Background: We’ve done several protests against ads which portray men and fathers as clowns–see Campaign Against Anti-Father Verizon Commercial, Campaign Against Anti-Male Advertising, Campaign Against Detroit News ‘Get Her a Gift or She”ll Give You a Black Eye” Ad and Portable On Demand Storage Decides to Remove Anti-Male Ad in Face of Protests. To learn more about the problems with the way men are portrayed in advertising, click here. Brandweek editor Todd Wasserman discussed the problem of ‘Dad as Idiot’
advertising in his recent column The Surviving Dads Of Ads (Brandweek Magazine, 11/12/07), writing, “It”s hard to argue that guys like Sacks don”t have a point”. Today the editor of Brandweek wrote that Wasserman’s column “drew a very heavy outpouring of letters, nearly all in agreement,” and the magazine reprinted a dozen of them in its letters section. Lori Clayton of South Fulton, Tennessee wrote: “As a mom, we agree with you. Fathers should have rights too. I am a mother, a wife , a daughter and a grandmother. And I have seen the way men are being treated these days; makes me sick to know that men are being treated so horribly. Step back a moment, and just think: how would you feel if this was your Dad, your brother or your son or grandson?” Akshaya Patel of Marlboro, New Jersey wrote a letter titled “Ads Do Impact the Very Young”: “I enjoyed reading your article about the negative portrayal of men in the media. I am a father of a 5-year-old boy and I can tell you that advertising impacts his perception of the world much more profoundly than adults may realize. “Last year I severed my relationship with Fidelity Investment because I was appalled at the way they portrayed men in their advertising. I became politically aware during the years of anti-apartheid divestment and it has stuck with me. “My son has learned to use Tivo and he skips through the advertising these days so I suppose this may become a nonissue in my home. Nonetheless the corporate community speaks to the masses through advertising and they have to maintain a gender neutral balance in their message.” Eric Tarkington of Atlanta, Georgia wrote: “Critics who say ‘enough dumping on dad already!’ are not alone–far from it, if anybody has a bizarre attitude about this, it’s the disconnected ad man sector, not the growing annoyed sector of the public. I have some sympathy for ad writers. You need the good feelings from a gag to become associated with your product or service. Somebody is always the butt of any joke, and political correctness says you won’t make it a her. Besides, you don’t have to be careful dumping on dad in this society. Or do you? People are getting annoyed, and your customers probably shouldn’t look bizarre to you…” To read all the letters, click here. Brandweek Magazine’s letters section can be reached at feedback@brandweek.com.
Category: Blog
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David Harris Lied, so He Deserved to Die?
“What has he done to wear so many scars? Has he changed the course of rivers? Has he polluted the moon and stars?”–Bob Dylan
Convicted Texas ‘Murder by Mercedes’ Killer Clara Harris, her attorneys and her supporters have been largely successful in concealing the true nature of Clara’s crime. Whereas Clara has successfully portrayed herself as the innocent victim of a philandering husband, in reality David Harris was killed while trying to exit a bad and possibly abusive marriage. Clara’s defenders also ignore the fact that considerable evidence was presented that Clara–who played the crying, betrayed wife–was also having an affair at the end of their marriage.
In my co-authored column Suppose roles had been reversed in Harris case–Murdered dad deserves sympathy being shown Clara (Houston Chronicle, 1/27/07) I wrote:
“While many see the Clara Harris case as one of love and betrayal, it is in fact a garden-variety domestic homicide. Clara Harris is no better than high-profile wife-killer Scott Peterson. Perhaps Clara is even worse — at least Peterson spared us the crocodile tears.”
To learn more, also see my column In Defense of David Harris (LewRockwell.com, 3/4/03), or click here.
I sometimes get hate mail from Clara’s defenders and/or the operators of the website www.claraharris.org/. Recently a woman identified as “April” wrote:
“[David Harris] said [the affair] was over and wanted to meet with Clara to reconcile. Then he did this adulterous deed at their HONEYMOON hotel?!
“Bullshit Glenn….go drink ANOTHER mug of that Kool-Aid. He made a vow. They had children. He lied multiple times……………….
“He had it coming. It was too quick for my liking.
“FREE CLARA HARRIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
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‘Now that our last is off to college…’
New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly makes a good point. I think many, many couples get so lost in everything they need to do for their kids and their households that the actual relationship between the couple gets lost.
From Sherri, a reader: “My husband has learned the hard way that it doesn’t pay to be a responsible noncustodial parent. He was divorced in 1994 and ordered by the court to pay child support. In 1999 he was taken back to court for an increase in child support, which was to end on the child’s 18th birthday. “The child turned 18 before graduating from high school, so mom contacted the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services to get the support to continue until he graduates. He is failing several classes, so graduation could be awhile. “The state did a mandatory case review and found 13 missed payments from 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003.
We have never been notified of any delinquency. We never had the chance to prove that we paid it. A new withholding order was issued to include the arrearage. “To make things even more frustrating, his employer only keeps records back 3 years so no way to prove it was taken out of his checks, because silly me I didn’t keep 8 years worth of pay check stubs. “We got no satisfaction from the State. They just said ‘well, prove it was paid.’ I said it was court ordered to be withheld from his pay check and he never changed jobs. They said ‘well, you should have kept pay the check stubs.’ Such a run around. It is sad that they use the term “deadbeat dads,” but the state turns around and creates them. “I want to get the word out to other non custodial parents not to trust the system. Not to trust that because they are forced to have the child support withheld from their check that it will get to where it needs to go. A noncustodial parent needs to keep track of every pay stub. We could fight it, but our attorney fees would be more than the arrearage. “Oh, and the kicker…my husband has to pay child support until his son is out of high school, but we can’t enforce visitation because he is 18 and he doesn’t come over because he is working over 30 hours per week. What is up with the system?!”
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‘It just kills me that you’re a man…’
Some biting commentary from the New Yorker’s Danny Shanahan
“The assistant district attorney started reading me the riot act as if I were a piece of pond scum…When I informed her that I had already paid the arrears, she told me I was lying and that I was going to jail. I stood my ground and demanded that they recheck their records…After yelling at me for another 10 minutes, the payments clerk came in and informed the assistant DA that indeed I had sent in the payment…I demanded an apology…” The letter below is mostly about child support system’s abuses, but there’s an interesting side element, too.
I’ve mentioned before the problem in family court of mothers extorting money from fathers in order to allow the fathers to see their kids. Because courts begin with the presumption that the mother is the real parent and the father is extraneous and caused the divorce anyway, mothers can force financial concessions from fathers in exchange for allowing them more parenting time. In reality, as long as both parents are fit, each should have a right to 50% time with their children as a matter of course. The letter also touches on the problem of the child support enforcement system threatening jail as a way to shake down a child support debtor’s elderly parents. From Robert, a reader: “I had a very bad experience with the local DAs office in Tarrant County, Texas several years ago regarding child support. I had been out of work for about nine months and was just getting by while taking care of my two children, who lived with me 50% of the time. My ex had extorted child support out of me during our divorce settlement as a precondition of going along with joint managing conservatorship. Thus even though the kids spent equal time with me and I was out of work, the family court kept demanding that I continue to pay her child support, even though she was working full time as a teacher. I never quite figured out the rationale for this except that there is a built-in bias in the courts on behalf of women. “After getting no relief from the court on my petition to reduce the child support until I was again working, I eventually fell behind about two months on the payments and got a nastygram from the DA’s office threatening me with jail if I did not pay up. I managed to borrow some funds from my elderly parents and did send the payment to the DA’s office. A week later, I got a summons for failing to pay the arrears. “When I showed up, the assistant district attorney started reading me the riot act as if I were a piece of pond scum. Honestly, I have never seen a person so angry at life and at me. When I informed her that I had already paid the arrears, she told me I was lying and that I was going to jail. “I stood my ground and demanded that they recheck their records. I had a money order stub and knew that I had sent it to the proper address. An initial search by the clerk turned up nothing so again I was confronted by the angry assistant DA who again threatened me with jail. After yelling at me for another 10 minutes, the payments clerk came in and informed the assistant DA that indeed I had sent in the payment. “At that point I demanded an apology from the pretentious assistant DA who merely scoffed at me and still drug me into the court alleging that I was guilty of contempt. When I pointed out to the judge that I was unemployed, had joint custody, and had complied with the payment demand, the judge was a little confused and asked the assistant DA for clarification. “When she grudgingly admitted that everything I had told the judge was accurate, the case was dismissed. Even after all of this, the assistant DA was the glaring angry woman who just would not let it go.”
“Minnesota’s Voluntary Recognition of Parentage form, which establishes a legal relationship between father and child when the parents are not married to each other, spells out dads’ rights in black and white: ‘When a child is born to parents who are not married to each other the law gives custody of the child to the mother. If the father wants a different custody arrangement, he must go to court’… “…state law leans heavily toward the mother in custody cases, and fathers typically have to go through Mom if they want to become more involved in their kids’ lives.”
There are several great things about the recent Minneapolis Star-Tribune feature article More and more single dads (11/24/07): 1) They profile some of the many young, unwed fathers who do want to be there for their children. 2) They clearly acknowledge that for young dads, their children’s mothers are often the biggest barrier to father involvement. 3) They clearly acknowledged the stacked deck fathers face in family court. Better than that is the way the piece details the lives of single fathers like Lee Cody Wilson (pictured), who is raising his three kids, including his baby daughter. The article is below. More and more single dads By Curt Brown Minneapolis Star Tribune November 24, 2007 The sun is peeking up outside the frosty window, but Lee Cody Wilson is already juggling at full speed in his Minneapolis apartment. He’s ironing the white school shirts for his sons, 7-year-old Jontae and 4-year-old Jameeko. He’s handing a bottle of formula to Kennon, his 11-month-old daughter, in her playpen. Jameeko can’t find a shoe, so the search is on. “Brush your teeth and gargle and then I’ll get you a Pop-Tart,” he tells the boys, dangling an incentive. The hectic routine is one faced by an increasing number of fathers. As a single dad, Wilson is part of one of the fastest-growing segments of Minnesota’s population. By 2030, the number of single-father families is expected to climb 55 percent — from 6 percent of all households counted in the 2000 census to nearly 10 percent, according to state projections. It’s not certain why that number is growing, but it is clear that single dads often face additional challenges in raising a family. Surveys show they often have more employment and housing problems than the mothers of their children, as well as less education.
“The capacity to love is a vital, rich and all-consuming function…you can find nobility and sacrifice and love wherever you may seek it out…”–Rod Serling
Hero father Manuel Jesus Cordova Soberanes gave up his attempt to come to the United States and instead turned himself over to the Border Patrol, all to save the life of a injured nine-year-old American boy. Cordova found the boy wandering in the Arizona desert after the boy’s mother was killed in a car crash on Thanksgiving Day. Cordova, who was promptly deported, said:
“I am a father of four children. For that, I stayed. I never could have left him. Never.”
Cordova and the boy are pictured. According to the Associated Press:
“The 26-year-old bricklayer was two days into his walk and about 50 miles from Tucson when he saw the boy, who had walked away from the crash…Christopher had scrapes on his leg and was dressed in shorts despite the desert cold. The boy had his dog with him and was holding a side mirror from the wrecked van.
“Neither Cordova nor Christopher spoke the other’s language, but the boy took the migrant to the edge of a canyon and showed him the accident site…
“‘I felt frustrated and sad because I couldn’t do anything for the mother,’ Cordova said. ‘And I didn’t know how to console the boy, so I just sat next to him.'”
“Cordova gave the boy the sweater he was wearing, climbed down to the van, and found chocolate and cookies to feed him.
“He then built a bonfire, and the two hunkered down. The boy slept most of the night; Cordova kept watch and tended the fire [which he hoped the Border Patrol would see]. Fourteen hours later, a group of hunters found the pair and called for help. U.S. Border Patrol agents took Cordova into custody, and Christopher was flown to a hospital in Tucson.”
The story is Illegal immigrant ‘never” thought to leave boy: Man comforted child after mom died in Arizona desert crash, officials say (Associated Press, 11/28/07), and be sure to watch the MSNBC video on the same page.
According to the story, the Mexican consulate in Nogales is “working to obtain a short-term visa for Cordova so he can come to Arizona and be recognized for his actions.” I think instead the US government should send him a legal permanent Visa and invite this hero to come to the US. I have a nine-year-old child and am grateful that, were she ever in a desperate strait, there are men like Cordova out there who are willing to make sacrifices like this in order to help a child.
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Postcards from Splitsville (Part II)
The drawing above was taken from Kara Bishop’s www.postcardsfromsplitsville.com. Bishop works with Children of Divorce, a class run by Tucson, Arizona-based Divorce Recovery. The class did an art project that included “sending away” the frustrations of divorce. The website is a place where Kara says “children can share their divorce-related feelings anonymously and parents can get a new perspective on how this life-changing experience impacts their children”s lives.”
To learn more, click here. Kara can be reached at Kara@PostcardsfromSplitsville.com.
A letter from Felicia, a reader, about the domestic violence system:
Dear Glenn:
I was reading an article you wrote about Restraining Orders/Protective orders being overused in our judicial system. I wanted to share a story with you that has me really upset and I thought you might be interested.
My husband drank too much one night and we got into a nasty physical confrontation, ultimately resulting in a call to the police. He was taken to jail and charged with domestic violence. I teach Cardio kickboxing classes and when I mean we got into a fight, both of us were involved. I wasn’t a so-called “victim” and protected myself fairly well. As it turned out, my husband had more visible wounds than I did. When he was booked, the officer asked if his wife was arrested too based on his injuries.
He served four days in jail prior to me bailing him out. Since his release, he has gone to AA meetings and is seeing a counselor as well as a couples counselor with me. We are on the right track to making things better and our relationship has taken a positive turn. All this work has been done without any court orders, as my husband decided to do them on his own.
I attended his arraignment with the intention of fighting a restraining order. (I just want to note that I get nervous in court even for a traffic ticket). The commissioner asked me to step up to speak (standing about 10 ft away from my husband and near the sheriff). He said he was required to give me 2 options: file a no contact order or a peaceful contact order. Based on those 2 options, I chose the lesser of the two. I wasn’t given the option of not filing an order at all.
Once we left the courtroom, I felt coerced into filing a no contact order, whether that be a no contact or peaceful. Shouldn’t I have a right to not file one at all? Apparently, an automatic protective order/restraining order is placed regardless of the individual situation. As the “victim” in this case, why are my options limited? I spoke with the DA’s office and they backtracked and talked in circles avoiding my questions.
The state of California doesn’t give the “victim” an option of pressing charges or filing a protection order – the state will do so regardless of what the “victim” wants. Shouldn’t I have a say as to what happens?
As a result, my husband and I cannot have an argument or disagree about anything in public, and if he accidentally breaks something he will go to jail (per the protection order). This protection order makes me feel just as uncomfortable as it does for him. Each DV case is different and protection orders are not always required – but in Ca. there is no choice.
So the victim’s have rights – the right to shut up and let the court system decide what’s best for ALL women involved in domestic violence. As a woman involved in a one-time domestic violence incident, I become a victim (true sense of the word) to the court system.
I am an intelligent, educated, strong-minded woman who knows what’s best for me. As it stands, all DV cases are handled the same way, regardless of the circumstances of the incident or the background of each person involved. It seems the approach is this: women are timid, naive, helpless and don’t know any better. I consider that an insult! This may be true for some women, but not for all women and a cookie cutter approach to every DV case is not the solution. The court system is imposing its authority and taking away my rights as a woman (aka the “victim”).