The War on
Fathers _ Whistleblower magazine
The June 2006 edition of WND's popular Whistleblower magazine is
a mega-eye-opener exploring one of the most crucial but
little-reported phenomena of modern America – what WND calls
"THE WAR ON
FATHERS."
The evidence of this almost unthinkable scenario is everywhere:
SCHOOL: In public school classrooms across America, in
every category and every demographic group, boys are falling behind.
Girls excel and move on to college, where three out of five students
are female, while young boys – who don't naturally thrive when
forced to sit still at a desk for six hours a day – are diagnosed by
the millions with new diseases that didn't exist a generation ago.
To make their behavior more acceptable, they are compelled to take
hazardous psycho-stimulant drugs like Ritalin.
Boys are more than 50 percent more likely to repeat elementary
school grades than girls, a third more likely to drop out of high
school and twice as likely to have a "learning disability." And the
suicide rate among teen boys is far higher than that of girls.
"What we have done," explains Thomas Mortenson, senior scholar at
the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education,
"is we have a K-12 school system that seems to work relatively well
for girls and does not work for a very large share of boys."
HOME: It's well known that roughly half of America's
marriages end in divorce, but not nearly as well known that two out
of three of those divorces are initiated by the wives. Moreover,
America's family court system is scandalously biased in favor of the
mother in child custody disputes. Fathers get custody of children in
uncontested cases only 10 percent of the time and 15 percent of the
time in contested cases. Meanwhile, mothers get sole custody 66
percent of the time in uncontested cases and 75 percent of the time
in contested cases.
"Where you have minor children, there's really no such thing as
no-fault divorce for fathers," says Detroit attorney Philip Holman,
vice president of the National Congress for Fathers and Children.
"On the practical level, fathers realize that divorce means they
lose their kids."
Unfortunately, this loss by children of their fathers' influence
is directly responsible – far more than any other cause – for the
modern national scourges of gang life, crime and much more.
CULTURE: Fifty years ago, "Father knows best" was a hit TV
show, in which insurance agent Jim Anderson (actor Robert Young)
would come home from work each evening, trade his sport jacket for a
nice, comfortable sweater, and then deal with the everyday
growing-up problems of his family. He could always be counted on to
resolve that week's crisis with a combination of kindness, fatherly
strength and common sense.
Today, television virtually always portrays husbands as bumbling
losers or contemptible, self-absorbed egomaniacs. Whether in dramas,
comedies or commercials, the patriarchy is dead, at least on TV
where men are fools – unless of course they're gay. On "Queer Eye
for the Straight Guy," the "fab five" are supremely knowledgeable on
all things hip, their life's highest purpose being to help those
less fortunate than themselves – that is, straight men – to become
cool.
As this issue of Whistleblower shows, experts like Ph.D. scholar
Christina Hoff Sommers, author of "The War Against Boys," agree:
"It's a bad time to be a boy in America." Sommers provides example
after example of what can only be called an all-out anti-male
campaign:
"The carnage committed by two boys in Littleton, Colorado,"
declares the Congressional Quarterly Researcher, "has forced the
nation to reexamine the nature of boyhood in America." William
Pollack, director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital and
author of the best-selling "Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from
the Myths of Boyhood," tells audiences around the country, "The
boys in Littleton are the tip of the iceberg. And the iceberg is
all boys."
In fact, Sommers reveals, it has become fashionable in elitist
circles to conspire to change boys' very identity:
There are now conferences, workshops, and institutes dedicated
to transforming boys. Carol Gilligan, professor of gender
studies at Harvard Graduate School of Education, writes of the
problem of "boys' masculinity … in a patriarchal social order."
Barney Brawer, director of the Boys' Project at Tufts
University, told Education Week: "We've deconstructed the old
version of manhood, but we've not [yet] constructed a new
version." In the spring of 2000, the Boys' Project at Tufts
offered five workshops on "reinventing Boyhood." The planners
promised emotionally exciting sessions: "We'll laugh and cry,
argue and agree, reclaim and sustain the best parts of the
culture of boys and men, while figuring out how to change the
terrible parts."
"Terrible"? As this edition of Whistleblower shows, there is
nothing wrong – and a very great deal right – with boys and
masculinity. As maverick feminist Camille Paglia courageously
reminds her men-hating colleagues, masculinity is "the most creative
cultural force in history."
"The problem," said David Kupelian, managing editor of WND and
Whistleblower, "is that misguided feminists, intent on advancing a
radically different worldview than the one on which this nation was
founded, have succeeded in fomenting a revolution. And that
revolution amounts to a powerful and pervasive campaign against
masculinity, maleness, boys, men and patriarchy."
Issue highlights include:
- "Banning 'mom' and 'dad,'" by Joseph Farah, who exposes the
latest in bizarre and dangerous legislation by the California
legislature.
- "The fathers' war" by Stephen Baskerville, a troubling look
at how increasing numbers of America's military men risk all to
serve their nation in wartime, only to be divorced by their
wives and lose their children.
- "The war on fathers," by David Kupelian, an in-depth look at
what's really behind the feminization of America.
- "Why men are being attacked," by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who
says: "It isn't all about hating men – it's largely about
disdaining and dismissing them."
- "Has the bias pendulum swung against men?" Fewer
college-bound, higher suicide rates, shorter life spans suggest
males getting shaft.
- "Paternity fraud rampant in U.S.," showing how 30 percent of
men assessed for court-ordered child support are not actually
the fathers of the children receiving the support.
- "'Shared parenting' seen as custody solution," a look at
bills in New York that would require courts to treat mom and dad
equally.
- "Resolving the boy crisis in schools" by Jeffery M. Leving
and Glenn Sacks, showing how today's public schools are
profoundly unsuited for the genuine needs of boys.
- "Child support gold-diggers" by Carey Roberts, who shows how
frequent fraud results in fathers being victimized by the
justice system.
- "Hating our fathers, hating ourselves" by Bob Just, a
penetrating look at the high cost of resenting the fathers and
husbands in our lives.
- And much more.
"This is one of the most soulful, important and insightful issues
of Whistleblower we've produced in a long time," said Kupelian. "I
urge people to read it – it's much more than eye-opening. It could
be life-changing. Really."