This whole case is a prime example of why it is ignorant and misguided to blame “feminists” for everything that oppresses men in modern society. It is “feminists” who formulated and articulated to solution to these problems – sexual equality.

A 2-year old boy goes missing in the Seattle area. The last person to see him was his mother, who left him in the car when she ran out of gas and went off to get more.

Bottom line: What is going to come out of this is that the mother, Julia Biryukova, has a severe mental illness and deserves our sympathy and care. What she got instead though was the full power of the state on her side to separate her children from their father. I can’t really blame her because of her condition. I can and do blame the social welfare authorities for enabling her and for their pretty obvious gender bigotry which motivated their decisions to enable her.

Bottom line: From beginning to end the authorities both in the social welfare system and in the family court system have based their decisions on traditionalist gender expectations. This whole case is a prime example of why it is ignorant and misguided to blame “feminists” for everything that oppresses men in modern society. It is “feminists” who formulated and articulated to solution to these problems – sexual equality.

The police suspected foul play – the boy is missing and someone knows where he is – but they charge no one, not even the parent who last had the boy in her care or the non-custodial parent who has a motive for kidnap.  

This article also mentions the issue of spousal abuse and mental illness. Extracted from the article:

“A psychologist who evaluated Biryukova wrote in July 2010 that she was dealing with a “severe form” of obsessive compulsive disorder. But the psychologist determined Biryukova’s condition did not interfere with “her ability to be a compassionate, effective parent to her children.”

Earlier this year a social worker reported that a doctor found Biryukova to be in good mental health and an appropriate caregiver for the kids.”

 

“”Severe form” of obsessive compulsive disorder” – Solomon Metalwala was interviewed on KING 5 last week and he talked about what this was like. He said that often they would be trying to leave to go somewhere but couldn’t leave the house because Julia was obsessively cleaning and cleaning and cleaning some surface. He said that she would often forbid the family from using the bathroom. Yet the psychologist found her capable of being an effective parent.

Indeed. Effective – but no specifics on what the effects of such parenting would be on a child.

Wait – the family was forbidden to use the bathroom? Why did the father acquiesce to such an order from his wife. It is as if he thought she had some kind of authority in the house to make these demands. He probably would have spent the night on the couch to if she had gotten angry with him over something. What a patriarch!

Ah, but it was not only spousal abuse that was alleged.

Julia alleged that Solomon has struck the daughter, Maile. And the boy, Sky, had unexplained bruises. But notice something – it was a social worker who made the determination that, not the police or a court. Why didn’t the social worker refer this to the police if it was true? 

The mother, Julia Biryukova, convinced a judge to grant her a protective order against the father. There was apparently no evidence of any abuse, yet he was forbidden any contact with his won children.

From the article:

“In court documents, Biryukova alleged that Metalwala abused the children; Solomon insisted that Biryukova made up the allegations, that she was suicidal and mentally ill, and he voluntarily took a polygraph to clear his name.

Nevertheless, Biryukova succeeded in winning custody – and a protection order keeping Metalwala from the children. “

Translation: Here was a case of countervailing allegations – she alleged he was an abuser, he alleged she was mentally ill. And the court favored her. Rampant misogyny in the family court system!

Now it turns out there was no basis to her accusations of abuse. So what? Of course there will be no repercussions for making a false statement, and it won’t be perjury because no sworn statement was needed to get such a restrictive protective order, so there is no disincentive at all for a wife  (husbands can’t get protective orders like this) to counter-balance the obvious incentive to make this kind of false accusation.

So after the son went missing the daughter was placed in foster care, rather than returned to her father.

Note that even at this point no criminal charges were pending against the mother.

So now in the end he is finally getting to raise his daughter.

What kind of legal and cultural climate is something like this occurring in? Can it really be called a patriarchy? The fathers are in charge – really? But if not, what do you call a system that works on these assumptions, where the women run the house and raise the children, no matter what, and the men run the world, no matter what?

What we call it doesn’t matter. What we do about it does.  The first thing is to denounce it.

I’m a hugger. I love hugs. They are one of my favorite things in the world. Personally, I think a good hug is something of great value, especially in abundance.

But I was not always like this. I remember back in my early high school years, I wasn’t very physically affectionate at all. I wasn’t affectionate with women or girls due to being afraid of “coming across wrong” and making them uncomfortable or creeping them out, and I wasn’t affectionate with men or boys because… well, it made me uncomfortable.

But then I got a girlfriend. And then she broke up with me. And suddenly I felt a huge gaping hole in my life. A physical-affection shaped hole that I never realized I had before. So I started hugging my friends as a greeting. And slowly it caught on, and together we became a physically affectionate bunch. And the rest is history, as they say.^[1] My life is now filled with hugs and affection.

When I was a kid, I also remember watching Home Improvement with my family. One episode I remember in particular involved Tim trying to prove that he was “man enough” to hug another man, and doing so extremely awkwardly and uncomfortably. The clear message: men are uncomfortable hugging each other, or, really, being physically affectionate with each other in any way other than back-patting and shoulder-punching.

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