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Excerpts from Ms. Magazine by Martha Burk
who is president of the Center for Advancement of
Public Policy in Washington, DC. 10-11/00
"Juan Miguel Gonzalez would never have risen to
national prominence had he not been the father of
an elfin, jug-eared little castaway named Elian,
who floated into Florida waters on an inner tube.
His mother drowned trying to escape with him from
Cuba on a leaky little power boat. You know the
story, and it's one so overexposed that we would
all be happy to consign it to the graveyard of
media overkill, except for one thing: the story
provides a cautionary tale for feminists. One of
the core tenets of feminism is that women can never
achieve equality with men until men to their part
in the family. And that means doing what we can to
encourage responsible fatherhood, in and out of
marriage.
Elian Gonzalez's father - who was eventually
allowed to take his son back to Cuba - certainly
seemed responsible and involved. Yet as Elian's
Miami relatives continued to fight for custody of
the boy, the silence from feminists was deafening.
Fathers' right organizations - which range from
reasonable men wanting to share their children's
lives to militant feminist-haters - showed vocal
and visible support for Gonzalez in his custody
battle with the Miami relatives. Why weren't we
more vocal in our support of the
father? To use one of our own
techniques, turn the situation around. If Elian's
mother were left in Cuba fighting for her son after
the father had taken him out of the country, we'd
be screaming from the rooftops.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a
man, by law, owned his wife and children. Feminists
at the first women's right convention in Seneca
Falls in 1848 petitioned for shared domain over
children - joint custody, if you will. But
somewhere on the path to equity in the family, many
feminists bought into the polar opposite of father
ownership, presuming mothers to be the rightful
caretakers of kids. Though both sides claim bias in
the courts, mothers get custody 85 percent of the
time - probably because men do not assume equal
responsibility for child rearing. However, when men
do challenge custody orders, the patchy studies
that are available suggest that fathers get custody
or joint custody 50 to 55 percent of the time. In
the case of custody disputes, feminists revert to
the mother-caretaker/father-provider stereotype all
too readily. If more men did share custody, women
would have more time to pull themselves up
economically after divorce. In fact, it's all the
more reason for feminists to try to erase the
sexism against men found in family courts. Too
often judges hand out visitation agreements that
don't work for fathers, and we look the other way
when the father is denied time with the kids or the
mother moves them far away, effectively ending
contact. But we're the first off the block when
that same father misses a child-support payment. Is
it any wonder that some men join militant fathers'
rights groups whose purpose is to bash feminists
and duck child support?
The NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund is
trying to shape ill-conceived fatherhood
initiatives into something positive for women, as
well as men. Promoting marriage as a cure-all - as
these initiatives do - is just as wrongheaded as a
belief in mother ownership, which is not only
antifeminist but harmful to the cause of women's
equality. Until feminist groups and fathers' rights
groups reach an understanding, women, men and
children all will be the losers."
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