Condoning Paternal Alienation
by Marc H. RudovHorse’s Behind
A few months ago, within the span of one week, a pantyless Britney Spears exposed her bare genitals four times to the paparazzi. In doing so, she violated California Penal Code, Section 314.1, which labels indecent exposure a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment in the state prison or in the county jail, not exceeding one year.
Why did the authorities not arrest or charge Ms. Spears for these willful, lewd acts? Because women, who disingenuously complain about inequality, actually have more privileges and rights than men. Had Kevin Federline, Britney’s ex-husband, behaved in the same manner as the out-of-control mother of his children, does anyone question the severity of prosecution he would have faced? This double standard exists not only in criminal courts but in family courts as well.
Mothers are raising most of the children in this country — the average divorce rate is 50% and average out-of-wedlock birthrate is 37%. According to ABC’s John Stossel, mothers get physical custody 90% of the time. As a result, mothers dictate the attitudes, biases, feelings, morals, behaviors, and lives of American children. Consequently, the influence of their fathers is either anemic or negligible.
Not only do children learn to hate and disrespect their fathers at home, they learn it from TV as well. I’ve written extensively about the pejorative portrayal of men on TV — in sitcoms and countless commercials. The latest offender is Sony Electronics, and its ad agency BBDO, which is promoting its Cyber-Shot camera through a new commercial called “Your dad is not a horse’s behind” (CLICK HERE to view the Sony commercial). Writes AdWeek:
Indeed, it’s a clever and attention-getting way to sell “face detection,” a Sony digital camera feature that ensures faces (not background images) stay in focus. If “face detection” is the brief, we get it, with both a carrot and a stick. Those views of the equine hindquarters stay with you. It’s not subtle, but it sells.
Clever. It sells. Those views of the equine hindquarters stay with you. Unbelievable! Is anybody in America awake? Do people not grasp what’s going on here? The marketing execs at Sony and the creative chiefs at BBDO greenlighted this commercial. They had to say, This is good stuff! And, why do they think it is socially acceptable and “funny” to disrespect fathers? Because the viewers feel that way, too. Most divorced fathers, and many married ones, watching this perverse Sony commercial know that it reflects American attitudes towards them.
Can you imagine, in your wildest of dreams, seeing a spot like this on TV with a mother shown, literally, as a horse’s ass? Don Imus was kicked off radio and TV for offending one team of female college basketball players. Who will pay a similar price for offending tens of millions of fathers?
If Bill O’Reilly would expose misandrist advertisers and sitcoms with the same vigilance he uses to expose lenient judges, we might turn the tide. Otherwise, disrespect for men, unchecked and unchallenged, will beget more of the same.
Children raised in today’s misandrist homes, while witnessing powerful, unfettered public misandry like that in the Sony commercial, will become our next legislators, judges, prosecutors, mayors, governors, presidents, TV and movie executives, newscasters, magazine and newspaper editors, and, worst of all, parents. If you think fathers are irrelevant now, stay tuned.
“Family” Court
All of this father-bashing has been seeping, drip by drip, down the societal funnel into the so-called “family” court, which (no surprise here) favors mothers. It has culminated into an invisible crisis that few want to address — because it affects fathers. This crisis is called parental alienation, or PA. Because fathers are the overwhelming targets of PA, I call it paternal alienation (uncannily, paternal is an anagram of parental, and PA is a diminutive form of father).
PA arises in divorce and custody situations, the result of alienating behaviors by the mother, whereby the relationship between a child and his or her father is severely damaged or destroyed. The typical child affected by paternal alienation exhibits severe opposition to contact with, and/or overt hatred and disrespect of, his or her father. This happens because the mother, on a daily basis, through verbal and nonverbal means, manipulatively drives a wedge between child and father.
Shortsighted Society
On April 27, 2007, I appeared on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor to debate Wendy Murphy, a female-rights advocate and adjunct professor of law at New England School of Law, about Alec Baldwin’s unfortunate, publicly exposed experiences with paternal alienation. Ms. Murphy, not displaying any lawyerly reason or objectivity, couldn’t accuse Alec enough for being the culprit.
In case you don’t know the situation: Out of frustration of repeatedly calling his daughter at prespecified times, each time finding her cellphone turned off, Baldwin finally lost his temper and left an angry message on her voicemail. He called her a pig and accused her of playing her mother’s game. In a spiteful action that ultimately hurt their daughter even more, Kim Basinger, Baldwin’s ex-wife, allegedly released that angry message to TMZ.com.
Soon afterwards, every news organization in the world picked it up and, purporting to care about the 11-year-old girl, played it ad nauseam. They all pilloried Alec Baldwin’s behavior. Bad man. Bad father. Only Bill O’Reilly, host of The O’Reilly Factor, refused to air it because he didn’t want to add to the pain of the Baldwins’ daughter.
Sean Hannity wanted to see Baldwin thrown in jail. Raoul Felder, divorce lawyer to well-heeled women, attempted to vitiate PA as nonexistent pseudoscience. Geraldo Rivera, self-admitted rogue, blamed all divorce and custody problems on men, who always “try to chisel their ex-wives so that they can afford to be with young chicks.”
I’ve seen only five prominent newspeople willing to examine Alec Baldwin’s outburst from his perspective: FNC’s Bill O’Reilly (The O’Reilly Factor), Alan Colmes (Hannity & Colmes), ABC’s Rosie O’Donnell and Barbara Walters (The View), and ABC’s John Stossel (20/20). Why so few? I believe Sony Electronics summed it up pretty well.
In my debate with Wendy Murphy, she railed against Alec Baldwin for not being a “real man,” for not taking personal responsibility for his actions — even though he had and has done that profusely. The vitriol was amazing. Yet, the criticism of Kim Basinger’s role in this was practically nonexistent.
The media presented neither “special programs” on the inner workings of family courts and biases towards mothers, nor acknowledgments of International Parental Alienation Awareness Day (April 25th).
Alec Baldwin’s detractors have criticized him for wanting personal sympathy and not being 100% concerned for his daughter. In other words, his pain and mistreatment are irrelevant. After all, men are not supposed to have feelings or care about them, right? Baldwin’s detractors are wrong: This issue is not all about children; it is about a system that encourages, tolerates, and condones mothers who alienate fathers from their children.
During the flight of any commercial airline, the flight attendants always instruct parents that, during emergencies, they must place oxygen masks on themselves before doing likewise on their children. Why? Because if the parents become incapacitated, they cannot help their children. Similarly, a father alienated from his children is legally, logistically, emotionally, and financially incapacitated, and he cannot help them. But, someone forgot to mention this to lawmakers, judges, and the media.
Paternal alienation exists precisely because all the focus is myopically on children, and THAT is why we will not eradicate it. Remember welfare? It was intended to help the very people it hurt. There’s a lesson here, folks. A shortsighted society is a dangerous society.
Family courts condone ignoring and hurting fathers; by doing so, they are damaging children. If PA were a crime, lots of mothers would be in jail. But, PA is not a crime — because mothers commit it and can manufacture endless excuses for doing so.
The NoNonsense Bottom Line
Because Alec Baldwin is a public figure, America is talking about paternal alienation — at least until the next contestant is eliminated on American Idol. Millions of men suffer the same fate in obscurity, their voices forever unheard. After appearing on The O’Reilly Factor, I received e-mails from men around the world in situations similar to Baldwin’s.
Why did Alec Baldwin lose control? I don’t know him personally and cannot comment as a friend familiar with all the facts. But, I can look at the situation that he, like so many other fathers, faces. I can examine the options of any man who experiences PA:
- He cannot talk to his ex-wife, either because she is his enemy or the court orders him not to contact her, or both
- He cannot complain to the court, because the judge doesn’t acknowledge PA and doesn’t care about fathers
- He cannot talk to his daughter, because she has become a hateful, disrespectful clone of her mother.
What happens to a father in this predicament is that he becomes so sad and depressed and feels so helpless and hopeless that he eventually explodes — and the masses call him irresponsible and selfish. These are the same people who give a pass to a mother who publicly flashes her vagina.
If mothers were experiencing PA, every news organization would be blaming men, and the problem would be solved tomorrow. There would be a federal law against it. But, because it is happening to fathers — America’s horses’ asses — nobody cares. And, children, whom everyone claims to love, are the biggest losers.
About the Author
Marc H. Rudov is an internationally recognized author of 50+ articles and the books Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables (ISBN 9780974501727), and The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet Earth (ISBN 0974501719).
Rudov’s books, articles, blog, and podcasts are available at TheNoNonsenseMan.com.
Copyright © 2007 by Marc H. Rudov. All rights reserved.