Dr. Helen,
I have personally experienced the humiliation of being falsely accused. My wife had access to the money, she took it ALL and left me nothing for my own defense. She lied to the police, perjured herself in court, obtained an OOP with zero evidence, etc., etc., etc. Men are presumed to be guilty by police, prosecutors, attorneys and judges alike.
She had no evidence. She did not have to pay for an attorney. As she’d taken ALL the money, I had no money for an attorney. Because I made “too much money” (irrespective of the fact that she’d taken every cent in all our bank accounts) I was not permitted the benefit of legal counsel.
My civil and constitutional rights were trampled on, I was jailed, my reputation was ruined with family, friends, and colleagues. All on her word, with ZERO evidence to support either the (very flimsy) charges or the conviction that followed. Due to the conviction, my second amendment rights have been taken away permanently (I have never owned a firearm of any kind, fyi.)
Despite all this, I am still married to the same woman! Those days are (very thankfully) more than 10 years gone. We have both come to terms with the roles each of us played in the drama. It may be cynical of me to say/write, but the only people getting rich out of the system are the lawyers and advocacy groups.
I believe there are some good reasons you have not considered as to why men “don’t show up”:
1.) Men have to work to support their families. We have much less time available (in general) than our significant other who is not working outside the home to be at these things.
2.) There is a cultural backlash with men, i.e., men don’t cry, men don’t air their dirty laundry to the world, etc. along those lines.
3.) Advocacy organizations are kept informed by paid lobbyists (for lack of a better word) whose very job it is to inform their constituency (that is, their bread and butter) of the issues. These “lobbyists” raise the ire in them either by outright lies or manipulation of the facts and issues that are involved.
It is an uphill struggle for men, especially white males (witness the Duke rape case, as you also have mentioned.) The laws as written contravene both human nature and the constitutional and civil rights of men.
I applaud your reasoned and reasoning responses to the injustice you perceive in these men’s issues. Please continue to speak out on behalf of those men who are being victimised (I hate to use that word, it’s offensive to me to be considered to be a victim) by a rotten, unfair system that has a deliberately tilted paying field. (yes, I did mean “paying”, not “playing” field…) The tendency of our legislators to punish the ignorance, sin and crimes of the past by preying on unprotected classes of citizens must stop. Man or woman (other genders), black, white, yellow, small, tall, famous or infamous, the promise of America is that all who come here (and all that are ALREADY here!) will receive justice from our judicial system. Let us all continue to work to make that promise a reality for EVERY PERSON.
Dad in IL
