Civil Rights Activists

"If an employer had to pay a man one dollar for the same work a woman could do for 59 cents, why would anyone hire a man?"

"No force is more powerful -- or more multiple -- than the family."

"Perhaps the biggest appreciation adjustment we need is toward the millions of men and women we call stepparents. We have taken for granted especially the stepparents who are raising no children of their own, and receiving no income from a significant other, but who have nevertheless chosen to invest love, time and money in children."

"If we are to inspire men to father it also helps to stop reflexively condemning men as afraid of commitment and address what they are afraid of. –page246."

"The motto for the evolved boy is “When the going gets tough, tune in to know when to tough it out.”"

"Suicides increase as the pressures of the male role and hormones increase. Before puberty, the suicide rates among males and female are about equal. However, between ten and fourteen, boys commit suicide at almost twice the rate of girls."

"Helping women achieve higher pay is a core goal of this book."

"Self-help books for those who believe You can have it all often advise, Follow your bliss and money will follow. With the collapse of the stock markets the reality of trade-offs is more like, When you follow your bliss, it’s money you’ll miss."

"People Who Get Higher Pay Require Less Security. ITEM. It's 2004. I am presenting Why Men Earn More to the sales and marketing teams of my publisher (AMACOM). To illustrate financial risk as one of the ways to higher pay, I ask everyone in the room who is paid by commission to stand up. Eight men stand; no women. I then ask those paid by salary to stand: About equal numbers of men and women stand."

"There is virtually no funding to study the validity of the more muted complaints of men: to study when a false accusation is being used as a weapon to keep the children from dad; or when the child is being bad-mouthed by the other parent; or when access to the child is being prevented; or when statistics about deadbeat dads are including men who are dead, unemployed, or denied their children; or when men are victims of domestic violence."

"The one-sided funding creates one-sided images that reinforce the press defining as progress an examination of only women’s issues. Thus, a quarter century’s-worth of studies showing domestic violence against men to be more than equal to domestic violence against women receive so little publicity as to barely make a dent on the public’s consciousness."

"The feminist-only funding leads to studies that misinform the nation that a divorced mother is economically more hurt than a divorced man, so judges feel a mandate to make his future income hers, and legislatures feel fine about refusing to make his mother subsidy payments tax deductible even as she pays no taxes on the money received. And all this perpetuates the belief that he earns more money...."

"From these biased studies come biased social policy. Hundreds of millions of dollars to enforce sanctions against fathers who don’t pay mothers; almost nothing to enforce sanctions against mothers who don’t allow fathers to see children."

"Shifting our attitudes about the future of fathers requires shifting our attitudes about the way our fathers loved. Recognizing that the rigid roles of the past were not designed by men to serve only men is not unrelated to shifting our attitudes toward dad."

"We cannot think of dads as being nurturing if we think of men as being self-serving."

"In brief, part of the need for funding comes from the need to create balance to a third of a century of funding an “attitude” toward men. And part comes from the need to study how both sexes can make a transition from those rigid roles to more flexible roads with a clear enough road map to not go over too many cliffs along the way..."

"A paucity of funding from private and government sources would be much less a problem if billions of dollars each year were not funding feminist perspectives on men. This funding leads to Women’s Studies without Men’s Studies; to studies about deadbeat dads, but not dead broke or dead-ended dads -- or moms who deny dads access to children, or make false accusations to obtain children."

"Men goeth to that place from which appreciation cometh."

"The challenge is shifting our appreciation: being willing to give up some of dad’s money for more of dad’s love. And, in the process, altering the psyche that makes him lovable."

"If we both ignore the unique contribution of “male-style” parenting and jail a man who responsibly contributes it, fatherhood becomes another hazardous occupation. More precisely, it becomes the largest 100%-male hazardous occupation. And in the process, our children lose one of the greatest potential gifts of Stage II -- genuine fatherhood. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are ways of creating a father and child reunion...."

"Technology is dad-at-home friendly. It allows the family to be more creative and role flexible than it ever has in the past without being poor in the process."

"The worst form anger can take is that of a parent who feels her or his chance for “winning my child” is enhanced by “ruining my ex.” The law has given the most vindictive parent an invitation to play the “abuse” card. This is the “Great Temptation.”"

"Many women are discovering that the motherhood instinct implies a responsibility to be certain children have dads -- everyday, not far away; and some are aware that economic independence requires not holding on to her child as if it were her job."

"There is little life where no one will listen. These are fathers, sons and families who are needlessly lost."

"When women entered the workplace, many men were mentors to them and, in turn, also learned to respect women’s unique contributions (for example, their listening and facilitative skills). Now, as we give men responsibilities to care for children, women must be among the mentors, and we must also learn to respect men’s unique contributions."

"“Visitation” reflects the era of the absentee father; “parent time” influences the re-emergence of the involved father. “Visitation” reflects the destruction of the family; “parent time” influences the reconstruction of the family. “Parent time” influences an era that understands that as either parents loses, so lose the children."

"When a parent denies a child its “parent time,” that parent is denying the child its child support -- its psychological child support."

"When we speak of mom winning custody or of dad getting visitation time, we speak of someone winning, someone losing. When we speak of mom or dad spending “parent time” with a child, we speak of two parents, not a parent versus a visitor."

"After a divorce, men’s biggest fear is, typically, losing their children (women’s is poverty)."

"Raising children was not designed for single parents. (Which is why divorce was such a taboo prior to birth control.)"

"If we penalize mothers for denial of “visitation time” we must also penalize fathers who don’t show up for “visitation time.” The issue is not fathers’ rights to visitation time, but both parents obligations to their children. The issue is how to make both parents real parents despite what parenting was never designed to deal with -- divorce."

"From a woman’s perspective, sharing parent time feels like what a man might experience if his ex-wife came to his office and shared his career. He might claim the sharing is not in the best interests of the employer. But what he really would be caring about is the affront should his ex-wife do as good as he at his own job. While the fear is understandable, the difference is that his career is his, their children are theirs."

"Our children are better served by speaking not of “visitation” versus “custody,” but of “parent time.”"

"In brief, she is the partner to what primarily he creates; he is the visitor to what primarily she creates. To me, this wasn’t equality."

"As feminism made this transition from equal opportunity to unequal opportunism, I made my transition from supporter to critic. But in my inner psyche, there was no transition: I went from supporter of equality to supporter of equality."

"The irony of primary parent laws is that on the one hand feminists were arguing for women’s equal rights to jointly-created career assets that emanated from the male financial womb, but arguing against men’s equal rights to jointly-created children that emanated from the woman’s child-bearing womb."

"In brief, when a man fails as a wallet, we put him in prison; when a woman fails as a mother, we offer her social services. We’re taking a criminal approach to men, a social services approach to women."

"Most mothers want more of dad in their children’s lives, not less."

"If Women Have An Equal EMPLOYMENT Opportunity Commission, Why Don’t Men Have An Equal FAMILY Opportunity Commission?"

"Part of our evolutionary heritage is the ability to adapt -- species that survive, adapt. Humans adapt by altering their priorities to match evolving values."

"Men for whom divorce means walking out of their children’s lives except when they choose to see the children are the male equivalent of the adolescent feminists: men who want options without obligations. Morally, they have no right to walk out. A law that allows that is similarly immoral. “Primary Parent” laws are just such laws."

"Feminists often discuss women having two jobs: work and children. True. But no one discusses those divorced and remarried men who have three jobs: work, and two sets of children to nurture and financially support."

"We need to fund relationship language in our schools so that future parents will know how to communicate about whether they want children; to communicate with the children they have, and teach their children how to communicate with the world. Technical progress without social skills is a Tower of Babel."

"I soon saw that feminists who supported the “Primary Parent Theory” were not in favor of equality of opportunity, but of unequal opportunism."

"Social policy that reunites father and child must always confront itself with the question, “Are we paying dads to stay, or to go away?” If a single mother receives more money when the father isn’t around than when he is around, there will be fewer fathers around. The government will become her substitute husband."

"The traditional male hero is about self-sacrifice, not self-actualization."

"We think of the division of labor as being outdated, but in fact it has reemerged. In the early ‘80s, a mother was 43 times more likely than the father to leave the workplace for family responsibilities; more recently, a mom is 135 times more likely to leave the workplace for family responsibilities."

"Women are socialized to take advantage of four informal options for emotional support: husbands; womenfriends; children; and parents. Men are socialized to take advantage of only one of these informal options: their wife or womanfriend."

"A mother’s traditional role prepared her to love her family by being with the family she loved."

"Because men complained less, we made the false assumption that the complaints women experienced were only women’s complaints and, therefore, only women’s problems. Which created the rationale for women’s problems to be solved – or at least addressed – by public policy."