(no subject)
Dec. 10th, 2005 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easyGods, what a disappointing article from Paolo Totaro on the presumption of joint custody, to be tried for the first time in the world here in Oz.
...to start from the premise that mum is always the best parent is simply insulting to the men who perform the role with passion - and all the women partnered with men who take being a father seriously. It is also intellectually primitive, sexist and profoundly unfair.
It's also non-existent. Sexist attitudes may persist in the judiciary, but the law itself makes no such assumption - and when the Family Court must hand down a decision, fathers are twice as likely to win. Totaro, whose own shared parenting arrangements have worked just dandy, naively thinks the change has something to do with what's best for the children, rather than pandering to "men's rights" activists. The overwhelming majority of divorcing men work out their parenting arrangements themselves with their former wives, without the need for the intervention of the court. The new law is a bone thrown to a small minority of bitter men.
...to start from the premise that mum is always the best parent is simply insulting to the men who perform the role with passion - and all the women partnered with men who take being a father seriously. It is also intellectually primitive, sexist and profoundly unfair.
It's also non-existent. Sexist attitudes may persist in the judiciary, but the law itself makes no such assumption - and when the Family Court must hand down a decision, fathers are twice as likely to win. Totaro, whose own shared parenting arrangements have worked just dandy, naively thinks the change has something to do with what's best for the children, rather than pandering to "men's rights" activists. The overwhelming majority of divorcing men work out their parenting arrangements themselves with their former wives, without the need for the intervention of the court. The new law is a bone thrown to a small minority of bitter men.
