Posts Tagged ‘Amanda Marcotte’

One of my favorite books in this world of glorious books is Dostoyevski’s “The Brothers Karamazov.” My favorite character is the rebel Ivan, the brother who ably lists the cruelties of his world to lay at the feet of God, and announces that if bowing his head in acceptance of these horrors as “the way it must be” is what earns him his ticket to heaven, well, then God can have his exalted ticket BACK. I have thought, ever since reading the book for the first time, in my teens, that more than the ticket to heaven might need to be so aptly “punched.”

Some of the reading I did while I was laid up with fever brought this back to my mind. Because you see, my first “religion” had jack to do with Abrahamic gods; my first religion was feminism. My major first feminist act was carrying a petition about in the summer before my senior year of high school—to get the school board to allow the girls to stop shivering through fuel crisis winters in a tiny Kansas town in our skirts; I wanted the “right” to be warm in slacks. And I got it. And I paid dearly. The hither-to handful of scholarships the counselor had been holding out to me dried up like a popcorn fart. But I was a good little soldier, and soon more literally than usual—I joined the Army when women were still sent to the WACS, and was on the lines of many “firsts” for women. I was among the first to ask for and get weapons training, I was among the first to do more than secretarial or nursing work. I was hard core.

While I was ill, once the fever abated enough I could open my eyes, I read “It’s a Jungle Out There” by Amanda Marcotte. I began to anticipate a joyous book review to be written when I felt better. It is a very amusing book, Ms. Marcotte is endowed with a terrific sense of humor. Perhaps I am less so? Because I ran into a brick wall in the midst of the book, and perhaps it had been niggling away at my mind from the start when Ms. Marcotte asked why more young women do not willingly self-identify as feminists. Why indeed? I can’t answer for young women—I’m an older every day woman who woke up for too many mornings in a row getting a major “squick” over the title “feminist” after wearing it like a banner for the first 2/3 of my life!

The first part of the “squick” was that suddenly there was this conversation happening about EVERYthing. You couldn’t read a book, a novel, for crying out loud, without having SOMEone discuss whether it met feminist criteria of some sort. This squicked me as an old time cold warrior who got more than her share of studying Communist ideology being stuffed down throats—-every personal act being analyzed to see if it aided the “revolution.” So, what “women’s liberation” had become an ideology? An “ism” more than something about the mere feminine? Seeing adult women refuse to consider a book I had loved because “Well, I just don’t know how her work plays into feminism.” made me get a bit crazy. What, as feminists we get to turn off our brain till some big feminist puts a good-girl-imprimatur upon the titles, kind of like the Catholic Church used to do? What happened to liberation? What happened to thinking for oneself and TRUSTING oneself to make the right decisions?

But that was just a bit of walnut in the rocky road, that one. The one that got me big time, and the wall I hit in the book, was about men. Maybe a subclass of men? Divorced men…..with child support to pay. One little paragraph of the book basically dismisses “men’s rights organizations” as being about nothing more than divorced men wanting out of paying child support. Scuzzballs! Uh, right. This hit me badly on a couple levels.

First off, in the absence of any knowledge of individuals involved, it sounds terribly like the very sorts of things men once used to dismiss feminists—the same sort of slanderous nastiness that Ms. Marcotte lists and deconstructs and bullshit and straw men of the rankest sort in her most excellent book. So how can she fall into the same sort of error? Because when you look at some individual men who at least investigated men’s rights groups (and walked away disappointed), you realize it is NOT always about “just not paying child support.” Let me give you two examples.

The first is a man I have known for about fifteen years. His daughters were given into his custody when the mother abandoned them. For a decade he gave it his all, raising the toddler and watching the older two head into their teens. His ex dragged him into court frequently, accusing him of all sorts of things, and once attacking him physically IN court. She didn’t go to jail, although I am certain had he leapt across the aisle to kick and pummel her a jail cell would have held him that night. When his youngest child was eleven, the mother kidnapped the girls. When he called the cops, they told him they couldn’t be bothered with “custody issues.” When he finally got a court date to deal with this “custody issue” the ex had her lawyer ask for “joint custody” because apparently, having them suddenly gave her rights. And she got it, and my friend was ordered to pay child support for the time SHE had the children. Now mind you, in the more than ten years he raised his girls, she had been ordered to pay child support, and was to pay him under the new arrangement when the girls were with him. She never paid one dime. She was not jailed, her car was not taken, her license was not revoked—she was in no way inconvenienced for flaunting the order of the court. And now, her kidnapping was rewarded with custody? Everyone would be up at arms if the gender roles were reversed here—if the male parent had not paid, if the male parent kidnapped and demanded his custody be made legal. But no, not a serious peep. Justice is dead when it comes to the rights of males vis a vis divorce and custody. Was this woman a good mother, was my friend a bad father? Now, see, if I asked that question about a woman alone….I’d be told I was being a sexist. I won’t bore you with the list of completely nutjob, not to mention criminal acts committed by this “good” mother.

Second case is considerably closer to home, being in the family—my son’ s family. His ex is one of a large number of young Army bride’s who simply decided, during this war, that “marriage shouldn’t be this hard, it should be fun and I am not having fun,” who ran home to mama and filed for divorce. She kind of showed her hand, in her initial outting, she didn’t even ask for child support—-she asked for alimony after less than three years of marriage. Although my son has no college to speak of, she has been attending college for most the ten years since she left high school, but has no degree as she changes majors like most folks change shoes. My son, disabled and medically discharged out of the military got a good job, tho’ on the opposite coast from his beloved child and he OFFERED her a very good child support payment in the divorce. An exorbitant amount for a single child—the child he cared about passionately.

But after a year, he got told his daughter (under age three) had FIVE cavities and would need anesthesia to fix them. He confronted the mother; they had argued bitterly over her never cooking meals and feeding the child sweets all day, the mother said it wasn’t her fault—the cavities were cause the child cried over tooth-brushings so much that she hadn’t been brushing her teeth. Well, its a toddler, for crying out loud, whose damned fault IS it if not the mother’s? The bill was over $5000. Did the mother get asked if she was being neglectful? No, she did not. The distant father was told to pay….for something utterly out of his control.

He left his good job, came back across the country, took a job making about twenty thousand LESS per year, all to see his child. He was only able to pay the high child support because he lived with us. Then he injured his already fragile knees and was on disability for a full year after more surgery. He could not return to the job, and eventually his child support fell into arrears. He was told he could not apply for a reduction in the amount in spite of his change of circumstances until October of 2008. Then they told him they would take his car—but you see, WE already had done that, buying it from him as he could not make  car payments AND child support on the disability pay’s paltry sum. So now they say they will take his driver’s license…..and bar him getting one in ANY state. Gee, so if he finds a job that does not further wreck his body, he can’t get to it? In this state, if you don’t drive, you don’t work and nobody will hire you. And in today’s war ravaged economy, jobs are few and far between for able-bodied drivers.

So, a disabled veteran father who is unemployed is criminalized—yes, they threaten “criminal charges” as well, you see. Being poor and female is a disgrace and a shame; being poor and male is a crime. It isn’t about not paying child support, my son job searches every day, for something he can physically sustain; he would be on the streets if we could not maintain our home for him. He has not seen his child in over a year in spite of the visitation schedule.

You see, her visits were weekends of screaming and refusing to eat—even foods long-time favorites. The child sat in bed carrying on long imaginary conversations with the mother—imagine my son listening to this, his child saying “I’ll miss you mommy, I don’t want to go to see daddy.”….and in a play-acted mommy voice, “I know, sweetie, but you have to, I hate it, too and I still love you even if you do go see daddy.” Gee, parental interference much? But calling Child Protective Services seemed helpful, they took his info and said yes, this (and worse stuff) was ‘red flag’ behavior, this child needed to be evaluated at ONCE. And then, the screeching halt—what, he was NOT the custodial parent? Well, cancel ALL of it then, only the mother can make that necessary appointment. So, suddenly the red flags faded to pussified pink and it was all for naught. He decided the only way to spare his child the trauma was to not see the child unless it was supervised visits so someone ELSE could see this behavior—but the state will not do supervised visits unless it is ordered by a mediator. A mediation period costs $700 or so, apparently. Did I mention the inherent broke-ness of being here?

But money isn’t enough if you are the male in a divorce, even one who has tried to do the “right” thing all the way. Are divorced mothers who ’stay at home’ (even with a decade of college under one’s belt) the “new Spartans” and the ex-husbands are their Helot-slaves? Or have we merely returned to Colonial America’s indentured servitude? And feminists are to be good and onboard with this? Is this the version to males that Ms. Marcotte says is given to women when birth results from sex: “It’s what you get, sex is yucky.”

There is no shortage of asshole ex-males out there, but the newsflash is, there is no shortage of snide, laughing, system-abusing females either—my ex daughter-in-law had a part time job, you see. She shined boots at the base exchange, to be told dozens of times a day how pretty she was, and she partied at night with other military wives who told her how easy it is to “take these military suckers” for everything. They gave her chapter and verse on how to get his pay, and if she was lucky, retirement pay, too. Some feminists. I think the word used to be gold-digger!

Even more than being told what to read, what to watch, and what to listen to in music to keep myself properly feministly inspired, I can’t take seeing what was offensive when it happened to women being done to men without question. That isn’t justice, that is payback. That isn’t liberation, it is revenge. Knowing how many veterans come back from this war, having gotten those dreaded “Dear John” letters, facing divorce on top of gods know what other personal hells….it makes my mind stumble.

So, after thrashing the bed-covers for days as fever vanished and body strength returned, I fear this is another ticket I will give back. I will be a humanist, thank you. I want human rights, human liberation. For all. ALL!