Mark Greene believes that freeing women from the domestic sphere while supporting men to enter that sphere is a win/win.

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Recently, I was asked to write on the Father Rights movement for The New York Times. In my article titled Fathers’ Rights Needn’t Hurt Women’s Rights, I made the case that fully engaged divorced parents working in partnership to co-parent their kids is the best possible outcome for their children’s emotional well being. The bottom line here? Although our marriages may fail, our families needn’t fail as well.

We can choose to show our children that their families have not ended, just changed. And that will be central to their sense of security and safety. Part of encouraging vital co-parenting agreements will require giving men equal legal rights to remain engaged parents.

What is troubling however is how quickly any discussion of father’s rights or presumption of shared custody shifts to the issue of domestic violence. The Times also ran an article by Kelly Behre titled “The Movement Undermines Victims of Domestic Violence”. Behre states:

…even the more moderate groups within the fathers’ rights movement engage in a backlash against feminism when they attempt to discredit the experiences of female victims of intimate partner violence… Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

Let me just note here that anyone who attempts to discredit the experiences of female victims of intimate partner violence is in no way a moderate voice in the father’s rights movement.

Then during a follow up discussion titled The Men’s Rights Debate on the Stream over at Al Jazeera America, (scheduled to air on June 24) the question was asked, should equal custody be the baseline for divorce law and family courts in America? Again, it was suggested that this was problematic, especially in cases of abuse.

Pushing fathers out of their daily or weekly childcare role does irreparable damage to the children of divorce and hurts the long term goals of the women’s movement.

Let’s be absolutely clear here. Any parent, male or female, who emotionally or physically abuses their child or partner should not be given equal standing in a custody arrangement. But domestic abuse is by no means only being committed by men. The Center for Disease Control’s 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey states:

More than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) and more than 1 in 4 men (28.5%) in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Page 2, Key Findings.

Domestic partner abuse is a catastrophic national problem that affects families and communities. But to insist that domestic abuse is solely a male act is at best, ill-informed and at worst, intentionally deceptive. To acknowledge domestic violence against men does not diminish the injustices suffered by women. In fact, it gives men and women common cause to go forward together.

And again, let me be clear. Violence against women is a human rights tragedy throughout the world. I will be the first to assert that women overwhelmingly bear the brunt of violence, inflicted by sexist, misogynist men.

But in the sphere of intimate relationships in the US, the numbers become much less skewed. (35.6% for women, 28.5% for men.) Even if the numbers of men are somehow inflated in this study it is clear that women also physically abuse men in significant numbers.

The courts should take any form of domestic abuse very seriously. Any abuser, regardless of gender, forfeits his or her right to any assumption of custody. That said we must move beyond worst case scenarios when we talk about family law and divorce.

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As women already know, when you enter the domestic sphere, you must have adequate legal protections should your marriage fail. Men who enter the domestic sphere deserve the same legal protections.

Millions of fathers qualify as childcare providers to their children, either part or full time. Severing these relationships and pushing fathers out of their daily or weekly childcare role does irreparable damage to the children of divorce and hurts the long term goals of the women’s movement.

Freeing women from exclusively remaining in the domestic sphere while supporting men to enter that sphere is a win/win. More importantly, children of divorce need both of their parents in their lives, regardless of their gender. As women already know, when you enter the domestic sphere, you must have adequate legal protections should your marriage fail. Men who enter the domestic sphere deserve the same legal protections.

As do working fathers who are facing the prospect of divorce and want to co-parent their children.

Freeing women from being forced to remain in the domestic sphere while supporting men to enter that sphere is a win/win.

Divorcing couples need to look to collaborative divorce and mediation in the vast majority of cases where a history of emotional or physical abuse is not present. Culturally, we continue to stigmatize divorce, encouraging divorcing spouses to go legal and get the upper hand. Its time to stop pitting spouses against each other and instead teach them to partner and co-parent on behalf of their children.

We can choose to stop stigmatizing divorce as an symbol of abject failure, and view it as a change, in which a family does not end but instead transitions to a new arrangement. An arrangement which allows children to grow up cared for and loved.

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It is important to note that the legal challenges faced by unmarried fathers are even more challenging than those confronted by divorcing dads. The legal hurdles for single fathers who want to raise their children took center stage in The New York Times and Al Jezeera discussions. Clare Huntington , Christopher Emanuel and Kevin Noble Maillard all wrote about the issue for The New York Times.

— Photo: Mateus Lunardi Dutra

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