Feminist Sees Injustice in Child Custody Battle : Phyllis Chesler Argues in Her Book That Good Mothers Are Being Robbed of Children

In 1977, when feminist psychologist/author Phyllis Chesler decided to study women and the custody of children, she was happily married and pregnant for the first time.

Nine years later, much has changed. Now a divorced mother, Chesler has produced a massive, controversial book, “Mothers on Trial” (McGraw Hill: $22.95), that passionately puts forth the opinion that good mothers are being robbed of their children in about 70% of the custody battles that go to court--an estimate that has been questioned by a San Diego psychiatrist prominent in the area of custody problems.

The book strikes a different chord from the one sung by Chesler in “Women and Madness” 15 years ago, in which motherhood was pretty much portrayed as a sexist roadblock on the rocky road to equality.

Views Are Different

Chesler, who lives in New York, is the first to admit that her views, and her life, have taken a different shape in the last several years. She now finds fault with feminists for ignoring stay-at-home mothers.

“The current feminist movement is more concerned with equal pay for equal work and the right to abortion,” she said. “Feminists asked, ‘How can we get equal pay? We’ll have to say we’re the same.’

“Here I am, saying men and women are not the same.”

It is Chesler’s opinion that women, because they are less violent “as a group” and more socialized toward mothering, make better parents.

Although Chesler has custody of her son and did not find herself in a custody battle, she has experienced firsthand some of the paternal failings that are the anthem of her book.

“Upon divorce there was no child support and I have to beg and plead to make sure visitation occurs,” she said. “I thought he would live next door, but he moved away.

“I’m the feminist. I always thought I would be the one to walk out. I was floored. I began to think maybe there is something different about men and women.”

That precise view comes through loud and clear as Chesler spends 456 pages (and an additional 200 pages of notes and index) relaying a message many feminists would disagree with: Women make better parents and ought to be the caretakers of their children. There is even a chapter that champions the cause of mothers in prison, who often lose custody of their children to the state.

Dr. Melvin Goldzband, a San Diego psychiatrist who has authored psychiatry textbooks and is considered an authority on how child-custody issues relate to mental health, said he has not observed a trend, in either his practice or the professional literature, of good mothers losing custody of their children in most cases that go to court.

“I have known fathers who have been awarded custody when the mothers were good,” Goldzband said, “but it’s not that frequent a situation.

“What strikes me is that she (Chesler) has an ax to grind.”

In an interview here, Chesler vented her disapproval of fathers’ rights groups and the “pro-father” media that she says glamorizes them, as well as the “joint custody crowd” that she suspects resides in “cuckoo land.”

“Joint custody works,” she said, “if it’s voluntary, if both parents live near the child, if the income is equalized and if they genuinely share the obligations of raising the children. A majority of people are not that grown up.”

Chesler feels so strongly that mothers should have custody that she suggests there should be laws granting automatic mothers’ rights to custody.

“You cannot compare good enough fathers with good enough mothers,” said Chesler, who bases many of her theories on interviews with 60 “good enough” mothers who were challenged for custody between 1960 and 1981. By “good enough mothers,” she explained, she means mothers who may be strapped for money or draw the husband’s disapproval for sexual, political or religious activities but take good care of their children and are not alcoholics, drug users or child abusers. A “good enough” father is someone who also is not an alcoholic, drug user or child abuser but probably doesn’t spend quite as much time with the kids.

“If there is a custody battle, the child really ought to remain with whoever has been the primary caretaker,” Chesler said. “Nine and a half out of 10 times that’s going to be the mother.”

Chesler feels that adultery, lesbianism, political leanings, religion, careers and earning power should have nothing to do with whether a woman is judged a good mother, although she feels these are all weapons wielded successfully by fathers in custody court.

Conducted Three Studies

Chesler writes in the preface that she conducted three studies, six surveys and interviews with 300 mothers, fathers, children and custody experts, on which she bases several dramatic conclusions.

But the New York Times Book Review said the book “rests on some inadequately substantiated assertions. . . . Her use of statistics is equally sloppy and misleading. . . . She has a penchant for stating her opinions as facts. . . . ‘Mothers on Trial’ is pop radical feminism.”

Despite those problems, the New York Times reviewer found the mothers’ stories “believable and disturbing.”

There is the Japanese-American mother who lost custody of her children, she said, because the father claimed she was harming them by refusing to feed them “American food.”

The can’t-win problems of single motherhood are put forth by Chesler in an interview: If she stays at home with the children, she’s too poor; but if she works, she’s not spending enough time with her children.

Fathers are immune to those accusations, Chesler claimed.

“As a culture, we don’t expect men to do that much as fathers,” she said. “If they do anything at all with the children, we say they’re terrific fathers.

Fall Asleep on the Job

“If they come home exhausted from their jobs and they fall asleep watching television and drinking beer, we still say, ‘He’s a good father.’ ”

That paternal immunity to criticism, combined with men’s greater earning power and a feminist-inspired trend toward gender-neutral thinking, is quietly starting to tip the balance in favor of fathers when cases go to court, Chesler claimed.

“The kinds of fathers who challenge for custody are not the good guys,” Chesler said. “Maybe the best fathers among us stay married for the children’s sake, because they don’t want to impoverish the family or deprive the child of a parent.

“When a divorce happens, maybe the best fathers live nearby, pay child support, are not quick to start second families and do not put the wife and children through a custody battle.”

Maybe.

And maybe not.

At any rate, Chesler’s massive book certainly has posed the question.