[Luis Dias]

It might. There are two propositions in apparent contradiction in here, but I think both propositions can both be true. That is, that women in the *same* position have the same wages as men in the *same* position (and working in the same hours and so on), and that women are being left behind in promotions and so on, effectively creating a wage gap in the workforce between the genders that wouldn't exist if some sort of discrimination wasn't being taking place. These are not contradictory statements .

I'm deeply skeptical of both this "gap" being huge and this gap being nonexistent due to that naive argument of "If women were indeed being left behind in wages, wouldn't they be paid more?" which is an incredibly naive statement about reality. If the system favours men in promotions, then these men will get better and better CVs than their female counterparts, a bias will be effectively created, and all managers will without a doubt look at these CVs rather than the "years" of work of certain people. It might even create the ironical paradox of increasing the bias by managers looking at women's CVs and asking them (or just thinking) "why haven't you been promoted for so long in your previous? Perhaps you were probably not as good as the men I have in my list here".

Lots to entangle here, and perhaps a good look at studies here could be of a good help.

[SkycladGuardian]

The "wage gap" is hard to prove IMO, because at first you have to account for all other possible reasons for different wages before considering simple discrimination.
This WSJ article lists some factors that come into play, which reduce the gap significantly.

[Luis Dias]

I know there are a lot of factors involved, and I mentioned the possibility of one of them. You haven't addressed them, and I am quite sure that a study regarding this delaying effect on women's promotion would be the only way to forward this discussion on this particular topic but I have literally no time (shutting down the computer as I speak) to find this out.

[SkycladGuardian]

One reason for a promotion delay could be that many women (not all, of course) do not aim at a high career, since striving for a position in higher management, for instance, requires a substantial cut back in freely available time. Few women tend to find such a lifestyle focused on career desirable, and even men do more often question the benefits of such a way of life.
This is actually a problem in Japan, as their economy is based on male middle class white collar workers working themselves to death (quite literally sometimes), but now more and more younger men refuse to follow their fathers. Combined with an extremely low birth rate and a not so open immigration policy, the Japanese economy may run out of workers. The government tries to counter this trend with encouranging women to enter the workforce, which, however may end up in an even lower birthrate, if more and more women prefer full-time career to family...
   

[karajorma]

Yeah but why do women not strive for a positions in higher management? Aren't there are social reasons for that which have to do with gender roles?

Thing is though, the cause of the gap is largely irrelevant to this discussion. The wage gap is something that feminists acknowledge as being a real thing. Yet when it's a men's right issue, the custody gap, suddenly we don't hear about it.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Yet when it's a men's right issue, the custody gap, suddenly we don't hear about it.

That would be because when men ask for custody, they get custody in the majority of cases. In fact:

In general, our evidence suggests that the courts hold higher standards for mothers than fathers in custody determinations.

It's only a "men's rights issue" according to MRAs.

[666maslo666]

That would be because when men ask for custody, they get custody in the majority of cases.

This does not really rule out gender discrimination against men, because the number (over 70%) includes joint custody too. Youd need to compare it to % of women getting custody to uncover the truth, which is written not in the article. Why do a third of men who seek custody not get it?

Anyway, even then it is kind of similar to wage gap because wage gap is also in part due to women choosing not to seek better paying jobs, not any actual discrimination. The same could be true with men in custody battles. So either both are an issue, or neither is.


Also, your source is kind of suspect. It rambles on and on about female issues but there is very little about male issues in there. Even tough sentencing gap or possibly prison rape is one of the most acute ones and lie directly in the area they were supposed to study. It looks biased, as if gender issues = female issues only.

[Luis Dias]

I have to agree with 666 on this one. The article is biased, and the mere fact that it prints the 70% number but not the counter value makes me suspect at its motives for doing so. I'd bet that the woman number on that one is 95% +, but if that number was printed then the sexist bias in all of this would be all too apparent.

What Admiral Ralwood is also missing is when he speaks about fathers getting custody when they press it. Well, that is probably merely because fathers only press it when they are absolutely sure they themselves are worthy of this custody (or that the woman is definitely not worth it) and can win the case. This of course creates the perception of a "bias" in these particular cases, where perhaps it's the other way around. When fathers are not this sure, they don't press this, precisely because of the aforementioned perception laid out in the article itself about gender biases in these decisions. I have been first witness of this bias myself several times. Yes, fathers do not press too much, because they know they won't get it, and because they prefer to not waste money in lawyers rather than in their lives (now in shambles) and their children.


Oh and 1990? For ****s sake man, this **** is 24 years old now.

[karajorma]

It's only a "men's rights issue" according to MRAs.

Again, this is the kind of **** that doesn't fly when a feminist does it. If someone tries to claim that the wage gap is only a "woman's right issue" because of militant feminists people (quite rightly) go up the wall. People (again quite rightly) point out that RadFem isn't what feminism is or should be.

But when someone tries to make the exact same claim about custody rights people try to say that this makes you one of those misogynistic MRA members.

[AdmiralRalwood]

That would be because when men ask for custody, they get custody in the majority of cases.

This does not really rule out gender discrimination against men, because the number (over 70%) includes joint custody too. Youd need to compare it to % of women getting custody to uncover the truth, which is written not in the article. Why do a third of men who seek custody not get it?

Hey, way to not read the article at all.

The statewide sample of attorneys who responded to the family law survey had collectively represented fathers seeking custody in over 2,100 cases in the last 5 years. n54 They reported that the fathers obtained primary physical custody in 29% of the cases, and joint physical custody in an additional 65% of the cases. Thus, when fathers actively sought physical custody, mothers obtained primary physical custody in only 7% of cases. The attorneys reported that the fathers had been primary caretakers in 29% of the cases in which they had sought custody.

Oh and 1990? For ****s sake man, this **** is 24 years old now.

By all means, provide any evidence to counter it.

[Luis Dias]

Hey, way to not read the article at all.

The statewide sample of attorneys who responded to the family law survey had collectively represented fathers seeking custody in over 2,100 cases in the last 5 years. n54 They reported that the fathers obtained primary physical custody in 29% of the cases, and joint physical custody in an additional 65% of the cases. Thus, when fathers actively sought physical custody, mothers obtained primary physical custody in only 7% of cases. The attorneys reported that the fathers had been primary caretakers in 29% of the cases in which they had sought custody.

Again, this fails to address the wider systemic bias that I pointed out above and it is not the answer on the apples to apples comparison when they mention men having in general 70% of custody. Yes, you have demonstrated that in one state inside the US in 1990, when fathers *actively* go after custody they were favored against women until at least 1990. You also demonstrated that in general, *women* have most custodies. The very article itself points out that the perception that women are favoured in these cases played a role against men *actively* seeking custody, which is an inevitable source of bias on the final result.

This was already pointed out by our comments but you decided to ignore them outright.

Oh and 1990? For ****s sake man, this **** is 24 years old now.

By all means, provide any evidence to counter it.

You talk a lot about "evidence". You provided "evidence" of a particular situation in one particular state of a particular country until 1990, and we have demonstrated that even in this picked evidence of yours the stats are not generally favorable to men. You continue to either reject or ignore that there is a systemic bias against men having custody, perhaps due to some unmentioned assumptions on your part, namely that fathers "don't care as much" as women to have the custody of their children, or some other unmentioned assumption. The thing that Karajorma tried to say here was that this is as much a systemic social bias as the feminists claim there is in the jobs market (promotions and so on). I find it suspicious that in one case, a strict view on limited statistics like what you are doing here is the relevant statistic, while in the other it is the general one that is relevant. This is not intellectually honest.

[AdmiralRalwood]

You talk a lot about "evidence".

And you have provided a grand total of... wait for it... no evidence to support anything you just said.

[karajorma]

I'm going to call shenanigans on this one. A search for the term "custody statistics" turned up pretty much ONLY that review and several websites who I consider somewhat dubious refuting it.

Why is this review turning up so often that it is the first result on any search on the subject? Why did the other websites I found who didn't quote the review directly also include that 70% statistic? Why is it so popular that it crowds out any other research?

I really can't think of any reason that isn't inherently sexist in and of itself.

[MP-Ryan]

Before we go too far down this rabbit hole, can I just point out that it is virtually impossible to do a broad analysis of child custody statistics because the legal code around custody differs significantly from region to region, as do the general demographics that lead to custody disputes?  It's quite simply a bad issue to use as an example.  Not only is it rarely unified legally by country (in federal systems, family court matters are delegated to the provincial/state authorities), but it's rarely unified procedurally by court region.  Moreover, there is no unified reporting system of child custody decisions, so any sample is going to be based on the methods used to procure it, which inevitably WILL lead to selection bias; something you can try to get around with sufficiently large sample size, but which again runs into the problem of varied legal landscapes.  It's a minefield for proper research.

The methodology in the article Ralwood listed is flawed on its face:

statewide sample of attorneys who responded to the family law survey

Plus, it's - for all the reasons above - only representative of that state if it is indeed representative of anything at all.

As for the wage gap, once upon a time I have personally read several studies which, even after accounting for personal choices and other complex variables, still found a wage gap for particular skillsets predictable solely by gender.  The conclusions, as I recall, were primarily that (at least in first-world democracies) this is not a result of intentional wage scale differences, but rather women often taking on tasks beyond what their position entailed without seeking or receiving appropriate promotion to a wage level for those tasks; men are much better at advocating for themselves to receive raises than women, and women are more frequently perceived as less competent than their male colleagues who perform exactly the same functions with the same outcomes.

I don't have them bookmarked, but I know for a fact they are somewhere in the references section of a couple sociology textbooks buried at the bottom of a massive box in my basement.  If anyone wants to come find them they're welcome to do so

In the absence of a volunteer archivist / cleaning staff, here's a 9-year-old peer-reviewed meta analysis from the Journal of Economic Surveys (which I have never heard of) that looks decent at first glance: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0950-0804.2005.00256.x/abstract;jsessionid=5BAF94750F2C555E57577B92DDABF9D7.f01t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

[Luis Dias]

You talk a lot about "evidence".

And you have provided a grand total of... wait for it... no evidence to support anything you just said.

The fact that your evidence is biased and incomplete does not need any more evidence than the link you just put. Your continuous ignoring / dismissal of every single crtiticism we are throwing here is duly noted as well.

[karajorma]

Before we go too far down this rabbit hole, can I just point out that it is virtually impossible to do a broad analysis of child custody statistics because the legal code around custody differs significantly from region to region, as do the general demographics that lead to custody disputes?  It's quite simply a bad issue to use as an example.  Not only is it rarely unified legally by country (in federal systems, family court matters are delegated to the provincial/state authorities), but it's rarely unified procedurally by court region.  Moreover, there is no unified reporting system of child custody decisions, so any sample is going to be based on the methods used to procure it, which inevitably WILL lead to selection bias; something you can try to get around with sufficiently large sample size, but which again runs into the problem of varied legal landscapes.  It's a minefield for proper research.

Yet another reason why I'm so suspicious of the prevalence of the review Ralwood posted.

In the end it comes down to this, is there anyone on this forum who believes that men get sole custody 50% of the time when only one parent gets custody or get joint custody an equal amount to women? If not, how else can you possibly explain the discrepancy except for an inherent, societal bias that leads to men being less willing to push the issue? Is anyone really going to argue that men love their children less?

[swashmebuckle]

There could also be legit brain differences that would cause men to disproportionately allow women to obtain sole custody (which doesn't mean they don't get visitation rights or anything if I understand correctly). That wouldn't mean they love their kids any less, it would just mean that dudes who were predisposed to impregnate very dedicated women and then hang out on the periphery and pay child support or whatever were evolutionarily successful at some point in the past.

Of course, you can make the same argument in support of the wage gap not being a purely social construct so it's kind of useless but it does go to show that it's hard to pin down any root cause to what ails us societally.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must impregnate your female relations and then pretty much let them handle it from there.

[AdmiralRalwood]

I'm going to call shenanigans on this one. A search for the term "custody statistics" turned up pretty much ONLY that review and several websites who I consider somewhat dubious refuting it.

Why is this review turning up so often that it is the first result on any search on the subject? Why did the other websites I found who didn't quote the review directly also include that 70% statistic? Why is it so popular that it crowds out any other research?

I really can't think of any reason that isn't inherently sexist in and of itself.

So, to boil it down, you can't find any evidence to support the contention that men are discriminated against in custody cases. Good to know.

The methodology in the article Ralwood listed is flawed on its face:

statewide sample of attorneys who responded to the family law survey

...Yes, surveys are, by nature, limited to those who respond. You don't seem to be advancing an argument for why those who did not respond would be disproportionately those that would prove a systemic bias against male parents, so... relevance?

You talk a lot about "evidence".

And you have provided a grand total of... wait for it... no evidence to support anything you just said.

The fact that your evidence is biased and incomplete does not need any more evidence than the link you just put.

"I don't need evidence because I say so" is not a good-faith argument.

Your continuous ignoring / dismissal of every single crtiticism we are throwing here is duly noted as well.

Asserting something does not make it so; since you haven't provided any evidence to support your "criticisms", the only assumption I can come to is that you can't be bothered to find any. Why should I waste my time responding when you can't be bothered to actually prove your point?

[MP-Ryan]

The methodology in the article Ralwood listed is flawed on its face:

statewide sample of attorneys who responded to the family law survey

...Yes, surveys are, by nature, limited to those who respond. You don't seem to be advancing an argument for why those who did not respond would be disproportionately those that would prove a systemic bias against male parents, so... relevance?

I'm advancing an argument that people should drop the child custody issues as an example of sexism at work - in either direction - because it is nigh-impossible to get meaningful data.

Part of that exercise is to point out that the methodology of a study that relies entirely on voluntary responses - particularly of people with an intimate part in the system under study and who stand to benefit from particular conclusions in one way or another - is inherently flawed as it relies on a sample that is inherently biased.  You cannot draw broad-based conclusions about any phenomena, nevermind social phenomena, from data with a voluntary sample set from a limited jurisdiction that is not demographically representative of the whole system about which you want to draw conclusions.

I'm not saying that study is meaningless to draw the conclusions you are drawing from it; I'm saying it's meaningless to draw any conclusions from it other than concern the experiences of 2100 lawyers in child custody cases from a single American state that took the time to respond to a voluntary survey.  Depending on the number of lawyers that hand child custody cases in that state (unknown at the moment, as it's not looked at in the study) it *might* be representative of the child custody realm in that state, but that's only if it comprises a large or representative sample of those lawyers, which is by no means assured.

And before anyone says "well, you can't prove it's not," allow me to gently remind people that that's not how science - even social science - works.  The onus is on the person conducting the analysis and drawing conclusions - in this case the researchers involved - to make a convincing case that their sample is representative and valid.  Similarly, if someone wants to use that study to make any kind of broader conclusion, the onus is then on that person to make a convincing case that the sample in the study is therefore representative of the population about which they wish to draw conclusions.

EDIT:  Before I'm too harsh, however:

METHODOLOGY

Data were gathered from several sources, using different methodologies. We sent surveys including specific questions about child custody to family law attorneys, to the general attorney sample, and to probate judges. We convened three focus groups of family law attorneys and four of family service officers, in different parts of the state; participants discussed a variety of child custody matters. Two general attorney listening sessions also raised some child custody issues. We organized five regional litigant meetings, three for women and two for men; child custody issues were raised by several participants. We reviewed public hearing testimony and written material submitted to the Study that dealt with child custody. Finally, we examined relevant research and reports done by other individuals and groups both inside and outside Massachusetts.

Given the context in which this report was produced - to examine potential gender bias in the legal system of the state of Massachusetts specifically - this isn't a terrible methodology, and it does seem to attempt to be all-encompassing of the legal issues in that system.  However, this further emphasizes my original point - this is not an objective study of the child custody situation in the democratic world about which we can draw conclusions concerning the presence or absence of sexism in the system as a whole.  It's a policy piece, with a policy objective, from one particular state.  Indeed, the methodology is constructed such that you absolutely cannot use it to draw conclusions outside the system it is studying because it is so specific to that legal community.


TL;DR - Study is useless to make a point outside of the state of Massachusetts circa 1990, prior to a number of systemic legal reforms in that state alone.

[karajorma]

Isn't the evidence on the wage gap similarly flawed though? I'm not arguing it is, I'm simply asking.

I'm going to call shenanigans on this one. A search for the term "custody statistics" turned up pretty much ONLY that review and several websites who I consider somewhat dubious refuting it.

Why is this review turning up so often that it is the first result on any search on the subject? Why did the other websites I found who didn't quote the review directly also include that 70% statistic? Why is it so popular that it crowds out any other research?

I really can't think of any reason that isn't inherently sexist in and of itself.

So, to boil it down, you can't find any evidence to support the contention that men are discriminated against in custody cases. Good to know.

As MP-Ryan has so eloquently pointed out, you haven't exactly found any evidence that men aren't discriminated against despite what you may think.

I'm advancing an argument that people should drop the child custody issues as an example of sexism at work - in either direction - because it is nigh-impossible to get meaningful data.

Nigh-impossible because no one has collected meaningful data. Which then leads to the question, why has no one collected meaningful data on the subject? It's obviously a matter of some importance.