Domestic Violence is a Red Herring...the Real Problem is Inherent Unfairness to Women in Feminism Supporting Gender Neutral Custody

"PREGNANT MA LANDS IN JAIL FOR FIGHTING TO GET KIDS

By BRAD HAMILTON
May 15, 2005

A "mother of the year" is in jail because she peppered a divorce judge with harsh questions and objections in court.

Seven-months pregnant Genia Shockome's out-of-work and allegedly abusive husband Timothy then moved to Texas, taking the couple's son Alexander, 10, and daughter Victoria, 8.

The ruling on May 5 by Poughkeepsie Family Court judge Damian Amodeo sent Russian-born Shockome, a 33-year-old IBM software engineer, to prison over Mother's Day...

"I was objecting," Shockome said in a teary jailhouse interview with The Post after she and Amodeo went toe-to-toe in a wild clash straight from Al Pacino's "And Justice For All."

"He was saying, this is what the mother did, this is what was said. It wasn't true.

So I said, 'That's a lie.' "

Shockome at first asked to know what the proceeding was about and for time to get a court-appointed lawyer, which the judge denied, saying she had not filled out the right form.

But she set off fireworks when she accused him of misrepresenting the record.

"If you open your mouth once more, you are going to jail," the judge warned.

"Already heard that before," she snapped back.

He warned her several more times, she continued to object, and he sent her to prison for 30 days without bail.

His decision outraged women's-rights groups.

"The judge always sided with the father's lawyer," said Jennifer Shagan, who heads the Dutchess County chapter of NOW, the National Organization for Women, and has followed the case for three years.

"Why would he take this woman's children away — and give them to a man who is abusive and has no money? It makes no sense."

Shockome is well liked in Poughkeepsie, where she was named mother of the year by two victim-advocacy groups in 2003 after battling in court with her husband, a native Texan she met in Moscow and married there in 1996.

Genia Shockome, an IBM employee earning $65,000 a year, also won three gold medals in the pentathlon at last year's Empire State Games and is expecting a child with her current boyfriend, a track coach.

During the interview, Shockome said the judge had threatened to jail her dozens of times in the past — and said the case turned against her after she fired Michael Kranis, a politically connected lawyer and friend of the judge.

She said she grew fed up with Kranis after paying him $17,000 and watching her divorce case drag on for years without resolution. She's now suing Kranis and the judge in federal court.

Neither Kranis nor Amodeo returned calls seeking comment.

Amodeo at first gave her the kids, but awarded full custody to the father in 2003, limiting her to strictly supervised visits.

His ruling was based on his belief that she lied about her husband's abuse — although another judge issued an order of protection against Timothy Shockome for harassing her and the husband spent two days in jail for violating the order in 2001.

Amodeo also said she repeatedly bad-mouthed the father to the kids, an act that allows judges to take away custody under the state's "parental alienation" provision.

But he also said she "provided them with good, wholesome and beneficial care," and noted contradictions in the father's statements and an outburst of anger in which he pounded on her door and shouted expletives.

Court spokesman David Bookstaver said Amodeo acted properly, was "extremely patient," and used jail "only as a last resort."

"She threw herself into jail," he said. "If you make a mockery of the system, the system falls apart."

Information courtesy of New York Post.


After receiving numerous emails and news clips regarding this women’s pitiful story from people requesting for me to sign a petition, I decided NOT to sign it since there wasn’t a bit of evidence that domestic abuse was involved in this case; and to be honest, I probably would not have signed it even if I thought there was.

For the bottom line is that NO MOTHER deserves this kind of treatment, NONE…a mother’s right to her children should NOT be a special privilege reserved for her victimhood status as defined by a bunch of gender neutralized feminists, many who never had any children of their own and whose best friend is probably their cat. I don’t WANT these feminists pretending to speak for mothers. It’s that simple. Or allowing them any special status to decide which mothers amongst us are worthy of keeping our own kids. Who decided these feminists had the right to speak for ALL MOTHERS anyway…

I sure never did.

This appeared to be one of those increasingly common situation where a distraught mother trying to keep from losing her children tried to do an end round around the usual suspects in our family court system: mens/fathers rights advocates and their gender neutralized brain-addled feminist supporters.

Actually it’s Bridget Marks all over again, with the same cast of characters from the spiteful Judge, to the biased evaluators, GALS, other assorted court leeches and the usual media whores looking for any attention they can generate from this mother’s nightmare.

Clearly even the move-away ruling allowing this father to relocate as far as Texas, (like if he moved any further away he would have fallen off the continent) was NOT in the best interest of the 10 and 8 year old children involved here, who now might never see their mother again; but it’s just another example of how our family court system is becoming ever further removed from what they claim is their primary reason for existence, aiding children. This, instead, was a spite-driven ruling, very common today in our family court system.

The basic problem appears to be that feminists after getting courts to accept their gender-neutralized view of the world have apparently realized that MOST mothers are not willing to go quietly into that good night.

Abductions have skyrocketed as more and more fit mothers are being forced to hand over their kids for no other good reasons usually, then some jackoff doesn’t feel like paying child support. The FBI has actually constructed its own website now dedicated to locating parents who abduct their own children, most of them mothers. Even the Amber Alert System was altered from its’ original intent and focus to include parental abductions within it’s aegis and I predict in a few years time MOST of the people the Amber Alert System will be tracking will be mothers whose crime will be ‘abducting’ their own children.

Additionally, every day sees more and more mothers dragged into money-draining custody fights as everybody and his grandmother (many grandparents really functioning as a front to get custody for a father who’s either a criminal, an addict or unfit in some other way) is allowed to challenge her in court for the care, custody and control of her children.

Anyway, since MOST women will eventually become mothers, feminists were faced with their support of gender neutral custody eventually alienating most of the women they claim as their power base. Thus, they have been faced with a dilemma since the outlines of the problem became clear to them. Either feminists have to backtrack from their original support of gender neutral custody by addressing the inherent unfairness of this custody to mothers, who obviously invest more in children overall, and, of course, unless unfit, should be the primary custodian of children. Or somehow secretly undermine it, while pretending to support it at the same time.

Sadly instead of addressing the problem openly and honestly, feminists chose door #2.

This is how we’ve arrived at our current state of affairs with the domestic violence industry ‘explosion’ along with rapid rise in accusations of sex abuse. As in most of these situations you only need follow the money to connect the dots.

Basically feminists have managed, through their excessive focus on issues of domestic violence, to continue their support on a superficial level of gender neutral custody, not alienate their power base, and also get a lock hold on millions of dollars in resources to allocate to this base.

BTW, I’m not just talking about shelters here, but in some states, even free LEGAL ASSISTANCE for mothers who convince the courts they’re been abused…The average women walking in these places can’t get through the courthouse door without an attorney; but convince someone you’re been abused and you’ve got a free one…Additionally many states have laws that give the victim of domestic violence an advantage in a custody fight over and above the other parent…

So, of course, some desperate woman, running out of money, about to lose her children, God only knows if and when she’ll see them again is going to look to claim abuse. She’s be a god-damn fool if she didn’t…

Instead of feminists focusing on the real source of the problem here which is the inherent unfairness to women and children of gender neutral custody, they’ve decided to keep paying lip service to this abomination, while busily working on the sidelines to ensure as many women as possible still manage to keep custody of their children anyway by enabling them to claim abuse.

Oh what a tangled web we weave…

The bottom line is that Bridget Marks, Genia Shockome and the hundreds of thousands of other nameless mothers like them are and should be, through law both natural and man-made, entitled to the custody of their children. PERIOD It makes no difference whether or not these women were victims of abuse or not, as it’s a moot issue.

Mothers commit more in bringing forth life, invest more of themselves in their children, simply risk more. Men and women don’t stand before the court with equal contribution in this area, nor should they, as men invest little in the process, yet expect the same legal and moral rights after the fact. This is wrong and takes away from the more important claimant here, the mother, and could eventually even cause women not to want to take the leap of faith in even having any more children. Then what. Male jealousy of womans’ life-giving force and the mother/child bond will wind up destroying our civilization, if it continues.

These false accusations, if they are that, come about because mothers have been put in this position by feminism and mens/fathers rights advocates. These mothers were so desperate that the only thing left for them to do was to make these false accusations. As every mother is and should be entitled to her children, this should not be a gift they receive as a politically correct award for claiming abuse, but the natural right that exists for any mother to her children.

This is why even though I support Genia Shockome 1000% in her righteous cause as a mother to get her children returned to her, I still refuse to sign the petition.