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The Fathers' rights movement is a stream in the men's movement primarily interested with family law and gender bias issues as it affects biological fathers. Historically related to the men's rights movement and to masculism, its advocates see it as a necessary corollary to the women's rights and children's rights movements. It emerged in the 1970s as a loose social movement providing a network of interest groups, primarily in western countries, established to campaign for equal treatment by the courts in issues such as child custody after divorce, child support, and paternity determinations. The movement is particularly strong in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Italy, United States and Australia.

The fathers' rights movement received international press coverage following the formation and high profile style activism of the now defunct Fathers 4 Justice group in the UK.

Supporters

Supporters include divorced (and subsequently widowed) Live Aid founder, Bob Geldof, Irish writer and journalist John Waters and ex-UK Home Secretary David Blunkett. Waters fought a legal case for access to the daughter he had by rock star Sinéad O'Connor, and highlighted what he saw as injustices in the treatment of men in his weekly column in The Irish Times. David Blunkett resigned as Home Secretary on 15 December 2004 following attempts to remain in touch with his youngest son, born of a relationship with his ex-mistress. His efforts, which he mentioned in an interview with the BBC, unwittingly made him a champion of the fathers' rights movement. Mr. Blunkett said about his son, "He will want to know not just that his father actually cared enough about him to sacrifice his career, but he will want to know, I hope, that his mother has some regret."

A contemporary controversy is around the status of the traditional western nuclear family of father, mother and their children. Has the nuclear family declined to the point that its social function of raising children can be met in other family or care arrangements? Particularly where social support and social security is available can single parents effectively undertake that task? This particularly relates to the historical situation where after divorce the mother had care, child custody and control of the divorced or separated couples' children with alimony sometimes being paid by the father where the couple had been married. The father's rights movement is generally viewed as the confluent result of a number of changes in both the law and in societal attitudes, including:

• The introduction of no-fault divorce in the 1960s, resulting in a rise in divorce rates throughout the world. The increasing entry of women into the public sphere, a situation which has upturned traditional gender roles which view women as primarily domestic in nature.
• The increasing social acceptance of single parents and their increased proportion of all families.
• The number of single parent (particularly war widow) households increased after the Second World War, and more recently increased social welfare and income support arrangements became more generally available.
• The increasing entry of women into the public sphere, a situation which has upturned traditional gender roles which view women as primarily domestic in nature.

In the 1980s Parents Without Rights was formed by scientists at Kennedy Space Center. In the 1990s, the Million Dads March Network was formed in Topeka, Kansas, United States. Fathers' rights campaigners argue that their own and their children's rights and best interests are breached, they cite extensive research to argue that even after separation and divorce that children gain critical mental and emotional health benefits from continuing quality involvement by their father. Father's rights activists state that it is destructive to deny children the right to know and be cared for by both parents when both are available.

Many first marriages in the United States now end in divorce, and the divorce rate for subsequent marriages is higher than that of first marriages. More than half of marriages that end in divorce involve children. Thus the courts may be called upon to determine aspects of the relationships of these children to their parents. Many couples resolve these issues without recourse to the courts, however where this does not occur for whatever reason the courts apply family law in making their decisions.

According to "Americans for Divorce Reform", as the divorce rate soared, so did the number of children involved in divorce. The number of children involved in divorces and annulments stood at 6.3 per 1,000 children under 18 years of age in 1950, and 7.2 in 1960. By 1970 it had increased to 12.5; by 1975, 16.7; by 1980, the rate stood at 17.3, a 175 percent increase from 1950. Since in 1972, one million American children every year have seen their parents divorce. (Brian Willats, Breaking Up is Easy To Do, available from Michigan Family Forum, citing Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1993.)

Due to roles whereas the mother is the primary giver of child-care and the father a stronger commitment to work and providing financially, fathers can be denied what is perceived as a caring role but required to maintain their financial support through child support in continuing pre-existing arrangements in care and income generation. Thus many claim to seek an increased involvement with their children, some to the extent of shared parenting and sole custody. In response to difficulties in achieving satisfactory arrangements (perceived as being ousted from their children's lives, or reduced to a role where they cannot be effective parents) a number of those affected men have become involved in the fathers' rights movement.

These delays can result in unnecessarily long separations occurring between fathers and children during and after lengthy periods of court hearings. Father's rights activists argue that that time would be better spent dealing properly with the trauma of the parents' initial separation and allowing the children to maintain their relationships with both parents continuously.

The adversarial system, such as currently exists in the UK, encourages each parent to identify their fears, real or imagined, about what will affect their children now that the parents have separated. Some hold that when a parent expresses these fears about the other parent in this circumstance, even when fears are unfounded, they can nevertheless be treated as fact. Fathers' rights campaigners believe this system is biased toward believing the mothers' expressed fears. The father must then try to demonstrate that he presents no risk to the children, and that the advantages that he will confer on them are real. Although such considerations can play a part in making compassionate decisions about children in the aftermath of a family break-up, fathers' rights activists believe the law as it currently stands in the UK takes on a wider remit by linking the interests of the child with those of the mother.

Fathers' Rights proponents say that in such circumstances, the case can easily become a witch-hunt. Any aggression that the father may have manifested in the past can be claimed as justification for limiting his involvement in his children's upbringing. If he is inexperienced at parenthood, or because this is a first child, the result may be that he is initially not trusted to provide basic care. In one case in the UK in 2003, a judge ruled that it was in a child's "best interests" to have no contact with her father, because such contact caused the mother to feel depressed and anxious. A second judge, Mathew Thorpe, said that while he had "every sympathy" for the father, he could not overturn the original ruling. Lord Justice Thorpe added "It's also a tragedy for the child, who is being denied an ordinary right to know her father and develop understanding, interests and affection with him.".

Many fathers' rights campaigners say they have had experiences that follow a similar pattern, and they are aiming that the law should be changed to prevent situations such as theirs from arising.

Fathers' rights activists further claim the idea of adversarial court cases to resolve family disputes has led to a sub-culture they consider to be completely absurd. They may also question the assumption that it can ever be legitimate for the state to collude in disrupting a loving and natural relationship between a father and his children.

Kevin Thompson, a non-custodial father in Massachusetts, has written a book called "Exposing the Corruption in the Massachusetts Family Courts," which details his journey through a judicial system he feels is "anti-father." The book is highly critical of the judge in his case, Judge Mary McCauley Manzi. Judge Manzi later issued an order restraining the book's distribution, on the grounds that it violated the involved minor's right to privacy. It seems unlikely that Thompson will obey this order, and the book appears to still be available in both print and PDF formats.

On child custody, a priority on continuity of care and/or residence leads to primary custody often being awarded to the mother. However the arrangements prior to the relationship breakdown presupposed a number of factors, stereotypically, fathers being the primary breadwinner and mothers the primary carer and presupposed other things such as daily contact between fathers and their children.

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