This post was provided by Bettina Arndt
Exciting times are coming. Fabulous women are coming to town.
For a start there’s the young filmmaker, Cassie Jaye whose movie, The Red Pill has been causing such a stir. Cassie is speaking at the International Conference on Men’s Issues (ICMI) being held at the Gold Coast, June 9-11 and then she will be in Sydney for a few days. Cassie will be all over our media during her visit. She’s appearing on Channel 10’s The Project on Thursday June 8 and on Weekend Sunrise on June 11, and will be with Andrew Bolt on Sky News, probably on June 12.
But we’ll also be seeing the amazing Karen Straughan. Karen, also known as GirlWritesWhat, is one of the most popular women working for the men’s movement. I first came across her blog back in 2011 when she was a newly divorced waitress and mother of three writing about her astonishment at how easy it would have been for her to destroy her ex-husband. How our biased legal system conspires with vengeful women to punish men they wish to discard. It was powerful stuff.
Karen went on to become a hugely popular advocate for men’s rights. She now has more than 160,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and her 2011 Vlog on “Feminism and the Disposable Male” video has almost 1.5 million views.
Karen is extraordinary – totally brilliant, well-informed and an incisive, ferocious debater. None of the well-known feminists will debate Karen after seeing what she did to other members of the sisterhood. See Karen demolishing Naomi Wolf on a televised panel discussion.
Or have a look at this wonderful blog where Karen dissects a pathetic attack by a women’s studies professor on The Red Pill.
Now for the exciting events involving Karen – please tell all your friends so they can see her Australian performances.
Karen will be in Sydney for the week prior to the conference. She’ll be doing an hour long interview with my friends Rowan Dean and Ross Cameron, on Sky News’ The Outsiders at 10 am on Sunday June 4. I’m sure that will be well worth watching.
Then on Tuesday June 6 Tuesday night Karen is doing a Q&A with viewers of Mark Latham’s Facebook. Live streaming from 8.00 pm. We want you to all start thinking of questions or comments. You can send in short video questions or written questions/comments (email to bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au) or wait until that evening and post them on the facebook page for Karen to answer. It should be great fun.
Then for our Sydney people – Karen is speaking on Wednesday June 7 at The Sydney Institute on Why Marriage is Too Risky for Men. The event starts at 5.30 pm, level 40, Governor Phillip Tower, 1 Farrer Place, Sydney. Currently this event is reserved for Institute members who can bring one guest but if they don’t get enough people they will allow others in for $10. A few days prior to the event I will alert everyone to the situation through my web site at www.bettinaarndt.com.au, and let you know if non-members are allowed in. You can become a member for $90.00.
Since word got out that Bettina is organising Karen’s visit to Sydney she has been swamped with emails from men offering good money to see Straughan take on Clementine Ford. And now that’s about to happen – Straughan is one of the stars of what promises to be a very lively event on the ABC’s HackLive on June 20, a debate on “Is Male Privilege Bullshit?” Straughan and Cassie Jaye will participate via Skype, joining a panel of locals including Daisy Cousens and… wait for it…Clementine Ford.
Here’s a taste of Karen where she sums up the risks of marriage for men:
“From a woman’s perspective, marriage still provides significant benefits over single life –in fact, marriage as an enterprise has only improved for women since the 1950s. A woman now has the right to say no to sex with her husband. If he’s abusive, she has an entire public-sector industry itching to help her. If a woman decides she doesn’t want to be married to that jerk who doesn’t help with the dishes, has mommy issues and leaves his dirty socks lying all over the place, well, she doesn’t have to be. She won’t be stigmatized, she won’t be financially destroyed and she won’t lose her children. For women, marriage is all benefit and zero risk, and that’s why women are whining about men’s reluctance to tie the knot. But for men, it’s the other way around–no guaranteed benefit, and the kind of risk an adrenaline junkie would eschew.”
And to give you a further taste of Karen Straughan’s brilliant, refreshing take on gender politics, read these extracts:
About women’s privilege
Women are so rarely held accountable for their actions and decisions and burdens to the degree they should be as human beings:
- If a woman can’t be successful, it is because the business world is sexist.
- If a woman wakes up after getting black-out drunk at a party full of horny young men to discover she was violated, any hint that perhaps getting black-out drunk at a party full of horny young men is maybe not the smartest decision anyone ever made, means you’re blaming the victim and you’re an awful human being.
- If a woman takes five years off from the workforce so she can be a stay-at-home mom, and her re-entry into her career is less than spectacular, it’s never because sometimes life comes down to making a choice between something you want and another thing you want more–it’s because government/society doesn’t do enough to help her.
This is MY life. I am the architect of it. If I fuck it up, it isn’t something that merely “happened” to me–I was an active participant in the sequence of decisions that led to the fucking-up. Make no mistake, modern feminism isn’t about women’s rights. It’s about women’s privilege. It may not look like privilege to everyone, but that’s what it is.
On male disposability.
Male disposability has been around since the dawn of time, and it’s based on one very, very straightforward dynamic: when it comes to the well-being of others, women come first, men come last. This is just the way it has always been. Seats in lifeboats, being rescued from burning buildings, who gets to eat. Society places men dead last every time, and, society expects men to place themselves dead last every time.
Domestic violence
Violence against women in any form has been a HUGE cash cow for feminism. The more they inflate their claims regarding its pervasiveness in society, the more money pours in, and the more power they have to tinker with legislation and policy.
Women lying about rape
Pretending women never lie about rape is not only dishonest, it sends a despicable message to victims. “Women never lie about rape,” tells victims they should always be believed, on the spot, and therefore the normal investigative process is a revictimization rather than a necessary evil….A justice system that refuses to punish women who lie about rape is demeaning and belittling the experiences of rape victims, and allowing false accusers to damage the credibility of every legitimate victim without any accountability for the harm they do. And it demeans and belittles a justice system that is supposed to protect ALL victims, including victims of false accusations.
Female self-interest
Feminism has done nothing but exploit this dynamic of the expectation on men to put everybody else before themselves. Especially women. Women’s safety and support, women’s well-being, and women’s emotional needs, always come first. This is the most stunning piece of society-wide manipulative psychology I think I have ever come across. Feminism has been down with old-school chivalry right from the start. They might seem like strange bedfellows, but they’re not. Because both concepts are built on a firm foundation of female self-interest.
Please spread the word about the fresh of fresh air that is about to hit Australian airwaves. I will list their full media schedule on my website just before they arrive. And if you know anyone in the media who might like to interview these wonderful women please contact Bettina Arndt (bettina@bettinaarndt.com)
