Is Divorce Harder On Men or Women

James Sexton discusses divorce, infidelity, and gender. It's worth a watch. 

Attractivness

One of the biases which often goes unnoticed is attractiveness, Pretty women and good looking men have a huge advantage in life pure and simple. 

Bastian Jaeger and colleagues were motivated by a puzzling gap in both research and public discourse: despite strong evidence that physically attractive individuals receive systematic advantages in domains like hiring, pay, and legal outcomes, “lookism” attracts far less moral outrage than race- or gender-based discrimination. The authors asked whether this apparent tolerance reflects genuine acceptance of attractiveness-based bias, or whether people simply fail to notice it in the first place.

Personally I have always thought this is obvious. As do many others from this discussion. It is the reason women, and some men, get plastic surgery. Men will even go to great lengths (slight pun) to increase their height. 

Top 10 Dirty Tricks

Below are the top 10 dirty tricks used in divorce. At least according to a random guy on YouTube. 

Sliding Backwards

The Trump administration appears set to ban women from combat positions in the military. No doubt they would prefer women's role in the military be restricted to being military wives. 

The Pentagon is mounting a six-month review of women in ground combat jobs, to ensure what it calls the military "effectiveness" of having several thousand female soldiers and Marines in infantry, armor and artillery, according to a memo obtained by NPR.

Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, opposed women in ground combat units while he was a Fox News host and author. "I'm straight up saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn't made us more effective. Hasn't made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated."

So much for gender equality. How anyone thinks that banning over half the population from being in combat will increase the effectiveness of  the force is beyond me. 

Complaint Against Federal Judge Sarah Merriam

The Legal Accountability Project filed a formal complaint against Sarah Merriam, a federal appeals judge on the 2nd Circuit.

A nonprofit group that advocates for law clerks is alleging a judge, Sarah Merriam, bullies and mistreats clerks. 

Filing a formal complaint is very rare. Only a few of them are filed every year even though there are hundreds of federal judges. Law clerks are wary because they fear retaliation. They really can't report bullying or abusive conduct without that getting back to the judge, and that could destroy their legal careers. Federal judges have so much power, especially over clerks. And people who work in the federal courts don't have the same employment protections other Americans do.

And that's worth emphasizing. The federal courts are exempt from Title VII antidiscrimination laws. So people who work there generally cannot sue over mistreatment on the job. They have to use the court's internal process to complain and try to seek justice. And our NPR investigation this year found problems with that process.

Without controls, without transparency, abuse and corruption will flourish. It is that simple. 

If this judge abuses clerks in such a manner imagine what she does to litigants. 

Sextech And Gender

I am not sure I have every even heard the term "sextech" but the word is self defining. Nor have I ever thought about whether there is a gender based difference in perception of those who use it. Apparently there is.

A new study published in The Journal of Sex Research has found that men who use sexual technology are viewed with more disgust than women who engage in the same behaviors. The findings indicate a “reverse sexual double standard” in which men face harsher social penalties for using devices like sex toys, chatbots, and robots, particularly as the technology becomes more humanlike. This research suggests that deep-seated gender norms continue to influence how society perceives sexual expression and the integration of technology into intimate lives.

Enough said I think. 

Family Law Is Broken

I do not claim to know the reality of the circumstances of this but it does clearly highlight what is wrong with our family law system. 

In February 2024, Shannon Gooden shot and killed three first responders in front of his house in Burnsville, Minnesota before killing himself. Seven of his children were in the house at the time. The mother of three of the children, Noemi Torres, had an extensive and sad legal journey with Gooden. 

In his 2022 order, Ireland acknowledged the allegations that Gooden was abusive and the guardian ad litem’s concerns that his behavior would escalate. But the judge concluded that the “father is in a better position to provide for the physical, emotional, cultural, spiritual and other needs of the Children.”

One aspect for the case that jumps out for me is the behavior of Judge Mark Ireland. Judge Ireland was on my case and knowingly protected a lawyer who had committed fraud. In fact, he punished me, despite the fraud, because I was acting pro se. It appears he punished Torres for similar reasons.