One surprising inclusion in the 2020 Australia Day honours list was a Member of the Order of Australia award for Bettina Arndt. It was surprising not because the recipient was undeserving (which she wasn’t), but because such public awards tend to favour those pushing politically palatable (and increasingly left of centre) causes.
You would probably be aware that Bettina is an active supporter of various issues affecting men and boys, and that this has put her in the cross-hairs of the feminist lobby on more than a few occasions.
And also true to form, although Bettina’s views have been described as “dangerous”, most of the media comment focused on her professional integrity rather than the specific issues she raises. Look for example at the Twitter stream for ‘New Matilda’ (@newmatilda) and you’ll see tweet after tweet after tweet concerning Bettina’s academic qualifications, but none addressing her views regarding (for example) an alleged campus rape culture.
Kindly read on for relevant details, including Bettina’s response to those launching the attacks on her.
New Matilda Statement On Bettina Arndt’s Defamation Of Nina Funnell (26 February 2020) Bettina Arndt has previously suggested that Nina was conducting a long-running & concerted campaign against her. Readers might wish to scan social media and form their own view. The Twitter stream @CEOWomensSafety could be one place to start.
Episode of The Drum (ABC) shown on 24 February 2020 (video). One of the topics addressed was, what the panel perceived as, the desirability of stripping Bettina Arndt of her OAM. See The Drum’s Twitter feed for further discussion (@ABCthedrum)
One specific criticism that has been levelled at Bettina is in relation to her allegedly ‘going soft’ on paedophiles, particularly in relation to one specific interview she conducted. One of the odd things here though, is that I have yet to hear any feminist speak out about the burgeoning problem of female paedophiles. And thus more feminist hypocrisy.
Child abuse can consist of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and/or neglect. Each of these forms of abuse are explained on this page, and an estimate of the relative scale of each of these forms of abuse is provided here.
Sexual abuse of children, the least common form of abuse, is mostly committed by men. Although note that there is no shortage of female perpetrators. Neglect of children is mostly committed by mothers, reflecting the fact that they are usually the primary care-givers. Female perpetrators tend to dominate the other two forms of abuse, although there are significant variations (and gaps in data) between different studies. Links to sources of statistical data concerning the perpetration of child abuse are provided below.
Child abuse, where it occurs within the home, is itself a subset of a broader range of destructive behaviours known as domestic violence.
Domestic violence is not a gendered crime, although most feminists believe otherwise and never stop telling us so. They justify this position on the basis of their claim that domestic violence is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women. But if we were to accept that, then surely child abuse and neglect must also be a gendered crime given that the majority of the perpetrators are female and the majority of victims male? Why isn’t perpetrator gender nearly such a big issue in the child abuse debate (or abuse of the aged, etc), as it clearly is in domestic violence?
I would draw the readers attention to an article entitled ‘Abuse and neglect: Australia’s child protection ‘crisis’’ published in ‘The Conversation‘. An interesting thing about that article was that it never mentions the issue of gender. This contrasts strongly with articles that ‘The Conversation‘ publishes about domestic violence, wherein gender is invariably the central theme.
Thus we seem to have one form of violence involving somewhat more male perpetrators, and where gender is absolutely pivotal. Then we have other forms of violence where most perpetrators are female, yet apparently gender is not a significant issue. How strange and paradoxical.
Could it be, as some have suggested, that researchers move the goalposts depending on whether the relevant information alternately supports or undermines the feminist narrative? The issue of the corruption of gender-related research is addressed in another blog post.
How about we start telling it like it is? Most child abuse and neglect is perpetrated by women, and women should acknowledge this and deal with it the same way they harangue men to take ownership and deal with domestic violence, i.e. tell all your friends it’s wrong. Though the impact of that approach, in isolation, is unlikely to amount to much in the way of a reduction in abuse.
Perpetrators of domestic violence expose their children to the unhealthy experience of seeing and hearing abuse taking place, thus this behaviour is itself a form of child abuse. Pro-feminist advocacy groups and journalists sometimes offer up statements such as “25% of young people have witnessed physical domestic violence against their mother”. As always, the lack of comparative data for male victimisation is a sure-fire indicator of sexist bias.
The actual situation, as identified by ‘One in Three‘ is:
“23% of young people have witnessed physical domestic violence against their mother or stepmother, and 22% of young people have witnessed physical domestic violence against their father or stepfather” (Source)
It is of great significance that victims of child abuse, be they male or female, are much more likely to become perpetrators of not only child abuse, but also domestic violence, upon reaching adulthood. Thus abusive women are guilty twice over. In the first instance they abuse their partners and children, turning their lives into a living hell. Then, assuming their abuse doesn’t lead to murder or suicide, those children grow up and have children who they abuse – thus perpetuating an inter-generational cycle.
We should be giving equal emphasis to combating all forms of domestic violence including child abuse and elder abuse. Instead because of the inordinate degree of influence by the feminist lobby, the government is concentrating all of its effort on reducing violence against women based on the flawed claim that DV originates from the disrespectful attitudes of men and boys.
I believe that, were we to take a broader and longer-term view of the DV issue, then we should be placing far greater emphasis on women’s role in perpetrating child abuse. This would see, for example, the provision of more behaviour modification programs for abusive women with the aim of reducing the level of domestic violence in both the current and subsequent generation.
Statistical information on child abuse, and related discussion:
As previously noted, many statistical sources regarding child abuse (esp. in the past 5-10 years) don’t detail the gender of the perpetrator. This problem was identified in this Australian study for example. This is rather curious given that gender is promoted as the pivotal issue in the sphere of domestic violence research. Of course there the majority of perpetrators are male and thus entirely consistent with feminist dogma.
This U.K article notes that “mothers are the “unseen force” behind so-called honour-based abuse, inflicting violence on their daughters” and that “of the 100 “honour” crimes she studied, 49 involved mothers – but this was often not recorded in crime reports.”
40.5% of all child abuse is committed solely by biological mothers 17.7% of all child abuse is committed solely by biological fathers 19.3% of child abuse is committed by both the mother and the father 6.4% of child abuse is committed by the mother and some other individual 1.0% of child abuse is committed by the father and some other individual 11.9% is committed by someone other than the parents 3.1% is committed by an unknown or missing perpetrator.
Child Maltreatment 2012 Department of Health and Human Services USA. Refer table 5-3. Other reports in this series can be found here.
Reddit discussion threads on the issue of perpetrator gender, included here as they contains links to further statistical sources of note:
“The Western Australian figures shed light on who is likely to abuse children in families and are in line with overseas findings. The data show there were 1505 substantiations of child abuse in WA during the period 2007-8. Natural parents were responsible for 37% of total cases. Of these, mothers are identified as the perpetrator of neglect and abuse in a total of 73% of verified cases.”
“The report shows there were 13,184 substantiated child abuse cases across Queensland in 2005-06. Women were responsible for 7,319 – or 55.5 per cent – of cases, and males for 5,846, or 44.3 per cent.”
Mother used one-year-old baby as weapon in Alice Springs street fight (21 March 2015) Features the comment “Women who are victims of domestic violence should seek help from relevant support agencies long before it reaches such a crisis point.” Of course she’s a “victim“, rather than a perpetrator … she’s a woman, right?
An article informs us of the considerable danger caused by dads drinking, but neglects to mention the (even greater) danger caused by mums drinking (17 February 2019) and subsequent Tweets from Bettina Arndt (and another).
Some people have suggested that feminist ideologues using pre-pubescent girls in expletive-laden videos to further their cause is also a form of child abuse (commentary here and here). Another one is seen when feminist mothers bemoan the fact that they are rearing a male and map out a path of indoctrination, see this article for example.