DADvocate

USA network airs a show called The Starter Wife. Obviously this is a show about a woman trying to make her way in life after being dumped by her husband for another woman, or something. I've never watched the show and probably never will.

But, the premise of look what another bad man did to this wonderful woman underlies premise of the show. I'm reminded of the movie "The First Wives Club." Another Hollywood production about the evils of men. (I never saw this either so I'm speaking from second hand knowledge.)

I'm still waiting for sympathetic shows on the men's side of divorce. Considering that women initiate divorce some where between 66% and 91% of the time, you might find a large male audience for such a show, except that men don't tend to wallow in self-pity.

Some interesting divorce facts:

The proportion of divorces initiated by women ranged around 60% for most of the 20th century, and climbed to more than 70% in the late 1960s when no-fault divorce was introduced: so says a just-released study by law professor Margaret Brinig of George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia and Douglas Allen, economist at Vancouver's Simon Fraser University. The researchers undertook one of the largest studies ever on divorce, using 46,000 cases from the four American states that keep statistics on which partner initiates the action. In addition to women filing twice as often, the researchers found, they are more likely to instigate separations and marriage break ups.

The Brinig-Allen study also explodes the myth of the brutish husband, finding, for instance, that cruelty is cited in only 6% of divorce applications in Virginia, one of the few states that still uses fault grounds for divorce. More women than men obtain desertion-based divorces in Virginia, but adultery cases are evenly split between men and women.

Hardly shows men to be the cold hearted clods they are often portrayed to be on TV and in movies.

Yet this is the message Hollywood tells our boys and young men they are insensitive jerks and tells our girls and young women that men are not worthy of their love and commitment.