Warren Farrell
American educator, activist and author of seven books on men's and women's issues.
Visitation reflects the era of the absentee father; parent time influences the re-emergence of the involved father. Visitation reflects the destruction of the family; parent time influences the reconstruction of the family. Parent time influences an era that understands that as either parents loses, so lose the children.
When a parent denies a child its parent time, that parent is denying the child its child support -- its psychological child support.
For the first time in human history the psychology that is a prerequisite for intimacy has become the psychology that is a prerequisite for species survival.
In brief, our genetic heritage is at odds with our genetic future. For the first time in human history, the qualities it takes to survive as a species are compatible with the qualities it takes to love.
People who get higher pay are more willing to relocate--especially to undesirable locations at the company's behest... A corporate secretary may change companies in the same town; a corporate executive is more likely to change towns with the same company. A talented corporate secretary sees an invitation to relocate as an invitation; a future corporate executive sees an invitation to relocate as an opportunity--and an obligation.
Throughout history, men learned that survival, respect and women’s love were all achieved by making a killing –whether killing animals, killing enemies, or making a killing on Wall Street . Women received the money that men produced by loving. Men came to feel themselves as unlovable without the money, property or the heroism it took to make them equal to a woman’s love. Women came to associate men spending money on them as a statement of how much they were valued—even loved-- by the man. Her ability to love became her source of security: a diamond is a girl’s best friend. Essentially this dynamic is true in almost all societies and all classes throughout history.
Neither men nor women are exempt from killing loved ones. The difference is in what happens to them when they do. Twelve distinct female-only defenses allow a woman who commits a premeditated murder to have the charges dropped or significantly reduced. No man has successfully used any of these defenses in similar circumstances.
When we suggest that men are at the top because men discriminate, we miss the point. Men are at the top of the work hierarchy because work has been primarily men's responsibility.
In a sense, in the area of child care, children's relationships with parents' working has come full circle. We have gone from the mom-and-pop store (or mom-and-pop farm), with its integration of child care and work, to children-at-home and dad-at-work; to the mom-plus-daddy working at home, with its integration of childcare and work again. From mom-and-pop back to mom-and-pop.
From evening soaps to preteen romances, [the message is that] inner values are for losers.
Farrell’s other eleven defenses are The PMS Defense ; The Husband Defense (Warren, I don’t quite know how to summarize this one—not sure I get it); The ‘Battered Woman Syndrome’ Defense, aka Learned Helplessness; ‘The Depressed Mother’ Defense ; The ‘Mothers Don’t Kill’ Defense ; The ‘Children Need Their Mother’ Defense ; The ‘Blame-The-Father, Understand-The-Mother’ Defense ; The ‘My Child, My Right To Abuse It’ Defense ; The Plea Bargain Defense ; The Svengali Defense ; and The Contract Killing Defense.
We have entered 'The Era of the Three-Option Woman and the No-Option Man.'
Ralph had lost real power by trying to gain the appearance of power. He was a leader. But he was following a program for leaders ; therefore, he was a follower... he was, as he put it, a high-level mediocre.
As long as society tells men to be the salespersons of sex, it is sexist for society to put only men in jail if they sell well. We don’t put other salespersons in jail for buying clients drinks and successfully transforming a no into a maybe into a yes . If the client makes a choice to drink too much and the yes turns out to be a bad decision, it is the client who gets fired, not the salesperson. We expect adults to take responsibility.
The reporting of depression is often associated with the dependency of women on men. But it is dependency on men successful enough to allow a woman the time to think about more than survival. Which is why, when we think about women who report depression, we think of middle-class women, not working-class women. The working-class woman is too worried about survival to report depression. Depression is a diagnosis that tends to increase among those with the luxury of worrying about something other than survival. The more a person is in Stage II, the more that person can afford to focus on depression.
The deeper purpose of a more positive attitude toward men is a better life for the children who are parented by the men who are their dads and stepdads; less shame for our sons who will become men; and, for our daughters, a deeper understanding of men's desire to please that leaves them feeling their willingness to please is not unrequited but returned--allowing our daughters to feel less lonely and more loved. If we earn more and love less, we pay for a home in which we do not live.
A man cannot tell whether a woman is in love with him or his security blanket until she is financially and psychologically independent enough to leave. Until a woman has learned how to leave, even she cannot be sure she has learned to love.
Male-female fusion does not create women’s rights. It creates a fusion of rights.
Women’s vulnerability confessing their desire to see men as a success object is matched by men’s confession of compulsiveness of sexual desire for women.
Our children are better served by speaking not of visitation versus custody, but of parent time.