Just a quick little round-up, one day’s fishing, of examples of a woman’s control over a man’s reproduction, or in one case, her power to force him to subsidize her reproductive choices for children that are not even his, a little “bird in the back yard” exercise. I didn’t have to look far at all.
Montana ignoring rights of fathers by requiring husband’s name on birth certificates
Apparently Montana requires the husband’s name go onto a birth certificate regardless of the actual paternity of the child, however obvious it may be that the father is some other man. Even DNA tests are not recognized as proof of paternity.
It’s obvious how this empowers the mother at the expense of the father. As the article points out, the mother is empowered to force paternity on the father even when the child was conceived through infidelity. It gives a wife license to get pregnant by whomever she chooses and her husband no choice but to raise the child. Of course even divorce will not free him from responsibility for his wife’s child.*
h/t: http://http://news.mensactivism.org/node/20878
Arizona – a woman dupes a man into thinking he’s the father and now he can’t repudiate it
This is a case where a woman got pregnant, convinced her boyfriend he was the father, and by the time he found out the truth the statute of limitations to change the birth cert had run out. Oopsie. And of course this in the context of a legal regime where the mother can dismiss the father entirely from his child’s life – leave the state with him if she chooses, easily get Temporary Protective Orders, one after another, just by claiming to be in fear, any number of arts and crafts the law affords her. That’s some patriarchal oppression, that is
h/t: http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/
Louisiana – Sperm-jacking, which we all know is a complete myth
In this case it’s no myth, and there’s no question of the father and mother having sex resulting in a pregnancy, because in this case the woman just got a sperm bank to give her his sperm which he had deposited there. She had no claim to it; they just gave it to her. Oh, and of course because he didn’t even know of the pregnancy or that the child even existed – because the mother concealed that from him, failed to inform him – he has played no role in the child’s life, so he’s on very shaky ground if he tries to get any of his parental rights recognized. On the other hand the mother will have no such problem getting his parental responsibilities recognized. And DNA tests run only one way, to establish his duties but not his rights. As the article at Fathers and Families points out, when it comes to his parental rights nurture in the form of the mother rules, but when it comes to his parental duties nature rules.
h/t: http://http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/
Edited to add:
Green shoots – West Virginia judge reverses a decision and voids CS payments where parental rights have been voided
“”PARKERSBURG – A circuit judge has ruled a Wood County family law judge erred in ordering a Parkersburg man to support a child who’s no longer his.
Judge J.D. Beane on Jan. 22 granted Larry Ryan’s writ of prohibition against Judge Brian C. Dempster. In his writ, Ryan argued Dempster usurped his authority by making him pay child support for a daughter from whom the state severed his parental rights two years ago.”
There is not much left to comment on here. This is a good, sane and sensible decision. I don’t remember the specific cases, but this kind of thing seesm to be becoming a trend in this region. Examples appreciated.
* Changed. see comments for discussion.
- The Woman Card - May 2, 2016
- Frat boy bachelorettes and the invasion of gay bars - April 15, 2016
- “Not my kid….” - February 22, 2016
by 
First link: Its a letter to the editor. He references this law: http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/mca/40/6/40-6-105.htm
The only mention of certificate in that law is “with the person’s consent, the person is named as the child’s father on the child’s birth certificate;” this quote. So no idea what those peeps were talking about.
Let me go look. That formulation of the law would be great. In fact it would let a husband repudiate a child he did not believe was his.
That’s not the entire law by a long shot. Its just the only mention of “certificate”. There are several things in the law which I find problematic. I’m just saying that the letter to the editor seems not based in fact.
I see that part you are referring to, but the way it all reads:
“40-6-105. Presumption of paternity. (1) A person is presumed to be the natural father of a child if any of the following occur:
(a) the person and the child’s natural mother are or have been married to each other and the child is born during the marriage or within 300 days after the marriage is terminated by death, annulment, declaration of invalidity, or divorce or after a decree of separation is entered by a court; ”
…”if any of the following occur…”
So that means she has her husband on the hook as a backup. she can have her paramour sign, or deny him that by failure to inform, and thereby force her husband to be recognized as the father. I’m not clear if these conditions of fatherhood are priortized by order and hwo conflcits would be resolved, so presumably the first condition on the list ranks before the second, etc. Only the case law would settle that question.
Good find, anyway.
“Bastard” is a pretty ugly and pejorative term, regardless of the morality of either parent I don’t think it’s cool to apply what is now a very morally loaded term against an innocent child.
Welcome, Ali.
We clearly have different moralities, Ali, and that’s cool. Bastardy is a social reality and that social reality is really not at all stigamtized here. In fact not at all. Britain, I understand – well, Britain and British usage, or any other regional minority form of English, are hardly normative.
The child is not the fruit of a legal union. That’s all that means. I do agree that the term is ofensive. That offensiveness is aimed at the mother, who deserves it. And whatever harm accrues to the child, and as I say, that harm is minimal here, is the mother’s fault.
What do you guys think of this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2262494/Jodie-Foster-Gay-actress-tell-sons-father-turn-21.html
Oscar winner Jodie Foster plans to tell her beloved sons who their father is when they turn 21, the mother of the star’s best friend claimed today.
The usually fiercely private actress, 50, was the talk of the Golden Globes on Sunday night after she openly discussed her sexuality and made a moving tribute to her former girlfriend and co-parent Cydney Bernard.
Watching on proudly were her two sons, Charles, 14, and Kit, 12, whose paternity has never been revealed.
But speaking to MailOnline, the Reverend Beverly Bates, 75, revealed that her son, the late Hollywood producer Randy Stone, who is rumoured to be the boys’ real father, treated them as if they were his own.
So apparently, their father may be her best friend Randy Stone who has since passed on. But what if he isn’t? They went 21 yrs without their dad or even knowing who he was. (It could also be that they *do* know, but are not telling the press that since Foster is “fiercely private” –which is understandable.)
This is a big controversy in the GLBT community, since lots of couples use sperm banks and surrogate mothers (so it isn’t just the dads who are unknown to the kids), but I find that I really don’t like it. This opens a whole can of worms about adoption and should adoptive children be told who their birth parents are? (I say yes, but I realize this is a controversial and hotly debated opinion. More at the Daily Bastardette, run by an old friend of mine in my hometown!: http://bastardette.blogspot.com/)
I think the “can of worms” effect is why people do not want to challenge this stuff…wondering what folks here think?
As a genealogist, I’d want to know who my family is. I would find that a tremendous loss, but I also fully realize that some people don’t care about that stuff at all.
What do I think, Daisy? I think you hit all the major points on that and that it’s practically ready to lift as a post.
Geneology – back on your Mulungeon roots, here’s a historical tidbit for you: During the early decades when the plantation system was being developed, a lot of the labor came form England and Ireland, vagrants and whatnot, because it was cheaper than expensive Africans, and also a lot came from NA slave traders, brought in from further west. The Choctaws in particular were active in this, and a lot of the slaves were Tunica from the Mississippi Valley in Missouri and Arkansas, areas that were later Osage teritory (after the Five Nations drove them and the Kaw and all those other related tribes out of the Ohio Valley.)
A little relic tribe of Tunica live in Louisiana somewhre now.
And speaking of Choctaw, they seem to have gone through a genetic bottleneck the way Europeans did during the Black death, and theirs may have been due to disease too.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15252865
Oscar winner Jodie Foster plans to tell her beloved sons who their father is when they turn 21, the mother of the star’s best friend claimed today.
I could live with that except for one thing….
What if they ask who it is BEFORE their 21st birthday?
If she refuses to tell them the truth when they ask then I would so it doesn’t speak well of her because (unless there is some sort of reason beyond her personal preference, like he’s abusive or unfit, etc…) there is really no reason to no tell them when they ask.
Daisy:
They went 21 yrs without their dad or even knowing who he was. (It could also be that they *do* know, but are not telling the press that since Foster is “fiercely private” –which is understandable.)
Maybe but the wording seems off if that is the case. I mean why tell the world she is not going to tell the world who the biological dad of the kids are by saying she plans to wait until they turn 21? If she was so fiercely private then wouldn’t make more sense just not bring up the subject at all? Why put that tidbit out there if she isn’t going to follow through?
Oh and Gingko here’s another for you. I don’t have time to pull a link (but there is a post about it at A Voice For Men) but did you hear about how France recently upheld laws saying that a man can only get a paternity test with a court order AND the mother’s consent? And if caught trying to send/take samples to another country for testing he could be punished with fines and jail time. Apparently law makers are so heavily invested in the family unit that they are willing to make it illegal for a man to find out the truth behind “his” child’s paternity.
Makes me wonder. If the DNA doesn’t matter when it comes to being a dad, then why go through such lengths to hide the truth about it? Why not let him find out the truth and act accordingly? Maybe because of fear of him deciding to leave? (I think that’s what it is given how, at least in the States when a man finds out he is not the biological father instead of holding the cheating mom responsible all eyes focus on the dad, ready to judge and crucify him if he decides to leave.)
@Danny: Another instance of hypo/hyperagency?
Because that’s how I roll I’m gonna share something here (feel free to move/delete/etc…).
Warren Farrell’s attempt to speak at University of Toronto was protested (http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/erin-pizzey-reflects-on-toronto/)
Ryerson University student Sarah Santhosh began efforts to start a group that would be supportive of men on her campus.
(http://theeyeopener.com/2013/02/rsu-to-consider-new-mens-issues-group/)
Two days before she and her people are to meet with the Student Groups Committee, the Ryerson Students’ Union passes policy to officially reject the concept of misandry
(http://theeyeopener.com/2013/03/new-rsu-policy-challenges-new-mens-issues-group/)
I don’t think I agree that adopted children should necessarily be told who their birth parents are. Isn’t adoption a big enough hassle without any more restrictions? You could be indirectly keeping some kids out of actual, decent homes by making the adoption process less welcoming to potential parents.
Danny: “Makes me wonder. If the DNA doesn’t matter when it comes to being a dad, then why go through such lengths to hide the truth about it? Why not let him find out the truth and act accordingly? Maybe because of fear of him deciding to leave? (I think that’s what it is given how, at least in the States when a man finds out he is not the biological father instead of holding the cheating mom responsible all eyes focus on the dad, ready to judge and crucify him if he decides to leave.)”
The problem, from the pov of the state, is that if men find out that they are not the father, a proportion of them will leave their partners and refuse to pay child support. This will leave the bill to care for these children to the state. And considering that the number of men raising children that aren’t their own may be as high as 25% this will be a very large bill indeed. So it’s in the State’s interest to keep men paying for children, even if it means enacting such abuses you detail above.
RE Ryerson University:
That is real Institutional Sexism and oppression at work.
Oh wait, I forgot that Women’s Studies academics change the definition of sexism out of line with 99% of the English speaking world so they can avoid such accusations. Pathetic.
Danny:
Are you sure that the consent of the mother is necessary? The article on A Voice For Men apparently claims that, but I couldn’t really find a confirmation in the links they have given. The law they refer to, doesn’t mention the mother or her consent at all, as far as I can tell. So it seems that even in a case of two potential fathers and a mother, who all agree that they want to determine the paternity of her child, they wouldn’t be allowed to just go ahead, but would need a court order allowing them to get this information.
The law mentions medical reasons as an exception to the ban, so maybe this offers a loophole.
I must have messed up my second link to the relevant Code Penal article:
here it is.
I just had a thought I wanted to air. It occured to me that feminism, at least in its more radical forms, actually breeds hatred of women, in feminist men. Imagine you are a fairly masculine man and you are served with a fairly hardcore feminist view of reality. It sounds plausible to you because of a distortion of facts and because you want to be a good person you adopt this view as your own. Your new view of reality leads you to have feelings of anger, contempt and hatred towards men and masculinity which means feelings of anger, contempt and hatred towards your own gender and towards the behavior that is natural to you because of your genetic makeup. Because of your beliefs you see the source of all these bad feelings as being other men, so you start to feel anger, contempt and hatred towards them. But, SOMEWHERE, in your mind you know what feels natural for you. And SOMEWHERE deep down you attribute your new animosity towards yourself and your identity as being the women that taught you to view yourself this way. This gets worsened when you continually get shit from these women for your failings and for the actions of other men and for your masculinity. As you keep trying to please these women and do everything they want you still get only more and more shit combined with some token words of encouragement. The ever increasing misery and self loathing fires up your anger towards other men because of your beliefs but underneath that there is anger and hatred towards those who taught you to hate yourself which is feminists. In the mind of a feminist man the line between feminist and women can get blurred as it is women as a whole you are trying to serve and feel you are still only getting shit from. Since most women are feminist today in some form this adds to the identification.
If you read this article you will see how a feminist man trying to do everything he could to be the ideal feminist man yet still got endless amounts of shit and abuse in return for being a man:
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-first-myth-of-patriarchy-the-acorn-on-the-pillow/
If you read Who Stole My Feminism by Christina Hoff Summers you will see even more extreme amounts of shit given to feminist men who are doing everything in their might to be perfect feminist men.
That is a form of abusive relationship. And just like in abusive relationships where a codependent does more and more but still gets treated worse and worse most of the time and gets some small rewards in between the “love” for the abuser increases and the motivation to work for the abuser increases but so does the underlying hatred.
The process will be extreme for the most feminist men but any men who take on beliefs from feminist and so start to self loathe and undermine their natural masculinity will breed an underlying aggression towards the source, feminism, which can get blurred to become women in the minds of many men.
I got the idea from an article by a swedish feminist man because he wrote about the widespread hatred of women and said that every man felt this on some level and that he could feel it himself.
Welcome, Kenny!
“That is a form of abusive relationship.”
That is exactly what it boils down to. If you look at the standards feminist men are held to and the way feminist women foten treat them, the only name of it is abuse.
Misogynists are made, not born, and as with so much else, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Some of the nastiest woman-haters come out of radfem homes.
“Some of the nastiest woman-haters come out of radfem homes.”
That makes sense.
Ginkgo: If you look at the standards feminist men are held to and the way feminist women foten treat them, the only name of it is abuse.
And both the abuser and the abused agree to remain locked in perfect denial.
It is as if feminists– both male and female– want there to be a small minority which can be kicked-around.
I don’t remember who said it, but someone once remarked that feminist theory sounds like pure masochism when it comes-out of a man’s mouth.
@Kenny @Ginkgo
Your notion(s) that feminism => the abuse of feminist men => misogynists is intriguing in that it seems to explain a lot about what I see in real life almost every day.
I talk a great deal about my work with Men’s Rights off-line, face-to-face. My theme is simple: men are intrinsically valuable and should not be treated as disposable; men seek and grow through challenge (whereas women seek and grow through their shoe collections); men built civilization and so have nothing to apologize for.
Watching men’s faces light up with recognition and hope when they hear this simple message is astonishing. Often they open up and start babbling like a gleeful children at Christmas. No man or woman in their lives has ever – EVER – validated their struggles like this. If their girlfriends are with them, the look of abject fear on their painted faces is also striking – most often, the girl looks away in shame and anger that the slave she’s been so carefully cultivating for so long is on the verge of breaking free from her control.
Now, at this point, the newly freed man is at a crossroads. If he listens to his angry girlfriend’s insults, then yes, he will become a misogynist of the very worst sort. The girlfriend does this to make him an outcast and an example of failure she can use to control her next man.
But if I am there, I’ll remind freed men of their responsibilities as men to be peaceful and to keep a level and bemused attitude when confronted with the whines of controlling women.
Feminists create misogynists. Men create MRAs.
Cool Bibozes. Could you elaborate on how your bring across the male perspective and how you handle the common attacks you likely get? I find these things hard to communicate to people.
TheBiboSez: “men seek and grow through challenge (whereas women seek and grow through their shoe collections)”
Jesus Christ! While I agree that there is a sizable proportion of women who fit this description I find such complete generalisations troublesome. It could just as easily be said that men ‘seek and grow’ through watching sport; an equally shallow and worthless activity as collecting shoes.
And men in relationships aren’t always slaves that need freeing by the MRAs. A relationship with a loving, mutually respectful partner is one of the greatest pleasures that life can bring. As much as I sympathise with MRAs, every now and again I see a comment that really puts me off the MRM.
TheBiboSez: “Watching men’s faces light up with recognition and hope when they hear this simple message is astonishing. Often they open up and start babbling like a gleeful children at Christmas.”
Putting what I say above aside, I recognise what you’re saying here. I think what’s happening is that you’re telling them what they already think and the joy of being able to talk about it openly.
It’s like any topic where people have been silenced from expressing their views for a long time. Men are demonised in our society and women are given a free pass on many things, but to point it out earns you accusations of misogyny. When these men have their views validated and can finally say what they secretly think, instead of having to go along with the PC line, it’s very liberating.
Adiabat,
“And men in relationships aren’t always slaves that need freeing by the MRAs. A relationship with a loving, mutually respectful partner is one of the greatest pleasures that life can bring.”
That has been my experience too, but perhaps not in the way you mean. My first marriage was very much like what Bibo describes – “… anger that the slave she’s been so carefully cultivating for so long…” My second marriage is much more like what you describe. This second marriage is to a man, and that has made all the difference.
It has made all the difference because a lot of what was what I experienced in my first marriage was not because me ex-wife was some controlling hag but because she was acting out of traditional gender roles, and expected me to conform to them. It was systemic, not personal.
” As much as I sympathise with MRAs, every now and again I see a comment that really puts me off the MRM.”
I think what you are missing in your valid and proper and maybe a little irrelvant cautions about the dnagers of generlaization is how much of what Bibo and I are talking about is systemic and not personal. We are talking about a structure of custom, a whole culture that twists women and men too into tis sick type of relationship.
Ginkgo: “That has been my experience too, but perhaps not in the way you mean.”
No worries, your experience was included in what I mean. Writing “partner” instead of “woman” was intentional on my part. I hope that I haven’t ever given the impression that I would consider your relationship as anything but on a par with a straight relationship; I may be an asshole but I’m an egalitarian asshole.
“I think what you are missing in your valid and proper and maybe a little irrelvant cautions about the dnagers of generlaization is how much of what Bibo and I are talking about is systemic and not personal.”
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t pulling a Ballgame :). What I have a problem with is the view that ‘systemic’ forces cause women to live a shallow existence based on materialism while causing men to live a noble life based on personal improvement (“men seek and grow through challenge (whereas women seek and grow through their shoe collections)”). I also have a problem with the view that any statistically significant number of women would ‘look away in shame and anger that the slave she’s been so carefully cultivating for so long is on the verge of breaking free from her control’ because her partner has realised that feminist claims don’t correlate well with reality. I’m sure these things occur, and they should be called out when they do, but I guess I’m struggling to see the difference between generalising unfairly based on stereotypes and anecdotes, and claiming something is systemic.
TheBiboSez: men seek and grow through challenge (whereas women seek and grow through their shoe collections)
Adiabat: Jesus Christ! While I agree that there is a sizable proportion of women who fit this description I find such complete generalisations troublesome. It could just as easily be said that men ‘seek and grow’ through watching sport; an equally shallow and worthless activity as collecting shoes.
Yeah, I am learning there are many kinds of MRAs… specifically: the kind worth listening to… and… um… the kind who inform me I have shoe collections I don’t have. 😉
“What I have a problem with is the view that ‘systemic’ forces cause women to live a shallow existence based on materialism while causing men to live a noble life based on personal improvement ”
Yeah, that one rates up there with “men ar eindivuidualists, women are a hive mind trope that some regions of the manosphere cling to – not MRAs anymore; that’s fading out.
Cf. Daisy and her non-collection fo shoes. Daisy, don’t you just love being lectured on privilege you happen not to have?
But I still think there is as much social license for this kind of viewing men as children to be hectored and controlled, and as marriage/realtionship objects – “Where are all the good men????”; “They are all just commitmentphobes!!!” – as there used to be, and in living memory, for that obnoxious Pygmalion trope we used to see in movies in the 50s and early 60s – the suave older man teaching the helpless ingenue to be worldly.
And a women who avoids that mentality is swimming upstream.
Of course, now I gotta ask, how many pairs of shoes must one own before it’s classified as a “collection”? …I have three… well, four I guess, if my beach sandals count.
I think the collection starts when you start to own shoes for certain seasons or social events, bonus points for social events that only occur in one season, e.g. shoes for the spring ball.
I’d just like to add that while I do not yet have anything I could call a shoe ‘collection’ (running shoes, four pairs of canvas sneakers in various styles and colors, desert boots, snow boots), it is certainly not for lack of trying. I have almost certainly spent more time online looking at nice shoes I can’t afford than is good for me (it’s probably a good thing I’m not aiming for an office job, because decent men’s dress shoes are currently way out of my financial league).
Equilibrium: I think the collection starts when you start to own shoes for certain seasons or social events, bonus points for social events that only occur in one season, e.g. shoes for the spring ball.
Really? Never been to a ball.
some balls are held for charity
And some for fancy dress
But when they’re held for pleasure,
They’re the balls that I like best.
🙂
The movie stops as they have the images, a few of which
are quite uncomfortable. Major government is actually a sucking all
of the strength from the economy. The activities actually involve you in to the underworld.
Memorable Track Minute: Like Love My Approach, those beginning synthesizers.
The game seemed to need a lot of waiting and stealth.
It is possible to contact Representative Fourkiller by clicking here.
These Sad Carriers are curious animals to me. As compared to crops,
woods in case you abandon them to not decay unattended too long.
All of those actions provides you with encounter.
It’s an unwritten code that males are available in dark,
and women in fancy colors! Next to each word they
have to publish their own synonym. Stack the cans in such a way they
are inside the shape of a pyramid.
There are many sources, but the 1 I believe in in particular linked beneath.
But he also warns that do not post any application to the Application store.
Last year, Apple purged all GV-enabled apps from the Application Shop.
When you buy shoes to match your outfits instead of for the function for which the shoes are made; when you have more than one pair of shoes that serve a specific function; when you buy shoes just because you like how they look, even though you don’t need them and even though they may not even fit you. Any pair of shoes that gives you blisters after less than 2 hours of wearing them which you don’t throw away, but perhaps buy even more of.