In the oppressive culture of Iran, women are mere property to be used and thrown away by their husbands like trash. Or so the English-speaking media tells you regularly. Iranian correspondent Ali Mehraspand has a different story to tell that you won’t read anywhere else.
“Never trust a woman (of bad character)” is a good motto. Yet it is one which must be complemented by “never trust a man (of bad character).” Here is a look at a female legislator’s efforts — in days gone by — to fight for the rights of males, conjoined with a newspaper commentary on those same efforts written by a female journalist. You are invited hereby to meet two “proto-Honeybadgers.”
In 1911 it became permissible for women to file for alimony even decades following their divorce. It was a year that produced remarkable cases of profligate alimony princesses, whose insatiable passion for luxury made international news. The exploits of two women offer us an illuminating insight into this gynocentric tradition.
Sentenced to life in debtor’s prison. That is what one young immigrant was faced with after being locked up for failing to meet his young wife’s demands for money for herself and the relatives she brought over from the Old Country to be supported by her bricklayer hubby.
Some called it “polite blackmail,” some called it the “alimony racket.” For German immigrant to the United States, George Wacker, it was more than a racket, it was a death sentence.
Alimony racketeering, a perennial problem, has been around for a long time. Robert St. Estephe takes a look at how this problem began the Men’s Rights Movement in the early 20th Century.
The “polite blackmail” of alimony – paying for the wife and family you no longer have – has galvanized men (and the women who love them) across the last century. Another great find by Robert St. Estephe.
Think gynocentrists terrorism is something new? It isn’t. Robert St. Estephe examines a case from the 1920s that doesn’t sound too different from what many members of the MHRA community have experienced.
The bitterest fruit of the alimony tree is harvested during the holiday season by broken men imprisoned on a whim by their greedy ex-wives. Not even economic collapse brought mercy to these men and their kids.
Problems with divorce, alimony and child-support are hardly new – some reformers recognized the systemic unfairness to men over 80 years ago. More enlightening history from Robert St. Estephe.
