When women can do as they please, and men must do as they are ordered.

What is going on here? Why is it that men seem to be second class citizens when it comes to family law? Because when it comes to family law, the female viewpoint is the only viewpoint.

For the past thirty years, women's advocacy groups have triumphed at the expense of men. All that is necessary to prove this is to look at one statistic on child custody: in contested cases, women are awarded custody approximately 90 percent of the time.

On closer examination, this 90 percent figure tells a bigger story. It also sheds light on why our family law system so blatantly favors women.

Fathers Who Get Custody
Lets look at the 10 percent of women that don't get custody. They are the dregs of female society: drug addicts, alcoholics, child molesters, child beaters and worse. They are the women who feminism does not want to acknowledge. The courts have identified these females as derelicts. They are not fit to be parents. And those courts justifiably do not award these women custody of their children.

So at the same time, what are the courts saying to men? What they are saying is this. It does not matter if you are a good father. It does not matter if you are a better parent than your ex-wife. No amount of honest fatherly care and compassion is good enough to win custody of your children. And heaven forbid, if you are only equal to your ex-wife in parenting, forget it. Because with the present 90/10 split, you don't stand a chance. Unless your ex-wife is a down and outright derelict, you can't win. Unless she is a drug addict, alcoholic, child beater or molester, she will get custody of the children.

Anti-Father Legal Bias
This 90/10 split is further responsible for a female bias in the way the rest of the family court system works. Because of the fact that females make up 90 percent of custodial parents, the laws concerning support and visitation rights represent only the female perspective. If the split was 50/50, females would be forced to view the other side of the custody issue. I have no doubt that if there was an equal 50/50 split, there would be a marked change in our present family law system. If females won custody only 10 percent of the time, the laws would be changed tomorrow.

So let me relate two short examples of how the system presently works for men. These examples are quite typical. Imagine the outcry if the same thing happened to women 90 percent of the time.

Ted and Tina
Ted and his girlfriend Tina had a male child. They lived together for some time. But when they separated, Tina took custody of the child. Ted wanted custody but did not try when he found out what his chances were. Ted made support payments for a number of years. Even though he had never missed a payment Tina involved the Washington State Office of Support Enforcement (OSE).

OSE garnisheed Ted's pay at his place of employment, embarrassing Ted at work. And all along, Tina toyed with Ted. At her pleasure she would interfere with his visitations. This interference with Ted's relationship with his son caused Ted significant stress. Tina knew this and seemed to enjoy it.

The final insult came when Tina qualified for some government program for single mothers allowing her to go to college. She packed up Ted's child and moved to the East coast. Now Ted, living in Seattle, could not even see his child. And to add insult to injury, when Tina got to New Hampshire, she filed papers with the New Hampshire OSE. As it turned out New Hampshire demanded even more money from Ted. Ted's employer received more paperwork taking more of his pay.

Tom and Mary
Tom and Mary had been married for four years. They had two children. When they got divorced Tom tried to get custody of the children. Of course the court gave them to Mary. The divorce was quite messy. Because there were few assets, in a final analysis of the break up Tom got nothing, and Mary got the family.

Tom was required to pay a significant portion of his pay for child support to his ex-wife. He was supposed to get scheduled visitation with his children. But soon after his divorce Mary began to interfere with his visits. Then she became vindictive.

She falsely accused Tom of sexually abusing the children. This effectively kept Tom from his children for the next two years. And even though he never missed any support payments she turned him in to OSE, which garnisheed his pay. When he received a pay raise, OSE took a larger amount for child support from his pay check. The final insult came when Tom's pay was reduced to its previous level. The amount withdrawn for child support did not go down.