Richard Doyle has for nearly five decades now, been an advocate for a fair deal for men – especially divorced fathers.  A former US serviceman in the Korean War, the author’s awareness of gender issues came into sharp focus with his divorce from his first wife in 1957.  He was shocked by the “anti-male prejudice” he encountered at the hands of the American court system. 

As you would expect, Doyle’s book is polemical in style. He recounts the woeful tale of the over zealous pursuit of sexual equality in the United States over the past half century.  While there is much to commend the book, such as being easy to read, never-the-less, unless the reader has a strong interest in American domestic affairs, it can be laborious ploughing through the reams of American data and case histories cited. 

What has happened in America has unfortunately been mirrored in this country and just about every other western nation.  Doyle tries to understand the male mindset that has allowed the erosion of male rights and privileges on a massive scale unprecedented in the annals of western civilisation. 

He argues that men have been caught on the horns of a dilemma.  Traditional social mores seek to protect women and to assume that they are the chief care-givers of children, so if there is dissolution of the marriage, courts tend to award custody to mothers.   Many ex-wives deny fathers custody by alleging sexual violence and/or assault against themselves and/or the children. Many of these allegations are often false and done so that when courts divide  assets and award custody, the mother is sure to get the lion’s share of the spoils.  What Doyle rightly objects to is that the women’s word is taken as gospel, while men are guilty until they can prove their innocence, a reversal of traditional legal protocols. 

Doyle is a disciple of Professor Daniel Amneus. That is to say that while he contends for equal rights for men as well as women, his main focus is on the dissolution of family life and the negative consequences this has on children, in particular the loss of meaningful contact between fathers and their children. 

He contends that marriage has become somewhat of a trap for men in modern times.  While it is held out as a worthy ideal, no special training is required for people to equip them to become good spouses and/or parents.  And if the marriage fails, given the focus is on female rights, men are often left high and dry. They are in many instances denied access to their children on very flimsy grounds and yet still expected to pay child-support.  And if they default on paying family support, they face swift punitive action from the authorities (depending on local state laws.) 

I found Part 3, Reality, Sensibility, Amelioration, to be the most interesting and helpful part. In this section Doyle seeks to come up with common-sense proposals to counter the anti-male bias built into the present legal and social welfare systems. The solutions he offers,  are for the most part, sensible and workable - but won’t please everyone. 

All in all, a very useful book,  but  it is  a pity  Doyle did not take a more universal approach to  it.  The value of the book is limited by its Americanisms and limits it’s overall effectiveness to other markets. 

“Aspects of  Retirement for Older Women (2006)”

Reviewed by John Morrissey. 

The findings of this report, conducted by the Australian Government’s Office for Women, are both unremarkable and reassuring. The study is based on the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics (HILDA) survey, which is household-based and collects information about economic well-being, labour market dynamics and family dynamics. This report uses data from the HILDA respondents in 2003 who were retired and aged 45 and over. It is, however, a snapshot study, and the issue awaits a follow-up analysis of a cohort of older workers for a minimum of ten years. 

‘For both men and women, the proportion who considered themselves completely retired increased strongly with age;’ (Executive Summary). Any reading of the numerous tables supplied with the report leads to stating the obvious, and there are few surprises in the findings. The study was focused particularly on ‘gender differences in the retirement process’, and it was no surprise that women of retirement age had accumulated less savings than men, owing to lower wage rates before 1970 and a tendency to occupy jobs where superannuation was unavailable. 

Although the focus is on single women (separated, divorced or never married), it is significant that on most criteria single women and men appear to be disadvantaged, the women only slightly more so. Both married and partnered women and men report considerably better economic security, single women(76%) and men (68%) being far more likely to rely on government pensions than the retired couples (33%). This difference was less dramatic but still evident in the couples’ generally better social relationships and sense of well-being. 

There is certainly scope here for comparing these findings with those of Dr Birrell from the Census data, which also suggest a crisis for single people, but in a younger age group. Other quite predictable findings conclude that women’s decisions to retire were influenced more often than men’s by family responsibilities, and that health problems played a larger part for men than women. However, there is no smoking gun among these tables to suggest that women were more likely than men to be pressured into retirement; in fact men reported more pressure than women, but from the workplace or a doctor. A majority reported no pressure at all, and spouse pressure was felt by only 11.4% of women and 4.9% of men, a disparity consistent with women’s greater assumption of family responsibilities. 

Much of this report is reassuring about the situation of Australian retirees, and the Executive Summary describes it as ‘a happy period of most people’s lives’. The tables show that the majority would not prefer to be still working, still have plenty of social contacts, can still depend on help from others when they need it, and enjoy time spent with friends. Loneliness and lack of someone to confide in are more of a problem for singles than couples, but seem to be more prevalent among men than women. 

This encouraging profile of the lives of retired couples, who form two-thirds of the individuals in the sample, is an endorsement of married life and – without any aspersions on the single life – suggests that a modest reward awaits those who work hard at their marriages and families.