Note: Also see “Family Law (Including Child Custody)” below. This section includes both fathers’ rights texts and responses to them. Other general “men’s rights” works which include material on “fathers’ rights”, custody and so on are included under “Men’s Rights and Backlash” below. Collier and Sheldon’s collection below provides a recent international overview, Flood provides a short outline, Kaye and Tolmie’s two works provide an overview of fathers’ rights agendas in Australia, and Davis provides further useful commentary.
Acker, Karen. (1998). Voices of Experience, Voices for Change: The Impact of the Family Law System on Mothers and their Children. Canadian Women’s Studies. 18.2-3, pp. 75-80.
Alexander, Renata. (1997). Men, Myths and Family Law. XY: Men, Sex, Politics. (1997). Special Issue: Men and the Law, 7(2), Spring
Alschech, J., & Saini, M. (2019). “Fathers’ Rights” Activism, Discourse, Groups and Impacts: Findings from a Scoping Review of the Literature. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 60(5), 362-388.
Amneus, Daniel. (1990). The Garbage Generation: The Consequences of the Destruction of the Two-Parent Family and the Need to Stabilize It by Strengthening its Weakest Link, the Father’s Role, Alhambra, CA:Primrose Press.
Bard, Christine. (1999). Un siècle d’antiféminisme. Paris: Fayard.
Behre, K. A. (2014). Digging beneath the Equality Language: The Influence of the Fathers’ Rights Movement on Intimate Partner Violence Public Policy Debates and Family Law Reform. WVU Law Research Paper, (2014-1).
Berns, Sandra, Sheehan, Grania, Banks, Cate, Hunter, Rosemary. (2003-2004). Reconfiguring Post-Divorce Parenting in a Risk Society Panic. Newcastle Law Review, 13(2).
Bertoia, Carl, and Janice Drakich. (1993). The Fathers’ Rights Movement: Contradictions in Rhetoric and Practice. Journal of Family Issues, 14(4): 592-615. (Reprinted in M.S. Kimmel & M.A. Messner. (eds) Men’s Lives. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon; In W. Marsiglio. (ed.). Fatherhood: Contemporary theory, research, and social policy (pp. 230-254). California: Sage Publications).
Bertoia, Carl. (1996). Identities Under Siege: The Fathers’ Rights Movement. PhD Dissertation, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Bertoia, Carl. (1998). An Interpretive Analysis of Fathers’ Rightists’ Mediation Rhetoric: Privatization vs. Personalization. Mediation Quarterly, 16(1): 15-32.
Blankenhorn, David. (1995). Fatherless America: Confronting our Most Urgent Social Problem. New York: Basic Books
Bouchard, P., I. Boily, and M.-C. Proulx. (2003). School Success by Gender: A Catalyst for the Masculinist Discourse. Ontario: Status of Women Canada.
Boyd, Susan B. (2003). Child Custody, Law and Women’s Work. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Boyd, Susan B. (2004). Demonizing Mothers: Fathers’ Rights Discourses in Child Custody Law Reform Processes. Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, 6(1): 52-74.
Brook, Heather. (2004). Just Married? Adversarial Divorce and the Conjugal Body Politic. Feminism & Psychology, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 81-99, February.
Busch, R., Morgan, M., & Coombes, L. (2014). Manufacturing egalitarian injustice: A discursive analysis of the rhetorical strategies used in fathers’ rights websites in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Feminism & Psychology, 0959353514539649.
Cannold, L. (2008). Who's the father? Rethinking the moral ‘crime’ of ‘paternity fraud’. Women's Studies International Forum, 31(4), 249-256.
Chesler, Phyllis. (1994). The Men’s Auxilliary: Protecting the Rule of the Fathers. In Patriarchy: Notes of an Expert Witness, Morrow Maine: Common Courage Press.
Collier, R. (2014). Men, gender and fathers’ rights ‘after legal equality’: New formations of rights and responsibility in family justice. In After Legal Equality (pp. 71-88): Routledge.
Collier, Richard, and Sally Sheldon. (eds.). (2006). Fathers’ Rights Activism and Law Reform in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Hart.
Collier, Richard. (1993). Masculinity, Law and Family. London: Routledge.
Collier, Richard. (1996). ‘Coming Together?’: Post-Heterosexuality, Masculine Crisis and the New Men’s Movement. Feminist Legal Studies, 4(1), February, pp. 3-48.
Collier, Richard. (2001). A Hard Time to be a Father? Reassessing the relationship between law, policy, and family (practices). Journal of Law and Society, 28(4), December.
Collier, Richard. (2003). Fathers’ rights, gender and welfare: Some questions for family law. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 31(4): 357-371.
Collier, Richard. (2005). Fathers 4 Justice, law and the new politics of fatherhood. Child and Family Law Quarterly, 17(4): 511-533.
Coltrane, Scott, and Neal Hickman. (1992). The Rhetoric of Rights and Needs: Moral Discourse in the Reform of Child Custody and Child Support Laws. Social Problems, 39, pp. 400-420
Coltrane, Scott. (2001). Marketing the Marriage “Solution”: Misplaced simplicity in the politics of fatherhood. Sociological Perspectives, 44(4), pp. 387-418.
Comerford, Lynn (2008). Fatherhood Movements. In O’Brien, Jodi A., Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage, pp. 283–88.
Cook, K., & Natalier, K. (2016). Gender and evidence in family law reform: a case study of quantification and anecdote in framing and legitimising the ‘problems’ with child support in Australia. Feminist Legal Studies, 24(2), 147-167.
Cook, K., & Skinner, C. (2019a). Gender Equality in Child Support Policy: Fathers’ Rhetoric of “Fairness” in a Parliamentary Inquiry. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 26(1), 164-187.
Cook, K., & Skinner, C. (2019b). Technical Fixes as Challenges to State Legitimacy: Australian Separated Fathers’ Suggestions for Child Support Policy Reform. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society.
Cornell, D. (1998). Fatherhood and its Discontents: Men, Patriarchy, and Freedom. In C.R. Daniels, (ed.), Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness. London: Macmillan, pp. 183-202.
Cosic, Miriam. (1999). Court in the Middle: Where Divorce Settlements Become Gender Wars [Uncivil war], The Australian, Weekend Magazine, 21-22 August.
Crean, Susan. (1988). In the Name of the Fathers: The Story Behind Child Custody. Ontario: Amanita/Second Story Press.
Crowley, Jocelyn Elise. (2006). Adopting ‘Equality Tools’ from the Toolboxes of their Predecessors: The Fathers’ Rights Movement in the United States. In Fathers’ Rights Activism and Law Reform in Comparative Perspective, Eds. Richard Collier and Sally Sheldon, pp. 79-100. Oxford: Hart Publications.
Crowley, Jocelyn Elise. (2006). Organizational Responses to the Fatherhood Crisis: The Case of Fathers’ Rights Groups in the United States. Marriage and Family Review, 39(1/2): 99-120; Reprinted in Families and Social Policy: National and International Perspectives, Eds. Linda Haas and Steven K. Wisensale. New York: Haworth Press.
Crowley, Jocelyn Elise. (2007). Friend or Foe? Self-Expansion, Stigmatized Groups, and the Researcher-Participant Relationship. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 36(6): 603-630.
Crowley, Jocelyn Elise. (2008a). On the cusp of a movement: identity work and social movement identification processes within fathers’ rights groups. Sociological Spectrum, 28(6): 705 - 724.
Crowley, Jocelyn Elise. (2008b). Defiant Dads: Fathers’ Rights Activists in America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Daniels, Cynthia R. (1997). Between Fathers and Fetuses: The Social Construction of Male Reproduction and the Politics of fetal Harm. Signs, 22(3), Spring.
Davis, Wendy. (2004). Gender Bias, Fathers’ Rights, Domestic Violence and the Family Court. Butterworths Family Law Journal, December: 299-312.
Dewar, J. (1998). The normal chaos of family law. Modern Law Review, 61, pp. 467-485.
Dinner, D. (2016). The Divorce Bargain: The Fathers’ Rights Movement and Family Inequalities. Va. L. Rev., 102, 79.
Doyle, C. (2004). The Fathers Rights Movement: Extending patriarchal control beyond the marital family. In Herrmann P. Citizenship Revisited: Threats or Opportunities of Shifting Boundaries. Nova Science Pub Inc., pp. 57-88.
Dragiewicz, M. (2010). A left realist approach to antifeminist fathers’ rights groups. Crime, Law and Social Change, 54(2), 197-212.
Dragiewicz, M. (2011). Antifeminist backlash and critical criminology. In Routledge handbook of critical criminology, Eds. W.S. DeKeseredy and M. Dragiewicz (pp. 279-288). Routledge Custom Publishing.
Dragiewicz, M. (2013). “You only get what you fight for’’: Understanding the backlash against the US battered women’s movement. In New Directions in Crime and Deviancy: Papers from the York Deviancy Conference (pp. 173-187). Routledge.
Dragiewicz, Molly. (2008). Patriarchy Reasserted: Fathers’ Rights and Anti-VAWA Activism. Feminist Criminology, Volume 3 Number 2, April: 121-144.
Dragiewicz, Molly. (2010). A left realist approach to antifeminist fathers’ rights groups. Crime, Law and Social Change, 54(2), 197-212.
Dragiewicz, Molly. (2011). Equality with a Vengeance: Men’s Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash. Northeastern University Press.
Drakich, Janice. (1989). In Search of the Better Parent: The Social Construction of Ideologies of Fatherhood. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 3(1).
Dufresne, Martin. (1993). The Male Lobby: Woman-Hating and Antifeminism in Action. Montreal: Montreal Men Against Sexism (13 pp.)
Dunn, M.C. (2004-2005). Fathers’ rights activists: Does their behaviour stand up to scrutiny? Women Against Violence, Issue 16.
Ellard, Jeanne. (1999). What’s Love Got To Do With It? Male Victims and the Family Court. In Playing The Man: New Approaches to Masculinity. Eds. Katherine Biber, Tom Sear, and Dave Trudinger. Sydney: Pluto Press.
Farrell, Warren. (2001). Father and Child Reunion: How to Bring the Dads We Need to the Children We Love. New York: J P Tarcher.
Fineman, Martha A. (1995). The Discourse of Fathers’ Rights. Chapter 8 Part I of The Neutered Mother, the Sexual Family, and Other Twentieth Century Tragedies. New York & London: Routledge.
Flood, Michael. (1997). Responding to Men’s Rights. XY: Men, Sex, Politics, 7(2), Spring, pp. 37-40.
Flood, Michael. (2003). Fatherhood and Fatherlessness. The Australia Institute, Discussion Paper No. 59, November.
Flood, Michael. (2004-2005). Fact Sheet #1: The myth of false accusations of child abuse. Women Against Violence, Issue 16.
Flood, Michael. (2004-2005). Fact Sheet #2: The myth of women’s false accusations of domestic violence and misuse of protection orders. Women Against Violence, Issue 16.
Flood, Michael. (2004). Backlash: Angry men’s movements. In S. E. Rossi (Ed.), The battle and backlash rage on: Why feminism cannot be obsolete (pp. 261-278). Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris Press. [Copy available free from author]
Flood, Michael. (2006). ‘Fathers’ Rights’ and Violence Against Women, Paper to Conference, Refocusing Women’s Experiences of Violence, Sydney, 14-16 September.
Flood, Michael. (2007) Fathers’ Rights. In The International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities. Ed. M. Flood, J.K. Gardiner, B. Pease, and K. Pringle. Taylor & Francis.
Flood, Michael. (2007). What’s Wrong with Fathers’ Rights? In Men Speak Out: Views on gender, sex, and power. Ed. S. Tarrant. Routledge.
Flood, Michael. (2010). ‘Fathers’ Rights’ and the Defense of Paternal Authority in Australia. Violence Against Women, 16(3), 328-347.
Flood, Michael. (2012). Separated Fathers and the ‘Fathers’ Rights’ Movement. Journal of Family Studies, 18(3): 235-245.
Frieman, J. (2011). “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Rules the World”: Constructing Oppositional Consciousness and Collective Identity in an Anti-Feminist Backlash Movement. Ba Thesis, Haverford College, Dept. of Political Science.
Garrett, Shannon M. (2003). Battered by equality: Could Minnesota’s domestic violence statutes survive a “father’s rights” assault? Law & Ineq., 21, pp. 341-366.
Gavanas, Anna. (2004). Domesticating masculinity and masculinizing domesticity in contemporary US fatherhood politics. Social Politics, 11(2): 247-266.
Gavanas, Anna. (2004). Fatherhood Politics in the United States: Masculinity, sexuality, race, and marriage. University of Illinois Press.
Gilding, M. (2009). Paternity uncertainty and evolutionary psychology: how a seemingly capricious occurrence fails to follow laws of greater generality. Sociology, 43(1), 140-157.
Gleeson, Kate. (2013) A Voice for the Injured: Bettina Arndt and Australian family law. Australian Feminist Studies, 28:78, 375-397, DOI: 10.1080/08164649.2013.858653.
Halperin-Kaddari, R., & Freeman, M. A. (2016). Backlash goes global: Men's groups, patriarchal family policy, and the false promise of gender-neutral laws. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 28(1), 182-210.
Harris, George W. (1986). Fathers and Fetuses. Ethics, 96(3), April, pp. 594-603.
Jordan, Ana. (2009). ‘Dads aren’t Demons. Mums aren’t Madonnas.’ Constructions of fatherhood and masculinities in the (real) Fathers 4 Justice campaign. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 31(4): 419–433.
Kaye, Miranda, and Julia Tolmie. (1998a). Fathers’ Rights Groups in Australia and Their Engagement With Issues of Family Law. Australian Journal of Family Law, 12(1), March, pp. 19-67.
Kaye, Miranda, and Julia Tolmie. (1998b). Discoursing Dads: The rhetorical devices of fathers’ rights groups. Melbourne University Law Review, 22, pp. 162-194.
Kaye, Miranda, and Julia Tolmie. (1998c) ‘Lollies at a children’s party’ and other myths: Violence, protection orders and fathers’ rights groups. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 10 (1) July: 52-72.
Kenedy, Robert A. (2004). Fathers for Justice: The Rise of a New Social Movement in Canada as a Case Study of Collective Identity Formation. Ann Arbor: Caravan.
Kennedy, Robert A. (1995). Right Around the Circle and Back to the Children: The Case Study of a Fathers for Justice Collective Identity. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, York University, North York, ON.
Khan, A. (2019). Text Mining to Understand Gender Issues: Stories from The Red Pill, Men's Rights, and Feminism Movements. University of Waterloo.
Klinth, R. (2002). Göra Pappa Med Barn: Den Svenska Pappapolitiken 1960-1995. Boréa.
Lamb, Louise. (1987). Involuntary Joint Custody: What Others Will Lose if Fathers’ Rights Groups Win. Herizons. 20-31.
Maddison, Sarah. (1999). Crossing Boundaries: Engaging with the men’s rights movement. Refractory Girl, No. 53, Spring, pp. 21-23.
Maddison, Sarah. (1999). Private Men, Public Anger: The men’s rights movement in Australia. Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, 4(2), pp. 39-51.
Mann, Ruth M. (2008). Men’s Rights and Feminist Advocacy in Canadian Domestic Violence Policy Arenas: Contexts, Dynamics, and Outcomes of Antifeminist Backlash. Feminist Criminology 3 (1): 44-75.
Melville, A. (2017). ‘Giving Hope to Fathers’: Discursive Constructions of Families and Family Law by McKenzie Friends Associated With Fathers’ Rights Groups. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 31(2), 147-173.
Melville, Angela, and Rosemary Hunter. (2001). ‘As Everybody Knows’: Countering myths of gender bias in family law. Griffith Law Review, 1(1).
Milburn, Caroline. (1998). Angry Middle-Aged Men. The Age, 9 December.
Mitchell, Juliet, and Jack Goody. (1997). Feminism, Fatherhood and the Family in Britain. In Ann Oakley and Juliet Mitchell. (eds). (1997). Who’s Afraid of Feminism? Seeing Through the Backlash. New York: The New Press
Montreal Men Against Sexism. (1993). Challenging the Male Lobby in Our Communities. Montreal: Montreal Men Against Sexism.
Penfold, Susan. (1995). Mendacious Moms or Devious Dads? Some Perplexing Issues in Child Custody/Sexual Abuse Allegation Disputes. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 40.
Pettitt, Donald Thomas (2006). Fathers and Anti-male Bias in the Family Court. A Research Report presented in partial fulfillment of the Masters of Social Work (Applied) degree at Massey University.
Pollock, Scarlet, and Jo Sutton. (1985). Fathers’ Rights, Women’s Losses. In Klein and Steinberg. (eds). Radical voices, (Also in Women’s Studies International Forum, 8(6), pp. 593-599).
Pride, Mary. (1986). The Child Abuse Industry: Outrageous Facts and Everyday Rebellions Against a System that Threatens Every North American Family, Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books.
Rosen, L. N., M. Dragiewicz, and J. C. Gibbs. (2009). Fathers’ Rights Groups: Demographic Correlates and Impact on Custody Policy. Violence Against Women, 15(5): 513-531.
Silverstein, Louise B., and Carl F. Auerbach. (1999). Deconstructing the Essential Father. American Psychologist, Vol. 54, No. 6, June, pp. 397-407
Smart, Carol. (2004). Equal Shares: Rights for fathers or recognition for children? Critical Social Policy, 24(4), pp. 484-503.
Summers, Collette C., and David M. Summers. (2006). Parentectomy in the Crossfire. American Journal of Family Therapy, Volume 34, Number 3, July-September 2006, pp. 243-261.
Swaminatha, Tara McGraw. (2004). The Violence Against Women Act. Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law 5 (1): 269-287.
Thoennes, Nancy, and Patricia Tjaden. (1991). The Extent, Nature and Validity of Sexual Abuse Allegations in Custody/Visitation Disputes. Child Abuse and Neglect. 14.
Tong, Dean. (1992). Don’t Blame Me, Daddy: False Accusations of Child Sexual Abuse: A Hidden National Tragedy. Norfolk, Virginia: Hampton Roads Press.
Williams, Daniel. (2005). Giving Fathers A Fairer Go: Inside the family law revolution that’s offering hope to disgruntled dads. Time International (South Pacific ed.). New York: Mar 21, p. 48.
Williams, G.I., and R.H. Williams. (2003). Framing in the Fathers’ Rights Movement. In Loseke DR & Best J. Social Problems: Constructionist Readings. Aldine Transaction. pp. 93–100.
Williams, Gweneth I., and Rhys H. Williams. (1995). All We Want Is Equality: Rhetorical Framing in the Fathers’ Rights Movement. Pp. 191-212. Images of Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social Problems. Joel Best, editor. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
Wilson, Trish. (1996). Mothers Under Siege: Tactics of the Fathers’ Rights Movement. Voices of Women Library, http:
Wilson, Trish. (1997?). American Fathers: Equality or Patriarchy?. Feminista, 1(3). URL: http://www.feminista.com/archives/v1n3/wilson.html.
Wilson, Trish. (1997). Will Paternal Paranoia Triumph? The Organization of Angry Dads. On The Issues: The Progressive Women’s Quarterly, 6(1), Winter (http://www.echonyc.com/~onissues/w97paranoia.html).
Wilson, Trish. (1998). Family Law and Fathers’ Rights Antics in Maryland. Feminista, 2(2). URL: http://www.feminista.com/archives/v2n2/wilson.html.
Wilson, Trish. (2001). U.S. fatherhood initiatives: Control of women and children under the guise of responsible married fatherhood. Feminista, 4(7). URL: http://www.feminista.com/v4n7/wilson.html.
Wilson, Trish. (2004-2005). Fathers’ rights activists and public policy. Women Against Violence, Issue 16.
Winchester, H. (1999) Lone fathers and the scales of justice. Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, 4(2): 81-98.
Zorza, Joan. (2001). Batterer Manipulation and Retaliation: Denial and Complicity in the Family Courts. Feminista, 4(7) (online journal) http://www.feminista.com/v4n7/zorza.html