O.J. prosecutor's feminist folly

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 15, 1996 | by Eugene Narrett

Prosecutor Marcia Clark is poised on the threshold of renewed celebrity. Sure, she's been in the tabloids on and off for 18 months, but now she reportedly fends off $4 million book deals and has had to deny formally that she is dating fellow prosecutor Chris Darden. But as so often happens in our circus-style culture, the most important parts of Clark's story remain at the shadowy margins of media attention.

Nonetheless, bright light should be shed on Clark's own custody fight. Some readers may recall the storm that erupted in March when the first, fragmentary, news surfaced. The standard line was that prosecutor Clark was a victim in a supposed war on working mothers. See! claimed her supporters, this is what happens to a woman who works outside of the home: She gets punished! This line is familiar, the angrily jerking knee of feminist victimology. The only problem was that those running to the fray on behalf of Ms. Clark didn't bother with the facts of the case, for the facts are inconvenient to their claims.

Begin at the beginning. The marriage from which Clark last year walked away was her second. She had left her first "because she wasn't getting what she wanted out of it"' noted a sympathetic writer in the New Yorker. So habituated are we to the self-indulgent reflexes of "personal growth" that this kind of abandonment is considered a healthy choice. Clark's first marriage was a short-term investment: She cashed in and walked.

Last June, right before the Simpson case broke, she repeated the pattern. She filed for divorce and had Gordon Clark put out of his home for no cause but that she felt him to be superfluous. Yet he had been the kind of husband and father feminists supposedly adore -- supportive of his wife's professional work and skilled at caring for the children. Clark acknowledged these facts when she filed for divorce. She also conceded her unavailability to their sons. As a result, she requested shared legal and physical custody.

According to attorney Anne Mitchell, Gordon Clark did not reopen the divorce case. He was coping with his grief as best he could when, on Jan. 9, 1995, ex-wife Marcia initiated a new action against him. In reopening a divorce to which the children and discarded spouse were adapting, Ms. Clark demanded sole custody of the children. She also demanded money for an expanded wardrobe and hairstyling. So intoxicated was she by her sense of entitlement that she was neither ashamed nor rational enough to see how blatantly selfish and predatory her action was.

Although she reportedly earns a minimum of $96,000 per year, Ms. Clark demanded more money, even though Gordon Clark earns just $40,000. Where is the level playing field here? Where is basic decency? Having listened to torrents of feminist claims, we thought that women wanted to be responsible for themselves, that they wanted equality, not subsidy. Mitchell comments: "Despite Ms. Clark's success, she is no model for women to become self-reliant and free of the maternal dole."

Her behavior was far worse than inequity and narcissism. Ms. Clark demanded money from the spouse she abandoned not only for a world-class wardrobe and beauty salons, but so she could "hire additional baby sitters for the evenings and weekends." In her affidavit moving to change from shared to sole custody, Clark stated she "needed someone to spend the evenings with my two children."

Those two little boys also are the sons of Gordon Clark, an experienced and loving parent. In his sworn response to the new action Ms. Clark brought, the father testified that he "did not want our children to be raised by a housekeeper when they have a father who is available, capable and glad to take responsibility for their care." Clark noted that before he'd been put out of the family home he always had shared equally in all child-rearing responsibilities. This man should have been a hero to feminists. He should be to all women and men who care about parenting.

Having been used and attacked by a wealthy and powerful ex-spouse, one might expect a normal man or woman to strike back. But in response to Ms. Clark's action, Gordon Clark asked only for temporary custody until the end of the Simpson circus. He based his request not on his own wishes and feelings (which feminists tell men they must learn to express) but on Ms. Clark's own affidavit detailing her unavailability to the boys. For this natural and appropriate request, Gordon Clark was attacked by feminists from coast to coast. Worse, he watched his ex-wife presented as a victim. How familiar. How disgusting. Even now, battling to be a father to his boys in the face of Ms. Clark's contempt, Gordon Clark seeks to deflect criticism from the prosecutor. "Each situation is unique," he testified, "and judgments should be based upon actual facts and not gender stereotypes." If only feminists would heed those words. If only they would drop their sanctimonious mystique of victimhood.

"I have a responsibility to our children," Gordon Clark stated, "and when our sons need hugs, to talk, to be fed, need someone to cry to, need to play or need a bath or to be read to, one of their parents should be there." Why aren't feminists cheering this fatherly example? Perhaps the Clark case reveals the real core of feminism: It's not about equality under the law, it's about control, total control.