The Next Front in the GOP’s War on Women: No-Fault Divorce

[lpetrich]

Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill ending permanent alimony - CBS Miami

The measure (SB 1416) includes doing away with what is known as permanent alimony. DeSantis' approval came a year after he nixed a similar bill that sought to eliminate permanent alimony and set up a formula for alimony amounts based on the length of marriage.

The approval drew an outcry from members of the "First Wives Advocacy Group," a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony and who assert that their lives will be upended without the payments.

"On behalf of the thousands of women who our group represents, we are very disappointed in the governor's decision to sign the alimony-reform bill. We believe by signing it, he has put older women in a situation which will cause financial devastation. The so-called party of 'family values' has just contributed to erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida," Jan Killilea, a 63-year-old Boca Raton woman who founded the group a decade ago, told The News Service of Florida in a text message Friday.

Back to Amanda Marcotte's article.

In doing so, he's siding with "men's rights" activists against the traditional conservative concerns about disincentivizing divorce and adultery. Notably, the people who will be most harmed by this are not feminist women who embrace "modern" lifestyle choices, such as getting an education and having a job outside the home. Typically, permanent alimony is awarded to women who tried to live a "traditional" lifestyle: Older women who spent decades as housewives and who have no marketable skills.

...
As feminists have often patiently explained, "family values" is just code for male domination. If protecting male privilege conflicts with protecting families, Republicans will choose the former. That's why Trump's status as a thrice-married chronic adulterer has never been a problem for the party of "family values."

Yet, the GOP continues to successfully bamboozle shocking numbers of women with promises that complicity will protect them. Witness the rise of Moms for Liberty, a group like many before it that sells conservative women on the idea that they can somehow gain power through embracing submissive gender roles.

 

[lpetrich]

Amanda Marcotte then noted "Witness the rise of Moms for Liberty, a group like many before it that sells conservative women on the idea that they can somehow gain power through embracing submissive gender roles."

Opinion: Moms for Liberty may be new to US politics, but their strategy isn’t | CNN - "What history reveals about the biggest new power player in US politics"

While the organization is new, its politics are anything but. The mobilization of right-wing women, particularly mothers on a mission to protect children by battling educators and school boards, has been central to conservative politics in the US for much of the past century. And while schools might be the focal point of their activism, groups like Moms for Liberty aren’t composed primarily of education activists concerned with “parental rights.” They also have to be understood as a core part of a broader and longstanding reactionary movement centered on restoring traditional hierarchies of race, gender and sexuality — a movement in which conservative mothers have always played a particularly powerful role.

Then discussing the Women's Auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920's (the WKKK) and later organizations of right-wing women.

For the women of the WKKK, schools were central targets. ... he WKKK regularly protested schools that they felt were riddled with Catholic and foreign influences. ... They sought to purge public schools of all Catholic influences — banning Catholic encyclopedias, firing Catholic teachers — while lobbying for mandatory (Protestant) Bible readings.

Also active back then was the United Daughters of the Confederacy, arguing "that Northern textbooks were polluting the schools of the South."

Then the civil-rights movement.

As they battled desegregation, many White mothers argued that the Supreme Court had superseded local — and parental — authority. They sought to wrest back control by adopting segregationist textbooks, promoting private academies and, at times, shutting down public schools altogether while conducting private lessons at home.

And, as desegregation moved North, right-wing women again became central players in school politics.

Then Anita Bryant's anti-gay organization "Save Our Children", which she founded in 1977.

These mothers’ movements, from the WKKK, to massive resistance to Save Our Children, all relied on the image of mothers protecting children. But they were in service of a much larger political project: shoring up traditional hierarchies of race and sexuality.

But MfL is different from its predecessors: its proximity to Presidential power. Both Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have allied themselves with MfL.

 

[lpetrich]

What has gotten into Republican women? | Salon.com - May 8, 2023 6:05AM (EDT) - "GOP women freak out over losing reproductive rights, but embrace cruelty when it's someone else's rights at stake"

Moms for Liberty are in for a rude awakening | Salon.com - "Moms for Liberty doesn't speak for parents of school kids who aren't on board with book banning and bullying"

Last week in Philadelphia Moms for Liberty held a cattle call for presidential candidates at their "Joyful Warriors" conference and they got all the big names to show up. This was quite a get for a group that only started in 2021 by Sarasota Florida school board members Tiffany Justice, Tina Descovich and Bridget Ziegler to protest masking and vaccine mandates in public schools during COVID-19. They are big players now in Republican politics with big donors and major politicians competing for their favor.

...
Florida GOP Chairman Christian Ziegler, quoted above, also happens to be married to Bridget Ziegler, one of the founders of Mom's for Liberty so for all its claims to being a grassroots organization, let's just say they had friends in high places from the very beginning. (Their very first conference was sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA.) It's not at all surprising that it very quickly grew into a national "parents rights" movement protesting the teaching of America's racial history and LGBTQ issues, banning books, abridging free speech, ending tenure for teachers, militant anti-transgender activism and fervent opposition to teachers' unions among other things. They are soldiers in the culture war, fighting what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would call the "woke" agenda, the most animating issue among the hardcore GOP base. So of course, the presidential candidates showed up for their little confab.

"These Moms for Liberty are a GOP front group fanning the flames of the culture war as a cynical political strategy."

 

[lpetrich]

Parents aren’t as conservative as the right likes to think - The Washington Post
About MfL:

This movement depends on an exaggerated sense of innocence. These are just parents worried about their kids! They simply want schools to focus on fundamentals, like reading and arithmetic, instead of teaching about systemic racism or oral sex! Why, even the government is trying to oppress them, what with its calling upset parents “domestic terrorists”!

That’s not what the government did, of course. Hearing concerns about increasingly aggressive threats to school officials and administrators, the Justice Department released a statement insisting it would crack down on threats of violence.

Then

Most important, though, it is not the case that parents are inherently politically conservative. When Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) suggested letting parents cast votes for their kids — a different flavor of this same discussion — The Washington Post looked at the effect that might have. But we can summarize the divides here more succinctly, using data from the biennial General Social Survey.

noting
J.D. Vance’s plan to let parents vote for their kids might not work the way he thinks - The Washington Post
Parents with children at home are about evenly split in party affiliation, so that won't give the bump to the Republican Party that he expects.

Again, it’s easy to see the appeal of Moms for Liberty. Carrying the imprimatur of parents is politically valuable. (On Monday, after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) appeared at the group’s gathering, his campaign announced its “Mamas for DeSantis” initiative.) But most parents aren’t hard-right culture warriors seeking to rid middle-school libraries of books that broach same-sex intimacy. Let only parents with young children vote, and they’re not going to vote the way Elon Musk wants.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill ending permanent alimony - CBS Miami

The measure (SB 1416) includes doing away with what is known as permanent alimony. DeSantis' approval came a year after he nixed a similar bill that sought to eliminate permanent alimony and set up a formula for alimony amounts based on the length of marriage.

Stopped clock. When you were in the marriage you were contributing to it. Once it's over you're not--why should you continue to enjoy the benefits of it? Half the assets + support while you learn a skill should be enough.

 

[bilby]

When you were in the marriage you were contributing to it. Once it's over you're not--why should you continue to enjoy the benefits of it?

Because you had a contract that said it was a lifelong commitment.

Why should someone be permitted to renege upon their legal agreement, freely entered into, to support someone else for life?

If you write off your new car, do you get to stop paying the loan instalments? Why should the car dealer continue to enjoy the benefits of selling you a vehicle, once your enjoyment of it is over?

I will see your "stopped clock", and raise you a "no backsies".

If you agreed, on your wedding day, to support your wife forever, then why would you be allowed to break that agreement?

 

[Shadowy Man]

When you were in the marriage you were contributing to it. Once it's over you're not--why should you continue to enjoy the benefits of it?

Because you had a contract that said it was a lifelong commitment.

Why should someone be permitted to renege upon their legal agreement, freely entered into, to support someone else for life?

If you write off your new car, do you get to stop paying the loan instalments? Why should the car dealer continue to enjoy the benefits of selling you a vehicle, once your enjoyment of it is over?

I will see your "stopped clock", and raise you a "no backsies".

If you agreed, on your wedding day, to support your re theywife forever, then why would you be allowed to break that agreement?

Unless the vows are written on the marriage certificate I’m not sure they would pass any legal muster.

 

[bilby]

When you were in the marriage you were contributing to it. Once it's over you're not--why should you continue to enjoy the benefits of it?

Because you had a contract that said it was a lifelong commitment.

Why should someone be permitted to renege upon their legal agreement, freely entered into, to support someone else for life?

If you write off your new car, do you get to stop paying the loan instalments? Why should the car dealer continue to enjoy the benefits of selling you a vehicle, once your enjoyment of it is over?

I will see your "stopped clock", and raise you a "no backsies".

If you agreed, on your wedding day, to support your re theywife forever, then why would you be allowed to break that agreement?

Unless the vows are written on the marriage certificate I’m not sure they would pass any legal muster.

A verbal contract is completely valid in law; If it's made in front of a number of reliable witnesses, it should be fairly easy to demonstrate both its existence and content, particularly if the text still exists as a written script.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When you were in the marriage you were contributing to it. Once it's over you're not--why should you continue to enjoy the benefits of it?

Because you had a contract that said it was a lifelong commitment.

Why should someone be permitted to renege upon their legal agreement, freely entered into, to support someone else for life?

If you write off your new car, do you get to stop paying the loan instalments? Why should the car dealer continue to enjoy the benefits of selling you a vehicle, once your enjoyment of it is over?

I will see your "stopped clock", and raise you a "no backsies".

If you agreed, on your wedding day, to support your wife forever, then why would you be allowed to break that agreement?

Agree to support forever? It's agree to help each other forever! And when that help ceases to be mutual it shouldn't be binding on only one.

 

[marc]

Because in the 'traditional' household the guy has the job, and the woman takes care of the home. She is entirely dependent on his income, giving up a career to be a homemaker. Now without a job, and possibly without skills to earn a living, and possibly with kids to raise, that is why alimony is needed.

Of course, it should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Many households require 2 incomes these days, and you can have a case where the woman makes more than the man.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

When you were in the marriage you were contributing to it. Once it's over you're not--why should you continue to enjoy the benefits of it?

Because you had a contract that said it was a lifelong commitment.

Why should someone be permitted to renege upon their legal agreement, freely entered into, to support someone else for life?

If you write off your new car, do you get to stop paying the loan instalments? Why should the car dealer continue to enjoy the benefits of selling you a vehicle, once your enjoyment of it is over?

I will see your "stopped clock", and raise you a "no backsies".

If you agreed, on your wedding day, to support your wife forever, then why would you be allowed to break that agreement?

Agree to support forever? It's agree to help each other forever! And when that help ceases to be mutual it shouldn't be binding on only one.

It depends greatly on the presumed roles people had before and during the marriage. If a woman works at home or pauses a career to raise children, there is an indefinite impact on her earning potential. If they had no children and the careers were unimpacted by the marriage, no impact on the income, it becomes more of a dissolution. If a woman's marriage led to compromises on her career, with no children, then there is an impact on her lost earning potential.

Divorce isn't an easy process to cookie cutter.

 

[Toni]

Because in the 'traditional' household the guy has the job, and the woman takes care of the home. She is entirely dependent on his income, giving up a career to be a homemaker. Now without a job, and possibly without skills to earn a living, and possibly with kids to raise, that is why alimony is needed.

Of course, it should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Many households require 2 incomes these days, and you can have a case where the woman makes more than the man.

Women out-earning their male partners is becoming more frequent and likely will continue to be more common as the trend of more young women going to college than young men continues.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Because in the 'traditional' household the guy has the job, and the woman takes care of the home. She is entirely dependent on his income, giving up a career to be a homemaker. Now without a job, and possibly without skills to earn a living, and possibly with kids to raise, that is why alimony is needed.

Of course, it should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Many households require 2 incomes these days, and you can have a case where the woman makes more than the man.

But that doesn't render her permanently unemployable. As far as I'm concerned alimony should be calculated to put someone back where they were before they switched to being a homemaker.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It depends greatly on the presumed roles people had before and during the marriage. If a woman works at home or pauses a career to raise children, there is an indefinite impact on her earning potential. If they had no children and the careers were unimpacted by the marriage, no impact on the income, it becomes more of a dissolution. If a woman's marriage led to compromises on her career, with no children, then there is an impact on her lost earning potential.

Divorce isn't an easy process to cookie cutter.

Put her back where she was--if there's a permanent reduction in earning potential than I would agree with support until the retirement age. Earning potential doesn't really apply beyond that point, neither should alimony.

 

[bilby]

to put someone back where they were before they switched to being a homemaker.

What, high school? Not many high schools will take students in their forties.