Daily Read: Behre on Empiricism, Equality, and Fathers Rights

Kelly A. Behre's forthcoming article, Digging Beneath the Equality Language: The Influence of the Fathers’ Rights Movement on Intimate Partner Violence Public Policy Debates and Family Law Reform, 21 Wm. & Mary J.  Women & L. (forthcoming 2014), available at SSRN, is the topic of my piece for JOTWELL: Things We Like Lots in the Equality section.  I think that

Behre’s article is worth reading for its “deep dig” into the reality, rhetoric, and social science of “fathers’ rights.” Gender equality in family law remains worthy of our attention. But Behre’s article is also worth reading for its applicability to issues involving “reverse discrimination,” “color-blindness,” or formal equality, in which similar empirical underpinnings promote continued subordination. Digging beneath the equality rhetoric does not only unearth profound differences in the meanings of equality, it may also surface a dirty study.

If nothing else, Behre's careful tracing of incorrect citations and descriptions will make one want to double-check those sources in one's latest writing.