Tag Archives: child welfare

April 21, 2022 · 5:40 am

A Brief Message To Those Protesting Disney For Supporting LGBTQ+ Rights

In general, I try not to react too strongly to news that pisses me off or makes me question my faith in humanity. I know that’s not easy these days. Everyone has a news feed. It’s generally not hard to come across a news story that just enrages you to no end or find some grifter political type saying something incredibly stupid.

I have written about certain issues and infuriating people in the past. I even admit that sometimes, that does help me process the stupidity and frustration. However, there are just certain stories, trends, and political talking points that can never compute for anyone with a single shred of decency or critical thinking skills. Those are the topics I usually avoid discussing.

This time, though, it’s just too stupid to ignore.

That’s because it involves misguided, right-wing habitual whiners going after Disney.

Seriously, they’re going after Disney. It’s not even because they have a long history of treating their workers like shit and manipulating copyright laws for their own benefit. They’re protesting their stance on Florida’s stupid “Don’t Say Gay” bill and claiming that Disney is “grooming” children for sexual exploitation.

Now, I don’t want to get into the many reasons why this effort is a textbook example weapons grade stupidity. I also don’t want to get into why the “Don’t Say Gay” bill should be opposed, both by major corporations like Disney and ordinary people who just have a shred of compassion. Plenty of people smarter than me can explain the issue and highlight why it’s so damaging to LGBTQ youth.

The most I’ll say is that it’s just a dick move in general, preventing teachers from mentioning important things like sexual orientation and sexual identity. Some may argue that these are topics that are not appropriate for children. I would argue that’s bullshit. LGBTQ people exist. They have families and children of their own. Ignoring it isn’t just absurd. It’s just an overall dick move to a vulnerable minority.

Haven’t we done enough of that crap over the course of human history?

Aren’t the lists of massacres and long-running traditions of discrimination based on race, gender, and sexual orientation long enough?

Seriously, what or who does it threaten? How does teaching children that gay, queer, and transgender people exist harm them in any meaningful way? Being informed is not the same as being groomed.

That brings me back to the protesters. These misguided whiners are harping heavily on that aspect of Disney’s stance. They claim that Disney taking a position on a grossly anti-LGBTQ+ bill is part of an agenda to groom children for exploitation.

I sincerely hope I don’t have to explain just how dumb that is. Yes, I realize many of these protesters are probably radicalized from right-wing media bubbles and Qanon supporters. That shit is basically a cult at this point. They’re now in a mindset that assumes anyone who opposes them is somehow a child predator. I wish there was something I could say to convince these people how misguided that is, but I know there isn’t. If I tried, they’d probably just claim I’m part of the conspiracy.

Now, having said all that, I’d still like to send a message to all those whining about Disney, their stance on LGBTQ+ issues, and organizations that exploit children. I promise it’s not an attempt to convince them that they’re in a cult and they’re being brainwashed by grifters, politicians, and internet trolls fishing for clicks. It’s just a simple note that I hope they take into account.

You’re being assholes.

Seriously, you’re not helping kids, parents, or anyone for that matter. You’re just being assholes, preventing kids and their families from enjoying their time at Disney World. How is that stopping the exploitation of children? How is that going to make Disney any less “woke” in your eyes?

If you were in a real Disney movie, you’d be the villain. You’d be the bad guys. You’d be the ones making children cry, especially those who belong to vulnerable minorities.

I’ll say it again. You are being assholes and you actually are harming children. I don’t care if being an asshole is your twisted idea of fun or if you genuinely believe you’re doing the right thing. You’re making kids and their families miserable. I don’t care what you’re agenda is. It’s a dick move, plain and simple.

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October 11, 2018 · 5:50 am

Why Men Should Also Be Concerned About The Future Of Roe v. Wade

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These are tenuous times for abortion rights. Regardless of your gender, there’s no getting around the news. The overall trend in abortion access is not on the path of greater accessibility. If anything, it’s going in the opposite direction.

Regardless of which side you’re on in this exceedingly divisive issue, there’s no denying the legal reality. For the past 25 years, a woman’s ability to get an abortion has steadily eroded, thanks largely to the spread of TRAP Laws. These laws may not explicitly outlaw abortion, but they make getting one inconvenient at best and impossible at worst.

As I say in every piece I write about abortion, I don’t particularly enjoy talking about abortion. This is an issue that I feel I’m woefully unqualified to talk about because I’m not a woman and will never know what it’s like to be in such a difficult situation.

That said, there is an aspect about this topic that I feel needs to be addressed and it’s a part of the issue that impacts men. It takes two to make a baby, last I checked. Even though it’s objectively true that abortion affects women more directly, men do have a role and I feel that role will expand as abortion rights trend in a less-than-liberal direction.

As I write this, the United States Supreme Court is in the midst of a huge shake-up. After the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, the justice system is poised to shift heavily to the right. That has caused plenty of concerns among those who worry about the status of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973.

At the moment, it still seems like a long-shot for this decision to be overturned. However, Supreme Court decisions have been overturned in the past. It happened with racial segregation. It happened with anti-sodomy laws. Legally speaking, there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen with abortion.

Now, that process is fraught with a long list of political, legal, and ethical complications, the least of which would be the long-term alienation of whatever political party favors it. However, I don’t want to harp too much on the politics here. Instead, I want to focus on the social component because that’s where the effects will be most directly felt.

Women, by far, will be the most directly impacted. There are still women alive today who can recount what life was like before Roe v. Wade. Their stories are becoming more relevant. For men, however, I don’t think those stories are as well-known and for good reason. Women had to endure bearing those unwanted children. At worst, men just found themselves on the wrong end of a shotgun wedding.

If Roe v. Wade were overturned, however, that wouldn’t be the only predicament most men faced. Beyond the abortion issue, 1973 was a very different place. In that world, it was possible for a man to just skip town, run out on a pregnant woman, and never interact with her again. While that man would have to be a callous, irresponsible asshole, it was possible and it did happen.

That sort of thing isn’t as easy to do today. Anyone who has seen a single episode of Maury Povich knows that. Between social media, improvements in paternity tests, and tougher child support laws, most of which came after 1973, it’s a lot harder for a man to escape parental obligations. It’s not impossible, but it’s not as easy as just skipping town.

In a world where women cannot easily end an unwanted pregnancy, there will be greater incentive to find these reckless men and hold them responsible. Where there’s an incentive, especially one that has the potential to become a lucrative legal racket, there will be people and businesses that emerge to fill that need.

How that manifests is hard to determine, but desperate people will find a way and you won’t find many more desperate than a woman dealing with a child she can neither afford nor care for. I know a sizable contingent of people, many of which are probably men, will blame the woman for being promiscuous. That still doesn’t change the basic equation of human reproduction.

Two people are involved. Those people, in a world where decisions about a pregnancy are pre-made by the law, are going to be in a tough situation. Regardless of whether a pregnancy was the result of an accident, a crime, or an extortion plot, there will be serious ramifications and not just in terms of legal fees.

The story of women enduring the rigors and hardship of an unwanted pregnancy are many. However, the story of men living in a world without Roe v. Wade and modern child support laws haven’t been told yet because the circumstances haven’t been in place. On the day Roe v. Wade gets overturned, those stories will begin and those are stories men don’t want told.

They’re not very sexy stories, to say the least. They have sexy moments, but extremely unsexy outcomes. Picture, if you can, the following scenario that may play out in a world without Roe v. Wade.

A young man with plenty of dreams has a one-night stand with a woman in a lone act of recklessness. The woman ends up pregnant. Since they live in a state where abortion is illegal, she has to have the child. The man has no idea for months until the woman tracks him down through the courts, forces him to take a paternity test, and confirms that he’s the father.

With no say in the matter, he’s legally liable for child support for the next 18 years. The woman, without any of his input, decides to keep the child instead of putting it up for adoption. The man resents the woman for making this decision without him, but begrudgingly goes along with it, if only to avoid the stigma.

Years go by and his life becomes more of a struggle. He can barely afford to support himself due to the child support payments. He and the mother of his child are constantly at each other’s throats, going through legal battles over how much support is needed and how much access he should have to his child.

Between the legal and financial struggles, both end up in poverty. Their child ends up in poverty too, growing up in a broken home. In a world where there are few choices for women and fewer choices for men, there are plenty others.

Does that sound like an appealing, functional society? Does it sound like one that benefits men, women, and children in any capacity? You don’t need to be a liberal, conservative, or a Supreme Court Justice to understand why such a society is undesirable.

Some of this isn’t even speculation. There have been societies that have outlawed abortion completely. Those societies didn’t prosper. They didn’t benefit men, women, or children. However, the lessons from those societies will probably not faze the anti-abortion crowd. I doubt they’ll give any judges or legislators pause as they push for more restrictions.

The impact of these laws will be felt first by the women. They still bear the children. They’ll still suffer the most negative effects at first. Those effects will quickly find their way to the men, as well. Unlike the men prior to 1973, they won’t be able to escape it.

As a man, there’s only so much I can bring to the table in the abortion debate. However, given the current laws surrounding child support, child rearing, and parental rights, there are more than a few issues that should give men cause for concern. Even if you’re a man and you consider yourself anti-abortion, there’s one inescapable truth. A world without Roe v. Wade is going to impact everyone.

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March 17, 2018 · 8:09 am

Dangerous Double Standards And The Distressing Stories They Tell

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When it comes to conveying complex ideas in an understandable way, I don’t consider myself exceptionally skilled. When it comes to telling a story, though, that’s a skill I know I have and not just because I aced every essay question in college.

Sometimes, a story is the best way to convey an idea and the emotional weight it carries. Anyone can list the details of complex issues like gun control, abortion rights, or net neutrality. Some, like John Oliver, can even make it funny or entertaining. However, explaining what an issue is doesn’t necessarily convey why it matters.

Whenever I talk about gender double standards, be it uncomfortable thought experiments or imbalances in our sexual attitudes, I try to do so in a way that highlights the larger implications. Those implications, I believe, are part of the reason why there’s so much hostility on issues like the anti-harassment movement, representation in popular culture, and fair treatment under the law.

I don’t want to belabor the points I’ve made on that topic in the past. Instead, I want to tell a quick story that I thought about turning into a short novel. Then, something happened in the process that struck me on a personal level. Read the following story and see if you can tell where the process broke down.

An average man, single and living alone, is walking down the street on a Saturday evening. It’s cold and rainy. Not many people are out in these conditions.

Then, as he passes by the dumpster near his home, he sees a girl who can’t be older than 10-years-old huddling under some dirty boxes. She’s wearing dirty clothes, she’s shivering, and is clearly in a bad situation.

The man feels sorrow and concern for the girl. He asks her where her parents are. He learns that the girl has run away. Her mother was abusive, even showing him some scars she had from when her mother cut her with a fork. Horrified, the man offers to help the girl. She eagerly accepts.

The man takes the girl home, gives her some badly-needed food, lets her take a hot bath, and lets her sleep in his bed while he sleeps on the couch. The next morning, he calls social services and finds out the girl’s mother is nowhere to be found. Overwhelmed and under-staffed, they are unable to find any relatives to take care of her.

Having grown fond of her company, he offers to look after her. The girl eagerly accepts. The man spends the next several weeks caring for her, getting her new clothes and introducing her to his family. At first, his parents and siblings are uncertain about him taking care of a kid. When they meet her and see how much she loves him, their worries quickly fade.

As time goes on, the girl comes to love the man as a father. She starts calling him daddy. At first, he keeps reminding her that he’s not her real father. Soon, he stops and just smiles. The girl enriches his life in ways he never imagined. He wants to be a father to this girl who isn’t his. He wants to love her in the way she deserves.

Then, one day, a woman arrives at his door. She’s angry, disheveled, and badly dressed. She claims to be the girl’s mother. When the girl sees her, she’s terrified and hides behind the man in fear. The man demands that she leave, but she refuses to leave without her daughter. He threatens to call the police, but she threatens to do the same.

She then takes a step closer, revealing bad teeth, foul breath, and loveless eyes, and presents him with an ultimatum. If he doesn’t hand over the girl, she’ll call social services, the police, and the local news crew and tell him that he’s a sick pervert who took a girl off the streets just so he could groom her to be his personal slave.

It doesn’t stop there. She points out that he’s single, unmarried, and living by himself. Conversely, she’s just a poor woman who got taken advantage of by the girl’s biological father, fled out of fear for their safety, and got tragically separated in the process. All she wants to do is get her daughter back and away from a sadistic pervert. She even says she’ll claim he gave her all the girl’s scars.

In that story, he won’t be the man who took a poor little girl under his care and loved her like a father. He’ll become a disgusting pervert, his reputation destroyed and his life ruined. The fact the girls loves him will just be proof of how much he’s groomed her to be his slave.

The man is horrified. The girl says her mother is a liar and a monster. The woman just laughs before asking one more time for the man to hand over the girl. The man, seeing the terrified look in the girl’s eyes, doesn’t want to see her suffer. He then gets up in her face and tells her this.

“You stay the hell away from her! She belongs with me! Lie all you want. I know the truth and so does she.”

The woman just shakes her head and laughs again.

“It doesn’t matter what the truth is. Everyone will believe me at my worst before they believe you at your best.”

This is as far as I could take the story. At this point, the creative process broke down for me. For someone like me who loves telling stories, sexy or otherwise, that’s akin to tripping over my own feet in the middle of a race. It usually takes a lot for me to throw my hands up and give up on a story. This was one of them.

Image result for man in defeat

That’s because when I imagined that final confrontation, I could not come up with a way to see it through. I can easily see the man fighting the woman’s accusations and winning out in the end. I can also see the woman winning out and the man having his life ruined, all because he showed compassion for a little girl.

The fact that I can see both outcomes as equally possible really bothers me and not just because I found myself unable to finish the story. In telling that story, I touched on a disturbing implication of double standards and the assumptions we have about men, women, and how they treat one another.

The story was partially inspired by an incident in the UK where a man, who happens to be a widower, took his teenage daughter on a vacation. When they checked into a motel, though, the staff got suspicious that an older man was traveling with a teenage girl. They called the police on him, suspecting that he might be a pedophile.

The dad and daughter were staying over for trip to Thorpe Park together

By most measures, it’s a simple, albeit egregious misunderstanding. It deeply disturbed the girl and put the father in a terrible position. He was able to show the staff pictures and IDs to prove that he was the girl’s father and not some pervert. The damage was done, though.

When I read that story, I found myself wondering what would’ve happened if the man hadn’t had those family pictures. Then, I wondered what would’ve happened if the man wasn’t a blood relative of the girl. Then, and this is where the impact got especially heavy, I wondered what would’ve happened if the man had just tried to help a girl who had run away and had nowhere to go.

If he had been a woman helping a 14-year-old girl in her time of need, I doubt anyone would’ve batted an eye. However, because this involves a man and expectations about parenting is different for men, the situation takes on a much darker undertone.

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That undertone highlights why these gender double standards can be so damaging. It’s one thing for those standards to inspire overplayed tropes about men in sitcoms. When they create a real incentive for people to not do the compassionate thing, that’s not just a problem. That creates real, tangible harm in the world.

Men are capable of kindness and compassion. Most decent people believe this. However, when there’s a situation in which assuming the best for one gender requires that you assume the worst for another, that reflects the kind of double standard that needs to be confronted.

We’re already seeing men show more reluctance in being alone with women. Any level of reluctance requires a certain level of fear. When it gets to a point that just being alone with another human being scares us, then that’s a sign that something is very wrong with our attitudes.

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