Response to: Still Unsettled Issues Around Divorcing while Pregnant from NYMOM

This is my response to NYMOM's blog post that can be found here: http://womenasmothers.blogspot.com/2011/10/still-unsettled-issues-around-divorcing.html

In it, she reveals the selfish, illogical, and enraged viewpoint of any woman who adopts "feminist" issues.  (Noting that feminism isn't about "equality" so much as about the world existing to please women at everyone else's expense.)   She doesn't welcome me in her blog (which is her right) but simultaneously she isn't getting much traffic.  I welcome her and her readers to comment and post on my blog and respond. 

For starters, she gripes that "men, always looking for an excuse to dodge their responsibilities anyway, to take advantage of this loophole to divorce pregnant women" even as her blog spends a great deal of time griping that women can't get rid of men who try to take away "her" children.  In other words, the children are "hers" as property or chattel while the man should stick around and pay for them.  For some reason, she can't find a world where men do everything while simultaneously wanting nothing in return.  This may explain why the few women who find her blog have so many problems in relationships with men.  Seriously.

Indeed, she is correct that women are vulnerable while pregnant which is why it's perhaps a good idea for women to treat their 1950's breadwinning men with respect and consideration they deserve.  The fundamental problem with "feminism" (which she rejects as a label) is that the women like buddying up with a dragon and then cry for the white knight to come to her rescue when it gets a bit rough and that isn't working out for them.

She is correct that many attorney's will recommend men protect and even hide their assets upon divorce, but the same certainly can be said for women who do so.   On the other hand, women are often advised to make false claims of Domestic Violence or child-abuse or worse as a ploy to get custody and the upper hand in a divorce.  Many women who are victims of rape and DV have had cases against their accusers dismissed because juries have heard and seen women do this enough times that they have to raise the benefit of a doubt and free the accused.  Good going ladies!  Enjoy the blood money! 

Of course, there is no reason for a woman to feel "taken advantage of" in a divorce where the man earns more money and leaves her.  She is perfectly free to marry down and then share her wealth with him in a divorce.  Hehehe.  Like THAT will happen!  So again, NYMOM's selfish view of the world reveals itself: Get everything you can and then gripe when there's nothing left.  Which leads to the observation that so many of her comments and articles are filled with women unable to find those evil traditional 1950's breadwinners that they took for granted.  Either there's fewer of them or they are don't feel a need to blow their (very hard earned) dollars supporting ungrateful, griping women.

So if going through a divorce where the evil guy has the nerve to take his money and move elsewhere, imagine being a single mother from the start.  Sure, some of them are well-to-do as NYMOM points out but she also observed that most are not doing well.  Men: Can't live with them, can't live very long without 'em!  As time marches forward, the failure of the matriarchy both in making women happier than the 1950's and the horrors society experiences at the hands of young men produced by unwed mother households is making NYMOM and other feminist ideals obsolete.  Sure, a woman can get a nose and cheek piercing and post a comment to her blog after watching Sex and the City saying "I don't need men!", but the rest want to have REAL lives and families and enjoy lives where they aren't worrying every month about paying the rent.  So much for Having It All!

Let's pause and reflect upon her gripe that men might divorce their pregnant wives and, gasp, not pay her "child" support for _her_ child!  What if it isn't his child?  A secret hospital paternity study showed that a significant percentage of children born to married couples are not the fathers' while a child born inside a marriage is his by default.  So him divorcing might be the only way to protect himself from paying for her infidelity.  I can only imagine the ruckus if NYMOM read about a WOMAN or a MOTHER being force to, gasp, pay for SOME OTHER WOMAN'S child because a judge ordered her to pay for a man's child from a mistress.

In addition, the argument that men need to "pay" because the government "has to assume" responsibility for her child demonstrates that single motherhood doesn't work.  SOMEONE has to take care of her, like a child, lest a child suffer in her care.  So even as she jabbers on about how society isn't appreciating mothers as much as they used to while they fix smashed car windshields due to some unwed mother's brood partying that night on the welfare dollar, she doesn't  have much confidence in their mothering talents either.  I know several working class men who got custody of their children because the courts simply couldn't ignore the horrible behaviors of the mothers and these men, without "child" support from the mother, did a great job of raising their children to be responsible, taxpaying citizens.  The reason?  It's obvious: BY EXAMPLE! 

NYMOM, there are two sides to every story and you'll get more comments if you have both sides.  If you want an empty blog, enjoy.  I WELCOME comments here (provided they don't do anything obviously out of bounds.)

Cheers,
PK

Is this format the new soc.men?

Hello to everyone including fellow bloggers at glennsacks, spectator.org, womenasmothers, and especially soc.men!

After 2 decades of posting at soc.men, I realize that the Usenet medium is nearly dead (at least for social and political commentary).  It's not due to a failure on it's design but rather the popularity of browsers and blogger commentaries and the inability and lack of necessity for "newbies" to use, or "Use" it.  In the old days, it was Usenet or Email and if you had an account on either, you were in a really cool club.  Ok, I still think it's a pretty cool club but sadly, we need new blood.  So that's why I'm starting this.  Before we move forward, it would be useful to understand what made soc.men great in the past and incorporate some of those principles:

1) Men's issues are "cool".   Even as hecklers and trolls would wander on in to poke fun at us, they would be drawn in by their own epiphanies and personal realizations that they hadn't previously considered.  Usenet was like one big cocktail party where people gossiped but at soc.men, sacred cows were ground up.

2) Men's issues are at the core of nearly everything else and by the same token, every other issue is intimately connected with men's rights.  Socialism is one of the biggies (because socialism is a big issue) but also even environmentalism, race, crime, and technological progress.  If you have an axe to grind or pet peeve, you'll probably wind up here.  It's just a matter of getting them to come around.  Since Usenet is dying (for this purpose), we have to move on.

3) Men's issues hit people at a personal level and sometimes it went badly but it also reminded us of our personal commitment to our principles and contributions to society. Back then, people's vitriol was constrained by the anonymity of the net of the time.  Moving forward, we'll have to have some guidelines in place but the important thing is that we're a community and men are the backbone of it.  The spirit of the community is: "Keep it above the belt".  Keep personal attacks and observations relevant to the issue and, well, legal.  That leads us to:

4) Usenet didn't require much moderation and moderated groups failed either due to lack of traffic, moderator bias, or failure for moderators to keep up with the workload.  Also, spam hadn't really taken off yet.  For starters, I'm going to keep things pretty open with warnings going out to posters who are clearly out to harass the group or post embarrassing stuff but even so, I think it's important we not be constrained by political correctness.  I hope that the technological innovations of blogging allows us to improve on what USENET started.

5) Usenet is a linked forum.  I don't want this to be just my blog.  Let's all start our own and link to each other.  In fact, I think we should all do that. 

For years, I had a lot of fun "riding" on other people's forums and discussion threads.  Now, I'm hosting them.  I am humbled and excited to see what happens!