World’s most honest columnist steps down

Cathy Young has written her last regular column for the Boston Globe: While feminists have called for more male involvement in child-rearing, the women’s movement has also championed blatant favoritism toward mothers in child custody disputes, often to the point of vilifying fathers. This seems to be a clear case of putting solidarity with women … Continue reading “World’s most honest columnist steps down”

Cathy Young has written her last regular column for the Boston Globe:

While feminists have called for more male involvement in child-rearing, the women’s movement has also championed blatant favoritism toward mothers in child custody disputes, often to the point of vilifying fathers. This seems to be a clear case of putting solidarity with women over equity. While the fathers’ rights movement has often been depicted as a patriarchal backlash, it is in many ways more faithful to the true feminist legacy than are the women’s groups which endorse maternal chauvinism.

I am very proud of the support I have been able to give to equality for fathers, and particularly of my work in exposing the inaccuracies and bias in the 2005 PBS documentary “Breaking the Silence: The Children’s Stories,” which painted fathers who seek custody of their children as presumptive abusers.

The issue of mothers losing custody to alleged abusers has received more media coverage since then — much of it sensationalistic and slanted — and seems to be the next big battlefield for feminists and fathers’ rights activists. Sadly, the fact that children’s lives are at stake, not just the interests of men and women, often gets lost.

This is a real loss to the national dialog on gender issues. Cathy is scrupulously fair, often to a maddening degree. She never cuts any slack on the facts, even for those of us who agree with her on gender equality. She was apparently the victim of budget cuts made necessary by the erosion of print media’s ad stream by the Internet. Progress isn’t always for the best.

Fortunately, she’s still blogging and writing occasional columns.

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