Thread by @MSS3RosaFerreum

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa Regarding historical parental fiscal responsibility, consider "Lagging Behind the Times: Parenthood, Custody, and Gender Bias in the Family Court" by Cynthia McNeely published in 1998 in Volume 25 of the _Florida State University Law Review_ page 891 (ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewconten…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "[T]he father [was designated] as the natural protector of children because he had the ability to provide for their financial support. Women were seen as incapable of handling legal or financial matters…." 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 891, 897 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "Because fathers usually provided the family’s sole income through their employment away from the home [during the Industrial Revolution], this absence advanced the fathers' 'long march from the center to the periphery of domestic life.'" 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 898 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "Congress implemented the Talfourd Act of 1839 to legislate the presumption that courts should award custody of children under age seven to the mother." 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 897 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "This presumption became known as the 'tender-years doctrine,' which legalized for the first time the belief that mothers were better suited to raise children than fathers." 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 897 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "Eventually, 'the tender-years presumption became the rationale for awarding custody of children of all ages to the mother on a permanent basis.'" 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 899 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "[T]he continuous refrain throughout the last one hundred years has been that when it comes to childrearing, fathers are not that important." 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 914 (1998).

You might think the culprit was patriarchy, but it was actually women's rights advocates.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa Consider "The Divorce Bargain: The Fathers’ Rights Movement and Family Inequalities" by Deborah Dinner published in 2016 in Volume 102 of the _Virginia Law Review_ beginning at page 79 (available at: poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?I…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "[L]egal reforms enabling fathers to fulfill caregiving roles through joint custody would also enable mothers to fulfill breadwinning roles." 102 Virginia Law Review 128 (poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?I…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "By promoting joint custody as well as sex-neutral spousal maintenance, …the [divorce] bargain liberalized gender roles within divorced families, offering a model of a more egalitarian family structure." 102 Virginia Law Review 142 (poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?I…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "[T]he available evidence gleaned from comprehensive research into the movements’ archival record suggests that fathers’ rights activists genuinely pursued both the rewards and responsibilities of caring for their children." 102 Virginia Law Review 145 (poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?I…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "Criticism of joint custody formed part of a broader critique among feminist legal theorists in the 1980s about what they perceived as an earlier generation of feminist reformers’ mistaken focus on same treatment." 102 Virginia Law Review 144 (poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?I…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa As outlined above, before labor-saving gizmos, men used to be awarded custody whenever the courts got involved and then the "tender years" doctrine came to be (which was advocated for by women) which led to sole custody being awarded to women and women getting child support.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "At the same time, though, our culture has continued to assure women that they will be recognized and protected as the primary caregivers of children, even when women trade their traditional roles as home-dwelling caretakers for workplace laborers." 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 915.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "Society views women as weaker than men and in need of protection, whether by a man or by society when no man is available." 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 915 (1998) (available at ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewconten…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "Yet, in custody determinations, women receive a clear and unequivocal advantage over men when they receive primary residential custody of children approximately 90% of the time." 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 891, 916 (1998) (available at ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewconten…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "This result assures mothers great power over fathers largely due to stereotypical beliefs that mothers must be primary caretakers—a belief promoted and protected by the courts who award mothers custody in overwhelming numbers." 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 916 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "Mothers are further advantaged because custody commonly is accompanied by a child support order (which does not have to be accounted for to fathers), the familial residence, and the primary decisionmaking power regarding the children." 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 916–917 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa Further consider "The Disparity Between Men and Women in Custody Disputes: Is Joint Custody the Answer to Everyone's Problems?" by Jo-Ellen Paradise published in 1998 in Volume 72 of _St. John's Law Review_ bringing on page 517 (available at scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewconten…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "The most common form of child custody is sole custody. …Sole custody is popular for several reasons; it is the traditional custodial arrangement and it perpetuates the traditional notion that mothers, not fathers, are essential parents." 72 St. John's Law Review 537–538 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "While sole custody arrangements continue to enjoy great favor, in most situations it is actually detrimental to both children and parents." 72 St. John's Law Review 538 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "Unfortunately, however, until joint custody becomes a widely utilized and encouraged custody arrangement, it appears that sole custody will remain the most common form of child custody, and mothers the most common recipients." 72 St. John's Law Review 538 (1998).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa Consider the note entitled "The American Invention of Child Support: Dependency and Punishment in Early American Child Support Law" by Drew D. Hansen in 1999 in Volume 108 of the _The Yale Law Journal_ beginning on page 1123 (digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewconten…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "During the nineteenth century, American society witnessed a sharp rise in the number of single mothers with young children." 108 Yale L.J. 1123, 1127 (1999).

Remember that men, generally, were able to raise children without public support. 25 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. at 897.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "The rise in the divorce rate, the emergence of maternal preference in child custody, and the new value placed on childrearing combined to make it difficult for single mothers to support their children without relying on local poor-relief." 108 Yale L.J. 1123, 1127 (1999).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa "Mothers almost never won custody of their children in divorce cases from the colonial era to the early nineteenth century." 108 Yale L.J. 1123, 1130 (1999).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa So is the domestic and care work that mothers do so onerous that it precludes women from working like men had to when men were single parents and awarded custody of children in divorce prior to the Talfourd Act of 1839?

We, thus, come to the #GenderedLaborGap.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa The @uscensusbureau found that "[c]hildren living with their father (particularly if he was divorced) were more likely to be part of a family with a higher median income than those living with a single mom" (census.gov/prod/3/97pubs/…).

The American Time Use Survey supports this.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau If you add up both the unpaid labor and paid labor, on average, men work more total time than women creating a #GenderedLaborGap pursuant to (as an example) the @BLS_gov's 2017 American Time Use Survey (bls.gov/news.release/a…) and @pewresearch's data (pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch American Time Use Survey (with 2017 as an example) shows that women on average are not spending enough more time with their kids, doing chores, or anything else to explain women's lack of time working.

On average, men just work more in America (considering both paid and unpaid).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Let's do the math:

Table 8A, column 1: Men: Women:
Household activities: 1.31 2.34
Caring for household: 1.01 1.85
Work-related activities: 5.46 3.37
==========
Total: 7.78 7.56

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Now comparing the men from Table 8B to the women from Table 8C (where the youngest child is under 6):

Women care for and help household members 2.08 more hours per day than men in the most extreme case presented by Table 8A, but men work 6.43 hours more per day than women.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Similarly, comparing the men from Table 8B to the women from Table 8C (where the youngest child is under 6), women do household activities for 1.91 more hours per day than men in the most extreme case presented by Table 8A, but, again, men work 6.43 hours more per day than women.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Let's do the math: Men: Women:
Household activities: 1.26 3.17
Caring for household: 1.42 3.36
Work-related activities: 6.57 0.00
==========
Total: 9.25 6.53

Who is doing more?

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch By comparing the men from Table 8B to the women from Table 8C (using the youngest child under 6 column), we see the situation where women are unemployed and spending the most time caring not only for the children but the whole family.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch If women with kids are working fewer paid work hours due to the number of hours spent on childcare responsibilities, we should've seen women performing as many domestic labor hours as men were spending doing paid labor, but that isn't what we see.

We only see women working less.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Other @BLS_gov data (see below) indicates that 61% of families have both parents employed (bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/…), but does not indicate whether the mothers are working full-time or part-time.

The American Time Use Survey does have an answer in Table 8B.

Let's check that out.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Let's do the math:

Table 8B, column 1: Men: Women:
Household activities: 1.23 1.90
Caring for household: 0.93 1.52
Work-related activities: 6.35 5.01
===========
Total: 8.51 8.43

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Maybe women are forced to stay home with their kids and that causes the gap. If true, women with no kids should be working the same amount as men in the workforce as there is no reason not to since there is no reason to be on call and no extra household or child care duties.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Let's do that math:

Table 8A, column 4: Men: Women:
Household activities: 1.54 2.21
Caring for household: 0.07 0.07
Work-related activities: 4.11 2.83
===========
Total: 5.72 5.11

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Consider just workers:

Table 8B, column 4: Men: Women:
Household activities: 1.34 1.80
Caring for household: 0.04 0.05
Work-related activities: 6.17 5.29
===========
Total: 7.55 7.14

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Whether you consider all currently childless folks (Table 8A) or just the ones working (Table 8B), women spend less time on paid labor and related activities and women spend less time working considering both unpaid domestic labor and paid labor added together. The pattern holds.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Moreover, homemaking is not usually physically demanding work (unlike the paid labor many men do that women typically do not).

See, Women Workers and Women at Home Are Equally Inactive: NHANES 2003–2006 (available at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch "Women spent most of their day in sedentary (~55%) and light (~32%) activity, with limited lifestyle (~11%) and moderate vigorous physical activity (MVPA) (~2%), and there were no differences between the homemakers and [employed women]" (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch "Based on self-report, previous studies suggest that homemakers obtain less total physical activity, have lower overall activity-related energy expenditure, and are less likely to participate in vigorous leisure-time physical activity, than [employed women]" (Id.).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch "A recent study conducted by the PEW Research Center found that stay-at-home mothers reported spending more time on childcare, housework, leisure activities, and sleep more than working mothers" (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch That stay-at-home mothers reported spending more time on leisure activities and sleep more than working mothers is unsurprising when you see how much less work (when considering both domestic and paid labor) women do compare to men in the American Time Use Survey.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch It is interesting to note that a "husbands’ lack of full-time employment remains associated with marital instability" (asanet.org/sites/default/…, p. 717).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Moreover, "fulfillment of the male-breadwinner role appears to be equally or more strongly associated with marital stability in more recent marriage cohorts" (asanet.org/sites/default/…, p. 717).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch However, "[w]hen all marriage cohorts are pooled, wives’ full-time employment is positively and statistically significantly associated with the risk of divorce" (asanet.org/sites/default/…, p. 716).

This finding correlates with other research.

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch According to Dr. Rosenfeld, "heterosexual couples were especially likely to marry if the man had high earnings. …[A]mong heterosexual couples, earnings between partners became more unequal as the couples transitioned from cohabitation to marriage" (web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rose…, p.5).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch "[W]ives’ high earnings were negatively associated with marital quality" (web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rose…, p. 19).

Consider that women initiate over 50% of the breakups and nearly 70% of the divorces (web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rose…, fig. 1, p. 34).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Consider "Gender Identity and Relative Income Within Households" by Marianne Bertrand, Jessica Pan, and Emir Kamenica, which was written as a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2013 (nber.org/system/files/w…).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch "[T]he data suggest that married women may sometimes stay out of the labor force so as to avoid a situation where they would become the primary breadwinner" (nber.org/system/files/w…, p. 20).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch "[W]hen the wife earns more than the husband, the likelihood of divorce increases by about 6[%]… [and s]ince 12% of couples in the sample get divorced, this … implies that having the wife earn more than the husband increases the likelihood of divorce by 50[%]" (Id., 25).

@Oneiorosgrip @SignHexa @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch Yet "[a]mong solo parents [of which 81% are mothers and 19% are fathers], mothers are almost twice as likely as fathers to be living below the poverty line (30% vs. 17%), but poverty rates for cohabiting parents don’t differ among mothers and fathers" (pewresearch.org/social-trends/…).

@Oneiorosgrip @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch From the above data, it seems like women are quite privileged and become impoverished single parents due to their own poor decisions. @SignHexa, why should fathers be held financially responsible for a mother's poor decisions? Her body, her choice, and her responsibility, no?

@Oneiorosgrip @uscensusbureau @BLS_gov @pewresearch @SignHexa @threadreaderapp, please unroll.