I don’t want to shock anyone, but men and women are different.
Can women meet and surpass the performance of men in many jobs and academic contests? Definitely. Should they be treated equally under the law? Sure, as much as possible. But they often aren’t, because certain laws and courts favor women, especially when combined with cultural reality. Men and women are different physically – women can get pregnant, and men can’t. Thus, maternity of a child is never in doubt, while paternity can be. It is also possible for a male to walk out on his child by simply walking away, while a female carrying the child can’t walk away unless she gets an abortion or gives the kid up at birth. In most places, men are legally and financially responsible for a child born to their wife, regardless of conception. She could have gotten pregnant buy the guy's mortal enemy. Most women marry men who earn more than they do, and there is an even greater disparity, on average, between a husband and a wife, because after a woman marries a man who earns more than she does, she may cut back on working for income or stop entirely even if they do not become parents.
This reality makes divorce more costly for men than it does for women, especially where there is no-fault divorce.
There are men who are deciding not to marry and not to father children because of these realities - in addition to the men who are genuinely reluctant to commit for hedonistic reasons.
Due the fact that men and women are different, we’ll probably never arrive at a perfectly level playing field. But there are things that can be done to make things more fair.
I’m not talking about rolling back feminist gains in access, protections, and equal rights. Feminism has been good in that it has given women real options in life. It has been bad when it has attacked femininity and the roles of wife and mother, and tried to portray normal masculinity as bad and men as the enemy of women. I also recognize abortion as murder except in certain cases of self-defense.
I’m also not saying that women have it easy, or that all women use the system to an unfair advantage.
What I am saying is that men generally do have a disadvantage now in our legal system when it comes to marriage and parenting, and there are changes that can be made in family law that can help to erase that disadvantage. You should care about this stuff if you believe in fairness or simply have a male family member or friend (including yourself, of course) you don’t want to see treated unfairly. Yes, I know life isn’t fair, but our governmental system supposedly attempts to create equal access to legal protections for individuals, personal responsibility, and letting individuals enjoy or suffer the consequences of their own actions.
I will be making some subsequent posts that suggest some changes. Please check back and chime in. I’m especially open to reading alternatives.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
2 comments:
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I spent a hell of a lot of money changing my birth certificate. When I was born, a mother could put Mickey Mouse down as the father. I think Mickey Mouse would have been a better one for me. Here is my story.
ReplyDeleteMy father cheated on his wife and got my mother pregnant with me. I just found out in the last five years that I have a younger half-brother and my father was married all this time. My brother is only one year younger than me and we lived twenty minutes from each other throughout our childhoods. We could have become romantically involved, but that never concerned my father.
My mother met my father when she was fifteen and was never too into him. When she divorced my half-brother’s (her son), she started dating my father who said he was divorced. She got pregnant with me and he disappeared. He was a merchant seaman and took a job overseas, or so he said. He is a French citizen and threatened to take me away from my mother so she did not put him on my birth certificate. She allowed him to see me though and never told me what a cad he had been.
He lied to us about everything. He lied about his name, his siblings, his children, his wife, his parents, his place of birth, and the list goes on. I am still unraveling it all to this day. I am meeting family who never knew I existed.
Is he a villain? Very much so, but my mother should have taken him to court from the beginning. She could have saved a lot of people pain. So many people have been affected by what my father did and what my mother didn’t do. Of course, my father and some of his dysfunctional family have labeled me the villain though. Except for his wife who has actually been very accepting and kind. My bitch-in-law is sweating me, since my father gave his assets this “only” child. I was not included in my father’s will.
I don’t want my father’s money, him, or even his family. I just wanted my future children to know who I am/was. I wanted them to see my birth certificate and see where I came from. When they get to the right age, I will tell them my story and it will be a valuable lesson and a good tale. I changed my birth certificate for me.
Here is my point to the story. People should think beyond themselves when it comes to having children. One act to could affect so many people and no one lives in a vacuum.
Wow... thanks for your comments. I'm sorry you, or anyone else, goes through some of those things.
ReplyDeleteI will conclude this series later with advice to men about what to do/not do.
One thing I think men should definitely do is take responsibility for their actions. I believe sex is for marriage, and so men should keep it in their pants until married, and only share themselves with their wife. I realize that not all men are going to do this.
The fact is, if a single sperm leaves your body, guys, anywhere near a woman, it is possible for her to get pregnant. Plan your life accordingly, because children should have a mother and a father.