The Biden bill will establish a domestic violence legal advisory task force and a national institute of justice to study legal services available to "battered" women.
The Biden bill will give a $75,000 grant to each of five states to create a pilot program to implement the network in coordination with the ABA commission. After the five states get into operation, the bill will roll out the program nationally with annual appropriations of $8 million.

Biden's bill passed the Senator Judiciary Committee last month despite Republican objections. To nobody's surprise, the bill is enthusiastically supported by the ABA and a long list of feminist organizations.

Feminist ideology has constructed the myths that men are naturally batterers, that women are

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A New Jersey judge recently confronted an issue that courts have been avoiding for years: are restraining orders constitutional? Accused criminals have "due process" and many other constitutional rights, but the feminists have persuaded many judges to issue orders that restrain actions of non-criminals and punish them based on flimsy, unproved accusations.

These restraining orders are issued without the due process required for criminal prosecutions, yet they carry the threat of a prison sentence for anyone who violates them.

Mr. and Mrs. Crespo were divorced and rearing their children in the same household when they had a fight, and Mrs. Crespo asked for a restraining order. Mr. Crespo was not charged with any crime, but the judge issued the restraining order, which banned him from his own house and thereby separated him from his kids.

Mr. Crespo made several good arguments that the New Jersey Prevention of Domestic Violence Act is unconstitutional. Judge Francis B. Schultz rejected most of those arguments, but he cited a long line of cases holding that "clear and convincing evidence" is required in order to take away fundamental rights (such as a parent's right over the care and custody of his children).

The feminists are in an uproar about Judge Schultz's decision and would like the New Jersey Supreme Court to reverse it. The feminists want courts to uphold a woman's right to kick a man out of his home based on a woman's unverified accusations.

Family courts are notorious for issuing restraining orders based on one woman's unsupported request. The New Jersey Law Journal reported that an instructor taught judges to be merciless to husbands and fathers, saying, "Throw him out on the street, give him the clothes on his back, and tell him 'See ya' around.' "

People have a better chance to prove their innocence in traffic court than when subjected to a restraining order. Too often, the order serves no legitimate purpose, but is just an easy way for one spouse to get revenge or the upper hand in a divorce or child custody dispute.

Once a restraining order is issued, it becomes nearly impossible for a father to retain custody or even get to see his own children.

That is the result even though the alleged domestic violence (which doesn't have to be physical or proven) did not involve the children at all.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear another case, U.S. v. Hayes, to decide whether an old misdemeanor domestic violence conviction can bar a man from ever owning a gun. Everyone agrees that convicted felons should not have guns, but misdemeanors are minor offenses that usually carry no jail time.

Under feminist pressure, most courts have interpreted federal law broadly to deprive millions of men of their gun rights. However, in the Hayes case, a 2-1 majority on the Fourth Circuit had the courage to stand up to the feminists and rule that Hayes had no fair warning that prosecutors would stretch the definition of domestic violence to include his minor offense.

Randy Edward Hayes had a dispute with his wife in 1994, pled guilty to misdemeanor battery, and served one year of probation. Ten years later, he was prosecuted for having a Winchester rifle in his West Virginia home.

Why are men with clean histories except for one domestic dispute punished like hardened criminals who mug strangers on the street?

The answer is that the feminist agenda calls for domestic-violence laws to punish husbands and fathers above and beyond what can be proven in court under due-process procedures.

When Senator Dianne Feinstein voted for the federal law prohibiting a man from owning a gun if he has a domestic violence conviction, she stated, "It is an unfortunate fact that many domestic violence offenders are never convicted of a felony. Outdated or ineffective laws often treat domestic violence as a lesser offense.... Plea bargains often result in misdemeanor convictions for what are really felony crimes."

In other words, Senator Feinstein wants to pretend a man is a felon even if he is not. That's the feminist anti-male agenda.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this year in District of Columbia v. Heller that we all have a fundamental constitutional right to own and use a gun. We will soon see how serious the Court is in defending our Second Amendment right.

It's time to restore basic constitutional rights to husbands and fathers by repudiating the feminist agenda that considers men guilty unless proven innocent.