NOTE: A correction is appended to this story.
MONTREAL - The comments made by the fathers and other men that populate the chat rooms of Antimisandry.com
are angry. Misandry is the hatred of men by women and there are dozens
of websites like this one in what sometimes gets called the
"manosphere," dedicated to the idea that men's civil rights - often
fathers' rights - are under attack by feminists and the courts.
The
topics of discussion on these sites vary; anything from the latest news
reports of women killing or abusing their children, to women who
complain about sexual harassment in the workplace (such as the recent
class-action lawsuit filed by former and current female RCMP members)
and how false rape accusations are an "industry." One recent message
thread discusses how the Elizabeth Fry Society, an organization that
offers services to female offenders in the correctional system, receives
funding from the federal government; the writer wrongly assumes that
the male equivalent John Howard Society does not. Feminists and
ex-spouses are referred to as "bitches," and the men who support them
are routinely disparaged.
Lately, some of these chat rooms have
turned their attention to the deaths of Jocelyn Marcoux, 47 - who had
been locked in a bitter custody battle with his partner - and his two
children, Lindsey, 13, and Karen, 11. The three bodies were found in the
burnt-out shell of a garage behind the family home in Warwick, 150
kilometres from Montreal, on July 10, in what police suspect was a
double homicide and suicide. Autopsy results have not been released and
officials are waiting on the coroner's final report.
Since the
deaths, angry reaction on the message boards has not been directed at
Marcoux for the most part, but at the family courts.
"Funny, how
the system constantly backs men into a corner. And then acts shocked
when one loses his grip on reality and good judgment," writes Raven01 in
one message thread. "Had this man felt he had even a reasonable chance
of being dealt with honestly and fairly in a family court what are the
chances he would have even considered this irrational act?"
"This
guy was smart enough to see that his status as a sperm donor and
financier to his ex to be was to be terminated with extreme prejudice in
the feminit (sic) Family Court," writes Shaazam elsewhere in the
thread.
There are posts that point out that what happened in
Warwick was a tragedy, but the consensus seems to be that the blame here
lies with the "corrupt" family court judges.
The long-held complaint
of fathers' rights groups is that the family courts are weighted
against fathers in favour of mothers, but family law in Canada
encourages shared custody arrangements between parents wherever
possible, according to Susan Boyd, a law professor at University of
British Columbia. Boyd acknowledges that the majority of sole custody
awards do tend to go to mothers, but says the courts also seem to be
awarding shared custody more often than in the past.
Still,
fathers' rights groups should be taken seriously. "People will view
these groups as fringe groups that don't require serious attention, when
in fact they're using the abusive and intimidating behaviours they used
in their relationships. This should be a concern that this person is
capable of certainly intimidation, harassment and threats, if not actual
acts of violence," says Molly Dragiewicz, a criminologist at the
University of Ontario Institute of Technology who studies the father's
rights movement.
The comments about the Warwick tragedy on other
men's rights sites are angry, too. "R.I.P. to this once beautiful loving
family. I am sure some feminazis are chuckling how this is a victory to
them, how this man was pushed to the limits to do something like this,"
reads a post from Admin1 on the mensrighthelp.com forum.
"This
didn't need to happen," adds Admin1 a little later on, "we are starting
to see more and more of this from fathers." The discussion then turns to
how women still kill their children more than men do; though the
discussion participants admit to each other that the statistics to prove
this just aren't there, there's certainty this information is being
suppressed.
A study done by researchers at the Royal Ottawa
Hospital of 11 years of data into paternal filicide - fathers who kill
their children - found that between 1990 and 2001, 77 children in Quebec
were killed by their fathers. Forty-six (60 per cent) of the homicides
were followed by the suicide or attempted suicide of the father. The
researchers also conclude that more fathers than mothers commit filicide
in Quebec.
The response to the Marcoux case by men's rights
advocates isn't limited to online message boards. "A desperate father
will chose to die with his children than live without his children,"
writes Earl Silverman in an email to The Gazette. Silverman runs an
Alberta-based website for abused men. "Admittedly it is a dark decision
but when you look into male psychology it becomes understandable."
In
an email to Quebec Health and Social Services Minister Yves Bolduc,
forwarded to The Gazette, Silverman likens the deaths of Marcoux and his
children to several unnamed cases in Alberta, "I discovered that indeed
there was the common experience of a biased judicial system against
fathers but what was remarkable was the need of the father to be with
his children even in death; these fathers would rather die with their
children than live life without them! "
While there is no
evidence to link Marcoux directly to fathers' rights groups in Quebec,
there is little doubt as to why he acted the way he did: "For fathers,
it's official: If you don't take justice into your own hands, you'll
never have justice," he ominously wrote in a statement posted on his
Facebook page the night before the fire. Marcoux goes on to blame the
Quebec Superior Court for what he felt was the imminent loss of custody
of his children at a hearing scheduled the following day (Marcoux had
primary custody).
It was the idea that he would lose custody of
his children that seemed to lay at the heart of Marcoux's sense of
outrage, as is the case for many of the activist dads. Possibly adding
to this is the fact that up-to-date and accurate numbers in custody
cases are hard to come by, say academics who track trends in family law.
Joint custody was awarded in 47 per cent of the 31,754 cases that went
before a judge in Canada in 2004, according to Statistics Canada.
Mothers were awarded custody in 45 per cent of the cases, dads in 8 per
cent.
The numbers don't reflect all separating parents, just the
ones that end up in court, notes Boyd. "So it's hard to generalize about
what happens in contested cases."
Fathers' rights made the
headlines in Quebec in 2005 when members of the Fathers 4 Justice group
scaled the Jacques Cartier Bridge, snarling traffic for several hours.
Fathers 4 Justice is perhaps best known for its members' penchant for
donning superhero costumes, and carrying placards bearing emotional
messages to their children, in protests around the globe.
"It kind
of tugs at people's heartstrings, in part because mothers continue to
do most of the child-caring, even though things have changed quite a bit
over the past 20 years - so when you see fathers talk about wanting to
parent their children, it's a little bit exceptional," says Dragiewicz.
According
to Dragiewicz, groups like Fathers 4 Justice tend to gain momentum at
times when family law issues are in the news, but tend to lose steam as
individual members have their personal family issues and custody cases
inevitably resolved through the courts, leaving only the most diehard
members to carry on the crusade against ex-spouses and family court
judges.
The themes in Marcoux's statement seem to parrot the
language of fathers' rights militants, so it doesn't surprise Dragiewicz
that Marcoux's tragic case would garner attention from the men's rights
websites.
"The fathers' rights groups do have some websites where
they valorize men who kill family members - their exwives, or current
wives - and they treat them as martyrs," says Dragiewicz.
Those
include fathers like Tom Ball, 58, who lit himself on fire outside a
courthouse in New Hampshire in 2011 as horrified onlookers stood by.
Ball was a leader of the Fatherhood Coalition, and had been embroiled
for years in a bitter custody dispute with his exwife that included a
domestic abuse complaint against Ball for hitting his daughter. At the
time of his death, Ball was facing imprisonment for nonpayment of child
support. After his horrific suicide, Ball's final statement was
published in the Keene Sentinel newspaper and in eulogies on fathers'
rights websites dedicated to his memory. "He died for your children,"
reads the headline on one site that includes pictures of the scorch
marks on the sidewalk where Ball died.
Darren Mack is another
father whose extreme acts have been lionized in some darker corners of
the manosphere. In 2006, Mack, an active member of a fathers' rights
group in Nevada, stabbed his ex-wife to death then attempted to shoot
the judge in his family court case. He was sentenced to 40 years for his
crimes. Speaking about the loss of custodial rights in the Mack case, a
writer on the anti-feminist AngryHarry website would comment, "Surely
men are entitled to protect themselves from a crime that is - according
to most people - far worse than rape?"
"Most people dismiss these groups as a handful of crackpots," says Dragiewicz.
But "Carol" is one person who takes fathers' rights groups seriously.
A
successful lawyer in southern Ontario who does not want her real name
used, Carol remembers when her ex-husband got involved with a local
Fathers for Justice group after she sought sole custody of their then
young children in 1995, "and months of hell ensued."
"I would be
followed. One time I had all four of my children - who were all under
nine - in a van at the grocery store and I opened the door to my van to
find camera bulbs flashing. There were two men in a car on either side
of us taking photographs, screaming, 'The children weren't buckled in!' "
says Carol.
"They would park behind me in parking garages and
tell me I was being followed, and what long hours I was working. They
would tell the kids I was an unfit mother."
According to Carol,
local fathers' rights activists stated they were making an example of
her because she was a professional. They would write letters to the
local paper and show up at her family court hearings and supervised
visits with her children. "It was terrifying," says Carol.
Carol's
ex-husband would plead guilty to criminal harassment and
break-and-enter charges stemming from the custody battle. He would leave
the province shortly after. Carol says she believes the local group
dissolved a few years after that.
"Our group categorically
refutes any violence of any kind," writes Andy Srougi in an emailed
reply to The Gazette, when asked about the Marcoux case. Srougi is a
high-profile member of Fathers 4 Justice in Quebec, and was part of the
Jacques Cartier Bridge protest back in 2005.
In 2007, Srougi was
declared a "vexatious litigant" - defined as someone who is not acting
in good faith in bringing forward legal actions - by Quebec Superior
Court due to the high volume of complaints he brought against members of
the Quebec Bar Association. The father's rights activist now has to
seek the court's permission before he can file complaints against
members of the bar.
Srougi claims that Fathers 4 Justice Quebec
members have discussed the Marcoux tragedy. "Without our group, there
would be many more such tragedies. We are the only group that calms
these fathers down. We have had to intervene many times to prevent
tragedies," writes Srougi.
Which tragedies are those? Srougi doesn't say.
ORGANIZING DADS
There are a handful of father's rights groups in Canada. Here are five:
FATHERS 4 JUSTICE QUEBEC: F4J
Quebec is one of the only groups left under the F4J banner in
Canada. F4J is a loose affiliation of father's rights activist groups in
North America and Europe and the name has sometimes been used as a
catch-all for all activist father's rights organizations. F4J Quebec
says in its mission statement: To "defend and promote the traditional
family remains at the heart of our commitment. Humanity still relies
heavily on this axis of the family "father, mother, children" certainly
the most universal tradition of the planet." F4J is best known in Quebec
for its "superhero" protest atop the Jacques Cartier Bridge in 2005.
Members of the group were found guilty of public mischief.
CANLAW: A
long-running website run by Kirby Inwood in London, Ont., CanLaw
purports to provide legal resources and lawyer referrals on a number of
topics, but is associated with the men's movement. Both the Law Society
of Upper Canada and of British Columbia posted warnings in 2008 about
the site after receiving complaints from women who sought legal
referrals from CanLaw. One woman seeking a referral in a custody hearing
received this reply from CanLaw, according to the Law Society of B.C.:
"You are a deadbeat. You are also a lunatic. I hope you and your family
die. Now go to hell." Another reply read: "Women like you are monsters
who take and take and take."
NODADS: The NODADS (or Not All
Dads Are Deadbeats) website claims the group is currently setting up
chapters across Canada. Their goals include: "Advocating for and
supporting those individuals harmed/mistreated by our Family Court
System" and "True gender equality." Children's Aid cases and child
support issues feature prominently in their material.
CANADA COURT WATCH: CCW
- which also goes by Family Justice Review Committee and the National
Association for Public and Private Accountability - is an Ontario-based
group that purports to put an end to the "needless injustices being
perpetrated against many innocent children and families by institutions
such as our family court system and branches of the Children's Aid
Society." CCW's main organizer is Vernon Beck, a long-time father's
rights activist who describes himself as an investigative journalist and
children's advocate, and has intervened in various family court
proceedings and Children's Aid cases. A judge in a custody case in 2006
ordered the personal details of the parties not be published because of
the attentions of the group, pointing out comments on the CCW site
called for the judge to be "tarred and feathered." The organization has
championed the causes of some women, mostly involved in situations with
Children's Aid.
FATHERS ARE CAPABLE TOO: F.A.C.T. was
founded by Greg Kershaw and regularly meets in the Toronto
area. F.A.C.T. claims to be the largest "non-custodial parents' and
children's rights organizations in Canada dealing with custody and
access" and states its mission is to "provide education and support
programs in parenting for children, their families and the total
community." Many of the posts are concerned with father's rights and the
role of fathers specifically.
Bilbo Poynter
is the co-founder and executive director of the Canadian Centre for
Investigative Reporting. His reports have been aired on CBC National
Radio News, CBC.ca, As It Happens, and have appeared in The Gazette, the
Global Post, and the Guardian.
CORRECTION: Due to
reporting errors, an earlier version of this article gave incorrect
information on the founder of the group Fathers Are Capable Too. Public
records list Greg Kershaw as a founder of the group, which has existed
since 1992. Also, the father’s rights group that an ex-wife, “Carol,”
accused of harassment was wrongly identified. It should have read
Fathers for Justice.
The Gazette regrets the errors.
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment