10 Ridiculously Sexist and Dangerous Laws From Around the World

[moonbladem]

Comments

[belleweather]

This:

3. In the U.S., a child born outside of marriage can only be granted citizenship in certain cases relating to the father.

For example, when "a blood relationship between the person and the father is established by clear and convincing evidence" or "the father (unless dead) agreed, in writing, to provide financially for the person until they reach age of eighteen. Somehow, I doubt that millennials, for whom out-of-wedlock births are the norm, know that this might be the case where they live.

While not entirely untrue is HELLA fucking misleading.

What they're talking about is the process to get a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) for the child of a U.S. Citizen who is not born on U.S. Soil. There are a mess of requirements to do this for both men AND women (women generally have to have one year of uninterrupted presence in the U.S. at some time in their lives, men generally have to have 5 years total presence, 2 after the age of 14. Rules are different for two U.S. Citizens married to one another). YES, there is a requirement that a father outside of wedlock take financial responsibility for the child but a) you have to apply to get a CRBA documented anyway, and b) there's a handy little place for him to sign on the fucking form that he'll take responsibility, so it's not like it's news. The dad is generally documented on the birth certificate (and sometimes through DNA) by that point anyway, so it's not the first moment of legal responsibility.

I don't know that I'd even consider it particularly sexist as much as an attempt to grapple with the different biological relationship men and women have with their biological children. On one hand, we grant citizenship based on parental relationship that may be purely biological -- on the other hand, we don't want to allow those purely biological fathers to dump the responsibility for paying for all their children entirely on to the government.