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Fathers' Rights Movement

  • By: Lynn Comerford
  • In: Encyclopedia of Motherhood
  • Edited by: Andrea O'Reilly
  • Subject:Sociology of Gender, Parenting, Maternal Health

In the 1990s, the Fathers' Rights Movement (FRM) evolved in response to feminism. Proponents of FRM believe that male domination is a myth and that women are unfairly advantaged by family law. It represents a number of different movements that arose in reaction to changes in family law and changes in family structure, namely, the increase in unwed childbearing and divorce.

Unprecedented Rate of Fatherless Families

The current separation of U.S. fathers from their children is historically unprecedented. In the United States in 1960, father-absent families numbered 10 million. In 2008, it stood at 24 million. The divorce rate doubled between 1965 and 1980; an estimated 40 to 50 percent of all marriages now end in separation or divorce, affecting over 1 million children annually. Births to ...

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