ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that there were inequalities in ongoing responsibility for care and dependency post-divorce, with custody of children overwhelmingly given to mothers rather than fathers. The responsibility should have meant custodial mothers receive more resources than their ex-husbands, who would have no custodial restraints on their ability to compete in the workplace. Families that are unable to provide adequately for themselves are deemed deviant in that they do not conform to imposed aspirations and expectations of independence and self-sufficiency. The inability of formal equality to contextualize claims by noting differences in circumstances means it is an inadequate tool for addressing the existing grossly unequal distributions of wealth and political and social power that exist in present-day America. American progressives would love to be able to effectively use the rhetoric of human rights and social justice so prevalent in Europe and some other parts of the world in confronting the inequality of their society.
