It would be easier to criticise the oversimplification that boils a complex issue down to identity politics and a single narrative. There are parents who are unjustly alienated, and there are parents who should be alienated for the safety of the children and the other parent. I’ve left both ungendered, because both can be true of fathers and mothers. There are child rape victims who are forced to pay child support to their rapists, and there are mothers who are alienated from their children. Interpreting individual cases as if we already knew the answer (as the prosecutor seems to have done in this case, and as many alienated fathers have experienced), or generalising based on extreme cases like this one, causes serious harm. This guy didn’t even want a relationship with his children, but he was pushed into some crusade for fathers (as if they were all the same). Many responses to this act like fathers should not have parental rights, as if they were all the same.
On the whole, shared custody is beneficial to children, and does not increase the risk of abuse. In fact, the opposite is true – a disproportionate amount of child abuse comes from single mothers. This is not changed by the fact that there are times when shared custody is definitely not a good thing – this is one of those issues where sexist generalisations (as in this case, or as organisations like NOW tend to give) can be extremely harmful.
