May 23rd, 2012 by Robert Franklin, Esq.
Forbes published a blatantly anti-father screed here, and Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (S.A.V.E.) wants you to register your disapproval (Forbes, 5/22/12).
Fathers’ rights to their children must be gaining ground because the there have been a number of nuttier-than-usual articles attacking fathers lately. The Forbes piece is one of them. Essentially, it takes what we know about abuse allegations in family court – that women are far more likely than men to claim abuse and men are far more likely than women to lose custody, at least for a time, because of them – and turns it on its head.
According to the article, it’s women who are the victims of biased family courts, not men.
Now, there’s little doubt that family courts get it wrong sometimes and that means both men and women experience the bad effects when they do. But the notion that women generally get the short end of the stick in family court would be too ludicrous to mention, except that’s exactly what the Forbes piece suggests. Indeed, there’s not a single word in the piece that so much as hints at the idea that women might make false allegations of abuse toward men. Veteran observer of the family law scene that I am, I was aghast at the author’s apparent complete ignorance of how the system works. For example, he believes that if a woman tells police her husband attacked her and then wishes to withdraw the allegation, the DA will drop the charges against him. Needless to say, in most jurisdictions, that’s just not so. Don’t believe me? Ask San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi for one recent and highly publicized example.
The writer makes little attempt to hide his misandry or his ignorance. While claiming that the practice occurs with “increasing frequency,” he never cites a single example of a father actually using a false allegation of abuse to gain custody. Not one. Given that there are a little under a million divorce cases filed in the United States every year, it’s a virtual certainty that such a thing has happened. But isn’t it strange that he can’t manage to locate a case in which it did? And isn’t it even stranger that that fact deterred him not a whit from making the assertion?
Oh, I know there’s a small cottage industry of women who claim it happened to them, but time and again, those cases simply don’t bear scrutiny. Amy Neustein is one example. She claimed many years ago that her ex-husband was an abuser, but he got custody anyway. The only problem with her claims is that her daughter grew up and said that her father never abused her. Into the bargain, she thanked the child welfare agency that wrested her from her mother and gave her to her father. But, despite her own daughter’s denials, Neustein still claims her ex abused the girl.
As I said, S.A.V.E. wants you to call out Forbes on its outrageously bad article. Here’s their call to the colors.
In the May 22 Forbes Magazine article entitled“How Some Men Are Upending Domestic Violence Laws to Scam an Advantage in Divorce“ Jeff Landers, a financial adviser, helps sell a book by a once-victim who warns women that abusive men are misusing domestic violence laws to falsely accuse and get DV convictions against their wives.
While we have compassion for the author of the featured book, her claims do not match the research. It’s not women, but men who are more likely to be falsely accused of abuse. It’s not men, but women who are more likely to make the false allegation.
Lander’s article is a misrepresentation of false allegations of domestic violence and DV arrests. In his quest to “exclusively advise affluent women throughout the United States before, during, and after divorce,” Landry and Forbes Magazine are spreading misinformation, promoting fear and profiting from misandry.
We do not think this is acceptable! And we hope that you agree.
Please write or call Forbes Magazine and demand that they publish an article that refutes this misinformation.
Contact Forbes magazine:
Email:readers@forbes.com
Phone (800) 295-0893
Tell Forbes: “Correct the misinformation on domestic violence and end the misandry!”
Feel free to suggest they visit SAVE for accurate facts.
Please, contact Forbes right now.