Innovative Study Using AI Confirms Discrimination in Family Court

And How a Domestic Abuse Focus Obfuscates the Crisis

An article in the Guardian this week covers an innovative study in which AI [artificial intelligence] was used to gather and analyze data on Family Court cases involving domestic abuse.

The project is a collaboration amongst three UK organizations: herEthical AI, Right to Equality, and Riverlight. It brings together experts in AI, law, domestic abuse, and law enforcement.

Although the data gathered via this cutting-edge research tool seems to clearly show judges are deliberately discriminating against women, the problem is not identified as such. The study does, however, find that judges are using gender-biased language at hearings and in rulings. More on the difference between between bias and discrimination later.

This MSM article—Family court judges use victim-blaming language in domestic abuse cases, finds AI project—presages the study’s publication in a journal. Keep in mind that what is discussed in this column is from the article, as the study is not available yet. [A link will be provided once it is published.]

This new study contributes yet more data to the pool that women are being discredited and not getting justice in family courts. It also provides a good opportunity to highlight and discern the various ways in which well-meaning professionals from a variety of disciplines are misinterpreting what is happening to women in Family Court.

Let’s break it down.

THE STUDY

A primary concern motivating this study was that victims of domestic abuse [DA] are being retraumatized by judges’ biased language, behavior, and rulings. In the UK, DA includes both spousal and child abuse, whereas in the U.S., spousal abuse is usually termed DV [domestic violence].

The main goal of this study was to detect a pattern of “victim-blaming” by judges in cases that involve spousal and/or child abuse by the husband/father. It aimed to identify “stereotypical assumptions” and “a lack of understanding around coercive and controlling behavior” by judges.

[Researchers were said to also be looking at how trauma impacts memory, although it is unclear how analyzing court documents can shed light on that.]

ANECDOTES

In one case, the judge characterized the mother as “deeply troubled” with “mental health difficulties” [read: she’s mad/crazy]. It is notable that mental health issues related to the ex’s abuse (and the court?) were rightly factored out of this variable.

Two other cases involved judges minimizing and excusing violence by the husband/father. In one, the judge dismissed a serious DV incident, in which the husband strangled the wife, as just a “prank”. In the other, the judge called the wife a “silly girl” and claimed she “could not have been raped” because her husband was … wait for it … her husband.

In another case, a wife was accused of not being child-focused [read: bad] for having reported her husband’s verbal and physical violence on her. The judge said she should be putting the violence in the past and “moving on” (the perp-enabler mantra). The judge’s priority was ensuring the father’s involvement with [read: control of] the children—couched in the narrative that it’s in the children’s best interest to have contact with their father—abusive or not.

This led the mother to question whether she should have stayed with her violent husband so her children would not now have to be alone with him. This shows that these rulings work as deterrence for women leaving husbands. It’s a win/win for men: if wives stay, men keep control of the wife; if wives leave, men keep control of the kids. It’s all about power and control.

BIAS v. DISCRIMINATION

The study confirmed that Family Court judges often use “victim-blaming” and “gender-biased language”. This bias is being attributed to stereotypical assumptions made by judges about female DA victims.

This is where it is important to suss out the difference between judges being biased against women and judges discriminating against women.

To say judges are using gender stereotypes because they are biased implies a largely subconscious process—they’ve been influenced societally and are just acting out their innate prejudices. Bias, of course leads to discrimination, but is not required for it.

The important point is that, although judicial bias against women may be present in some cases, it is irrelevant. Whether biased or not, the use of demeaning and incriminating language that was identified by AI achieved the specific purpose of discrediting the mother with the goal of maintaining men’s power and control in the family after divorce.

In other words, the language being used against women is a product of the agenda, not simple bias. It is deliberate and purposeful and enables the Great Custody Switch.

DISBELIEVING v. DISCREDITING

The study’s authors also assert that judges “disbelieve” women.

There’s an attitude of disbelief—victims have reported feeling gaslit, victim-blamed, dismissed in the courtroom setting…

Notice the contradiction inherent in that quote. If the judge is gaslighting, blaming, and dismissing women and their evidence, it shows they do not really “disbelieve” them. They are discrediting her.

Those are two very different things: “disbelieving” and “discrediting”.

It is important to stop saying that judges “disbelieve” women, as that gives gives them a pass and misleads the public.

IGNORANT JUDGES

A stated goal of the study was looking for a “lack of understanding” by judges of coercive control. This preemptively assumes judges are using biased language and making biased rulings is that they just don’t understand controlling behaviors and emotional abuse.

The fact is, you don’t need special education to know what a controlling, abusive husband is doing. Nice, but not necessary. Further, that is not really the problem. When a woman describes serious emotional abuse and controlling behavior by her ex in court, judges simply minimize and disregard it, just like with physical and sexual abuse.

That characterization as judges not understanding abuse gives judges a pass. But judges are not stupid. They know exactly what they are doing. They are employing stereotypes and posturing as not believing women to achieve their goal of switching custody.

INEFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS

A main problem with getting the reasons judges are using the language the AI tool detected for this study wrong is that it leads to the proposal of ineffective solutions.

To portray the problem as judicial bias or judges not believing women or judges not understanding abuse implies that training is an effective solution. Ahhh, the inevitable cry by advocates of “More training!” So simple.

But the data show that it is not a lack of training that is the problem, not to mention it’s judges have been trained for decades in some jurisdictions and it hasn’t made a difference. Data clearly support that judges are deliberately disregarding and concealing evidence and wrongly placing blame on women (victim blaming). To have study after study propose training as a solution harms our cause.

Another suggested fix is for mothers is to file complaints and ditch their “biased” judge for a new one. First, the system makes that nearly impossible. Second, new judges rarely make any difference. The new one simply continues discriminating, perhaps using new and different ways.

One solution is to end the “adversarial system”. But there is no evidence that is the problem. Contested custody cases are adversarial by nature with both parties giving evidence to support their side and a supposedly impartial judge ruling on it. The problem is Family Court judges are not impartial and they are allowed to administer justice unjustly. They are allowed to lie about women.

Transparency and accountability are also being suggested as viable solutions.

Hazel Sayer, a member of HerEthical AI and a research fellow specialising in gender-based violence at Bournemouth University, said this meant that family courts could be a “secretive environment, lacking accountability and transparency”.

At least these these Band-Aids imply correctly that judges are deliberately discriminating and that shining a light on their abuses of women would be a good thing. Transparency is inarguably better than secrecy, but even that has not made much difference as demonstrated where courts are open.

And there is no reliable way to hold judges accountable in the Family Court system anyway. Neither the Appellate Courts nor the ethical commissions, the only ways to hold judges legally accountable, work for custody cases (or women).

There is nowhere for women to go—by design.

That is the key point to let sink in: It. Is. By. Design.

There is no way for women to get justice in the family court system. It is designed from the top down so judges can empower and entitle men and disempower and oppress women. That is its purpose. [Another column going into depth on that soon.]

TAKEAWAYS

It is important to see the victim-blaming detected in this study as a weapon judges—the perpetrator-enablers—are allowed to use against women, not just a by-product of individually biased judges, and not just as something that retraumatizes women.

Yes, it is retraumatizing to be abused by a judge after being abused by a husband, and that is horrible. But medicalizing the issue diverts from focusing on the socio-legal and political aspect, which is the only way to make real change.

It is important to identify the Crisis correctly. When the problem itself is misidentified, everything downstream—the how, why, and solutions—is warped.

The core issue is not judges being biased against domestic abuse victims. It is judges purposefully discriminating against women to facilitate switching custody to the father. It’s not about abuse; it’s about Power & Control—who has it and who is given it, and it’s certainly not women.

Women are not getting due process in family courts since by design judges have the power to discriminate against them. There is no reform within the system that will change that.

The only way women will get justice is for Custody Cases to be heard in a Real Court with a jury as the fact finder, not the judge.

Women Must Unite and Demand a New System.

Join The Women’s Coalition.

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ACTIVISM

There is another MSM article out this week reporting on Custody Crisis cases: Why are unregulated psychologists acting as expert witnesses in family courts?

Activists can test your understanding of the Crisis by reading and analyzing it for problems similar to ones in this column. If you’d like, you can make notes or bullet points as to where it gets the What, How, Why, and Solutions wrong and share at our Sisters in Solidarity meeting this Saturday [see below] .

This process of critical thinking about the Crisis will help activists be able to explain privately and publicly how Family Court is discriminating against women.

NOTE: You can use our Rabbit Hole series to help.

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IN OTHER NEWS

SISTERS IN SOLIDARITY MEETING

Our next Sisters in Solidarity forum will be this Saturday, October 19th at 1pm Pacific; 4pm Eastern; 9pm London; 7am (20th) in Sydney.

If you’d like to join SIS, please fill out this form. More info here. You will receive an invitation to the zoom a few days before [check alternate inboxes].

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CHAPTER 26 [5th part] IS OUT

CHAPTER 26 of Mother-Fucking: The Saga of One Fucked Mother is “The Overture” of the “Opera”—a simile used to dramatize the final section of the book—Book 3: The Opera: We Were Mothers Once, and Young. This is the fifth and final part of this Chapter. Act One of the Opera begins next week with the first trial.

In this part, Legion finishes rebutting Herry’s lies in his opening declaration to Family Court. She is incensed at his hypocrisy in his part D, portraying himself as better for the “safety and wellbeing of children and moral climate”, when he is a “pornography perv”. Herry accuses her of restricting his access to the boys and she belatedly realizes it was actually too much access—every weekend—which she had only gone along with as she thought he was working on his sex addiction in order to retrieve the marriage and family.

Legion’s attorney tells her she cannot mention Herry’s sex addiction or his viewing of porn around/with the children because the judge won’t like it, and, besides, he says, it is his 1^st amendment right. Legion counters that it is a crime to expose children to porn, but he insists she “move on” (the perp-enabler mantra).

Legion capitulates and does not say anything bad about Herry in her own opening declaration. She presents a long list of reasons she should be given primary custody of the boys and attaches a letter from her parents confirming what a great mother she is. At this time, she still believes Herry only wants the boys on the weekends because he does not want to do the hard work of parenting during the school week.

In the last part, Legion continued with her painstaking rebuttal of all the lies in Herry’s opening declaration as she had thought the truth would matter in a court of law. In hindsight, Legion sees that the judge did not care one bit whether Herry was lying in his under-oath declaration, nor whether she was telling the truth in her rebuttal of all his lies. She has spoken with many other women since her Family Court “mother-fucking” who confirm judges let men get away with lying through their teeth.

Dr. Blue’s novel is based on her own experience of the Custody Crisis. It uniquely conveys how Family Court judges are “mother-fucking” women—a form of systemic oppression and violence directed at ex-wives—as protagonist Legion is systematically and methodically deprived of her children and money and reduced to “one fucked mother”.

Chapters are stand-alone interesting so you can begin reading anywhere. A Cast of Characters follows to help readers at any point [on the web page]. All published chapters are included in the Section: “Saga of One F**ked Mother” accessible on the top bar of the home page of Women’s Coalition News & Views. Sequential chapters are published every Wednesday and subscribers will find them in their inboxes, so make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet!

TEASERS

‘Shut up, Legion!  Now you just shut up ‘bout this sex addiction stuff!  You’re so exasperating, Legion!  You have to shut up about this, you hear me!...It isn’t gonna play well…You can’t be saying this stuff in court, I’m tellin’ ya! It just won’t play there at all!’

…Even though it was The Fucking Truth, it wouldn’t play well there in court Jinx had just fucking admitted.. 

With Herry so very well‑positioned to obtain nothing more than his escape from all accountability for the Truemaier Boys’ primary care and upbringing and for his taking only the Joy Toy Boy fun of acting like their 17‑year‑old, older bro with, therefore, none of the real work of parenting at all, why, the orchestral music decrescendoed before the opening of the curtain on Act One, Trial One.  And the Overture of the Opera, “We Were Mothers Once, and Young,” concluded.

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All contributions are greatly appreciated and thanks to everyone who has subscribed!

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