Social Workers Hold Conflicting, Highly Emotional Views in Divorce Cases

Mass. social worker consultant calls author "worse than a batterer"

(Framingham, MA, 3/27/02) Fifteen years of studying social worker policies and feminist theory have revealed numerous contradictions in social worker policies, many of which increase battering and child abuse.

"Social workers want to serve the best interests of the children," says John J. Xenakis, author of "Fraternizing With The Enemy: A Book on Gender Issues For Men ... And for Women Who Care About Men," a new book analyzing gender issues in America.

"However, social workers overwhelmingly believe that the only way to protect women and children is to keep children away from their fathers as a matter of policy," says Xenakis. "However, this sometimes conflicts with the best interests of the children, and may sometimes have the unintended consequence of exposing children to additional child abuse.

Social worker Carrie Phillips told Xenakis, "Whenever the father and mother disagree, we always side with the mother, because that's what's in the best interests of the children." At the time, Phillips worked at the Middlesex Court Clinic, a Cambridge social worker clinic associated with the divorce court.

Barbara Hauser, who heads this clinic, told Xenakis that she believes that a young child will be "traumatized" if he spends the weekend with his father,

An even more aggressive statement came from Dr. Mary Scott, a pediatrician who works with Mass. social workers, who issued a written opinion that its her policy, and the policy of her office, Longwood Pediatrics of Boston, that children under two should always be prevented from spending more than three hours at a time with their fathers.

However, figures from the Dept. of Health and Human Services indicate that, surprisingly, these policies leave children even more exposed to rape and child abuse. According to the HHS figures, most child abusers are mothers, and most sexual abusers are stepfathers or fathers' boyfriends. Social workers and pediatricians who keep children away from their biological fathers are actually exposing them to more child abuse and rape.

However, social workers generally ignore these child abuse figures, according to Xenakis.

One Massachusetts social worker consultant, Lundy Bancroft, told Xenakis that a mother often hits a child in order to protect the child from worse punishment from the father. "A woman might be doing the right thing to hit her children, since if they've already been spanked then the man will leave them alone, and otherwise he'll hit them harder than she would."

When Xenakis told Bancroft that his book would include more than one point of view, Bancroft said, "You're worse than a batterer. The more points of view you get, the more insidiously your views will support batterers."

In the fifteen years he's been studying social workers, Xenakis has been repeatedly shocked by attitudes like these. "Social workers have created a closed, incestuous community that won't tolerate any opinion or policies but theirs," he says. "That would be OK, except their policies often promote additional violence, rape and abuse."

Xenakis's book analyzed numerous social worker policies, and finds that they're motivated by money, even though they often increase the amount of battering and violence.

For example, women's activists oppose mandatory jailing of batterers, because they believe that jailing batterers means there's less need for women's shelters.

"Feminists would rather have more women in women's shelters, along with the money and political power that come with them," says Xenakis. "It's incredible, but social workers prefer leaving batterers out of jail on the streets so that they can batter more women, and justify even more funding for women's shelters," he adds.

Another policy shows how feminists exploit and hurt lesbians. Feminists frequently use the issue of discrimination against lesbians as a political fund-raising issue, but social workers turn their backs on lesbian victims of domestic violence, which occurs just as frequently in lesbian relationships as in heterosexual relationships.

"It's ironic. Feminists love lesbians when they can exploit them for money or political gain," says Xenakis. "But when, as frequently happens, a lesbian is battered, abused, gouged or raped by her lover, social workers become homophobic and turn their backs on her, because helping her would require admitting that women in the home are just as violent as men, and might reduce funding for women's shelters."

Xenakis finds one particular institution, the Visitation Centers, abominable.

"These places are incredibly loathsome, and most of the public doesn't even know they exist," says Xenakis. "They charge a father $100 an hour to visit his own children, and the visit is supervised by a woman's advocate who treats the father contemptuously in front of his own children. If the father objects in any way, she reports to the court that he's been violent."

Judge Sheila McGovern, the head of the Cambridge probate court, is one of the most aggressive users of Visitation Centers, according to Xenakis.

"The Visitation Center at 5 Sacramento Street in Cambridge brings in huge amounts of money to Judge McGovern," he says. "She has a policy of forcing hundreds of men to use this center even when she's certain that the charges against the man are completely false, and even when the mother is battering or abusing the children. McGovern's actions, which are unethical and possibly illegal, have the purpose of bringing millions of dollars in fees and grants into the hands of her political cronies."