Subject: Men's Issues Newsbriefs #54

From: [email-masked] (Dave Gross)
Date: 28 Sep 92 22:09:32 GMT

~Subject:  Men's Issues Newsbriefs #54

	* Researchers discover that the alleged bias against women
	  in AIDS treatment is fictional.
	* A custodial parent may move away, even if such a move would
	  interfere with visitation, according to a court ruling.
	* Some reasons why few dads are able to take paternity
	  leave.
	* Some men are striking back against male bashing in the
	  media and elsewhere.
	* A mother who interferes with visitation then sues for sole
	  custody, the courts are biased in her favor.

===============================================================================

     Source: Los Angeles Times, 21 July 1992
     Original article by Marlene Cimons
     NO GENDER BIAS FOUND IN AIDS TREATMENT
     ---------------------------------------
In a surprising finding, U.S. researchers reported that there appear to be no
differences between men and women in how quickly they become sick or die from
AIDS, nor are there gaps in the rates at which each receives AIDS-related
therapies.

In recent years, some activists and researchers have insisted that women grow
sick faster than men and have less access to treatments.  In part, the reason
for this may be that early in the epidemic, the disease was often diagnosed
in women later than men because clinicians were not looking for the signs of
AIDS in women.  During that time, the disease was primarily striking gay men.

"These investigations are important, particularly because this is the first
large, prospective study to show that men and women share similar
consequences of their HIV disease," said Lawrence R. Deyton, assistant
director for community research at the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Disease.

The results were presented at the eighth International Conference on AIDS,
considered the most important forum for the exchange of information about the
deadly disease.

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     Source: Los Angeles Times, 2 July 1992
     Original article by Larry Speer
     MOM'S MOVE FOILS DAD'S VISITATION, COURT SAYS OK
     ------------------------------------------------
A California appeals court has overturned another court's ruling that a
divorced woman would lose custody of her son if she took a job in another
city that would have prevented her 4-year-old son from visiting his father.
The ruling outraged local women's rights activists.

To comply with the custody agreement, the mother plans to accompany the boy
on a weekly shuttle flight so he can visit his father, according to her
lawyer.

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     Source: Washington Post, 7 July 1992
     Original article by Shari Rudavsky
     DADS FIND OBSTACLES TO PATERNITY LEAVE
     --------------------------------------
Even when it is offered, fathers rarely take paternity leave.  A 1990 survey
of the nation's largest 1,000 companies found that while 31 percent offered
some form of paternity leaves, only slightly more than 1 percent of eligible
employees took advantage of them.

For Larry D. Minichello, "it was the economics of it."  Minichello had lost a
job two years earlier and "the fear of losing this job sent chills up my
spine, even though the company I worked for explained that this would not
jeopardize my position," he said.

Many fathers still see their primary role in the family as the breadwinner,
said Joseph H. Pleck, a research associate at Wellesley College's Center for
Research on Women.  "The attitude is actually out there -- yes, fathers
should be involved.  But there is also the attitude out there that fathers
should not reuce their commitment to the job, never forget that their
primary responsibility is to earn an income," he said.

Even men who take paternity leaves said they worried that their decision
would eventually endanger their career.  Many men who decide against leaves
assume that taking a leave would send them down a "Daddy Track" as
potentially harmful as the more familiar "Mommy Track" syndrome, which often
prevents working mothers from advancing to top positions.

The few men who take forma leaves may belie the time fathers actually take
off work when their children are born, Plevk said.  In 1988 he found that of
142 men he interviewed, 87 percent took time off after the birth of a child,
although 82 percent of those said they did not think of that time as
paternity leave.

"The fact that an overwhelming majority of fathers are taking informal leaves
says something very significant about fathers' desires to be involved with
their kids and the constrainst that fathers have to work with.  Fathers have
figured out that if they want to make adjustments in their jobs they can do
so that their co-workers and employers do not see them as being less
concerned about their job," Pleck said.

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     Source: Washington Times, 18 June 1992
     Original article by Elisabeth Hickey
     STRIKING BACK AGAINST MALE-BASHING
     --------------------------------------
"Take Father's Day and shove it," says Robert Commerce, 74,  new member of
the National Coalition of Free Men.  "We don't want a necktie and a pat on
the head if we are going to be trashed and berated the other 364 days of the
year."  Feminists, says Commerce, "stole our holiday" by using Father's Day
as an opportunity to berate men for date rape and delinquent child support.
"They have twisted it into Delinquent Daddy Day," he says.

Other examples of male bashing:  On the nation's comics pages, Andy Capp,
that loveable cockney drunkard, is chased and threatened by his long-
suffering wife.  "It's nothing for her to toss him down the stairs, and she
weighs twice as much as him," says Austin, Texas, lawyer Hugh Nations.  "She
uses weapons.  She hits him with a rolling pin...  we would not tolerate that
if Andy wa a woman."

Robert Sides, an NCFM spokesman, says "the feminists always want us to be so
conscious of violence to women on screen, then you see a Kentucky Fried
Chicken commercial where the girl kicks the man in the [groin], and a woman
laughs ysterically."

Stuart Tobin won't buy Peter Pan or Jif peanut butters when he shops for his
family.  "Choosy Moms choose Jif" and Peter Pan says "Because kids believe in
Moms."  "How do I perceive these commercials?  That I'm inadequate and inept
at taking care of kids," Tobin said.  "Not only are they offensive, but
they're dumb.  They aren't talking to me, when they should be."

Why is Mother's Day the single biggest day for phone calls?  Why do people
always yell "Hi, Mom" when they get on TV?  Why are almost 50 million more
Mother's Day cards exchanged than Father's Day cards?  Men's movement
activists are trying to change this.

On the agenda, Warren Farrell says, is pushing for flexible work options so
men can spend more time with their children.  These men also want to reform a
court system in which mothers win 90 percent of contested custody cases.
Most of all, they want to fulfill their critical role.

"All of the studies show that fathers are extremely important i the
development of their children," Mr. Macchietto says.  "Yet we have a court
system that pushes men out of families.  If you look at the number of
juvenile delinquents, they are almost always from female-dominated
households."

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     Original article by Daniel Tepfer
     COUPLE BATTLING 7 YEARS LATER
     ---------------------------------
In 1985 Pat D'Angelo and his ex-wife were granted joint custody of their two
oung children.  Then his ex-wife took the chilren.  Five years lated,
D'Angelo located his children with their mother in Tacoma, Wash.  But not
only was his ex- not prosecuted, she is now challenging him for custody.

"If I had been the one who skipped with the kids I would probably be in jail
now, but not only have no charges been filed against her, she has been given
a free Legal Aid lwayer," he said.

D'Angelo, a Manchester resident, said he now has full custody of his
children, but is not getting a cent in cild support from his ex-wife.  He
said he is out of work and is having trouble finding a job that will allow
him time to take care of his children.

Meanwhile, he said his ex-wife has moved back to Manchester and has a job but
makes sure she gets a minimal wage so she does not have to pay support.  "I
don't know why a judge hasn't told her to go out and get a real job so she
can pay some support and some of the medical," he said.

Bob Adams, president of the Divorced Men's Association of Connecticu, has an
explanation.  He said judges are just not fair to men in divorce cases.
"Judges will put men in jail at the drop of a hat, but you will never see a
woman go to jail for failing to pay support," he said.

Adams, a divorced father, said he faithfully paid his child support but knows
of many men who could not afford to do it.  "Some of the support orders are
just not reasonable," he said.  "In some cases they are asking men to try to
live on $110 a week after they pay support.  It's just ridiculous."

Adams admitted there are some cases where fathers can afford to pay support
but refuse to do so because of animosity they have toward their ex-wives.
"In most cases in which men are paying child support, they are getting to see
their children.  But there are cases where they are refused access to the
children so they decide not to pay support.  And frankly, I don't blame
them," he said.
-- 
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"I still think it is not a good idea for me to have to order women into combat.
 Combat is about killing people."
		-- U.S. Air Force chief of staff, General Merrill A. McPeak