From: matus [matus@snet.net]
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 5:03 PM
To: matus@snet.net
Subject: MFD List - Last road out of hell (media bias)(sexism)(legal
bias)

(Another excellent article from ifeminists.com, relating the crusade of
vindictive women to financially enslave and emotionally abuse ex-husbands
and the emotional toll this takes on former husbands who care for their
children, some of who are driven to suicide.  The US legal system seems to
have a pronounced bias against fathers in cases of divorce, often forcing
them to provide child support AND alimony even after the mother has
remarried and has new financial support for the children, .  It is
reasonable in most cases for alimony payments to occur when one spouse
supports the other through schooling or child raising, but these payments
should extend both ways, not just from Husband to Wife.  And after Wives
have remarried and are financially supported by new husbands, the divorced
father, in addition to having visitation rights taken away from them, can
become a financial slave.  Indeed, as the article points out, there is a
yahoo discussion group entitled "Ex-husband Is Now My Slave"- Mike)

Last road out of hell
----------
ifeminists.com
by James R. Hanback, Jr.
   "On Jan. 7, a 43-year-old man, apparently depressed about
   a recent overdue child support ruling against him, shot
   himself to death on the steps of the San Diego Courthouse."
   Hanback brings compassion and perspective to what is far
   from an isolated event. (01/15/02)
http://www.free-market.net/rd/228779977.html

http://www.ifeminists.com/introduction/editorials/2002/0115a.html

Last Road Out of Hell
January 15, 2002
by James Hanback, Jr.


We have provided for the survival of man against all enemies except his
fellow man.
--Lyman Lloyd Bryson
Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names.
--Proverb

On Jan. 7, a 43-year-old man, apparently depressed about a recent overdue
child support ruling against him, shot himself to death on the steps of the
San Diego Courthouse.

According to reports in the San Diego Union Tribune, Derrick K. Miller
walked up to a security guard around 6:25 a.m. and began raving about
injustices thrust upon him by the legal system. Court papers in one hand, he
produced a handgun with the other and fired one shot into his skull,
instantly killing himself.

What the six-paragraph story in the Union Tribune doesn't say, however, is
that Miller's actions represent a small sampling of a disturbing trend all
over the world. Men who are fed up with what they see as injustices
perpetrated upon them by court systems that, in cases of child custody,
child support, and divorce, generally favor women, are increasingly taking
their own lives.

The problem has become so widespread, in fact, that some
governments-Australia's, for instance-have implemented new programs aimed at
getting suicidal men help in overcoming the urge to end it all. Likewise,
official studies from both Australia and Ireland within the past year have
connected an alarming increase in male suicide in their respective countries
to the breaking down of family structure, and a perception by men of
wrong-doing to them perpetrated by the legal system.

According to the Irish study, five times more men than women in that country
die from suicide each year, and more than 40 percent of those are men under
30. The principle cause of death for men between the ages of 15-34 in
Ireland, in fact, is suicide. Once upon a time, more men died from traffic
accidents.

The Irish report further stated that the "strong protective effect of
marriage" was confirmed as prevention for male suicide. Single, separated,
divorced, or widowed individuals all had higher suicide rates.

In similar fashion, the Australian study found that younger men in that
country were particularly susceptible to suicide upon divorce or separation
from their children.

"Recent research into male suicide in this age group revealed that males in
the 'separation phase' of a marriage break-up were most at risk of suicide,
compared with widowed or divorced males," the report's authors wrote.
"Marriage breakdown is a significant characteristic of male suicide in the
24-39 age bracket. The anxiety and emotional pain of separation and divorce
appear to effect [sic] men differently.

"Whilst suicides may simply be recorded as statistics, it is the increasing
number of murder/suicides, involving children that have brought the tragic
reality of male suicide, and male mental health issues in general into the
public arena.

"Where children are concerned, there is evidence to suggest that many men
sense they are being discriminated against in family court judgements, and
often find themselves in financial straits having to pay legal fees and
child support payments. The difficulty in maintaining access to children
also heightens the frustration and isolation of separated and/or divorced
men."

Two studies, two separate nations, and a plethora of social scientists have
thus apparently confirmed what individual families have known and news
reports have ignored for years: family courts all over Western society are
unfair to men, and some men are dying as a result. In the U.S. alone,
statistics from the Centers for Disease Control estimate that approximately
80 percent of all suicides every year are by men. Compared to homicide rates
recorded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of suicides every
year in this country is about 32 percent higher than the number of
homicides.

Although both the Irish and Australian studies suggest that mental health
professionals should focus more on men and getting men to help themselves
out of the depressions which result in suicide, perhaps a greater
contributor to men's well-being would be to reform family courts. Perhaps
it's time to change things so that men going through divorce, child custody
battles, and child support hearings are given a fair shake.

Even in these days of Western feminine liberation there are men who pay
alimony. Why? Women in Western culture have been welcomed into the
workplace. Everyone knows a woman can make her own ends meet if she so
chooses. If, in divorce, the female is absolved from all marital obligations
to her former husband, why should he still be forced to be her breadwinner?


Likewise, child support is no longer about providing for children. It is a
multi-million dollar industry designed to generate revenue for individual
state governments, at least in the United States. Visit any fathers
advocates forum on the Internet and you'll find a variety of horror stories
about child support rulings which deprive a man of his own livelihood, while
his ex-wife maintains custody of the children, denies him visitation, and
has married another man who is also providing for her.

Adding insult to injury, there's even a Yahoo! Group dedicated to informing
women about how to achieve this particular lifestyle. It's called
"Ex-husband Is Now My Slave" and currently has more than 900 members. You
can find it here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ex-husband_is_now_my_slave/.

So if the family court situation is the root cause of so much trouble--and
is creating a world where men take their own lives out of desperation and
women brag about it on the Internet--why, apparently, is nothing being done
to change it?

That answer lies in the media. No matter who you are or where you live,
chances are there is a man in your life, or in your extended family, who has
been through some of the pain and anguish associated with divorce, child
custody, or child support battles. Chances are that the toll of that
situation was much greater on him than his former spouse. In America,
divorce court is routine, and fictionalized accounts of it are even
broadcast on daytime television. Unfortunately for the men involved in
genuine cases, though, the media tends to ignore the courts' consistent
discrimination against them as simple facts of life which cannot (or should
not) be changed.

Miller--he who shot himself on the San Diego Courthouse steps--is the
exception which proves the rule. His case was so dramatic--and public-as a
result of his suicide that the Union Tribune could not ignore it. But what
happens now that his brief story has been told? Will an intrepid reporter
examine the suicide rates of divorced men in San Diego and discover a
pattern? Will said reporter examine the family court system from the inside
out and determine for himself whether justice is routinely served or men
routinely discriminated against?

It's not probable.

Instead, the Union Tribune reporters will do precisely what I did when I
faced a similar story as a police reporter for The Review Appeal in
Franklin, Tenn., in the mid-1990s. They'll simply go on about their
business--writing about budgets, schools, police chases, and criminal
trials--until the next man kills himself on the courthouse steps in similar
dramatic fashion. Then they'll write six more paragraphs about it and move
on again.

That's what good police reporters do.

Sometimes I think back on that bright production day at The Review Appeal. I
remember I was writing a small two-paragraph note for what we called "The
Police Blotter" about someone who had exposed himself (and escaped police)
at a local mall. The radio scanner had been silent all afternoon and, just
two hours before we were to put the paper to bed, I heard two sentences from
a preternaturally calm female voice creep across the airwaves on the
Franklin Police Department's frequency:

"He's on the Square. He's got a gun to his head."

My office chair was probably still spinning as I ran out the door.

Two streets down was Public Square, the Franklin town center where there
were several shops, Franklin City Hall, and the Williamson County
Courthouse. No sooner had I turned the corner where I could see the tall
statue in the Square gleaming against the afternoon sun than I heard the
gunshot, and saw a crowd of police and emergency personnel swarm in upon the
man as his formerly seated body crumpled to the concrete.

While my photographer snapped away at the scene, I talked to witnesses and
police officers. I asked where the man had come from, who he was, and why he
might have committed such an act.

Some faces in the crowd told me they had seen the man walk out of the
courthouse, so while my editor continued to interview witnesses, I went to
see the Williamson County Court Clerk. There, I learned the man's identity
and that he had spent most of the day in divorce court. After apparently
losing his job, his wife, and a battle with depression, he had finally given
up hope.

The article I wrote for the paper the next day contained all the details a
good police reporter includes: who, what, when, where, and some possible
reasons why. I had quotes from the officers who worked the scene as well as
a few notes from the court filings. When I finished writing, I walked
outside and smoked a Marlboro I bummed from someone in the production
department (even though I'm not a smoker). The image of that man with the
gun played over and over in my head, and as I exhaled the stale smoke of the
cigarette from my lungs, I wondered what smoke and gunpowder from a firearm
must taste like at such close range.

Sometimes I think back on that bright production day, and I wonder why I
didn't continue to follow up on that story. I wonder why I felt that
examining that man's case in the cold light of an objective reporter's eye
wasn't worth pursuing. I wonder what I might have found had I been
persistent.

Most of all, though, I wonder if I might not have been able to shed some
light and create change in some small way.

And maybe saved someone else's life.

That's what a good reporter should have done.


more editorials

The intro to the Yahoo Group

A serious and supportive discussion forum for divorced or legally separated
women to discuss how they have used divorce, child support, alimony and the
courts to make their ex-husbands their financial slaves. Also how ex-wives
have used the psychology of divorce to turn their ex-husbands into servants
and slaves for their own amusement and enrichment. A forum for women to
share their success stories in humiliating and bankrupting ex-husbands--and
then moving on, with their ex's money, to better relationships with more
attractive men. Humiliation. Revenge. Female power. Female financial
domination. No doubt about it: For many women, divorce can be the road to
the easy life--and wealth and riches. And the beauty of it all is that it's
all done at the expense of your ex, who now is your financial slave. This
list is about placing your ex in psychological and financial bondage.
Discuss the tactics--and laugh about it--here.

Members as of 1/21/2002 - 935

For comments about articles or other topics please visit the MFDList forum
at www.delphi.com\MFDList

www.matus1976.com