Downside of equal rights for women in Florida

Follow-up to “Equal Rights Amendment, Bristol Palin, and Aziz Ansari”

I checked in with some friends last month. The husband’s sister lives in Florida. About 20 years ago she married a man who seemed like a partner with some financial potential. However, he had gradually lost his mojo and hadn’t been earning any money for the past few years. She decided to discard him under Florida’s no-fault divorce law. His defense of the lawsuit, however, included a demand to have a 50/50 shared parenting arrangement of their children, thus entitling him to a stream of tax-free child support payments from her (since his own income is zero). He is also seeking the “permanent alimony” that Florida courts conventionally hand out.

The case hasn’t been resolved yet, but her lawyer tells her that there is a realistic possibility that she will be supporting this unwanted man for the next 50 years and/or until her death. Another example of how anything resembling the Equal Rights Amendment might be bad for women in practice?

On a related note, let’s consider an author popular with American women. “Marie Kondo and the Cult of Tidying Up” (WSJ, February 26, 2015):

At the author’s direction, the girl must pull them all out, pick up each item and pose Ms. Kondo’s signature question: Does it tokimeku—does it spark joy? …

“Keep only the things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest,” [Marie Kondo] advises. “When you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too. As a result, you can see quite clearly what you need in life and what you don’t.”

One of her clients, she notes, even jettisoned her husband.

“Jettison then write checks every month for 50 years” might not tokimeku …

13 thoughts on “Downside of equal rights for women in Florida

  1. Interesting, I have know of a female classmate who is a psychiatrist in Florida (probably making ~$200,000/year). As far as I know, she wasn’t much of a man-magnet and didn’t have much luck in finding love. Now at 40 she went for the ‘Hail Mary’ pass and just recently had a baby with a divorced construction laborer (with child from previous marriage, median wage ~$31,000). Supposedly there are plans to marry, and I wonder if it’s a setup on the man’s part. She’s not particularly a stable person herself, so I wonder what will happen in a few years.

    Once enough women are put through the grinder (like men are), the laws for alimony/child support will finally change under political pressure from women. We’ll just have to wait two decades I guess.

    In related news, even a super rich Arab Royal cannot escape the clutches of child support (see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3434747/Mother-fails-court-bid-make-Middle-Eastern-royal-fathered-son-pay-800-000-annual-maintenance-including-boxes-Arsenal-FC-Ascot.html). In this article though, it is considered a win that he only has to pay 200,000 pounds per year instead of the 800,000 pounds per year the mother wanted.

    “The mother argued that her son should enjoy the same lifestyle as his father, and deserves a private box at the Emirates Stadium and Royal Ascot, and membership at Wentworth Golf Club. She argued that the essential needs of her son – who he has never met – include a nanny, governess and housekeeper, and regular first class holiday flights for himself and his entourage.”

    ‘Unhappily the mother has a fervent belief that (the boy) and therefore she herself, by way of a carer’s allowance, should be allowed a vast income provision to enable (the boy’s) lifestyle to replicate that of the father; but almost without regard to the fact that he is a seven-year-old growing up in London.’

  2. Something for Philip, not relevant to the current conversation:

    Best Helicopter Fishing Out Video Ever

    Fishing out a P-51 Mustang model airplane with a Robinson R-22.

    🙂

  3. Another example of how anything resembling the Equal Rights Amendment might be bad for women in practice?

    Perhaps I’m reading too much into a simple question that outside of context could have been ironic or even rhetorical. But if not, then I fail to see how any legal or factual development that affords women rights (and responsibilities!) equal to men, could be “bad for women in practice?” Because, surely, the only way in which having the same obligations towards a spouse (i.e. redressing present legal imbalance which is slanted heavily towards women) could be called “bad” is when women are assumed to be lesser humans, in need of being provided for by someone else, men, or society (and having the legal framework to back that up). In effect, women as (face it: exchangeable, thus faceless) vessels for procreation of the species, which is all the justification ever needed to claim their special/ protected/ provisioned-for status, that just happens to be the status quo.

  4. I would be interested to hear Phil’s opinion on the safety of the operation. The helicopter seems dangerously close to the trees.

  5. The helicopter operation? If the engine had quit it would have been ugly, certainly. They were outside of the height-velocity diagram’s safe zone for an autorotation. On the other hand, we do that sometimes even for training. Pilots in Vietnam did stuff like this all the time. It was a two-pilot operation, which adds a lot of safety. Maintaining power lines from a helicopter is roughly the same level of challenge and it is done routinely.

  6. @Germani: …wasn’t much of a man-magnet and didn’t have much luck in finding love. Now at 40 she went for the ‘Hail Mary’ pass and just recently had a baby with a divorced construction laborer (with child from previous marriage, median wage ~$31,000)…

    Similar story for a well-paid female executive at a former employer. In her early 40s, she married a younger security guard, got him a job as a Florida state corrections officer (less than $30K per year at the time, limited overtime, un-pleasant working conditions, but decent benefits). They had a baby w/i a year and divorced w/i another year. She’s paying lifetime alimony.

    Once enough women are put through the grinder (like men are), the laws for alimony/child support will finally change under political pressure from women. We’ll just have to wait two decades I guess.

    Every reader of this blog will be beyond baby-making age by that time.

  7. @ Smartest Woman: Similar story for a well-paid female executive at a former employer. […] She’s now paying lifetime alimony.

    I can’t quite wrap my head around this… unlike men, women have all these procreation options at their exclusive disposal: ad-hoc one-night stands with unknown suitors; natural or artificial insemination with gay-friend or anonymous sperm-bank donors; IVF/ unmarried adoption, etc. Yet, aware of the bio-clock’s ticking, this presumably intelligent executive could not avail herself of any of that, but had to go the full “Hail Mary” course? (which idiom can but mean “last resort” here.) I.DO.NOT.GET.IT.

    […] laws for alimony/child support will change under political pressure from women [by which time] every reader of this blog will be beyond baby-making age

    In body, yes, but not in principle. Deep frozen reproduction-worthy male sperm and female eggs can nowadays be stored near-indefinitely [let’s assume they can be thawed and then implanted with no side effects]. This opens up possibilities for breeding siblings to (if not clones of) already deceased (successful, thus genetically proven) persons, not to mention the potential of “Boys from Brazil” like scenarios. A rich industrialist could set up a multi-generation-transcending foundation with the sole purpose of propagating his and cronies’ genes in centuries to come, whenever the Civilization looks like it could use White Knights for salvation. This being wholly private, secluded enterprise, that breeding (in various combinations of sperm/ egg/ embryos and indentured human brood mares) could take place outside of the society, and any undesirably mutated or less promising offspring painlessly terminated at early stages of development, or after failing multiple Voight-Kampff or other tests. Were I in Melinda’s shoes, I’d watch where Bill deposits his spare oats.

  8. @ianf: Deep frozen reproduction-worthy male sperm

    Ah, yes. Good point. Back in the early ’90s, a good friend banked five sperm samples at a S. Florida sperm bank. Back then, it cost about $250 per year to keep the samples in storage. He eventually stopped paying after about ten years.

  9. @ Smartest Woman: the $250 yearly storage cost for one individual’s frozen sperm – surely that has to do with the economies of scale. Once the IceSeed practice heads towards commodity and/or being stored in the Alaskan permafrost (since it will hardly ever be needed 24-7 at a moment’s notice!), the price should come down. Other business models may appear, too, like free storage and future reuse of own effluvium in exchange for the sperm bank’s selling it anonymously at an auction (“high-IQ hunk with blue eyes, presently CTO of a Forbes 500 company”) to highest bidders, etc.

    In any event, if the RWD team’s findings of current grave financial burdens awaiting “easily discarded” American fathers (and sometimes even mothers) percolate down to forward-thinking parents of young adults, we may be witnessing the birth of a new rite of passage to adulthood: family-sponsored deposition of male descendant’s sperm in tandem with him undergoing a vasectomy (or some other form of perhaps future reversible contraception method – I understand there already are some such, though not widely deployed). Release of sperm for IVF etc impregnation of own loving spouse could then be negotiated in a separate, legally binding agreement as to indexed child support levels, etc in the unfortunate case of divorce. Because, in the final calculus, what’s the $10,000 cost for even 40 years frozen sperm storage in comparison with that of a court case?

    PS. Off topic: I like smart women (honest; am undecided on the subject of Florida). Where do Floridians go for comfort in the hottest months of July and August? I understand that the Israelis, pretty hot down there as well, if they can afford it, flock en masse to the Norwegian Fjords [no joke], but where do smart Florida women “hibernate in summer”… Newfoundland?

  10. @ianf: Where do Floridians go for comfort in the hottest months of July and August?

    True, July & August are killer – 85 to 90 degrees every day and unrelenting humidity. After 25 years, I can barely tolerate it. There is no escape other than inside with the AC on blast. On the other hand, today was sunny, blue skies, and 65 degrees – about ten degrees cooler than normal for this time of year. The forecast is the same for the rest of the week.

  11. @ianf: “Yet, aware of the bio-clock’s ticking, this presumably intelligent executive could not avail herself of any of that, but had to go the full “Hail Mary” course? (which idiom can but mean “last resort” here.) I.DO.NOT.GET.IT.”

    I don’t get it either, but my best guess is that it is an attempt to “save face” for the woman. Aside from the pressures of tradition and parents, I suppose if she sees all her peers getting married, having kids, starting families – it might be there is a competitive drive for women to show their peers that they too can secure “love” from a man (ie. security, and for those less fortunate in the sexual market, if not primarily monetary security, then at least some emotional support).

    Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and all that… let’s face it, in the end the ultimate “litmus test” of a woman’s attractiveness is a man’s erection, not how much money she has. Albeit, some men’s standards are lower than others…

  12. Also, being a Floridian for many years, I can tell you there is no relief from the heat and humidity other than to go inside where there is AC like SmartWoman said. Having a pool to dip in next to the house helps a lot (not uncommon in the suburbs). The humidity can often times be so much that it makes your skin itch. In the summer, it often rains like clockwork in the afternoon (real thunderstorms, which strangly enough, I miss the sound of). Just after a rain is the best time to go for a walk/bike ride. The beaches can often provide some relief if there’s a good breeze. I wouldn’t live in the swampy inland regions.

  13. ADDENDUM to my #7: am I clairvoyant or what? Because just a day after that I wrote up that hypothetical vision of a preventively deep-frozen sperm future on February 8, 2016 5:41 am, I see that some British women (as reported yesterday, 9 February 2016 14.57 GMT) already have walked that walk, errr… not the frozen sperm path, of course, but undergone social egg-freezing just-in-case of (“anticipating”) future IVF treatments that they “may or may not need to have.” Stick with me, Smartest Woman, you could do worse.

    PS. As of now I’m hiring out my proven clairvoyance ability by the hour (also correctly predicted stock downfall of doth-marketed-too-much $GTAT in the past). Agreeable rates, bulk discounts. Inquire within.

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