Filmmaker Loses Custody: Makes Documentary Exposing the Crisis
Filmmaker and journalist Diana Olsson was stripped of custody of her young son after leaving her violent husband. In the wake of this injustice, she’s produced an award-winning documentary bringing light to her lived horror and that of other women’s as well.
“First Class Citizen” is an engaging, cinematic illustration of Diana’s experience of all three aspects of the Post-Separation Crisis: loss of custody of her son, inability to protect him from her ex, and the accompanying financial devastation. The film validates the experiences of millions of other women around the world who’ve experienced this Crisis.
Diana is shocked when, after leaving her husband, she is deprived of custody. Like so many women, she had just assumed she would be treated fairly in Family Court, especially in such a famously egalitarian country as Sweden. But she was not and decided to make a film documenting the injustice.
Her poignant, hour-long documentary is an unprecedented effort by a talented filmmaker to shine light on the crisis despite her still-fresh wound of having lost custody. Although the film strays from identifying the core cause of the Crisis as systemic sexism, that is included in the possibilities. It is, thankfully, clearly portrayed as a gendered issue, a women’s issue.
You can watch it free on Tubi with commercials or without on Amazon Prime for $1.99. Although it is almost all in English, you might want to turn on the closed captions as some of the tape recordings are in Swedish.
DIANA’S STORY
Raised in Lithuania, Diana completed advanced degrees and was an established professional in journalism and film before taking a trip to Sweden where she met her husband. They married and she began making films in Sweden.
Her husband gradually became more and more controlling and eventually violent. Diana began making a film about domestic violence victims—while she was herself being violated. The violence escalated and her husband repeatedly threated to kill her and hold a knife to her throat, along with regular beatings. She decided to secretly audio record some of the violent incidents for proof. She knew his Dr. Jekyll persona would make it difficult for regular folk to believe he has a Mr. Hyde side.
She was afraid to leave, understandably, considering the threats to kill her if she did. Also, she knew if she left him, he’d try to destroy the film she was making.
He had threatened to take their son from her if she left, but she did not believe that would be possible, after all this was Sweden, the land of gender equality. At about the 10-year mark, when he began to physically abuse their son as well, that was the final straw.
She left.
She was told by victim advocates to hide in a shelter in another town and her husband was arrested, but released. She was given primary custody with their 3 year-old son having to visit his father every other weekend regardless of his continuous, documented violent behavior.
It is not uncommon for mothers to keep custody in the beginning. But it doesn’t take long for the Old Boy agenda to kick in. The tables turned a year later and everyone began to spin the case so as to benefit and empower the father and oppress and disempower Diana. Typical tactics that are used in all countries were used with her case.
Whereas Diana had indisputable, recorded admissions of her ex’s violence and, hence, his unfitness to parent, much less be the sole parent, her ex had zero evidence that she was anything but be a wonderful, loving, primarily attached, primary care-giving mother. No matter, though—judges can do whatever they want regardless of facts and law. And so what happens to women every day in family courts around the world, happened to Diana.
Sole custody was granted to her ex.
Diana was restricted to seeing her little boy 4 times a year. His mental health deteriorated and he developed a stutter. But this is of no concern to the judge or any court-affiliated professionals sworn to act in the best interests of the child. Their real job is to empower the father, whatever negative outcomes for mother and child.
“FIRST CLASS CITIZEN” TRAILER
The documentary begins by talking about how Diana used to admire Sweden from afar for its history and its modern day, progressive, egalitarian stance.
Sweden is the most gender equal nation on the planet and…the legal and social systems are second to none.
Diana thereby lays the groundwork for the issue of women losing custody being systemic gender inequality.
It’s important to understand that it’s a structural problem. This isn’t an individual question…
Interviewees state that “the root of the problem is deeper” and despite the façade of gender equality, Sweden has “very strong structures of the male monopoly”. Men are able to “use the system to damage you”. And “everybody knows” what is going on beneath the surface.
We still live in an age when your husband has the right to beat you in front of your child, threaten his wife with a knife, take no interest in their child, and yet be granted full custody…
So the stage is set as a gender issue, however, it strays from that.
The name of the film: “First Class Citizen” appears to be a satirical take on the second class status she’s experienced, and discovers others are also experiencing, while making the film. This second class status seems to speak to underlying gender inequality—how she is treated less than in Sweden because she is a woman.
However, later comes an emphasis on women who are foreigners being treated badly, as second class citizens. This implies that Swedish women are not victims of the Crisis, which is not true. And if it’s a foreigner problem, it does not explain why foreign fathers are not losing custody to abusive mothers.
It also positions the class of domestic violence victims as second class citizens. It is noted that victims are sent to hide away in a different town while violent men get to stay in the home and continue to work—and abuse. It emphasizes that DV victims are the ones experiencing this crisis, when it is actually women, DV victims or not.
So three possibilities being put forth as causing her (and other women’s) second class status cloud the the fact that the core issue is systemically gendered: it is women who are being treated as second class citizens, while nationality and domestic violence victims are just subsets of that.
However, although the Crisis is a women’s issue, it is not a gender inequality issue per se, and this film helps illustrate that. If women are losing custody in the most gender equal country in the world, that is obviously not the problem.
The Post-Separation Crisis is not occurring because women are not sufficiently equal under the law, but because Family Court judges are given the power to falsely deem them liars, alienators, mentally ill, etc. The system is specifically designed to empower fathers and disempower women.
It is, therefore, at its core a power issue, not an equality or equal rights issue. [See: Down the Rights & Laws Rabbit Hole.] Women need to fight to regain the power to keep their children after 10,000 long years of having been deprived of it.
Another issue brought up in the film that confuses things a bit is that the State is taking kids from parents via the child welfare system. One interviewee stated this was possible because the public was made to believe the State was a good substitute for parents. Whether that is true or not, the problem of Social Services taking children, sometimes referred to as “legal abduction” or “forced adoption”, this should not be lumped in with the Post-Separation Crisis. They are distinct issues with different causes and solutions.
LEAVE! WAIT, NO—STAY!
Diana began making the documentary well before leaving her husband, as an exposé of professional women stuck in marriages with violent men.
A young, educated woman can be totally crushed if she has a baby. As a doctor, I’m respected…but as a mother, they want me to disappear from the earth.
Her original message was to encourage women to leave, even though she had not yet gained the courage to do so herself. When she finally did leave and lost her child, she changed the message to don’t leave.
In the beginning I wanted to make a film in order to encourage other women to leave their violent husbands, but now I would say stay with him. Let him beat you because you will still have your child.
Diana notes that women have no viable choice. If they stay, their husband can continue to control and abuse them and if they leave he can take their children.
You think you have a choice. You don’t.
The gist is women are screwed either way, by design—and Family Court is the place where this male entitlement is enabled and enforced.
BEWARE: THE SELL-OUT
Diana relates how her own lawyer and the “family law secretary” (a social worker who “helps” with custody cases), pressured her to take her son to Lithuania. If she had gone, she would surely have been charged with abducting him, jailed and never seen her child again.
That is the ultimate goal of the system: complete severance of the mother-child bond and severe punishment for women who dare challenge male authority in the family. And they were both setting her up for that fate.
Moral: Moms, do not trust anyone in the system, not even your own attorneys. They practice under the thumb of the OBN [Old Boy Network].
As for the usual “insufficient evidence” explanation so often used to dismiss credible evidence of abuse, Diana had recordings of her ex admitting to the violence. The truth is, it does not matter how much evidence a woman has of her husband’s abuse, judges can still disregard it. This tactic was discussed in our last column: Extraordinary Justice: Father Convicted of Raping Kids—in Country Mom Fled To!
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
“First Class Citizen” is highly recommended. It is as visually appealing and thematically enticing as it is heartbreaking. The viewer is given a front row seat to the horrors befalling women post-separation.
Watch free on Tubi or on Amazon Prime for $1.99. You might want to turn on the closed captions as the tape recordings and some other parts are in Swedish.
Diana is working on a follow-up documentary “When the Child Is Removed”. She says she is setting out to “find the truth about why her three year-old son was removed from her after divorce”.
Hopefully she will find the truth this time. The Post-Separation Crisis is not happening to DV victims or foreigners. It is happening to women and is a result of systemic sexism enforced through the Family Court system. That root is what needs to be eradicated to end the Crisis.
The only way to overcome this form of oppression is for women to unite as a class, take down Family Court, and replace it with a system that provides due process and protection for women and children. Join Women’s Coalition International.
SISTERS IN SOLIDARITY
Sisters: be sure and watch this documentary. We will be discussing it at our March forum.
Apologies to the many Sisters who tried to join our February forum and received a message that the zoom was closed. There must have been a technical issue.
Our next forum will be on Saturday, March 16th, same time/place, so save the date!
If you’d like to join SIS, please read this column and fill out the linked form. You will receive an invitation to the zoom.
CHAPTER 7: “FOREPLAY”
Chapter 7: “Foreplay” of The Saga of One Fucked Mother is out!
All previously published chapters are included in the Women’s Coalition News & Views Section: “The Saga of One F**ked Mother” accessible on the top bar of our home page.
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Family court judges must be exposed for stripping good mothers of child custody. Diana's documentary is needed. Family court fails women and children. Many mothers feel like they've failed their children. Many loved children don't feel loved. Laws and evidence make no difference in family court. Systemic male entitlement rules. Mothers must be allowed to protect and nurture their children. Exposing the reality of family court is crucial. Family court judges must be stripped of their power.