1.31 Gender Bias and Social Stereotypes

You meet Casey (m/f) and Addison (m/f), who were married for five years and had a child, Dakota (m/f). After filing for divorce, Casey tells everyone that Addison abused Dakota and had a mental illness and offered no proof for these accusations. Casey is awarded custody of Dakota, and Dakota sees Addison every other weekend. Casey consistently tells Dakota that Addison is a bad and dangerous parent. Dakota, when expressing feelings of longing and sadness for not seeing Addison – Casey responds to this with just sadness and disappointment and feeling upset. Friends, neighbours, teachers all believe Casey’s accusations that Addison is a bad parent because they confirm their parental expectations. Dakota sees these adults’ avoidance of Addison as proof that Addison is a bad parent and starts to experience extreme anxiety. Meanwhile, Addison tries to make the most of parenting time with Dakota but starts to feel more and more disconnected. Addison feels isolated, depressed and at times suicidal. 1

Let me ask you: what gender did you assign to Casey and Addison? How did your parenting stereotypes affect how you perceive this family? 1

Gender Difference among Alienation Targets

According to Jennifer HARMAN Parental Alienation does not discriminate. It affects same sex and different sex relationships. It affects people of all racial groups, economic and income levels. 1

In research across four representative polls of the US and Canada Jennifer HARMAN did not find gender differences in who’s likely to be the target of alienating behaviors. And this seems counterintuitive to a lot of people, because a lot of people think that more mothers do it, or some people think only abusive dads do it, who are using alienating strategies to get out of abuse charges or other things. What her research shows: It’s just like other kinds of violence. It doesn’t discriminate. 2

According to Theo BOERE (Canada in 2015) most alienated parents are fathers due to the courts awarding custody to mothers about nine to one. 3

Gender types of alienating behaviors and the impact on assessments

Men and women tend to use different types of alienating behaviors that are consistent with how they use other kinds of violence. 2

Women will tend to use more indirect forms of aggression. They will spread rumors. They will try to undermine the reputation of people that they don’t like. We see this with bullying. That’s how girls bully, they do these kinds of tactics. In research Jennifer HARMAN found that moms use twice as many indirect as direct aggression. 2

Boys bully more directly. And as adults, men will tend to use both indirect and direct strategies. 2

And this has a lot of implications for assessment. Because if a clinician doesn’t understand that men and women use violence differently, they don’t know where to look for evidence. If it’s indirect, it’s harder to see. You have to go and look at years of emails to see the hostility and anger and the blocking of access. And you have to look at text messages and police reports. 2

There was a report where 75% said that they did look at that. About 25% said they didn’t even look at anything other than interview people, which isn’t going to give you any information about what these parents are doing. Because they won’t admit it, that they’re doing a lot of these things. If you’re looking for alienation, and even other kinds of domestic violence, you have to look at patterns over time. Because abusive parents use coercive control. They use ways to dominate the other person. You have to look deep and you have to look at it over an extended period of time. 2

Social Stereotypes and how the influence society and the legal system

Where we do find gender differences is in how we as a society respond to it. We can have clinical evaluators who have their own biases, blindersand perceptions about what men and women are like. 2

We use parenting stereotypes on an everyday basis, and we’re not often aware of how they affect our perceptions. 1

For women, if they work full time or they’re the primary breadwinner for the family, that’s used against them saying, she only cares about her career, she’s not a good mother. Because that goes against the stereotypes that we have about what good moms should be. And so these things are exploited. 2

It’s very easy to alienate mothers when we can show that they are unmotherly. For example, if a mother leaves work early to pick up her children, how would you rate her abilities as a parent compared to a father doing the same thing? Mothers who violate traditional gender stereotypes are often punished. She’s not seen as a good employee if she has to leave work early to pick up her children. And she’s not seen as a good mother if she works. In fact, young children rate mothers who work as less effective parents than those who do not, even when their own mothers work. That’s how deeply ingrained these stereotypes are. Many mothers who were alienated from their children are the breadwinners of their families. And when they divorce, this was used against them, with claims that she only cared about her career and not her children. 1

If a father tells you that the mother of his child has a mental illness and is unable to care for that child, how quickly do you believe that? Claims about mental illness, such as depression are easily applied to women and these labels are harder to shake for mothers than for fathers. So fathers can alienate very effectively if they can show that they are exemplary – which is not hard to do, because we do not expect much of them in the first place – and if they can show that the mother is not motherly enough. 1

Imagine a father struggling with a young child. How quickly are you to offer him assistance than a mother doing the same thing? She likely needs just as much help, but we assume she’s got this covered and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. When we see a father volunteering at school, how would you rate his parenting abilities compared to a mother doing the same thing? Fathers often get gold stars for doing anything fatherly, while this behaviour is expected of mothers. 1

If a divorced mother tells you that the father of her children doesn’t care about them and this is why he doesn’t ever see them, how quickly are you to believe this? It’s very easy to alienate fathers from their children because we have very negative stereotypes about them: they are deadbeat dads, they are abusive, they are absentee parents. Many alienated fathers say that their once-close friends and neighbours suddenly believed horrible things about them without hearing their side of the story. 1

Gender biases come into play in the legal system. And this reflects the greater societal stereotypes we have about men and women. Of course divorce makes everybody crazy. It makes everybody feel like they’re losing their minds because it’s so stressful. And when that’s seen by the judge or evaluators, they will interpret that. Alienating parents will manipulate stereotypes like that. 2

Alienators will exploit anything like nationality, immigration status, race, income, they’ll use anything they can to get leverage. Because again, it’s a pattern of coercive control. And stereotypes are a really effective way to get people to buy into what they’re doing. 2

Outer behaviours are a great variance with the social norms of the culture they live in. This alone should scare the daylights out of judges that this is being modelled for the children. It should scare therapists. 4

We know that racial stereotypes are very resistant to change, and we learn those by age five. Our parenting stereotypes are closely tied to the traditional gender roles of our parents and we learn those by age two. 1

Parenting Stereotypes negatively influence the political discussion

Our parenting stereotypes also impact how we perceive policy solutions to this problem. As an example we can look to equal parenting initiatives, which have been proposed as a way to address parental alienation by distributing custody 50/50 time with both parents.
These initiatives have proposed or imply that both parents are important to a child. Anthropologists and psychologists have long documented that mothers and fathers are important for a child’s development. We know also the outcomes for children such as mental, emotional and educational outcomes are better when parenting is shared after a divorce. Only when a parent is proven to be abusive or inadequate in some substantial way would a 50/50 distribution not be applied.
Yet nearly all equal parenting initiatives across over a dozen US states and Canada have been defeated. Why? One explanation or one argument against these initiatives is that this would allow fathers who are abusive to further abuse their children and the mothers.
There are fathers who are abusive and alienate their children, but there are many fathers who are not and do not alienate their children. So agreement with that argument reflects an underlying prejudice that men and fathers are aggressive. And to deny equal rights to children for all fathers because some are abusive is discrimination. You have to rise above your prejudices to see this problem more objectively. 1


Let’s say you change your parenting stereotypes and we change our policies and laws to address this problem more effectively.
Casey files for divorce and still tells everyone that Addison has abused Dakota and has a mental illness. A thorough custody evaluation is done with valid assessments of abuse. The custody evaluator determines that the allegations made about Addison were false and a strategy to get custody. Casey’s awarded a fine and ordered to attend parenting classes. Equal custody is assigned to Casey and Addison.
Casey still tells Dakota that Addison is a bad and dangerous parent. Casey says “You shouldn’t feel sad and upset and lonely when you’re with Addison.”
However, when Dakota is with Addison, there is evidence that this is not true. Dakota spends time with Addison and expresses their feelings openly about how they feel connected to that parent. Neighbours, friends, teachers all question Casey’s allegations that Addison is a bad parent because they see that Addison has Dakota 50% of the time and is an involved parent. Dakota still experiences loyalty conflicts when with both parents. Casey still has a very negative portrayal about Addison. But Dakota has a loving relationship with both parents and is doing okay.
The motives of the alienator do not change, the behaviours do not change. But what changes are our parenting expectations and stereotypes. And they have a strong impact and minimize the damage done by the alienator. 1

  1. Jennifer HARMAN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3YdldNXZnQ           
  2. Jennifer HARMAN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vrs_hu1HSM          
  3. Theo BOERE, Carmen BARKLEY, Larry WATERMAN; Parental Alienation Documentary, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYV8GBrJv9k 
  4. Linda GOTTLIEB, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWuqahNnZAU