I moved to the USA from Europe some 12 years ago, and I was surprised to see that the men-women power balance is different in the USA, than in Eastern Europe where I originally am from. It is indeed true, that I have heard of more cases of women cheating on their husbands or denying sex to them, than men cheating on their wives or physically abusing them. I have seen women in the USA whom shamelessly and adeptly gamed the system, taking advantage of laws specifically designed to put women at an advantage (something called Violence Against Women Act or similar). A friend of mine was badly burned by these laws recently. Although it’s just an individual example, it illustrates many of the common problems in the USA. It started like this: they had 2 children, and my friend (the husband) wanted more. However, his wife didn’t want more children and she controlled the situation. Finally, the husband gallantly chose to have a vasectomy, so that his wife wouldn’t have to deal with the side-effects of the Pill. Part of the wife’s reason for not wanting more children had to do with lifestyle and an affluent living. She continued to spend on clothes, fashion, hairdresser, furniture, she used the better car, while my friend stayed pretty frugal and even took on a second job in the evenings, to pay the bills. Then, his wife started to work on an advanced degree (my friend already had one), and thus the husband took care almost exclusively of the children, often leaving the house with them while his wife was studying for exams. But even before, he has always been an exemplary spouse and father, doing his fair share of housework and caring for the children. Some time into this period, while the wife was studying beside working, and the husband worked two jobs and took care of the children, the wife stopped marital intimacy. Little did the husband know that she was also having an affair. When the husband received an exciting job offer somewhere else, one that meant a major step in his career, he discussed it with his wife. Together, they decided that the husband will take the job and move alone for the first year in order to try it out, and the wife with children will move after him after the first year, if indeed everything works out nicely with the husband’s new job. Then, while he was making arrangements (new and very good job offer for his wife at the new place built on her freshly obtained advanced degree, school for children), the wife decided that she wanted a divorce. However, she didn’t have the guts to tell her husband about her affair which was her real reason for divorce. Instead, she claimed that her husband abandoned her by moving somewhere else, and she found an attorney with the help of whom she absolutely and shamelessly ripped off her husband: she kept the house, custody of the children, and she sued for an inordinate portion of financial assets (retirement funds etc). She even asked for alimony, in addition to child support. You see, she was a poor abandoned mother and wife in the eyes of law, and there are specific laws designed to protect and give the upper hand to such women. On top of all, she tarnished the good name of my friend - she painted him as a bad guy who abandoned his wife and children. My friend, still unaware (perhaps aware, but not wanting to believe?) of his wife’s affair, pulled all the stops out to reconcile and keep the family together. Although initially they planned that they would possibly reunite the family outside the USA, where my friend had this high-ranking job and an excellent job offer for his wife, and he no longer had his original job where his family was located (due to Hurricane Katrina), he had two excellent job offers in two other cities in the USA, and his wife wanted to move somewhere else anyway. He also offered to move back with his family and take whatever job available, just so that they would stay together and raise the children together. But, no, his wife was adamant on divorcing him, and she even turned their older son against him. She insisted that he abandoned her, and kept her affair in secret. Now, my friend is abandoned, he lost his children, his older one totally turned against him (somehow she didn’t succeed in turning the younger one against him), and if he is to ever consider marriage again with someone else, he better remember that he had vasectomy.
It’s in individual story, but I believe we can observe the same elements over and over again - women controlling the bedroom, reproductive choices, and ripping off their husbands with the help of biased laws. Women keeping custody of their children, no matter what. Even when they were the ones who dumped their husbands.
Disclaimer: I do not hate women. My mother raised my sister and me alone, after my father left us. I know what it means for a mother to be alone and struggle alone to raise her children - my mother did it.
P.S. Oh how I love VP Joe Biden, who invented VAWA (Violence Against Women Act), and the new hate crimes bills pushed by his gang!
