USA
The fathers’ rights movement in the US emerged with the founding of Divorce Racket Busters in California in 1960 to protest Californian divorce laws which they stated discriminated against men in alimony, child support settlements and in a presumption of maternal custody. The group expanded into other states, changing its name to Divorce Reform in 1961. With the increase in divorce rates in the 1960s and 1970s, more local grassroots men’s organization grew up devoted to divorce reform, and by the 1980s, there were a total of more than 200 fathers’ rights groups active in almost every state. These groups focused their actions on what they viewed as sex discrimination in family law, by engaging in political activities such as lobbying state legislatures, filing class action suits, picketing courthouses, and monitoring judges’ decisions through “court watches”. The 1990s saw the emergence of new and larger organizations such as National Fatherhood Initiative and the American Fathers coalition. Several attempts have been made to found a national organization to which local fathers’ rights organizations could belong, however this has been difficult to achieve. As a result the movement remains mainly a loose coalition of local groups.
Read more about this topic: Fathers' Rights Movement By Country
Famous quotes containing the word usa:
“It is hereby earnestly proposed that the USA would be much better off if that big, sprawling, incoherent, shapeless, slobbering civic idiot in the family of American communities, the City of Los Angeles, could be declared incompetent and placed in charge of a guardian like any individual mental defective.”
—Westbrook Pegler (1894–1969)
“The biggest difference between ancient Rome and the USA is that in Rome the common man was treated like a dog. In America he sets the tone. This is the first country where the common man could stand erect.”
—I.F. (Isidor Feinstein)