Australian 2016 Federal Election: No party willing to step up to the mark for men & boys

The last Australian federal election was held on 2 July 2016, and was ultimately (narrowly) won by the Liberal Party/National Party Coalition.

This post concerns those gender-related policy positions adopted by the three main players during the campaign: the Australian Labor Party (ALP), the Liberal Party/National Party Coalition (LNP), and The Greens.

In another blog post I provide details regarding the relevant positions adopted by some of the minor parties.

Gender issues did not feature amongst the key issues debated during the election campaign. The one specific gender-related issue which was aired was domestic violence. With that in mind, let’s look at what the major parties had to say on that topic:

The Domestic Violence statement provided in the ALP web site can be found here. The number of times the terms ‘men’ or ‘male’ (e.g. male victims) feature in this document = 0

The Domestic Violence statement within the Liberal Party web site is accessible here. The number of times the terms ‘men’ or ‘male’ (e.g. male victims) feature in this document = 1. That sole mention refers to the contentious ‘Mensline’ counselling service – read more about Mensline here.

The Domestic Violence statement in the National Party web site is here. The number of times the terms ‘men’ or ‘male’ (e.g. male victims) feature in this document = 0

The Greens Domestic Violence Policy is here. The number of times the terms ‘men’ or ‘male’ (e.g. male victims) feature in this document = 0. By way of contrast, the word ‘women’ features 31 times.

None of the major parties have shown any interest in addressing issues that detrimentally affect men and boys. None of them have issued significant statements in support of male victims of domestic violence, nor have they made reference to female perpetration of violence.

The major parties are essentially all in lockstep with the feminist movement, the only area of divergence being the amount of money that each is willing to relegate to/waste on feminist causes.

Amongst the major parties, the Greens offer the most ardently pro-feminist perspective, with the ALP running a close second. It was the Greens, for example, who were the driving force behind the current federal Inquiry into Domestic Violence and Gender Inequality.

The federal budget released by the Government in May 2016 represented the first salvo in the election campaign:

“In this Budget the Government has allocated $100.0 million over three years for Domestic and Family Violence: New Initiatives To Break the Cycle of Violence. This builds on the $101.2 million provided for a Women’s Safety Package announced by the Government in September 2015 (detailed in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Year Outlook 2015–16). This measure will draw on the recommendations of the Third Action Plan (part of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010–22), due for release in mid-2016. [Footnote]” (Source)

Further details of what were proposed and some related background information are provided at:

Domestic and family violence budget review 2016-17
The number of times the terms ‘men’ or ‘male’ (e.g. male victims) feature in this document = 0. Again, by way of contrast, the word ‘women’ features 28 times.

Budget Paper No. 2. Part 2 Expense measures. Social Services (See Domestic and Family Violence — new initiatives to break the cycle of violence)

With respect to media coverage, the first relevant item I noticed discussed one particular funding measure announced by the Government … see ‘Family violence legal aid boost of $30 million won’t solve crisis: Lawyers‘ (12 May 2016). As is essentially ‘par for the course’ , the article implies that all victims of domestic violence are female.

The next cab off the rank was the ALP in ‘Federal Election 2016 Campaign: Bill Shorten promises $65 million funding boost to family violence services‘ (14 May 2016)

“Labor will provide funding certainty to frontline family violence organisations if it wins government, Bill Shorten has promised. The Opposition Leader has committed $65 million over six years to ensure 1800 RESPECT, Our Watch and Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) can continue their work in tackling family violence.”

Again, each of the major Australian political parties is unambiguously pro-feminist, regardless of how overtly they choose to express it. At this point none of these parties have chosen to raise awareness of, or to provide practical support for, male victims of domestic violence.

During an otherwise tedious and predictable campaign at least Mark Latham entertained via poking pins into feminist/white knight thought bubbles.

Further coverage of gender issues during the campaign:

Feminist group ‘Fair Agenda‘ compiled their own scorecard on how the parties stack up in relation to domestic violence. You can probably guess that their criteria differ from my own.

Here is the election wish-list of another feminist group, the ‘Australian Women Against Violence Alliance‘. They sent me a tweet stating “All victims should have access to support” yet there is no mention of male victims here.

Suicide prevention funding not reaching men says Labor senator (16 June 2016)

Bill Shorten speech launching Labor’s gender equality policy (11 June 2016) Bill uses the word ‘men’ five times versus 55 times in the case of ‘women’. Whilst Australian women get reassurance, support and encouragement, the men get this:

“men who have harmed them and their children”
“men rely on women for childcare”
“childcare remains a responsibility that Australian men too often unfairly leave to Australian women”
“25 per cent of women nominate a lack of childcare as their reason for leaving the workforce. In the case of men, it is 3 per cent.”
“It is primitive and wrong that women are paying the mortgage on houses occupied by men who have harmed them and their children”

The ALP sees providing a myriad of policies to support women whilst providing none to address men’s issues as “gender equality”. But wait, there’s more.

Bill goes on to state that “Australia cannot afford six Liberal years of ‘budgets for blokes’.” Seriously Bill? You mean all that money lavished on the Ministry of Men’s Affairs? Oh wait, there isn’t one is there? In fact all I can see is hundreds of millions poured into organisations like these.

**I challenge Bill or any other ALP politician to add a comment to this post providing examples of current federal budgetary allocations which they feel only benefit “blokes”**

Bill has also promised a hand-out for women’s health. Real men don’t get sick right, mate? {insert gratuitous joke about ‘man-flu’ here}

What might political parties include in their electoral platforms if, you know, they gave a damn about men and boys? In this paper a fellow put forward some ideas in relation to the  2015 UK election.

Female journalists expose barrage of federal election sexist abuse (1 July 2016) With just one example of alleged abuse provided in this and the linked article, and no details provided regarding online abuse of male reporters, it’s hardly convincing case of a campaign of gendered trolling.

Despite the rhetoric, this election fails the feminist test (28 June 2016) The word ‘women’ appears 17 times in this piece by rusted-on feminist Eva Cox (‘men’ = 0 btw). But it’s ok, as we are reassured that “feminist issues are about a better society for all, not just advancing women in a male defined world”. And while feminists want more, they are being offered a veritable buffet compared to the situation for men/boys.

“While both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party have issued women’s policy documents, these are strong on equality rhetoric but short on the continuing gender inequities, instead offering some funding to fix service problems.” What a shame that the dog chewed the corresponding men’s policy documents.

Election 2016: Labor commits $88 million to provide safe houses for domestic violence victims (11 June 2016)

The f-word enters the campaign and trips up both major parties (8 June 2016)

Malcolm Turnbull declares himself a feminist and chokes up over his family history, Turnbull finds it easy to declare himself a feminist, and Grandfather PM talks up the power of girls (6 June 2016)

Australian Brotherhood of Fathers election campaign round-up (2 June 2016)

Gender differences in voting intentions in the current campaign as of 16 May 2016

Gender differences in voting patterns in previous Australian elections

Powerful coalition of women call for both parties to stop their war on women‘ (17 May 2016) The election campaign demands of one feminist organisation (WEL)

Why neither party should ignore gender in this election (13 May 2016)

Domestic violence: Rosie Batty launches Australian election campaign push (5 May 2016)

Finally, a quick glimpse of what’s happening in the U.S Presidential campaign: here and here. This UK article is entitled ‘Why are men’s issues consistently ignored in electoral manifestos?‘  (29 May 2017)

Here is Bill Shorten’s take on domestic violence – notice how much attention he offers re: male victims. (July 2017)

It looks like the 2019 federal campaign may see gender issues given a higher profile, though I suspect purely employing the feminist perspective. Here was the first shot fired … (more details here)

Shorten promises $400 million to boost women’s superannuation (19 September 2018)

Elsewhere in this blog you might also be interested in the following posts:

Partners in alms: A primer on the ‘Domestic Violence Industry’

Australian taxpayer-funded organisations that do little/nothing for men (other than demonising them)

Dealing with mens issues – The current situation in Australia

Sadly, Australian politicians only find the courage to criticise the feminist lobby after they retire

Two awareness campaigns. Only one can be criticised. Cowed by feminism?

Many among the media, and the political and bureaucratic elite seem to get quite a hard-on about awareness campaigns. Indeed, some have suggested that such campaigns are a favoured device of the prevailing leftist/feminist hegemony. This despite the fact that the effectiveness of such campaigns is often difficult to assess. Or perhaps it’s because of that.

The American political philosopher Thomas Sowell observed “We should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.” (Source)

Ah, but not all awareness campaigns are the same. Campaigns concerning issues that are pivotal to the feminist cause are beyond reproach. Mild criticism is however tolerated in the case of campaigns on less ideologically revered topics.

A very different reaction to two public awareness campaigns

It’s May 2015 and the Australian federal government has released its annual budget. It proposes substantial allocations to two separate public awareness campaigns. One relates to drug use, specifically crystal methamphetamine – or ‘ice’ ($9 million). The other relates to domestic violence ($7 million).

Plenty of people have lined up to criticise the first campaign on the basis, for example, that it’s unoriginal, focuses too much on scare mongering, is unlikely to be cost-effective, and might even be counter-productive.

On that last point, one article included the statement that “When an ad is on television for a particular illicit drug, we know afterwards young people think it must be really, really common and so therefore it can increase their perception of how normal it is.”

In contrast the only public criticism that the domestic violence campaign has been subject to, is that not enough money has been provided. It is probably no coincidence that the feminist lobby is heavily invested in the DV campaign, but not the other.

So just how many parallels, if any, are there between the two campaigns?

The drug campaign was also discussed in an article entitled ‘Awareness campaigns need to target the real victims of ice” (13 May 2015), which noted that:

“International evidence suggests such “awareness” campaigns are not the most appropriate way to address harmful methamphetamine use. In fact, fear-based approaches can increase stigma which possibly drives people away from, rather than towards, treatment.”

The article proceeds:

“Australian media outlets and politicians claim we’re facing a nationwide “ice epidemic” …  the most up-to-date research estimates that the proportion of Australians who have used any type of methamphetamine (ice, “speed” powder) in the previous year has remained relatively stable for at least the last decade.

Nevertheless, the government and media’s continued use of hyperbolic language – in addition to a tendency to ignore and sometimes dismiss public health experts’ advice on ice – has the potential to incite unnecessary fear and misinform the public about this supposed “menace”.”

So there’s our first parallels, for neither campaign will be targeted and in both cases Australian media outlets and politicians are making exaggerated claims about an emerging epidemic.

The article then goes on to question whether the personal and public threat posed by drug use (as compared to the extent of drug use) has also been exaggerated.

The article states: “We need to accurately define the issue, including the nature and extent of methamphetamine use and related harms in rural and regional areas, to allow the development and implementation of cost-effective, evidence-based and timely responses.”

A further parallel is that the debate about domestic violence likewise does not accurately define the issue, focussing as it does wholly on uni-directional violence by men against women. I would also argue that the policy response is not evidence-based but rather driven by the ideology of those most heavily invested in the issue.

The article then goes on to talk about the success of health-related public awareness campaigns, noting that some “are costly, ineffective and possibly even counterproductive”.

In one example cited “The findings of one study suggest that the Montana Meth Project might actually increase acceptability and decrease perceptions of risk relating to using methamphetamine.” Elsewhere it noted that “fear-based approaches can lead to stigma and poor health outcomes, such as from reduced treatment-seeking.”

The article concludes with a discussion of the value of an alternative or supplementary strategy, that of “harm minimisation”. It notes:

“Because people will choose to engage in drug use (both licit and illicit) regardless of the policies and programs in place, we need to encourage them to do so as safely as possible. We also must continue to inform the public about options for managing drug-related consequences and appropriate and available means for professional support, such as telephone and internet counselling”.

The concept of ‘harm minimisation’ also applies to domestic violence when we consider the prevalence of bi-directional violence, as shown in the diagram below, and the fact that domestic violence may persist from one generation to the next. Perhaps we need to resign ourselves, that in some situations it may be more effective to focus more on the provision of short-term shelter accommodation, the removal of children into care, etc.

IPV-Truthwgray

Assuming there are parallels between awareness campaigns for drug use and domestic violence, then why have the same criticisms not been raised in relation to the latter?

Indeed, why has no criticism at all been directed at those spending large amounts of taxpayer funds on domestic violence awareness campaigns? Doubly so, given that there have been many previous awareness campaigns undertaken, and that these all appear to have achieved little in terms of effecting a remedy for the problem.

Is this lack of criticism because those in positions of influence truly believe in the value of such campaigns, or is it simply a reflection of wishful thinking and/or the very real fear of feminist backlash against dissenting voices?

Do public awareness campaigns even work?

Many public organisations love awareness campaigns because for minimal work they provide maximum profile (i.e. ‘hey, look at us doing something about the problem!’). Just engage a marketing consultant, agree on a logo, and begin advertising.

The jury is out, however, on their effectiveness – in part because many public awareness campaigns are not subject to proper evaluation. This is probably, in part, because of the factor noted above – they are often created at short notice for reasons of political expediency.

It is known however that some types of awareness campaigns are more likely to be successful than others:

“Some police agencies participate in domestic violence awareness campaigns and school programming, such as classroom instruction to teens about dating violence and ways to handle conflict. Domestic violence prevention messages may target the general population or specific populations. For example, campaigns may be designed to encourage victim reporting, deter potential offenders, or raise the consciousness of potential witnesses of abuse (neighbours, friends, relatives). However, the effect of these prevention strategies is unknown.

For instance, few of the programs developed to reduce teen dating violence have been evaluated, and of those that have, there have been mixed results. Although some report an increase in knowledge in the targeted population and greater familiarity with available resources to help victims, this does not necessarily translate into a reduction in the incidence level of dating violence.

† The Lancashire (United Kingdom) Police Constabulary placed messages about domestic violence on police vehicles, beer glass coasters in bars, utility bills, and lampposts, and used radio advertising to increase awareness of domestic violence.

As a rule, prevention is more likely to work if highly targeted. General campaigns are not typically effective. Highly targeted campaigns that focus on a specific target group or geographic area can have some impact. Offender-oriented campaigns, which are designed to raise potential offenders’ perceptions that there will be meaningful consequences to battering, are more likely to be effective than campaigns that appeal to potential offenders’ morals.” (Source)

See also:

What’s the point of sexual harassment training? Often, to protect employers (17 November 2017) This research found that sexual harassment training could actually produce the opposite result to what was intended.

Marriage vote: how advocacy ads exploit our emotions in divisive debates (13 September 2017) Now transpose the views expressed here across to domestic violence awareness campaigns, with the ‘yes’ lobby being those challenging the status quo by seeking a non-gendered approach to the issue. Again, “the ‘no’ campaign has many unfair advantages”. Though I suspect, most likely, not in the eyes of the typical reader of ‘The Conversation‘.

Feminist academics take issue with a women’s fitness awareness campaign (13 August 2017) Don’t exercise as men will look at you. A Mark Latham video

How Australia’s discrimination laws and public health campaigns perpetuate fat stigma (11 July 2017) “Fat-shaming” awareness campaigns don’t work and are reprehensible (… but male-shaming campaigns do/aren’t?) Of course this has nothing to do with where the issue of focus falls on the leftist/PC acceptability spectrum. #sarcasm

What if Mandatory “Sexual Respect” Classes are Counterproductive? (21 September 2016)

What good is ‘Raising Awareness’? (21 April 2015) USA

Are social marketing campaigns effective in preventing child abuse and neglect? (October 2010) Australia

And what if the campaign message is inaccurate and/or biased?

Another reason why a campaign might be counter-productive is when the information it disseminates is inaccurate and/or biased. This is a real danger with a topic like domestic violence, the debate concerning which is tightly-controlled by one group who maintain a very particular and inflexible ideological stance on the  matter.

It is highly likely that the campaign that eventually emerges will focus solely, or almost solely, on men’s violence towards women. Issues like bi-directional violence, domestic violence in same-sex couples (especially women), and female on male violence will be ignored or minimised. The focus on gender and control will mean that other factors like social disadvantage and substance abuse will be played down. Political correctness will also rule out consideration of race, ethnicity or religion as potentially relevant factors.

What messages will this send? What biases and stereotyping will this reinforce?

Three examples:

Feminism, Domestic Violence & Spiderman Screenings (12 July 2017)

Video and discussion thread concerning a gender-biased awareness campaign in Victoria, Australia (17 January 2017)

The UK Home Office ‘Disrespect Nobody’ campaign included this TV advert which failed to acknowledge female perpetration of abusive behaviours.

Other sources that may be of interest:

‘Ice Wars’ message is overblown and unhelpful (14 February 2017)

Our Watch charity invited to assess its own schools gender equity program (4 February 2017) Just have one feminist organisation (a recipient of substantial public funds) evaluate the effectiveness of a program of similar allied organisation. What could go wrong with that?

Miranda Devine: Stop telling boys to act like girls, by Miranda Devine (24 April 2016) Australia

Some early reaction, on mensrights reddit, to the new Australian DV ‘awareness’ campaign (24 April 2016)

Get ready for some good old male-bashing (22 April 2016)

What about the mean girls? by Jasmin Newman (21 April 2016) Australia

Australia’s costly new national ‘violence against women’ awareness campaign and some articles that followed its launch:

Prevention of violence against women – finally, an idea whose time has come, by Mary Barry (20 April 2016)
Domestic violence ad campaign to focus on ‘influencers’ in bid to change attitudes (20 April 2016)
Where the new $30 million domestic violence campaign is missing the mark‘. This campaign ignores male victims and female perpetrators, and is based on the flawed assumption that the main cause of DV is attitudes towards women.

Branded for life? Sending the wrong message to young perpetrators of family violence (24 February 2016) Australia. Campaign devised by feminist group ‘Our Watch’ and article published in pro-feminist site The Conversation. Campaign only features male perpetrators, this issue ignored in article.

Fear-based health information makes new mothers anxious (23 July 2015) Australia. Now consider DV campaigns that demonise all men despite them having no control over the small minority of men who abuse. The community seemingly sees no problem with making men feel “anxious” in that situation, even despite the fact that four times as many men commit suicide as do women.

Not just a slick TV ad: what makes a good domestic violence awareness campaign? (23 July 2015)

National $30 million campaign to tackle domestic violence (5 March 2015)

Mark Latham on why Labor can’t get it right on domestic violence (16 May 2015)

$16m for dom violence but $1.2b for terrorism (14 May 2015)

Social Marketing for Preventing Violence Against Women: Making every action matter (June 2013) This paper is written from a pro-feminist pro-awareness campaign perspective, but provides a useful list of many previous awareness campaigns. It fails to provide serious/objective evaluations of individual campaigns or of awareness campaigns generally. Indeed, it’s telling that the only campaign against which it directs criticism is the ‘One in Three‘ campaign that draws attention to male victims of domestic violence. One in Three‘ is an ongoing target for feminist criticism.

Partners in alms: A primer on the ‘Domestic Violence Industry’

The most visible elements of the domestic violence lobby in Australia are advocacy groups, charities and NGO’s such as ‘Our Watch‘, ‘DV Connect‘, the White Ribbon Foundation and ‘Domestic Violence NSW‘. Further groups are listed in this blog post, and with yet more examples provided here. And then in March 2020, 84 DV-related groups signed a letter to “Women’s Safety Ministers” calling for changes to purportedly better address violence against women.

In addition to scores of these mostly publicly-funded feminist groups, there exist various other significant pieces in the DVI jigsaw, particularly:

  • Feminist politicians and male colleagues imbued with a surfeit of chivalry (aka ‘white knights’)
  • Feminists and their allies leading or working within state and federal public agencies such as, for example, the Department of Social Services and the Australian Human Rights Commission
  • Feminists leading or working within academia and in market research/consultancy companies, and
  • Feminist and ‘white knight’ journalists and media commentators

It would appear that a high degree of inter-connectivity exists between the various parties involved in the Australian Domestic Violence Industry (ADVI). The links in this web comprise mutually-beneficial flows of tangible and intangible benefits such as funding/employment opportunities, power/prestige, and an often misguided sense of achieving social justice.

Each of these groups or individuals perform an important function within the network, the unifying theme being a shared desire to maintain and expand the network and to defend it against perceived threats.

I would hazard a guess that many of these individuals share similar demographic characteristics, with further points of commonality that include:

  • having studied the same university courses
  • enjoying social and/or personal relationships with others in the network, and
  • there being varying degrees of financial inter-dependency between them

The primary output of this industry should be a sustained reduction in the incidence of domestic violence involving both male and female perpetrators. Secondary outputs should include the provision of support for all victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, facilitating training of front-line workers who provide that support, and public education concerning the nature of domestic violence and available avenues of assistance.

The ADVI’s public education function has, however, been subverted to disseminating propaganda that is heavily imbued with feminist dogma. This has the effect of generating heightened hysteria which serves to generate further public/political support. It has created a deeply misrepresentative picture of the nature of the problem, and hence the nature of the most appropriate policy response.

One particularly egregious aspect of the ‘community education‘ undertaken by the ADVI is diverting attention from the growing incidence of violent behaviour by women, whilst engaging in the wholesale demonization of men within the community.

Anyway let’s turn our attention to the really important stuff – are these people actually getting runs on the board in terms of reducing the incidence and severity of domestic violence? For if they were then I might be inclined to keep these other concerns to myself. The reality though is that, as best we can tell, the ADVI seems to be making little or no progress at all.

How is the ADVI’s effectiveness measured? Well for the most part it isn’t, and that’s a big part of the problem. Most industries have measures of output, sometimes known as ‘key performance indicators’ (KPI). An obvious KPI for the ADVI would be the incidence of domestic violence in the community. But based on what the ADVI itself is telling us though, that figure is moving in the wrong direction (think now of the regular use of descriptors like ‘epidemic’).

On the issue of  KPI’s, I came across a table in this article entitled ‘Survey of public information on key performance indicators for combating domestic violence in Australian jurisdictions‘. Sadly I note that the performance indicators for national, ACT, Tasmania, South Australia and Victorian government don’t address the safety of all citizens, only that of women and children.

In July 2016, a feminist-saturated non-profit organisation known as ANROWS, released a report that might constitute the first attempt to evaluate efforts to reduce the incidence of domestic violence against women. The summary included the following observations:

“Most evaluations used a mixed-methods design but few had robust outcome measures and none assessed the relative impact of specific components, so the authors were unable to identify effective components or service models.”

“To build an evidence base on effective integration, the report found that future evaluations should be theory-driven, measurement focused and comprehensive, including process, output and outcome indicators.”

Every industry includes dedicated and hard-working people who make a positive contribution. In the case of the ADVI however, an inordinate amount of energy and resources are devoted to simply sustaining itself … and to ballooning ever larger.

On that note, I have noticed a recent trend whereby larger players in the DVI are ‘up-sizing’ their services (and income streams) through a strategy of extending their influence and claimed expertise into other areas such as workplace harassment and in-school ‘educational’ programs.

Most of those calling for more money to be spent on domestic violence appear to be laboring under the misapprehension that the government is spending very little in its battle against domestic violence. Their memories extend no further back, nor broader than, the latest trumpeted hand-out. In truth, and in contrast, the amounts involved are quite staggering.

The total outlay towards combatting domestic violence, whilst difficult to accurately measure, is certainly be in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. This was confirmed in a statement in 2015 by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull:

“The fact is there are hundreds of millions, billions of dollars, spent across government that address issues connected to and related to domestic violence. You know, look at money that goes into homelessness, for example.”

It’s most troubling that no-one seems to have produced a detailed tally of how much money has been injected into the ADVI at the federal and state/territory level, including how funds were spent, by whom, and what the outcomes were. Not the media, nor feminist advocacy groups, not even hugely costly government inquiries. Compare and contrast this with the issue of trying to account for money channeled into the Indigenous lobby (Twitter thread on that issue).

Such an exercise would be difficult, but certainly not impossible. All that is required is sufficient political will to compile such a resource. The main difficulty arises because applicable funds would be allocated in various different portfolios even, for example, within a particular jurisdiction. Then again, such references usually only appear in the public domain when they paint a politically palatable picture. Perhaps that’s the real issue here.

A 2014 paper produced by the Parliament House library, although woefully incomplete, is one possible starting point in compiling such a spreadsheet. It’s weakness is that it only provides details of the dollar value of some of the relevant federal funding, and nothing whatsoever regarding state/territory funding.

(Addendum June 2019: ‘Coordination and targeting of domestic violence funding and actions‘, Auditor-General report No. 45 2018/19 (p7), stated “Total expenditure by the Commonwealth across the life of the National Plan to date, is around $723 million”)

(Addendum December 2019: Some further relevant government commitments made during the 2019 federal election campaign are noted in this other blog post)

Another indicator of the scale of expenditure at the state level is provided in the 2016 report of the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence, which informs us that “the Victorian Government estimates that funding for programs and services aimed at dealing with family violence in 2014–15 was $80.6 million” (p41).

A few further snippets of info can be gleaned from this other blog post wherein I briefly examine several feminist advocacy groups, noting both the level of public funding received and the nature of expenses incurred by each.

Financial statements for advocacy groups ‘Our Reach‘ and ‘White Ribbon Australia‘, for example, tell us that most of the funding received goes into the pockets of staff, directors and consultants. The average staff salary within such organisations is in excess of $80,000/year, consistent with information obtained from an online salary comparison site (pictured).

payscaleRegrettably though, only a trickle of money subsequently makes its way past generously-rewarded tertiary-educated femocrats and consultants to reach front-line workers assisting female victims of violence. Note that relatively speaking, only a miniscule amount is directed towards helping male victims.

Clearly, maintaining, building and controlling this torrent of public funding is central to what is at stake in maintaining the circle of influence that is the ADVI.

It is only common-sense to recognise that when one combines the elements listed below, one creates an environment in which substantial waste might occur and in which corrupt conduct could flourish:

  • a significant degree of cronyism
  • federal and state governments that equate being seen to care about an issue, with throwing money at it, with the aim of fashioning electoral popularity
  • little accountability and poorly defined or non-existent review or audit processes with regards to the expenditure of public funds
  • an ‘ends justifies the means’ mind-set borne from ideological fervency, including the suppression of alternative viewpoints.

Regardless of whether criminal intent is present, or simply misguided or self-serving behaviour, the key common-sense questions that need to be answered include:

Exactly how much public money has been spent by federal/state and territory governments in recent years? Who received it?

Have public funds been distributed fairly, responsibly and cost-effectively? To what extent has auditing or program evaluation occurred, and was this done independently?

Are the resourcing decisions that emerge from this feminist milieu in the long-term best interests of the broader Australian community? Here’s a recent example of what can, and increasingly will, happen (re: Kids Company, UK). And on that note, kindly refer to this July 2021 paper by Canh Dang.

A further complication is that many people refuse to contemplate that these organisations may be contributing very little to a remedy, with a common attitude that ‘they mean well’ and thus should not be insulted with requests to verify/justify what they have done with the considered public funds that they have been given responsibility for. Conversely, those people seeking to impose accountability become the focus of aggression for even publicly considering that care agencies might be incompetent or dishonest. It must have been a similar situation, for example, when the first public claims were aired concerning Catholic priests sexually abusing children.

The subject of feminist enterprise centred around the issue of domestic violence has been addressed by well-known Canadian MRA Karen Straughan:

“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. Because it is such an emotionally charged subject, any rational scepticism of these claims (as to whether they are true in the first place, or whether feminists are accurate in their estimates of pervasiveness), is easily deflected by attacking the sceptic.”

“You can demonstrate until the cows come home just how much certain feminists are profiting from generating an inflated fear of violence against women among the public (the average [almost always feminist] director of a battered women’s shelter here in Alberta rakes in over $100k/year, and in the US, that number can be significantly higher), and people won’t care, because ending violence against women is THAT important. They won’t see the people who claim to be working to end it as the exploitative con-artists or ideologically driven religious inquisitors that they are.

If you point out that a very lucrative industry has formed around these issues, and that like any organic entity, this industry will work to sustain and grow itself rather than the other way around, you get called a conspiracy theorist. Even though none of these claims require a conspiracy to be valid–all they require is human nature.”

Another good paper concerning the nature of the domestic violence industry can be found here (Dalrock, July 2013).

In closing I would make one further observation in relation to the ‘old girls club’ character of the ADVI. Most organisations within the ADVI have a board of directors and/or an advisory group. Whilst my research was hardly exhaustive, I was unable to find a single example of a board or advisory group that included representation by a men’s group or fathers group. This exclusion of relevant stake-holders, and general lack of gender diversity, is accentuated by the fact that many DV-related organisations have few or nil male employees. Surely this is very much at odds for a movement that elsewhere stridently champions the benefits of gender diversity and inclusiveness?

Let’s take the example of WESNET who state that they work “within a feminist framework“, which most would assume to include a strong commitment to gender equality. And yet in the next breath, WESNET supports women only management committees as most appropriate to women and children focused services and to services employing women only.”

WESNET makes a feeble effort at an appearance of objectivity, stating that although “pro-women; this has sometimes been misconstrued as meaning “anti-men” but this is not the case.” Yet search as I did I could not find a single admission regarding female perpetration of violence, nor an expression of support for male victims of their violence.

Another similar example is an allied organisation known as AWAVA, whose advisory board is entirely female.

Finally in this interview with Rosie Batty on the ABC’s 7:30 program, Rosie discloses her frank assessment of likely progress in combating DV in Australia (based on continued reliance on the feminist/Duluth approach):

“HAYDEN COOPER: … We’ve all heard that horrendous statistic of one in three women who’ve experienced physical violence. Have you seen any sign yet that that statistic, that figure is improving?

ROSIE BATTY: Look, it’s going to be a heck of a long time before we start to see changes to our statistics turn around.” (Source)

Well no-one can accuse Rosie of setting the bar too high. Meanwhile just keep signing those cheques, Prime Minister.

rebecca

neave

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This graph was posted on Twitter by @JamesLNuzzo – A link to it’s source can be found here.

See also:

Domestic abuse charity worker who stabbed her ex-boyfriend during campaign of violence is jailed (19 September 2024)

Federal government calls out states for missed DV staffing targets ahead of anticipated $351m support package (5 September 2024) That’s right folks, change nothing, just spend more!

Australia was just handed a report card on how it’s tackling gendered violence (22 August 2024) The feminist lobby’s idea of a “report card”. It oozes a ridiculous amount of bias and misrepresentation.

Feminism’s cash cow implodes, by Bettina Arndt (4 August 2024)

The Australian government hands out hundreds of millions per year in grants to businesses. We find much of it is wasted (18 July 2024)

An illuminating account of the early history of the DV shelter movement

Aussie men have had enough – has a push-back begun? (May 2024) Video

‘Systemic’ underpayment of community and social services workers revealed in UNSW report (23 May 2024) DV workers are under-paid, says Their ABC

DOJ’s Kristen Clarke testified she was never arrested. Court records and text messages indicate she was (1 May 2024) USA

‘Men need to hear this’: Independents call on the government to address domestic violence ’emergency’ (22 March 2024) Why only men? Do these politicians know anything about domestic violence (apart from feminist catch-cries?)

Thousands applied for this payment to escape domestic violence. Fewer than half received it (16 January 2024) Count the number of references to men and male victims.

What action looks like (?) … Tanya Plibersek announces we’re investing more than $260 million in First Nations women and children’s safety (19 October 2023)

Women and children are still dying in domestic violence incidents. A proper plan and funding are needed (21 August 2023)

WA family and domestic violence services hold urgent meeting amid ‘crisis’, as cases increase (9 August 2023)

Pauline Hanson asks some pertinent questions of the Australian Government regarding their pitiful lack of support for male victims of domestic violence (May 2023) Video

Senator Katy Gallagher advises that the gov’ts 2023 Budget will be “dedicating almost $590 million to the National Plan to End Violence against Women & Children” (Source) No mention of male victims or female perpetrators, as is par for the course.

Time to #ShiftTheBurden: what the 2022-23 Federal Budget means for our sector (May 2023) Report by the pro-feminist ‘No to Violence’ group

Newly opened remote women’s shelter cannot provide refuge due to security risks, building defects (31 March 2023)

ANROWS survey reveals 1 in 4 Australians’ shock belief about domestic violence (29 March 2023) “Two in five people (41 per cent), according to the findings, mistakenly believe that domestic violence is committed equally by men and women”. It’s a shock when feminist’s No. 1 #CashCow is under threat

Family violence jobs – information for potential employment seekers produced by the Victorian government (27 February 2023)

NSW election: Labor’s pledges on domestic violence could affect existing services, PBO warns (24 March 2023)

“One of the most egregious, shameless statistical falsehoods I’ve seen in a long time, one that thoroughly shames @MayorofLondon @TenderUK in the recently published Teachers Toolkit on addressing gender-based violence & abuse” (22 February 2023) UK Twitter thread by Ally Fogg. But on the positive side, and only following lobbying by men’s rights activists, some statistical corrections were implemented

Labor’s plan to stop social services worker exodus (1 December 2022) Hey, maybe the main problem re: staff bailing out of feminist organisations isn’t salary level

Queensland Audit Office reports a lack of information sharing in Queensland domestic violence response (10 November 2022) Why am I not surprised?

The true nature of domestic violence, a video by Mark Latham (2022)

Why do male victims of violence seem to disappear like magic? (27 October 2022)

Erin: Beyond the Bruises — The Life and Legacy of Refuge Founder Erin Pizzey (21 September 2022)

Police reveal false allegations driving the domestic violence industry, by Bettina Arndt (undated)

Domestic violence gravy train, by Bettina Arndt (14 September 2022) Recommended reading

Disgraceful act costing NSW $3.3b during Covid-19 pandemic (12 September 2022)

IPSO upholds accuracy complaint in domestic abuse report by mirror.co.uk (6 September 2022)

Transparency International Australia CEO calls for federal ICAC to look into lobbyists, Scott Morrison’s secret ministries investigation (21 August 2022)

Security upgrades to women’s refuges as abusers turn to technology (21 August 2022) NSW, Australia. Not even a passing mention of female perpetrators, male victims or male refuges. I bet that doesn’t surprise you, does it?

The Queensland Government hands another $2 million to a feminist NGO based on call data provided by them (DV Connect) (3 August 2022)

RISE row prompts fresh look at how sensitive contracts are awarded (27 July 2022) I’ve seen a few articles like this one and expect to see plenty more, as state/local administrative bodies increasingly find the courage to challenge previously funded non-performing feminist NGO’s

‘Vital piece of evidence’ for 10-year domestic violence plan finally sees the light of day after Morrison government delay (14 July 2022)

Protecting boys from sexploitation: Why the eSafety regulator isn’t interested (8 July 2022) Another excellent paper by Bettina Arndt

Not content with offering ‘guidelines‘ instructing the media how to cover domestic violence in line with feminist dogma, Our Watch is now offering tangible incentives for those who comply (May 2022) (Postscript September 2022 – Here are similar guidelines – unrelated to Our Watch – without feminist bias having been applied)

Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre founders meet following federal budget’s $25-million pledge (20 April 2022) Zero mention of male victims … as is par for the course.

Expert Addresses Common Misconceptions About Men Who Experience Intimate Partner Violence (19 April 2022)

Male domestic abuse: Lack of refuges ‘inexplicable’, charity says (31 March 2022) Not so inexplicable when you see & listen to those who are running the show

There’s $1.3 billion for women’s safety in the budget and it’s not enough (30 March 2022) Here is a link to the budget statement for women – No statement was provided for men

This infographic contains information on how the Government is helping to end violence against women and children by providing funding across four pillars: $203.6 million for prevention, $328.2 million for early intervention, $480.1 million for response and $290.9 million for recovery. It also includes shows information on the Government’s commitment of $19.0 million for national data and evidence on women’s safety, funding of $22.4 million for a National Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Commission announced in November 2021 and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander action plan.

Queensland’s ‘patchwork’ response to domestic violence has clearly failed, police veteran says (14 March 2022)

Record boost to prevention and consent initiatives (6 March 2022)

Femicide Census: there’s a disturbing reason for the falling number of murders (27 February 2022) UK. What’s disturbing is the feminist lobby seeing the need to invent a reason to explain a drop in female victims number, in a manner that won’t threaten their (taxpayer-sourced) cash flow.

Founder of domestic abuse charity investigated after tweet saying service is for women only (31 January 2022)

What Happens When Someone Calls The National Domestic Abuse Helpline? [Short Answer] (27 November 2021) UK

Domestic abuse charities condemn ‘harsh’ sentencing of Penelope Jackson, by Patrick Sawer at The Telegraph (30 October 2021) Paywall protected article. An extremely inappropriate move by the Industry, speaking up here on behalf of a recently convicted (female) murderer. (Relevant case here)

NSW government to deliver 75 women’s refuges in biggest ever spend to tackle domestic violence (21 October 2021) The word men or male (as in male victims) doesn’t appear in this article – not even once.

‘Culture of Dishonesty:’ Lawmakers Need to Call Out Domestic Violence Half-Truths, Falsehoods, and Lies (22 October 2021) USA

Fall from Grace (4 October 2021) What people working in the DV field should look like

The Great COVID Domestic Violence Fundraiser – Quadrant Online (13 August 2021)

Police resent enforcing unjust feminist laws – former police officer speaks out. – Bettina Arndt #MENTOO (3 August 2021)

Detecting financial misreporting | Research for the World | LSE Research (7 July 2021)

Palaszczuk government to spend $30m on domestic violence prevention (news.com.au) (13 May 2021)

‘A very broken system’: why are Queensland police still getting domestic violence cases so wrong? (8 May 2021)

What women’s ministers should ask: why decades of no progress on violence? (7 April 2021) This article might be interesting, but behind a paywall

In the UK, it is estimated that the domestic abuse industry received close to £400 million a year for women. Yet despite acknowledging there were 786,000 male victims, the DA bill only sets aside £500,000 for male victims, 64p per male victim! (Source: Domestic Abuse Bill: policy equality statement Refer para 71)

Services to be cut and ‘lives lost’ in Queensland’s looming domestic violence funding ‘catastrophe’, advocates warn

‘Domestic’ violence – gender, truth and lies (21 March 2021) Discusses the UK situation, and I don’t agree with everything here, but it does raise some pertinent points

Stripping charity of £5m because it’s not gender-neutral ‘puts lives at risk’ (27 February 2021) UK. And in fact funding not removed but re-allocated to organisations that were willing to meet the required commitment to assist *all* victims regardless of gender.

This Christmas the Morrison Government needs to fully fund services that keep women safe and children feeling abuse safe (22 December 2020) Australia

Lobbyland. Fixing corruption risks in lobbying (5 October 2020) by David Solomon, Australia

Urgent funding plea to aid victims of abuse (26 September 2020) Australia

‘Revenge porn new normal’ after cases surge in lockdown (18 September 2020) UK, with a similar article in ‘The Independent’. A new funding angle it would seem.

Women’s Safety NSW calls for the Australian federal government to spend $15 billion on domestic violence over twelve years (18 September 2020)

The Domestic Violence racket explained (15 September 2020) UK video. Recommended viewing

Curb cash flow to the domestic abuse lobby (9 September 2020) UK

Male victims are being left off the domestic violence conversation (20 August 2020) Canada

It is ‘all men’, to varying degrees: men’s violence against women is a systemic crisis (29 July 2020)

Comprehensive package to support WA family violence response (22 July 2020)

Governments strike $2b legal funding deal (30 June 2020)

A safe place to escape family violence during coronavirus (10 April 2020) The Victorian government hands out tens of millions of dollars more

Queensland government pledges another $5.5 million for domestic violence during Covid-19 pandemic (8 April 2020) Note that $500,000 of this has been set aside for an awareness campaign #FacePalm

“The package complements the $24.7 million coronavirus housing and homelessness response package announced by Housing Minister Mick de Brenni last month. It will also complement the Australian Government’s $150 million funding package announced by the Prime Minister late last month.

The COAG Women’s Safety Council where Queensland is represented by Minister Farmer, has agreed that $32.5 million will be provided as an initial response to states and territories to help meet urgent need, with a further $97.5 million to be allocated over the next six months”

$1.1 billion Medicare, mental health, domestic violence package on its way in response to coronavirus crisis (29 March 2020)

The government’s inaction on domestic violence slammed as ‘appalling’ & ‘irresponsible’ (9 March 2020) It’s not just the gender bias that is noisome here, it is the industry’s utter lack of self-awareness/judgement. The system isn’t working, and of course it’s the government’s fault … and the solution is for them to hand over more money now.

The Domestic Violence Industry, by Bettina Arndt (28 February 2020) Recommended reading

Blame for Florida’s non-profit pay scandal points to state officials as hearings start (23 February 2020) $51 million goes completely unaccounted for at the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Later the Miami Herald reported that the nonprofit organization paid its former CEO, Tiffany Carr, more than $756,000 a year (Source).

$5 million in paid time off? Records show domestic violence agency CEO got that and more (13 February 2020) USA

The disaster that is Australia’s Domestic Violence Policy, by Helen Dale (12 February 2020)

Funding for women’s group under review after call for ban on man-woman relationships (28 January 2020)

7 myths about domestic violence (23 January 2020)

Who is best placed to help male victims of domestic violence? (21 December 2019)

$6m in family violence funding to help double the sector’s workforce (25 November 2019)

Failed charity White Ribbon tied in knots (6 November 2019)

Unpaid White Ribbon staff to get taxpayer-funded lifeline (21 October 2019) Australia

The Australian Women Against Violence Alliance because every industry needs a lobbying platform to oppose threats like proposed inquiries that may challenge the feminist perspective (and related income streams)

Domestic violence still at ‘unprecedented’ levels despite hundreds of millions being spent (5 September 2019) A lesson in asking questions about the industry without asking any of the real questions

Audit of the Office on Violence Against Women and California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (August 2019) See how they cheat

Stop the feminist control of domestic violence funding (29 July 2019) by Bettina Arndt

Audit doubts outcomes of plan to tackle domestic violence (14 June 2019) Australia. Gee, why am I not surprised? Here is a link to the actual audit report.

Claims of mismanagement, nepotism at big domestic violence service (31 May 2019) And I predict that there’s plenty more stories like this to come

Where’s the oversight on government grants? (10 April 2019) USA

White Ribbon organisation gets a little government hand-out because …. err … some reason (17 February 2019) Video of Senator Leyonhjelm

Morrison promises $78 million for combatting domestic violence (11 February 2019)

Refuge charity boss Sandra Horley accused of bullying culture (7 January 2019) UK. Expect many more stories like this one. And look at her salary!

Four years on, it’s impossible to hear Rosie and not want to do something (2 November 2018)

“The NSW Domestic and Family Violence Blueprint for Reform is funded for $300 million over the next four years. While it might not match the $1.9 billion promised by the Victorian government, it’s certainly a huge step further than the minuscule $18.2 from the Federal government.”

“As Rosie Batty said at the forum last week, “cut out the word ‘family’, cut out the word ‘domestic’ – this is just violence. And let’s call it what it is. It’s terrorism.” (my comment: But it seems we can’t cut out the DV = violence against women label that appears on almost all inquiries or gov’t agencies or NGO’s)

2018 federal budget: Turnbull Government all talk, no action on family violence (10 May 2018) Strong pro-feminist perspective in body of article but some federal/state expenditure data provided (although no links to sources provided)

Former employees warn of ‘toxic’ culture at domestic abuse charity Refuge (22 June 2018) UK

The sad truth about the Luke Batty Foundation (19 February 2018) and Wrongdoing at Luke Batty Foundation is indefensible (22 February 2018) Mark Latham’s Outsiders discusses alleged financial irregularities and the abuse & turnover of female directors and staff, culminating in the closure of the Foundation.

Feminists laugh at the idea of violence against men (2017) Video. One can just imagine the women pictured being appointed to head a feminist NGO ‘fighting’ domestic violence. And voila …

Cory Bernardi is using provocative motions to make ideological points in the Senate (16 November 2017) showing how DV organisations can/do attempt to influence policy in other areas in support of feminist ideology. See rebuttal from Corrine Barraclough here.

DV Connect chief executive Diane Mangan axed from role amid dispute (8 November 2017)

Senior Australian public servants demonstrating their unswerving support for the feminist narrative and the DVI (12 April 2017) Video

Feminists against men’s domestic violence shelters (24 May 2017) Video

Victorian budget 2017: record spending to break family violence (2 May 2017) Open wide all those feminist snouts!

“The same policies will only produce the same tragedies. That’s why I promised to change it all.” So said Premier Andrews, and yet the same fundamental approach is to be followed – with the addition of all those millions more taxpayer dollars. In other words an approach underpinned by feminist ideology/the Duluth Model, and with ‘awareness’ and support services run by the same feminist lobby groups who have previously received funds in the past. And this despite those groups shunning male victims, turning a blind eye to female perpetrators, and producing no measurable improvement in the incidence of DV.

Family Violence Workforce Census (April 2017) Interesting to see the feminist Victorian Government acknowledging this glad-handing network as an ‘industry’. Further details available here.

Our Watch charity invited to assess its own schools gender equity program (4 February 2017) An obvious conflict of interest, but might as well keep the $$ within the family, right?

Domestic Violence Industry: Nights with Miranda Devine (12 January 2017) Miranda talks with Sex Therapist, Psychologist and Men’s rights activist, Bettina Arndt about the misuse of AVO’s and the industry that surrounds it. Australia

The White Ribbon Breakfast ~ where the cash cow meets the gravy train (28 October 2016)

Feminist charity quits Scottish Women’s Aid network in dispute over male director (21 October 2016) UK. Related Reddit discussion thread here.

Domestic violence double standards – male MP was forced to stand down when cautioned for assaulting partner yet Sarah Champion receives support for same crime (26 September 2016) UK

UK Domestic Violence Charities’ Finances (16 September 2016) Recommended reading.

“What is the overall level of public funding to UK Domestic Violence (DV) charities? The answer is not widely known (is it known at all outside the closed doors of the sector itself?). The financing of the DV sector is obscure partly because of the many hundreds of different charities in the sector.” Just as is the case in Australia

Exposing the fraudulent DV lobby (9 September 2016)

Bashing of ‘domestic violence industry’ beyond the pale, by Anne Summers (3 September 2016) Wishy-washy defence of the ADVI that avoids ALL of the points of criticism, relying primarily on the straw-man argument that if you disrespect the ADVI then you are also disrespecting victims of domestic violence:

“How despicable – and un-Australian – for politicians and journalists to so cruelly mock those who suffer racism or violence with the ugly inference that they are just fodder for an “industry””

“the people who work to end the epidemic”? Firstly there is no “epidemic”, and secondly I am unaware of any evidence to support the assertion that the feminist ADVI is doing anything to “end” it … or even reduce it.

Vested interests ‘have taken over the domestic violence debate’: Leyonhjelm (26 August 2016)

Wales gives 77 times as much money to women’s groups than men’s groups (21 August 2016)

Always beating up on men, by Bettina Arndt (20 August 2016) with introductory piece here

The Domestic Violence Industry – Parts 1 & 2 (17 July 2016 & 6 August 2016)

Stop the man-bashing: It’s time to fight back against feminism, by Corrine Barraclough (29 July 2016) Australia

Victoria Is Spending More Money On Domestic Violence Than The Federal Government (15 July 2016)

Revealed: The Lavish Spending That Brought Down Britain’s Only LGBT Domestic Abuse Charity (5 July 2016) UK, with related Reddit discussion thread here

Public money wasted on domestic violence organisations, by Bettina Arndt (9 July 2016) More than 180 readers comments at last count, the vast majority of which support Bettina’s position on the matter.

ACT government dreams up a new way to top up the coffers of the DVI – A domestic violence levy, by Angela Shanahan (18 June 2016)

F4J call for inquiry into violence & drug taking at contact handover involving Domestic Violence charity in Greenwich (17 May 2016) UK

Domestic violence ad campaign to focus on ‘influencers’ in bid to change attitudes (20 April 2016) Australia. This is the new campaign. There is little/no evidence that such campaigns actually reduce the incidence of DV, but by jingo $30million sure will help some lucky pro-feminist PR/marketing company. And here Mary Barry, CEO of feminist advocacy group ‘Our Watch’ barracks on the irresponsible people feeding the feminist juggernaut with ever-more $$$

Family Violence royal commission proposes policing, social services, courts overhaul (31 March 2016) Australia. Commissioner Neave admits we don’t really know how much is being spent on combatting family violence, only that millions, maybe billions, more needs to be spent. Even if it requires a special tax levy.

Letter to Malcolm Turnbull: domestic violence must be a budget priority (16 March 2016) More sir!

Shane Warne Foundation not alone in charity spending ambiguity (15 March 2016) Australia. More and better scrutiny of not-for-profits? Bring it on – and let’s start with feminist organisations.

To see just how out-of-control the DVI can get, please read ‘Spain gender laws: A country against men‘ (18 February 2016)

Australian of the Year David Morrison’s $15,000 speaking fee (4 February 2016) Elizabeth Broderick $10k/gig and Rosie Batty a bargain at only $5k. Oh and now it transpires that he’s getting $200,000 for 25 days work. Hands up who thinks the same sorts of generous arrangements would be uncovered if anyone was brave enough to delve into the finances of high-profile SJW women?

Rosie Batty’s legacy: more women leaving abusive relationships (24 January 2016) Please Sir! May I have more (money)? More calls from women (based on statistics generated by groups with a pecuniary interest, and which are unlikely to ever be verified/audited) does not necessarily equal lowering the incidence of domestic violence at all, let alone doing so in a cost-effective manner.

Thanks for your words about respecting women, Mr Turnbull. Now show us your deeds (7 January 2016) Australia

“I’m not discounting Turnbull’s commitment of $100m for domestic violence services. It is a good start” Except of course this commitment was hardly a “start”, more like the latest big ladle of mash in a very large trough. Note the author is already using the DV Connect call figures as leverage to argue for more funding.

Influx of calls to domestic violence helplines this year (6 January 2016) And of course the veracity of DV Connect’s record-keeping will be subject to careful scrutiny.

How feminists and a Police Commissioner’s Office conspired against male victims of domestic violence on Twitter (5 January 2016) UK

Smoke, Mirrors And Violence Against Women (5 January 2016) Australia

Vera Baird facing probe after awarding more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money to the charity she runs with force police chief (26 December 2015) UK

Why I’m backing QLD Labor Premier on male victims | Talk About Men (25 October 2015)

Domestic violence initiatives to receive $41 million funding package from Federal Government, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to go hard against domestic violence, and Domestic violence experts welcome $100m boost, but say more is needed  (24 September 2015) That’s a lot of happy feminist snouts in a very large trough of public funds, whilst female perpetrators and their victims continue to be ignored.

Former Premier Anna calls on men to report mates guilty of domestic violence (15 September 2015) Domestic violence unabated? It’s nothing to do with the strategies being utilised and the underlying philosophy (i.e. feminism/Duluth Model), nope it’s because a) more government funding needed and/or b) men aren’t doing enough. Priceless!

Vernon Beck – How the Domestic Violence Industry Destroys Families (19 July 2015) Canadian video

Anti-Islam group deregistered for masquerading as domestic violence group (2 July 2015)

Rosie Batty – The Opposite Case (28 June 2015)

A welcome response from government to domestic violence crisis (5 June 2015) Since when does handing millions more to the same groups, running the same programs, whilst not reducing the problem one iota, constitute governments “lifting their game“?

How £210,868 (88.6%) of the 2013/14 income of Engender, a radical feminist campaign organisation, was paid by Scottish taxpayers (27 May 2015)

Anti-violence funding ‘lacks transparency and cohesion’ (16 May 2015)

Budget 2015: ‘Government failed domestic violence test’ (13 May 2015) A ‘fail’, yet another $17 million goes into the pot. Oh, and just a few days later (17 May 2015) here is another $4 million

This article exemplifies the ‘hurry up and spend more’ tone of most DV-related coverage in the mainstream media

$17M boost for domestic and family violence support (1 April 2015) Queensland Minister fails to identify the nine organisations that will get the $$$

Three Accused of Stealing Funds from Domestic Violence Shelter (31 March 2015) Expect to see more stories like this

Coalition reverses Labor’s funding cuts on homelessness with $230 million commitment prioritising victims of domestic violence (23 March 2015)

National $30 million campaign to tackle domestic violence (5 March 2015) Open wide, here comes lots more public funding for “awareness”

Baird promises Domestic Violence Minister (6 March 2015) More costly affectatious pandering to the feminist lobby. Disregard the fact that the cost of changing letterhead paper, brochures, business cards and office signage etc, would probably be enough to maintain a refuge for male victims of domestic violence for a couple of years. How about a Minister for Skin Cancer? Minister for Stopping Motor Vehicle Accidents? (Refer this blog post)

White Ribbon CEO Libby Davies jumps the cash cow (22 February 2015)

Domestic violence funding in NSW: Rosie Batty as Australian of the Year raises profile of state ‘epidemic’ (26 January 2015)

In January 2015 the West Australian government went against the flow and bravely decided to terminate a costly failed experiment (Domestic violence court axed). Despite the fact that they made it clear the decision was not based on saving money – that it was counter-productive in terms of victim outcomes – they were castigated by feminists on the basis of being uncaring about the welfare of ‘women and their children’:

“Attorney-General Michael Mischin’s decision comes nine months after the release of details of a draft review which found that offenders dealt with in the five Perth family violence courts, which cost close to $10 million a year to operate, were 2.4 times more likely to go on to commit further acts of violence than matched offenders in the mainstream system.”

And yet despite the WA decision, just a week later either the same, or a very similar, system was proposed for Queensland.

In reading this article one recognises certain parallels between ‘rape culture’ and the ‘epidemic of domestic violence’, and the two-legged remoras that attach themselves to each: ‘The Hunting Ground’: Reaping Profit from Rape Hysteria (26 March 2015)

A brilliant funding strategy” – How and why feminists took over the domestic violence movement Interviews with Erin Pizzey, Senator Anne Cools, Warren Farrell and others (You Tube video)

How did male victims of domestic violence disappear? A video by Tom Golden (9 April 2012)

How Much Taxpayer Money is Enough for Domestic Violence Programs? (20 April 2009) USA

Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence (May 2007) One of the many papers that show just how wrong the feminist lobby can be.

Finally, this series of email exchanges is really quite eye-opening about the theoretical basis for the way in which feminist domestic violence agencies conduct themselves. See NCFM South African Member Jason Dale, a must read email exchange about the Duluth model of domestic violence (23 March 2015)

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Elsewhere in this blog you might be interested in:

Going Batty: The making of a champion of the Domestic Violence Industry

Two awareness campaigns. Only one can be criticised. Cowed by feminism?

Australian feminist attacks integrity of advocacy group for male victims of domestic violence

Grotesque hypocrisy by feminist politicians (re: domestic violence)

Australian taxpayer-funded organisations that do little/nothing for men (other than demonising them)

Australian Government cuts back funding to advocacy groups, except feminist ones

NSW feminist groups seek to roll back reform of domestic violence shelters

Australian Government cuts funding to advocacy groups, except feminist ones

“As Scott Morrison prepared to step in as Social Services Minister, his new department was contacting housing advocacy groups and other community services providers on Monday to inform them their funding had been cut and contracts with the Commonwealth would be discontinued.

Social Services posted letters responding to requests for grants from the community sector for ongoing and new funding streams after a process first announced in March.

The government has previously warned it could satisfy just $800 million of the $3.9 billion in grants requested by the sector.” (Source)

Back in May 2014 around the time the federal budget was released, and when he wore a different hat, Scott Morrison was quoted as stating:

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says he axed funding for a refugee organisation just two weeks after guaranteeing it in the budget because he believes taxes should not be propping up advocacy groups.

“It’s not my view, it’s not the Government’s view, that taxpayer funding should be there to support what is effectively an advocacy group,” Mr Morrison said.

“They’re entitled to be an advocacy group; they do very good work in the community and the Government will continue to support that organisation for contracted services.

“But in terms of administrative funding for an advocacy group, in a tough budget like this, frankly I just formed the view that taxpayer funds were not going to be spent on those types of activities.”

Many groups have been affected by these cuts, not just immigration advocacy groups such as the one referred to above. Not only Scott Morrison but other Ministers have, in justifying the cuts, been at pains to differentiate between those organisations who provide “advocacy” and those that provide “frontline services” to those in need.

As I ran my eyes over the list of groups for whom funding has been withdrawn, one curious thing stands out. No groups that cater predominantly to the welfare of women or girls appear on the list, not even those that are quite clearly advocacy groups who do not provide frontline support services.

Consider the example of ‘Our Watch’, a feminist group within the domestic violence sector, who seem to have emerged from the budget maelstrom unscathed. Indeed ‘Our Watch’ received $4,675,550 in government funding in 2013/14, whilst raising a paltry $6,083 in donations.

What’s more, that sum incorporated only a portion of total promised federal funding of $13.1 million. ‘Our Watch’ will also act as a middle-man (oops) and conduit for additional government funding for sporting groups that successfully compete for the feminist tick of approval. Why it was considered appropriate to delegate this role to an NGO defies logic.

Turning our attention now to those groups that were subject to cuts in government funding. Some of those groups appear to cater to a predominantly male clientele, and I’m thinking in particular of those providing services to the homeless.

Why is this so? Surely if we did in fact exist within a patriarchy then the opposite should be true? Or could it be that feminists/white knights are the ones that really wield the power in Canberra? Is taking an axe to any organisation that has the feminist lobby’s tick of approval now just too scary for our civic ‘leaders’ to contemplate?

See also:

Community sector funding cuts begin (23 December 2014)

Homelessness advocacy groups lose $21m in federal government funding (23 December 2014)

Disability advocates warn Government cuts to social services grants could affect NDIS rollout (24 December 2014)

ABC interview with Scott Morrison (24 December 2014)

Brandis ties NGO funding to non-advocacy (26 July 2014)

Elsewhere in this blog you might be interested in reading:

Partners in alms: A primer on the ‘Domestic Violence Industry’

Re-instatement of the Women’s Budget Statement in Australia? Bring it on, but consider men too

Australian taxpayer-funded organisations that do little/nothing for men (other than demonising them)

Feminist advocacy group ‘Our Watch’ seeks shield from public scrutiny

The President The Chairperson: These drug cartels Men’s Rights Advocates represent a clear and present danger to the national financial security of the United States Domestic Violence Industry. (With apologies to the late, great Tom Clancy)

On 9 December 2014 I sent an email to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission:

“I have made several attempts over as many days to access info about the charity called ‘Our Watch Limited‘. Each time I find that most fields on their page show as “Information Withheld”. I have not seen this message on the pages of other charities. Can you please advise why such is information has been withheld? I am also awaiting the lodgement of the first annual return for this organisation – I understand that this should occur sometime this month. I look forward to receiving your advise on this matter – thank you” On 11 December 2014

I received the following reply: “Firstly, I can confirm that the Our Watch Limited is a registered charity. This can be confirmed on the ABR here. In relation to the withheld information, charities do have the right to apply to have charity information withheld from the Register if they have valid reasons for the ACNC not to publish some of the charity’s detail. Not all information can be withheld, only information that fits within certain criteria (such as information that the information is commercially sensitive and there is a risk that publishing it will cause harm).

When charities submit a withholding application it places a temporary blanket over the charity record on the ACNC Register so the public cannot access any details until their application is processed.  Therefore, you would not be able to access any details on the Register. Please see click here for further information on withholding.  

Furthermore, the 2014 Annual Information Statement (AIS) is the second reporting requirement for all registered charities. The due date for the Annual Information statement is within six months of the end of your reporting period. However, the Commissioner advised yesterday that the due date has been extended for charities that use a 1 July30 June reporting period to 31 January 2015.”

Well now isn’t that curious, because none of their information was shielded until about two weeks ago. So it seems the shutters went up sometime after I uploaded my post on ‘Our Watch, in which I indicated interest in undertaking due diligence on their financials. And around the same time that another feminist domestic violence advocacy group, White Ribbon Australia, attracted harsh criticism in relation to their spending priorities and unusual financial practices. Oops, that share trading can be risky business. Surely just coincidence.

OK well, under what circumstances might a charity seek approval to shield their details?

The ACNC web site includes the following information:

“You must apply to have charity information withheld. Other than for private ancillary funds, there are only some circumstances when we may withhold your charity’s information from the Register. The ACNC Commissioner has discretion to withhold or remove information from the Register if the information:

  • is commercially sensitive and it could cause harm
  • is inaccurate, confusing or misleading
  • is offensive
  • could endanger public safety, or
  • is covered by ACNC regulations.

The ACNC may also decide not to publish details of any warnings we have issued to a charity if:

  • the information could cause harm
  • the charity was not behaving in bad faith, and
  • withholding the information does not conflict with our objects under the ACNC Act.”

I wrote back to ACNC seeking further clarification, and to their credit they promptly responded in the following manner: “Unfortunately we are unable to advise what the basis of the request however I can explain the process. There is no service standard for these applications, as we do have a number these requests that are waiting to be processed. If a charity would like to have information withheld from the ACNC Register the process is as follows:

  1. The charity makes an application to have the information withheld. They do this on the Portal, in writing, or on an ACNC form.
  2. The request is received and we apply a blanket withhold rule on that charity’s record. This is to ensure we don’t publish any sensitive data (such as the address of a women’s shelter) while the decision is being made. Please note this is often an automatic step undertaken via the charity Portal.
  3. The request is reviewed by a Registration Analyst, who decides whether the request meets the requirements set out in the Australian Charities and Not‑for‑profits Commission Regulation 2013.
  4. Once the decision has been made we remove the blanket withhold, and only details that were approved for withholding are withheld from the Register. For example, the charity would appear in a search along with their financial details, but the street address may not.

The ACNC Act sets out the rules around withholding information at Subdivision 40–10, which can be found here. The policy on withholding is also available here. If you have concerns in relation this charity, you can raise a concern about any registered charity to us for further investigation if it is something that is within our jurisdiction. There is further information that can be found here about the issues that ACNC may be able to look at.”

Thus at this point in time, one can only speculate on why ‘Our Watch‘ sought to have their details suppressed and/or what reasons they might have advanced to support their application. Perhaps this will become clear in the fullness of time.

Running my eyes over the possible criteria earlier provided by ACNC however, my eyes kept returning to the word “harm”. Could it be that ‘Our Watch‘ engaged in that peculiar feminist practice known as damseling, breathlessly asserting the potential danger/s posed by unknown people unknown men crude disaffected men of vile character and who are intent on mischief*?

I would like to be able to state that, sooner or later, all pertinent details of ‘Our Watch‘ will be subject to scrutiny and any anomalies exposed. ‘Our Watch‘, as with any other similar group receiving substantial amounts of public funding, should operate transparently and be properly accountable to the Australian community. Unfortunately I cannot do so, however, as moves are well underway to abolish the ACNC by way of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (Repeal) (No. 1) Bill 2014 (and related debate).

The three key dates to watch now are the revised deadline for ‘Our Watch’ to submit its annual report (31 January 2015), the lifting of the shield on Our Watch‘s details in the ACNC website, and the ceasing of operations by ACNC.  

(*the feminist view of mens rights activists)

Update 10 January 2015: According to the ACNC website, on 8 January 2015 ‘Our Watch’ lodged their annual return and financial details to the end of June 2014.

These sources show a total annual revenue of $4,845,880 mainly comprising government grants totalling a whopping $4,675,550, with only a paltry $6k sourced from donations. Almost all of their expenditure was attributed to staff-related costs ($807,579), “transactions with key management personnel” ($354,021), and professional fees ($960,196).

Under “Transactions with key management personnel” it states “Key management personnel of the entity and the Board of Directors and senior management. Key Management Personnel remuneration comprises the following expenses ($354,021).”

The annual return lists only nine full time employees and two part time employees. Given that compensation for “senior management” is wholly or partly excluded from “staff-related costs”, suggests that average annual salaries for other staff are well in excess of $80,000 per person per annum.

The only information still being withheld is the office address and details of ‘Responsible Persons’.

 

‘Our Watch’: DV advocacy or shrill mouthpiece for gender feminism?

I hold significant reservations in relation to the operation of the staunchly feminist group Our Watch‘, formerly known at the ‘Foundation to Prevent Violence against Women and their Children‘. The feeling appears to be mutual as, despite being a law-abiding Australian taxpayer, I have been blocked from both their Facebook page and Twitter stream since late 2014.

My concerns include, but are not limited to:

  • The cost-effectiveness of allocating public monies to ‘Our Watch‘ with regards to achieving a measurable reduction in the incidence of domestic violence and/or providing tangible assistance to all victims of domestic violence
  • The extent to which the activities of ‘Our Watch‘ are driven by a desire to maximise the acceptance and influence of feminist ideology rather than a desire to maximise the two outcomes listed above
  • The effect of ongoing misrepresentations made by ‘Our Watch‘ in relation to the allocation of resources towards research into female perpetration of violence, the level of support provided to male victims of domestic violence, and the availability of counselling/treatment options for violent women and couples

On the first point, I believe that it is appropriate that the government both participate, and support the participation of others, in combating domestic violence and in assisting its victims. But this should be done in a manner that is both impartial and cost-effective. There should also be complete transparency and accountability on the part of both those allocating and those receiving public monies.

In 2013/14 ‘Our Watch‘ received a whopping $4,675,550 in government funding whilst raising a paltry $6,083 in donations. These funds were sourced from the federal government ($1 million/year) and the governments of Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory. A financial report for ‘Our Watch’ can be sourced from the web site of the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (see the relevant ACNC registry entry here and a related blog post here).

As with the White Ribbon Campaign (another Australian feminist DV advocacy group),  ‘Our Watch‘ do not directly assist victims of domestic violence. Instead they rent office space, employ many feminists staff, and run various PR/’education’ campaigns. These campaigns are divisive and involve the dissemination of misinformation that demonises men whilst failing to deal with female perpetration of violence. I am dubious about the extent to which their campaigns reduce the incidence of domestic violence, and indeed this has yet to be demonstrated.

I note that former MP turned journalist Gary Johns was subjected to harsh criticism after querying the effectiveness of government funds being provided to advocacy groups like ‘Our Watch‘ in lieu of directly funding service provision by government agencies.

Our Watch‘ advocates for female victims of domestic violence, which in and of itself is a laudable goal. A problem arises however when ‘Our Watch’ justifies their focus by claiming that the overwhelming majority of domestic violence is perpetrated by men upon women, and then seeking to validate this assertion through the ongoing misrepresentation of information concerning patterns of DV perpetration (example).

I don’t think there is any doubt that statements by politically astute groups such as ‘Our Watch’ do have a significant influence on decisions by government in relation to policies, priorities and funding allocation related to the sphere of domestic violence. This has resulted in a situation whereby government agencies treat all men as potential (if not, actual) violent abusers, where there are almost no resources available to battered men (and their children), and violent women are essentially waved away until such time as they commit a serious felony.

Those who visit Our Watch‘s Facebook page and Twitter stream will note that surprisingly little of the communication emanating from that organisation is directly related to their purported area of primary concern – domestic violence.  What you will see instead is considerable self-promotion, and a preponderance of material that could only be described as feminist propaganda.

On a visit to their Facebook page on 26 October 2014 for example I noted the following:

Reader Kath Kerr: It is not fair and it is not right that privileged men who murder are consistently granted lenient sentences.

Our Watch: Too many young people in Australia have witnessed acts of physical domestic violence against a parent. (No mention that equal number of kids have seen their mum abuse their dad, as have seen their dad abuse their mum – Source)

Our Watch: It’s time to stop asking what about men (in relation to this article)

Our Watch: Congratulations to Liz Broderick, Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Our Watch Ambassador, for winning the 2014 Women of Influence award. (Celebrating the work of a highly-paid femocrat who has demonstrated absolutely zero interest in the welfare of men & boys)

And finally …

Our Watch: Strong language Warning: Oh my! Language, ladies. *clutches pearls*
This is F*cking brilliant and quite possibly the best thing on the internet. Ask yourself, What is more offensive? A little girl saying ‘f*ck’ or the f*cking unequal and sexist way society treats girls and women?” http://vimeo.com/109573972 

Avril Mesh, Ben Lakos, Domestic Violence Resource Service Mackay and 63 others like this.

If any readers of my blog have yet to witness this video, and wish to see just how far feminism has fallen, then click on the above link (Strong language warning)

Ok, enough! And so I proceeded to raise my concerns with the ministers of those agencies that see fit to hand millions of our tax dollars over to ‘Our Watch‘ … namely the federal Government, the Northern Territory Government, and the Governments of Victoria and South Australia.

“Dear Minister 

I write to you today to voice my strong objection to material posted in the facebook page of the group known as ‘Our Watch’ (refer attached ‘screensave’). I do so as I am aware that they receive a substantial amount of ongoing gov’t funding, and thus should be at least somewhat accountable to broader public standards.

The disgusting video that they have promoted and ‘liked’ on their facebook page (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqHYzYn3WZw&noredirect=1) is discussed in these articles: http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/feminism-has-nothing-to-say-but-it-still-wont-shut-up/ and http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/10/24/barbara-kay-feminist-video-turns-to-child-abuse-to-send-distorted-message/

I believe that their support for such an ‘initiative’ is reprehensible and they should be required to remove both this and other radical feminist material from their web site, twitter account and facebook page. I don’t know if you look at the material that they promote in their facebook page, but it is almost entirely either pure self promotion for key personnel or strongly pro-feminist ideological material that has only cursory relevance to the subject that is meant to be their focus – domestic violence.

Please would you act on this matter as it is clear that ‘Our Watch’ require much greater oversight if they are to continue to receive large amounts of taxpayer-funded support. Thank you for your anticipated prompt intervention concerning this matter.”

I subsequently received a response to my complaint from John Elferink, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, with the Northern Territory Government:

“I write to you in response to your email dated 28 October 2014 in regards to a Facebook post ‘Potty-Mouthed Kids Drop F-Bombs for Feminism by FCKH8.com’ shared by the group ‘Our Watch’.

As you are aware the role of Our Watch is to drive long term cultural and attitudinal change from the ground up through community engagement and advocacy and working in close partnership with the Second Action Plan to the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children.

The Northern Territory Government is committed to reducing domestic violence. The financial contribution to Our Watch is just one of the ways that this Government is supporting initiatives which seek to drive attitudinal and cultural change.

Whilst the initiative that was placed on their Facebook page was divisive, this should not detract from the important work that Our Watch does in the primary prevention of violence sphere. I thank you for your vigilance in monitoring the material placed on the Our Watch social media pages and bringing it to my attention. I believe the offending post has since been removed and I have instructed the Domestic Violence Directorate to monitor the site content regularly.”

The Hon Kevin Andrews MP, Federal Member for Menzies and Minister for Social Services sent the following reply dated 3 December 2014:

“I appreciate you raising your concerns regarding the link to a video Our Watch posted on 21 October 2014. Our Watch was established as an independent company by the Commonwealth and Victorian governments in June 2013, as an initiative under the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022.

Our Watch will work to provide national leadership to prevent all forms of violence against women and their children. This will be done by changing attitudes, behaviours, social norms, and practices that create violence against women and children, including the promotion of gender equality. There is a growing body of evidence showing that people with a poor understanding of gender equality may also have attitudes and behaviours that support violence.

The long term outcome of Our Watch is to encourage public conversations in Australia to support gender equality and understand the links between gender inequality and violence against women. Content on the Our Watch Facebook page is chosen to engage people in the debate by raising awareness about the importance of gender equality, challenging stereotypes and preconceived myths regarding the role of women in our society.”

So there we have it … promoting a video of pre-teen girls swearing their heads off = providing “national leadership“, a further aspect of which involves Our Watch encouraging “public conversations” by removing dissenting Facebook posts and banning their authors from contributing further. Would the Minister be equally comfortable with a men’s rights group promoting a similar video “challenging stereotypes and preconceived myths regarding the role of (men) in our society.” Probably I guess, unless, of course that would involve facilitating just a little too much real gender equality.

The Hon Jay Weatherill MP, Premier of South Australia sent a very basic acknowledgement only, and the Hon Heidi Victoria,  Minister for the Arts, Minister for Women’s Affairs, Minister for Consumer Affairs,  has yet to provide me with a response. I will update this post should such a response be received.

See also:

Not content with offering ‘guidelines‘ instructing the media how to cover domestic violence in line with feminist dogma, Our Watch is now offering tangible incentives for those who comply (May 2022) … And here’s more feminist guidelines telling people the correct manner in which to write about violence against women (December 2022)

Another grubby video (using child actors) from the leftist/feminist/SJW crew (October 2019) USA

Oh, but look what happens when videos are made using allegedly right-wing kids who employ bad language, e.g. Joe Bernstein’s coverage of ‘Soph’. Clearly not seen as cool & empowering in that situation, huh? And yet another feminist double-standard (May 2019)

Our Watch charity invited to assess its own schools gender equity program (4 February 2017) Conflict of interest? What conflict of interest?

Statement in relation to *some* of the funding that Our Watch receives from the federal government each year

A further example of the inappropriate use of children to help bang the feminist drum

Natasha Stott Despoja launches anti-violence campaign (10 November 2015) with related reddit discussion thread here

ourwatch

ourwatchCEO

Other posts in this blog that are most relevant to this topic:

So what exactly is the ‘Domestic Violence Industry’?
Fudging the figures to support the feminist narrative
Just how heartless (or deeply in denial) can people be?
A busy few weeks for gender matters (Aug/Sept 2014)
Feminist advocacy group ‘Our Watch’ seeks shield from public scrutiny

The ongoing erosion of research and publication standards – aka fudging the figures to support the feminist narrative

Firstly, what do I mean by the term “fudging” in the context of this blog post?

    • to present or deal with (something) in a vague or inadequate way, especially so as to conceal the truth or mislead and/or
    • to adjust or manipulate (facts or figures) so as to present a desired picture.

So how do feminists and their allies, go about fudging statistics? Well the most common technique used, so prevalent that it’s virtually a hallmark of feminist literature, is to report statistics in relation to female victimhood in the absence of comparative figures for men and boys. Such information is (or at least, was) generated in surveys but usually went unreported, unless doing so would support the feminist perspective.

Thus subsequently, and in a worrying trend, more and more research projects undertaken by pro-feminist organisations don’t include male subjects in surveys. Here is an example from the Australian Human Rights Commission (July 2023):

Image

Nor does contemporary research typically investigate impacts on males and/or attitudes towards men (examples herehere, here, here, here, and here).

Clearly with corresponding data in relation to males unavailable then rapporteurs can easily deflect requests for contextual information. Information which would, in many cases, otherwise weaken their claims of gendered victimhood.

Thus biased researchers can represent a social problem as being gendered when it is not. And so the next researcher builds on existing incomplete research and concludes and/or implies in their report … this problem rarely affects men, or affects men in different & lesser ways, etc (but we can’t be sure because no data). And the cycle of gender bias in research, and subsequently in policy formulation, rolls on.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation believe the reverse to be true, and that there is a ‘gender data gap’ with “male-biased surveys that fail to capture women’s perspectives, their needs and their economic value”. They provide a 3rd world example upon which I am not qualified to comment, but with regards to 1st world countries their proposition is laughable. This Australian feminist writer, Kristine Ziwica, is pushing the same line (12 March 2019).

A paper by Dr. Murray Straus addressed the issue of feminists distorting domestic violence data. He identified the seven primary methods they used as being:

  1. To suppress Evidence
  2. To avoid obtaining data inconsistent with the Patriarchal Dominance Theory
  3. To cite only studies that show Male Perpetration
  4. To conclude that results support Feminist beliefs when they do not
  5. To create “evidence” by citation
  6. To obstruct publication of articles and obstruct funding research that might contradict the idea that male dominance is the cause of PV (see this post)
  7. To harass, threaten, and penalize researchers who produce evidence that contradicts feminist beliefs (see this post)

I was studying the readers comments in relation to a rather biased article about domestic violence. One comment was from a respected spokesperson on men’s health issues, Adam Blanch. Adam was talking about the latest ‘Personal Safety Survey‘ undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This is what Adam had to say:

“Domestic violence is about people who are angry, jealous, distressed and mentally ill acting out their frustration. The motive for ‘control’ and ‘power’ is only present in a very small percentage of DV, and both sexes do it to the same extent.

The partner abuse state of knowledge Project, the largest and most comprehensive meta study of DV ever conducted, makes this information freely available at http://domesticviolenceresearch.org/pdf/FindingsAt-a-Glance.Nov.23.pdf

The entire Duluth model, which asserts that domestic violence is about ‘Gender power relations’, has been so extensively disproven by legitimate researchers that no fair minded person without a ‘gender agenda’ could possibly subscribe to it.

PS. the ABS personal safety survey has some serious methodological issues that appear to have been built in, twice, to bias the outcome in favour of a ‘Gendered’ view of DV.

The 2012 report sampled less than 20% the number of women than men, down from 25% in the 2005 survey. though overall they increased the numbers for both genders for 2012, the male sample size is so small that many of the findings are unreliable again.

They were criticised for only using female interviewers in 2005, so in 2012 they trained a few male interviewers to be available on request. However, they don’t appear to have told the interviewees that they were available. This was based don ‘expert advice’ that both men and women would be more comfortable with female interviewers, these experts are unnamed. Who are they. Are they male? have they worked with male victims of abuse? What qualifies them as experts. I’ve worked with thousands of men, and I can assure you that most men will not reveal the same information to a woman that they will to a man.

This lack of transparency and sample balance is unacceptable for research conducted at this level.”

The Bureau shrugged-off this criticism and in September 2016 successfully obtained AHRC approval to only employ female interviewers in relation to a survey that encompasses the issue of domestic violence.

In ‘Australian Bureau of Statistics to discriminate against hiring men‘ it stated:

“Professor Triggs granted the ABS the exemption, accepting their submission, which included studies from not-for-profit groups, stating men were more likely to be perpetrators of DV and women were more likely to tell their stories to other women” And so disregarding the flipside … that male victims would be more likely to tell THEIR story to other men.

Please also read the related media release from the ‘One in Three’ organisation.

This is hardly the first time I have encountered concerns raised by authoritative sources regarding the credibility of domestic violence research, and in fact it appears to be an ongoing issue.

Australia’s ABC has a reputation for pushing the feminist agenda, with one example being the article ‘Domestic violence of epidemic proportions a ‘national emergency’: campaign groups‘ by Ursula Malone and Juanita Phillips. Nothing like turning up the rhetoric to keep that government funding flowing through to feminists and their organisations during these difficult economic times. And all based on fudged statistics, in particular that “Domestic violence is the leading cause of death and injury in women under 45“.

That statistic was sourced from this 2004 report by VicHealth. Indeed, that report was essentially 44 pages of taxpayer-funded feminist bias wherein violence towards men was dismissed in one sentence in the preamble: “Although men are among the victims of intimate partner violence, evidence suggests that the vast majority of victims are women and that women are more vulnerable to its health impacts”. That statistic was discussed in this 2014 article by Greg Canning and in this scorching rebuttal of the Malone/Phillips article by Men’s Rights Sydney (also available on the AVfM web site).

Now let’s look at three examples of misrepresentation from Australian feminist advocacy group ‘Our Watch‘:

1. This well-written 2013 letter from Dr Greg Canning to Natasha Stott Despoja concerns serious omissions and misrepresentations in a speech that she gave on DV (see also the reader’s comments). I am advised that a reply was never received from Ms Despoja.

2. This February 2015 article is laughably disingenuous and quite likely signals a new tactic by players in the Domestic Violence Industry: ‘Natasha Stott Despoja: ‘people are sick and tired of the statistics‘. Or in other words, ‘we are getting called-out for using false or misleading statistics too often now, so let’s publicly discredit all statistics and continue the argument on the basis of subjective and anecdotal evidence alone’.

3. In 2015 ‘Our Watch‘ launched a public education program called ‘The Line‘. The relevant web site features a section entitled ‘Myth-buster – Violence against women’. Myth #7 is that ‘Women often make false claims about domestic violence or sexual assault‘, wherein they state:

“The vast majority of sexual assaults are not reported to the police. Given for example that only 17 percent of women who experienced sexual assault by a male perpetrator (in their most recent incident of violence) reported it to the police (ABS 2012), the actual percentage of false cases is likely to be tiny. By one estimate, the actual percentage of false cases as a proportion of all rapes (reported and unreported) may be closer to 0.005 percent.” (Flood, M, 2014)

An Australian MRA by the name of Paul Rogers brought this error to their attention stating (in part) that:

“Even Wikipedia doesn’t suggest that false rape allegations are as low as you claim,  which is saying something. I have provided an excerpt below from Wikipedia to highlight that your claim is many orders of magnitude lower than even the lowest value claimed by most authorities … I urge you to state the truth rather than continue to cherry-pick outlier claims because they support your misandry.”

I should also point out that it’s not only feminist groups that engage is this sort of misrepresentation. In this media release, the advocacy group SAVE denounces the use of misleading information on domestic violence by none other than (then) President Obama himself.

Demonstrating the remarkably one-sided manner in which feminists view the world, in the following article a feminist journo criticizes a men’s rights group on their use of statistics:

Beware the dubious claims of this men’s rights group, by Sherele Moody (24 June 2017)

To counter that article let me introduce you to a linked paper by Hannah Wallen, USA. It’s recommended reading – including the readers comments:

The feminist advocacy “research” scam (20 June 2013)  

In a further blog post I look at the feminist predilection towards ‘tweaking’ the definition of terms such ‘domestic violence’ and ‘sexual assault’ in order to better support their claims of female victimhood and generally bolster public support: See Finessing definitions to preserve the image of female victimhood

(I note that the Australian government-funded company ANROWS has blocked me on Twitter)

The references listed below alternately discuss or exemplify bias against men, as perpetrated by journalists and others (often working in the sphere of domestic violence, sexual violence and related fields):

Exclusive: Health department suppressed gendered violence research (27 July 2024) Here’s one for the books … feminists claim that Australian Government agency has fudged its research to undermine the feminist narrative – not the opposite.

1IN3’s submission to the Inquiry into capturing data on family violence perpetrators in Victoria (1 July 2024) See submission #60. Recommended reading

Fighting academia’s feminist tentacles, by Bettina Arndt (February 2024)

Interesting Twitter discussion thread related to the subject of this post (10 February 2024)

Coitus interruptus, by Bettina Arndt (1 February 2024)

The harm hypothesis: How perceived harm to women shapes reactions to research on sex differences (3 January 2024)

Feminism’s latest weapon is a fraud, by Bettina Arndt (8 December 2023)

Ending political interference in the Australian Research Council (29 November 2023)

Narrow escape for Lisa Wilkinson (25 November 2023) Scroll down to the section dealing with an ABS suicide chart

Government to track and publicly release quarterly information on intimate partner homicides (25 November 2023)

The shocking number of Australian men sexually attracted to children and teens (20 November 2023) “Salter said the study focused on men because female perpetrators were less common, and usually co-offenders”. Classic line

Helping young men to have healthy, respectful relationships (25 October 2023) Australian Federal Government media release. Another $3.5 million down the feminist toilet

The Woke are now claiming that 2+2 equals something other than 4 (23 October 2023) Twitter thread and linked article

The Misogyny Myth (Summer 2023)

Inflating campus sexual assault statistics, by Bettina Arndt (30 August 2023)

Scope creep and the sexual assault industry, by Bettina Arndt (26 June 2023)

Demonizing Men with False Data on Sexual Abuse (20 June 2023)

How research is used to promote male hatred (11 June 2023)

New Report Exposes Feminist Misinformation about Parental Alienation (18 April 2023)

Pro-female and anti-male biases are more influential than race and other factors in Implicit Association Tests (26 March 2023)

How would you know if you are discriminating against men? (21 March 2023)

Gender equity when it suits (13 March 2023) Recommended reading

One of the most egregious, shameless statistical falsehoods I’ve seen in a long time, one that thoroughly shames @MayorofLondon @TenderUK in the recently published Teachers Toolkit on addressing gender-based violence & abuse (22 February 2023) UK Twitter thread by Ally Fogg. But on the positive side, and following lobbying by men’s rights activists, some statistical corrections were implemented

Jobs for the Girls, by Bettina Arndt (14 December 2022)

Women encouraged to cheat by research (21 November 2022) Video

People are more sceptical of sex difference research when findings favour men (28 September 2022)

The ABS fails to clearly identify the extent of male victimisation in relation to emotional abuse (25 August 2022) Displaying feminist bias again?

Justice warriors in the dock, by Bettina Arndt (30 July 2022)

Majority Of Fake Twitter Accounts Support Amber Heard, Not Johnny Depp, New Research Shows (25 April 2022)

1 in 3 Uni students have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime. They demand action on their vision of a safer society (23 March 2022) Note readers comments & concerns below the article and in the Twitter thread.

The push for ‘researcher entrepreneurs’ could be a step backward for gender equity (11 February 2022) Because government research funding favors men. Well, at least it does in some feminist mind-hive somewhere. #FacePalm

Bettina Arndt: The rape conviction rate – a scandalous deceit of parliament and the public (19 January 2022) Recommended reading

Is our attitude to men based on substandard research? (6 January 2022)

Bettina Arndt: “The great purge rolls on” (3 December 2021)

How feminists misrepresent the incidence of false allegations (27 October 2021) (Twitter thread)

Half-Truths, Falsehoods, and Lies: New Report Documents Long-Running Domestic Violence Misinformation Campaign (USA) (20 September 2021)

One in Three Campaign – News Articles About Family Violence – How gender bias in research and the use of misleading language harms male victims of family violence – a case study (9 September 2021)

Our uni teachers were already among the world’s most stressed. COVID and student feedback have just made things worse (19 July 2021) Some student respondents in a survey said some mildly critical things about some teachers, a bit more in the case of female teachers. In the old days you would take about the factors that may have contributed to these perceived weaknesses in teaching practice. Not now though. Now the snowflake patrol moves into action to spend the rest of the paper talking about why the survey respondents were wrong. Sexist and wrong. Damn them.

Elite journal under fire over racism (13 April 2021) Article by Stephen Rice which is behind a paywall at ‘The Australian’. Not directly related to misandry, but an example of how social problems are massaged to satisfy the fears or preferences of woke folk.

Not the full story (30 March 2021) Media Watch video. Yet another example of what happen when you start with a pre-determined narrative and then have to make everything fit around it.

Poll results: 21 per cent of women sexually assaulted at work (24 March 2021). Men weren’t included in the survey, but by jingo *they need to listen*!

Domestic violence on the rise during pandemic (13 July 2020) “The survey of 15,000 Australian women in May provides the most detailed information in the world about the prevalence and nature of domestic violence experienced by women during the pandemic.” How many men did they say were surveyed? That would be *none*. Here is a link to the web page of the agency that produced this research.

New AIC paper appears to cherry-pick data to fit “gendered violence” narrative (30 October 2019)

Feminists always lie #190689 (30 September 2019)

Domestic Abuse: The latest lie (19 July 2019) Most men who are victims of partner violence are in homosexual relationships, right? Wrong. But it doesn’t stop feminists from claiming it is true.

Whose research got us a picture of a ‘black hole’ in 2019? It was a girl right? See this tweet from Tom Golden with linked video that tells the story that the media didn’t.

Articles like the linked one now tell us how horrible the “trolls” are for “targeting” the female scientist, but funny how they don’t address the facts of the case – did she only produce 6% of the coding or not? See also this paper from ‘A Voice for Men’.

Lies, damn lies and STEM statistics (2 March 2019)

Girls more likely to face loneliness (6 December 2018) UK with related Twitter posts by Martin Daubney (first post/second post)

Australia’s disturbing attitude to domestic violence revealed (30 November 2018) Feminist as an be, and paid for by you, the taxpayer (ANROWS)

‘Blatant spin’: SBS accused of sifting data to show ‘sexist’ Australia, and SBS’s ‘sexism’ doco is just blatant propaganda (21 November 2018) Both of these articles appeared in The Australian newspaper, and are behind a ‘paywall’. Watch this Bettina Arndt video for some good background on this issue.

And of course there were various flow-on articles, such as ‘Are men victims of sexism?‘ (3 December 2018) which conceded that the male gender had some problems, that none of these were due to women, but that men were using feminism as a “scapegoat”. Then ‘Here’s how audiences reacted to ‘Is Australia Sexist?‘ (4 December 2018)

Social Justice and Far Left Ideology Is Corrupting Science (17 November 2018) This video broadens the field out beyond feminism but is still worth watching for its broader perspective.

USC Library Censors Article on ‘Female Privilege in Prison Sentencing’ (14 November 2018) USA. Hmm, don’t like what an academic paper states, and don’t want students exposed to it? Easy, just lose it

Journals publish hoaxers’ absurd gender studies (4 October 2018) with more here on that issue

A Mathematician Says Activists Made His Paper Disappear Because Its Findings Offended Them (10 September 2018) and Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole, by Theodore P. Hill (7 September 2018) Note too the readers comments here.

La Trobe bans my talk on the fake rape crisis, by Bettina Arndt (2 August 2018) This article concerns the exaggeration of the incidence of sexual assault in Australian universities by the Australian Human Rights Commission and others.

1IN3 responds to latest attack upon male victims by Daily Life (8 February 2018)

ABC News and Washington Post intentionally excluded male victims from their already flawed sexual harassment survey (12 November 2017)

Gender bias in Australian Institute of Family Studies Experiences of Separated Parents Study (2 November 2017)

This is how NFHS made wives’ mood changes as marital rape (18 September 2017)

UW Researcher Claims The ‘Experiences Of Women’ Invalidate Peer-Reviewed Research (14 August 2017) USA

Flawed sexual harassment report undermines the change it seeks (12 August 2017) Australia

Female violence, society’s blind spot (4 August 2017)

Biased Incompetence in CAFCASS and Women’s Aid Report (4 August 2017) UK

Why these professors are warning against promoting the work of straight, white men (16 July 2017)

Study finds ‘sexism’ in sexual assault research, but this time men are the target (10 July 2017)

Gender Bias in Science or Biased Claims of Gender Bias? (8 July 2017)

Peer Review: A (not so much) gender perspective (18 May 2017)

How to make anything a gendered issue, by Blaise Wilson (30 April 2017) Video

Irony Alert: Gender Bias Study by Women Researchers Suffers From Gender Bias, Peer Reviewers Say (18 April 2017)

Teacher advises student to “look for feminist sources” regarding wage gap (7 March 2017)

When care becomes control – financial abuse cuts across cultures (17 January 2017) As I state in this post, most papers on financial abuse ignore the reality of male victimisation, and this is yet another example. In the absence of conclusive proof that only women were victimised one would expect a researcher to survey men and women. Failure to do so, as in this and many other cases, is evidence of gender bias to support a particular ideological narrative.

BBC admits its viral “women write better code” story was fake news (28 December 2016)

New study making the rounds in the media claims patients taken care of by female physicians have reduced mortality

The US Department of Justice refuses to fund research into intimate partner violence against men, or the stalking of men (November 2016)

Girls feelings are far more important than the truth, by Mark Dent (12 October 2016)

Why feminists are so cagey about class (13 September 2016) UK

Why does the CPS report on violence against women include men in the stats? by Ally Fogg  (7 September 2016) UK

Always beating up on men, by Bettina Arndt (20 August 2016)

Cutting to numb the pain of sex abuse: interviews with young women in drug treatment (12 August 2016) Australia. Although this article focuses on the needs of young women, the underlying research surveyed both genders. Whilst I have yet to review the findings in detail, my default position is one of disquiet regarding the merit of applying different fixes to men and women. Without a very thorough understanding of all contributing factors, esp. in relation to cause/effect, there is a real danger that we may misinterpret the true situation. Also, from what has happened in the field of domestic violence for example, there is a real danger of a monopolisation of all available resources for the treatment of women.

Half of women in UK have been sexually harassed at work, study finds (10 August 2016) They didn’t bother surveying men so the readers believe, by implication, that this problem only affects women. I wonder why would the authors they do that? See also ‘Report Claiming Half Of Women Harassed At Work Involved Hardline Feminist Group

Confirmation bias in research survey into men’s mental health which includes questions based on toxic masculinity and Duluth power and control wheel (24 July 2016) Australia. Post in Reddit mensrights forum concerning research undertaken by Melbourne University

There’s no hiring bias against women in tech, they just suck at interviews (1 July 2016) Oh dear this feminist research didn’t run according to the script

Washington Post: Men lie on surveys, women don’t (30 June 2016) USA

Female politicians (sometimes) receive more abuse than male counterparts, apart from when they don’t… (29 June 2016)

6 Feminist Myths that will not Die, by Christina Hoff Sommers (17 June 2016)

Jess Phillips MP and her alleged 600 rape threats (6 June 2016)

Feds Spend $548,459 Studying Male Students’ ‘Microaggressions’ towards Women (6 April 2016) This example from USA may or may not involve fudging, so sure does looks like a huge waste of public money. Related Reddit discussion thread here.

Australia’s most shocking statistic: Sexual abuse and domestic violence against women with disabilities (20 March 2016) Australia. Makes zero mention of the existence of abuse of disabled boys, implies perpetrators are male. More about this article in this other blog post.

When Passionate Advocates Meet Research on Diversity, Does the Honest Broker Stand a Chance? (9 March 2016)

Happy IWD, Now Remember, You’re A Victim (8 March 2016) Video

Radio NZ Careless about Domestic Violence Figures (8 March 2016)

Anti-abuse campaign targets university students (22 February 2016) Australia. Typical of Our Watch research this survey appears designed to deliver a pre-determined finding of gendered female victimhood. The article reports one part of the picture, but where are the responses to (for example) how many boys were pressured “to do sexual things”? Whether girls respect the ability to consent in relation to boys who are drunk, etc.

Action Opportunity: Please Seek The Truth About Male Victims of Domestic Violence, and Defend the Honesty and Integrity of Australian Scientific Research (8 February 2016) Petition to the Australian Research Council

(I believe there to be a question mark over the extent to which the Australian Research Council is itself free of gender bias. I say this not in terms of funds provided to male versus female researchers, but in terms of social research projects with a feminist orientation being strongly favoured. Consider the examples provided of feminist research mentioned in this other blog post, as well as this article which will be discussed in a future post. The author of this article presenting a feminist-concordant perspective on the gender pay gap was also ARC-funded. These spreadsheets look at the nature of projects funded by the ARC)

Q&A: Australian of the Year David Morrison fires up over claim domestic violence data shows decline (2 February 2016) David really must be a feminist, with his ‘who needs statistics anyway’ line (when those statistics don’t support the feminist narrative)

‘Destroy the Joint’ feminist web site inflates the number of Australian women killed in situations of domestic violence (2 February 2016)

How feminists and a Police Commissioner’s Office conspired against male victims of domestic violence on Twitter (5 January 2016) UK. The second part of this investigation is here.

Domestic Violence is not on the rise (16 December 2015)

Clementine Ford is a Fraud (11 December 2015) See also this blog post

Children’s Rights Commissioner urges national focus on children affected by domestic violence (7 December 2015)

“The Children’s Rights Report being released today found one in every 28 people had also experienced sexual abuse as a child, while a further 23 per cent of children have witnessed violence against their mother”. This conveniently neglects to mention that various studies have found that as many kids have seen their mum hit their dad, as per vice versa. Here is one Australian source.

‘The Hunting Ground’s’ laughable response to me (30 November 2015) USA

Victim-blaming rampant in Australians’ attitudes towards violence against women – study (25 November 2015) And what of victim-blaming when men are the victims? And of community attitudes regarding violence towards males? Guess we’ll never know because the last thing feminist researchers want to do is provide context for their claims of female victimisation.

Comments from the One-in-Three organisation regarding errors contained in information submitted by (male feminist) Dr Michael Flood (November 2015)

Wikipedia is anti-feminist because its editorial policy doesn’t allow you to just make things up …. “conventions exclude and silence feminist ways of knowing and writing” (September 2015) Reddit discussion thread and linked article.

Female researchers outraged when asked to include men (9 September 2015)

Mary Koss doesn’t think women can rape men and boys (5 September 2015)

Open letter to the Victorian Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, by the One in Three organisation (17 August 2015) On exaggerating the extent to which female violence is attributable to self-defence

Campus Rape Expert Can’t Answer Basic Questions About His Sources (28 July 2015) USA

In this June 2015 paper the One in Three advocacy group recounts the bias and antagonism they faced whilst contributing to the Australian Senate Inquiry into Domestic Violence

The Guardian Australia corrects domestic violence article (17 April 2015)

ABC misleads. No, it’s not more dangerous to be a woman, by Andrew Bolt (14 April 2015) One of the precious few examples of an Australian journalist pointing out the distortion of data by feminists. And here and here are examples of the types of pro-feminist articles that Andrew was railing against.

What about the men? White Ribbon, men and violence: A response to Dr Michael Flood by Men’s Health Australia (undated) Very detailed rebuttal of an ‘expert’ whose work is often trumpeted by Australian feminists in support of their cause

Why do we believe such terrible things about men that can’t be true? (24 March 2015)

How To Lie And Mislead With Rape Statistics: Part 1 (25 January 2015) and Part 2 (27 January 2015) Recommended reading

Feminists love statistics – the real sexual assault and violence statistics in Australia (13 January 2015)

NSW Police fail victims of domestic violence with flippant social media post (20 January 2015) Australian feminist journalist attacks NSW Police for recognising male victims of domestic violence. Somebody fetch me a sick bucket

Jane Gilmore should stop with the rubbish domestic violence games by Jim Muldoon (25 November 2014). Jane Gilmore is an Australian feminist writer, and in April 2015 she wrote another article, this time attacking the ‘One in Three’ advocacy group and their findings in relation to the extent of male victimisation.

Domestic violence Woozles (factoids) in Australia (25 November 2014) Concerns the feminist claim that DV is the leading cause of death and injury for women aged under 45, and on the same theme:

Criminal suspicion: Domestic violence leading cause of injury to women (undated) and Response to The Conversation Fact Check from 1IN3 (30 April 2018)

False claims undermine good causes by Claire Lehmann (24 November 2014)

1 in 4 women admit to violence in relationships (7 November 2014) Video by Tom Golden

The truth about a viral graphic on rape statistics (9 December 2014) Recommended reading

The following collection of reddit discussion threads detail moderator bias and censorship in relation to threads/posts concerning domestic violence and child abuse – See example 1example 2example 3example 4, example 5 and example 6 (27 October 2014) Includes the following quote from a moderator responding to a query as to why a post was removed: “It needs to be the right information from the right people. Here’s a shorthand guide: if you are an MRA or TRP, you need not bother posting. If your information may tend to make women look bad, same.”

New Anglicare WA Report finds over half of DV victims are male for some forms of abuse (28 October 2014) Yet despite this the report’s recommendations ignore male victims and female perpetrators

National Domestic Violence Statistics” page only has one statistic where males are a part of the victims. Can you find it? (27 October 2014) Reddit discussion thread and linked ‘fact’ sheet

The top 5 feminist myths of all time (8 September 2014) USA

Acid attacks: telling only half the story (26 June 2014)

Press regulator: Criado-Perez abuse claim was misleading (11 October 2014)

Domestic Violence Lies from Ottawa (22 January 2014) Video

You Tube video showing talk by Donald Dutton discussed fudging of statistics by feminist workers in the domestic violence industry (2008) Highly recommended viewing.

Commissioner Ken Lay’s professional misconduct (8 December 2013) Australia

Dishonesty in the Domestic Violence Industry, 2006 (Australia)

Do we ignore violence against men? G. Andresen and M. Woods (21 November 2007) This paper makes mention of the use of biased statistics by the ‘White Ribbon Campaign’, which is also mentioned in this 2008 discussion thread

Government deception won’t reduce family violence (June 2011)

Thirty Years of Denying the Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence: Implications for Prevention and Treatment (July 2010)

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How Government’s lie about domestic violence – Australia (17 August 2009)

Feminists deny truth on domestic violence (30 May 2006)

This is a good submission prepared by the Mens Rights Agency addressing the issue of the anti-male bias within domestic violence agencies – absolutely recommended reading

Harvard publishes a study showing women perpetrate more DV, and then the study mysteriously disappeared (A reddit discussion thread from 7 June 2014) and here is a link to an article about that Harvard study that includes a link to a saved copy of the actual study itself (and here is a link to study summary)

How feminists corrupt DV research, by Dr Murray Straus (8 June 2012) Recommended reading

Refuting 40 years of lies about domestic violence by Dean Esmay (19 December 2012)

Male domestic violence victims suffer from wrongful gender bias

Are domestic violence figures bogus? (22 February 2014) Includes discussion of the notorious ‘intimate partner homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 15 to 45’ statistic myth

Processes explaining the concealment and distortion of evidence on gender symmetry in partner violence by Murray Strauss (14 July 2007)

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V71-Straus_Thirty-Years-Denying-Evidence-PV_10.pdf

http://reason.com/archives/2014/02/22/are-domestic-violence-statistics-bogus

Domestic violence study suspended by UNSW for breach of ethics (14 April 2014) Further background to this matter can be found here

I spoke to hundreds of men about rape and domestic violence (24 September 2014) Note that this is a different survey to that discussed by Adam Blanch earlier. It is certainly feasible that interviewers might influence survey respondents. It hardly fills one with confidence about the reliability of the results when interviewers are prepared to go on record with such strong views on the matter being investigated.

Article about repeated anti-male bias by a judge hearing domestic violence cases

If manipulating and misrepresenting statistics to suit an agenda was a crime then the feminist authors of this “fact-sheet” should be in jail. Many of these so-called facts are debunked in papers listed in this other post about domestic violence, whilst others demand the smallest measure of common-sense to confirm just how misleading they are.

Womens Aid UK actively tries to discredit statistics of male victims of domestic violence (reddit discussion thread and linked article dated 15 June 2014)

“A third of family murders involved a female as the killer. In sibling murders, females were 15% of killers, and in murders of parents, 18%. But in spouse murders, women represented 41% of killers. In murders of their offspring, women predominated, accounting for 55% of killers” (Source)

The paragraph above was extracted from a 1994 publication, not because patterns of gender perpetration have changed greatly but because the feminist filter has been imposed so completely now, that we only see articles like this one that present statistics in a manner suggesting that women are the perpetual victims of oppressive male malevolence. (Refer to Reddit discussion thread here)

Misrepresentation of Gender Bias in the 1989 Report of the Gender Bias Committee of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, by Mark B Rosenthal (23 November 2005)

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(Source of the quoted statement above)

These final linked articles address the predominant influence asserted by feminists in conducting research, and in the subsequent formulation of DV policy:

Practical Implications of Current Domestic Violence Research (undated) USA

How feminists shaped Australian government policy on domestic violence (A doctorate thesis from December 2004)

A brilliant funding strategy” – How and why feminists took over the domestic violence movement Interviews with Erin Pizzey, Senator Anne Cools, Warren Farrell and others (Youtube video)

Domestic violence, predetermination, and the feminised bureaucracy (Peter Zohrab, 2008) The same author has written many other papers about domestic violence in New Zealand.

Regarding the table below … hardly an ‘epidemic’. The only increase is in male victimisation. It’s no wonder that, in pushing its ‘epidemic’ barrow, the Domestic Violence Industry increasingly relies on statistics generated by help-line call centres instead. And of course we can trust the integrity of those sources.

epidemic

“Advocacy research consists of collating available evidence or producing new information to support a pre-determined policy position. Advocacy research is commonly carried out by pressure groups, lobby groups and interest groups (such as trade unions) and, occasionally, by political parties, journalists and academics – especially those working in the social policy field.”

Catherine Hakim (2000). Research Design: Successful Designs for Social and Economic Research. pp. 8–9.

“It is difficult to criticize advocacy research without giving an impression of caring less about the problem under consideration than do those who are engaged in magnifying its size. But one may be deeply concerned about problems such as rape, child abuse, and homelessness yet still wish to see a rigorous and objective analysis of their dimensions. Advocacy research that uncovers a problem, measures it with reasonable accuracy, and brings it to public attention performs a valuable service by raising public consciousness. The current trend in advocacy research is to inflate problems and redefine them in line with the advocates’ ideological preferences. The few impose their definition of social ills on the many – seeking to incite moral panics. This type of advocacy research invites social policies that are likely to be neither effective nor fair.”

Gilbert, N. (1997). Advocacy Research and Social Policy. Crime and Justice, 22, 101-148

With regards to the Latrobe Uni study noted above, why not include people of any gender who are concerned about any form of harassment or assault on public transport? In other words get the big picture of what’s occurring. Ditto for all the studies/article regarding workplace harassment that restrict themselves to considering ‘sexual harassment’, knowing full well that this is likely to focus attention on the female perspective.

My initial post about domestic violence within this blog can be found here, whilst other DV-related posts can be located by clicking on the ‘domestic violence’ tag at the bottom of this page. It is suggested that this post also be read in conjunction with:

Has there been a surge in domestic violence during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Public events & domestic violence myth

How feminists misrepresent the gender ‘wage gap’

On the censorship of non-feminist perspectives and opinions

Finessing definitions to preserve the image of female victimhood

Gendered, gendered, gendered: The word that fuels the feminist machine

Achieving personal financial security is important for everyone, but dodgy research helps no-one

Regarding the granting of gender-specific scholarships in Australia

woozles

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A busy few weeks for gender matters (Aug/Sept 2014)

I thought I would create this post to mention several significant developments related to the gender debate that occurred in Australia during the period late August to late September 2014. As usual the feminist lobby monopolised the newspapers and airwaves, and consequently the news was mostly negative from a men’s rights perspective. The silver lining, however, was the level of discussion that occurred, and within it the large number of people who openly questioned the feminist narrative and/or spoke up for the male perspective … even in Tim Watts’ own Facebook page.

22 August 2014: Leader of the federal opposition, Bill Shorten, cleared of rape allegation  – But of course false rape allegations are just a misogynist myth … apart from perhaps just this one exception

25 August 2014: Launch of the Australian ‘Polished Man’ campaign.  The campaign web site originally stated that “Men perpetrate approximately 90% of violence against children and by wearing nail polish, YGAP asks men to raise awareness, generate conversation and become positive role models in the fight against violence towards children“. I say “originally stated” because they quickly changed the wording of the relevant page, presumably after too many people called them out on their lie. Their site now states that men cause 90% of sexual violence against children. Many web sites who received the original media release still, however, have the original wording online. (As an aside, this initiative inspired me to launch my own campaign to help prevent child abuse and neglect.)

4 September 2014: The re-badging of the ‘Foundation to Prevent Violence against women and their children‘ to ‘Our Watch‘ – I assume this bit of window-dressing was to make the Foundation appear more inclusive, and less the bigoted feminist echo-chamber that it actually is.

7 September 2014: Tim Watts MP tells feminists about men’s violence towards women

9 September 2014: Article in The Australian newspaper by Gary Johns entitled ‘Violence knows no gender divide’

Gary Johns made two main points in his article. Firstly he queried whether the government should provide substantial ongoing funding to an advocacy group (Our Watch) with relatively little oversight/accountability, in lieu of providing the same funding to the relevant Government Dept to provide direct services to victims and their families.

Secondly Gary queried why virtually all the funding for domestic violence was directed towards female victims when there are also substantial number of male victims. We don’t need to get hung up on the exact percentages, the point is that the current situation is highly inequitable and unhelpful in addressing the needs of all affected families. Again, hardly a heretical position to adopt.

Nevertheless the knives were out in a flash and Twitter and online feminist hang-outs were full of exaggeration and invective about this nasty misogynist man who dared question the feminist ‘DV= Men’s violence towards women’ construct.

10 September 2014: Article in The Australian newspaper by Tim Watts MP entitled ‘Violence against women is about gender’.  See also comments made in Tim Watts Facebook page. This and the article that followed were a veritable tsunami of shrill ill-informed white-knightery.

10 September 2014: ABC item by Tim Watts MP entitled ‘Labor MP tells men who criticise campaign to prevent violence against women to ‘Grow up!’.  See Reddit mens rights discussion thread and Reddit Australia discussion thread

17 September 2014: Release of findings from the 2013 National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS). See Reddit Australia discussion thread. No questions asked about violence towards men, guess it’s not that important really. Oh, and of course because survey respondents weren’t asked the same questions concerning violence against men, there is no context provided nor point of comparison for the questions about women. This omission hugely compromises the value of the results with regards to forming an appropriate policy response.

17 September 2014: Trivialising and excusing violence against women plus 240+ readers comments, discussing the results of the NCAS.

17 September 2014: Woman who bashed elderly bus passenger escapes jail

See the video of the original incident at the top of this page. If two young men had beaten and spat upon an elderly woman, would they have walked from court with a slap on the wrist. Ermm. No way. Still that’s equality, feminist style.

21 September 2014: David Penberthy launches a further attack on Gary Johns and anyone else who thinks male victims of domestic violence should be acknowledged entitled Puerile Trash Avoids Facts on Violence, with a rebuttal by Mark Dent. (If anyone needed convincing of David’s status as one of this country’s foremost manginas, then fast forward to June 2016 to first read this article, and then this rebuttal by Mark Dent).

‘Our Watch’: Just how heartless (or deeply in denial) can people be?

I spent some time the other day voicing my views in relation to an article that appeared in an Australian web site called ‘The Conversation‘. Their motto is ‘academic rigour, journalistic flair’. Their track-record, in my experience, is based upon pandering to progressive liberals – especially feminists. Naturally that has a big bearing on their failure to satisfy the “academic rigour” part of the equation. They include nothing from a men’s rights or egalitarian perspective and heavily moderate readers comments to make sure as little as possible of that nasty triggering sort of stuff makes it online.

Anyway the article was entitled ‘Out of the shadows: The rise of domestic violence in Australia‘ (4 August 2014). I’m going to let you read that article, which is fairly typical of its genre, i.e. domestic violence IS men’s violence towards women and their children, no mention of female perpetrators or male victims, etc. Last time I looked there were more than 50 readers comments tagged on the end, including those of yours truly.

A day or two later I stumbled upon the facebook page of the ‘Foundation to prevent violence against women and their children‘, an organisation tasked with lobbying for and on behalf of female victims of DV. The Foundation receives several million dollars each year from the federal government plus further funding from the Victorian, South Australian and Northern Territory governments.

The Foundation’s Chairperson is Natasha Stott Despoja, who was brought to task by Greg Canning in late 2013 for the use of biased and misleading statistics regarding domestic violence. [See Footnote 1]

Anyway, scrolling down the Foundation’s page I quickly came upon posts by people complaining about some of the comments contributed to the article mentioned above. The comments in question identified substantial omissions and misrepresentations in the way that the issue of domestic violence had been portrayed.

White knight ‘Mike’ bemoaned the fact that men were “nit-picking” the stats about the victimisation of men. Hmm, alerting the public to the fact that a large slab of the victims and perpetrators of DV are being ignored … yes, how petty of us. A spokesperson for the Foundation subsequently commented: “Yes it’s pretty upsetting but let’s hope this kind of resistance is a sign a raw nerve has been struck and that once these men get over the shock they will reach some kind of realisation.” facebook_DV

And then a few days later (6 August 2014) the following exchange took place:

    • Denise H – What about domestic violence against men. It happens, it’s very real.
    • Kirstina B – ‘Denise’ is a guy, obviously.
    • Kirstina B – Oh, and ‘Denise’, I’m sure gay men suffer violence from men, too. That will be addressed when DV is addressed for women.
  • Kris C – I wonder why some people are quick to hijack any publicity of DV with trying to talk about male victims. Yes, they are real, but it’s rather rude to butt in with that when that’s not the specific focus at hand. Imagine hijacking any publicity on the victims of the airline crash with “what about burns victims? they are real”.  [See Footnote 2]

These and other material contained within the Foundation’s page go beyond simply being callous and offhand, to being either breathtakingly deluded or just plain sick. In fact the Foundation’s Facebook page appears to be a veritable goldmine of misandry and gloating indifference to the plight of men.

Men are being battered at the same rate as women but this is rarely acknowledged by the media. Men dare to draw attention to this disparity and instead of empathy and support, the Foundation treats them as if they were ignorant, selfish or stupid.

Let’s hope” the men “reach some kind of realisation”, huh? Oh you bet we will. The realisation that the Foundation, and the feminist ideology with which it is so richly imbued, is content to angrily wave away the welfare of half of the community.

I’d like to invite members of the Foundation to peruse the following comments attributed to men who approached shelters for emergency accommodation: (Source)

“One abused man said:

They laughed at me and told me I must have done something to deserve it if it happened at all.

Another said:

They asked how much I weighed and how much she weighed and then hung
up on me…I was told by this agency that I was full of BS.

Twelve percent of the hotlines accused the man of being the batterer or responsible for the abuse. One abused man said:

They told me women don’t commit domestic violence — it must have been my fault.

Another said:

They accused me of trying to hide my “abuse” of her by claiming to 
be a victim, and they said that I was nothing more than a wimp.

Of the men who sought help by contacting local domestic violence programs, only 10% found them to be “very helpful,” whereas 65% found them to be “not at all helpful.”

One abused man said:
They just laughed and hung up the phone.

Another said:
They didn’t really listen to what I said. They assumed that all abusers are men and said that I must accept that I was the abuser. They ridiculed me for not leaving my wife, ignoring the issues about what I would need to do to protect my six children and care for them.

https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/3977-researcher-what-hap-3977

I call on the men and women of the ‘Foundation to prevent violence against women and their children‘ to park their sexist bigotry for 30 minutes and scan the dozens of studies that I either list or link to on my post about domestic violence that show that as many women are violent as are men. Then take a look at my blog post about male victims of domestic violence and the shameful lack of support that they receive.

Ask yourselves, are all of the studies faked? Are they all wrong? Fraudulent components of a global patriarchal conspiracy? Consider those findings in relation to the message you broadcast in your web site and facebook page. Do you feel smugly self-satisfied about the twisted version of reality you are painting, or is there some small sliver of guilt?

Do you not see that acknowledging the true reality of male victimhood, of female perpetration, and of bi-directional violence, does not undermine the validity of advocating for women? Do you understand that this is not some sort of ‘winner take all’ blame game? [see Footnote 3] And that it’s not necessary to step on the backs of men, and certainly not the backs of male victims, to help female victims?

It hardly even matters what the ratio of male/female abusers is, what is important is to address the whole problem and to discuss potential solutions in a free, open, constructive and non-judgemental manner. This is not what the main players in the DV advocacy sector are doing at the moment. This is what they should be doing. What they could be doing if they stopped wasting time deleting posts from others equally invested in finding a solution, but whose ideas and perspectives happen to differ from their own.

Please submit your response to this post and I will be sure to put it online. Oh, and be sure to include your postal address so I can send you your very own commemorative singlet (pictured). i-bathe-in-male-tears

Moving right along, Australian feminists were really on a roll this week (perhaps stung into action by #womenagainstfeminism) because the very next day (5 August 2014) brought us ‘Behind media silence on domestic violence are blokey newsrooms‘, and then ‘Why doesn’t she just leave? The realities of escaping domestic violence‘ on 7 August 2014.

The first of these two staunchly gynocentric articles contained gems of feminist wisdom like:

“Until recently, the media weren’t interested in reporting domestic violence. Journalists didn’t see “domestics” as a story. The reason for this seems to be that the media hold the same negative attitudes to women that have been globally recognised as contributing to violence against them in the first place.

This is of concern, since media play a key role in forming societal attitudes to gender and gender roles.”

Well if you look at my primary post in this blog dealing with domestic violence you will see that the media has published quite a bit about domestic violence. You only need to get busy with google to confirm that. And not only that, but most of the coverage has pushed the feminist line 100%. That being the case I find myself agreeing with the feminists that it really  IS a worry that the media forms societal attitudes … which will now be saturated with feminist dogma and strongly biased against men and boys.

“Australian media have a balance of power tipped overwhelmingly towards men, according to the most recent study of who owns, runs, influences, reports, presents and creates the news.” 

Isn’t it just amazing that seeing how the media is run by men for men, that it takes such a strongly pro-feminist view towards the issue of domestic violence. Quite remarkable really. That little old patriarchy sure can move in mysterious ways.

Footnote 1: Flagrant misrepresentations by feminist DV spokespeople are by no means uncommon. Mike Buchanan in the U.K has also written letters seeking the retraction of biased and misleading information, and as with Ms Stott Despoja, no responses were forthcoming:

Polly Neate CEO, Women’s Aid
Sandra Horley Chief Executive, Refuge
Eleri Butler Chief Executive, Welsh Women’s Aid

Footnote 2: As an aside, I joined this discussion thread to express support for ‘Denise’, only to have my posts disappear and be blocked from further commenting

Footnote 3: Unless of course the primary focus was on securing government funding for a gender-specific advocacy group

when_men_seek_help

The chart above shows what happens when male victims of abuse seek help

Postscript (25 October 2015): The following article provides context to the attitude of the feminist DV advocacy groups towards male victims of domestic  violence

Why I’m backing QLD Labor Premier on male victims | Talk About Men

Australian taxpayer funded organisations that do little/nothing for men (other than demonising them)

Firstly, and by way of background, the concept of institutional misandry has been described as:

“The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their status as male. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and misandric stereotyping which disadvantage males.”

It persists because of the failure of the organisation openly and adequately to recognise and address its existence and causes by policy, example and leadership. Without recognition and action to eliminate such misandry it can prevail as part of the ethos or culture of the organisation. It is a corrosive disease.

— After section 6.34, page 49, Cm 4262-I, Lawrence. The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report of an Inquiry by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny. February 1999. (Source)

You might also be interested in viewing these videos about institutional misandry in the UK.

I frequently encounter the online footprints of Australian organisations whose interests encompass one or more gender-related issues, and who appear to demonstrate a significant degree of anti-male bias. Many of these organisations:

  • provide minimal or no services or support for men, and often only reference men in the context of (for example) perpetrators of sexual assault or domestic violence
  • are strongly biased towards, or influenced by, feminist ideology
  • have weak oversight or disclosure mechanisms in place, for example annual reports, financial statements/independent auditing, and measures of performance which (if they exist) are not publicly available, and
  • have either no men working within them, or only very few (gender quotas anyone?)

I find this situation to be of considerable concern bearing in mind the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into just the domestic violence sector alone each year. What’s more, that amount continues to increase and in July 2014 it was announced that millions more were to be poured into agencies to protect “women and their children (whilst still assiduously ignoring male victims and violent women).

One should consider the current situation in the context of the relative paucity of funding to organisations that support men and boys, all whilst the government trumpets on about gender equality.

It also worries me that this list is not restricted to private lobby groups or not-for-profits that benefit from substantial government funding or contracts. Indeed, there are many government agencies and groups within the tertiary education sector that display almost as much gender bias.

I have already allocated blog posts to several such organisations:

The Australian Human Rights Commission (Annual budget = just over $33 million)

Australian Department of Social Services (Annual budget = $4.2 billion)

Australian Institute of Family Studies (Annual budget = $17.75 million)

WA Department of Child Protection and Family Support (Annual budget = just under $625 million)

Workplace Gender Equality Agency (Annual budget $5 million) $5 million a year to propagate a feminist myth and to shake a finger at companies that won’t buy into their delusion. Their contribution to the Australian community consists of burning public money on the altar of feminism. (Postscript November 2018: Budget doubled)

‘Our Watch’ (formerly known as the Foundation to Prevent Violence against Women and their Children) (Receives government grants totalling between $1 million and $2 million per annum)

White Ribbon Campaign (Received government grants totalling $280,000 during 2013/14 financial year, but in 2019 it went broke & was closed down)

Domestic Violence NSW (Received more than $6 million in government funds in 2013-14)

DV Connect (Around $3 million during 2013/14 financial year, mainly from the Queensland Department of Communities)

The Australian Gender Equality Council (Budget unknown)

Safe and Equal Inc. lists annual receipt of government grants totaling $7,135,582

‘No to Violence’ (Income and expenditure of approx. $4.9 million in the 2017/18 financial year)

Diversity Council Australia (Total income in 2015 of approx. $1.5 million, mainly from membership fees. Many public agencies are listed as members, but the extent of public funding is not identified. All staff bar one are female … diversity … seriously?

Men’s Referral Service (Government funding was around $2million/annum but they are now to be the recipient of a further allocation of $13 million over four years)

The E-Safety Office (Annual government funding is currently around $100 million)

In this blog post my intention is to eventually corral and list basic details of other similar organisations, and then subsequently do further research on each.

Who’ll be the next cab off the rank? Oh, we have oh so many contenders …

Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre – Hmm, where to start here. Well firstly check out how many men they have on board with regards to Advisory Board members/key researchers/HDR researchers/visiting scholars. Think, one or none tokenism. But more to report here folks – back soon.

Women’s Safety NSW – This group came to my attention due to their lobbying against a proposed Family Law Inquiry. You can review their tweets (@womenssafetynsw) in relation to that issue distributed around mid-late September 2019. Their ACNC register entry is here – you will note that they received $253,869 in government grants in 2019/20 whilst spending $192,710 on “Employee Expenses” (with only one fulltime employee). The CEO and Board are wholly female. (Newsflash: Their Twitter account states “Women’s Safety NSW is no longer in operation” as at 27 July 2021. Their former CEO, Hayley Foster, is now CEO of another organisation called ‘Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia’).

Full Stop Foundation is registered as a charity with annual income approaching $2 million. Their patron is feminist Tara Moss, and all seven board members are women. Looking at their web site and ACNC register entry, it’s uncertain though to what extent they receive government funding. What exactly is “contract income”? (See note 4). Also, whilst they list the Australian Human Rights Commission as supporters they don’t seem to clarify what form this support takes (?)

Or another … this one is called ‘Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre’, but don’t let “family” fool you. Safe Steps “is committed to assisting all women and children in the community experiencing family violence. We are an organisation that values inclusivity, diversity and intersectionality”. All female board and staff. Income of $12 million in financial year 2017/18 according to latest annual report on their web site, but which doesn’t specify the extent of grant funding. Safe Steps is listed in the ACNC register but no information seems to be held for them. (?)

Or maybe a group known as ‘Emerge’? “Emerge supports women and children who have experienced family violence, empowering them to rebuild their lives“. There would appear to be no male directors or staff. Their entry in the ACNC register, here, provides various details concerning the organisation. The most recent financial statement lists more than $1.2 million received in the financial year ending 30 June 2018 (from the Dept. of Health and Human Services), and approx. $620k in salary expenses.

Just out of curiosity I typed “male victims” into their web site search facility, and got “Oops, we are really sorry but no results were found“.

Or how about Women’s Community Shelters Ltd who came to my attention via their daily paid placement in my Twitter feed? Their ACNC register entry mentions a total annual income of almost $3.5m, of which just over 1/3 arrives by way of government funding. This mostly comes from the NSW Dept. of FaCS, who explain here the “facts” about domestic and family violence (no need to complicate things by mentioning male victims).

Or perhaps Relationships Australia? I understand that they don’t have many male counsellors nowadays, and one less after the departure of Rob Tiller.

Or perhaps the International Women’s Development Agency? It would appear that there are no male directors or staff. Indeed in October 2018 IWDA advertised for a non-executive director, but lads don’t get your hopes up:

“International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) has an EEO exemption (H298/2018) and requests applications from women only. IWDA has a Child Rights and Protection Policy and directors are required to undertake a National Police Check and endorse IWDA’s Child Rights and Protection Code of Conduct.”

I wonder why IWDA were granted an EEO exemption and whether an application from a MRA organisation would be treated similarly? See here and here. Oh and IWDA seem to get plenty of government financial support too:

“Grant income represents 81% of our total income and grew by 43% in 2016/17. This is based on a combined Grants total of $8.59mil, of which 29.81% is sourced directly from the Australian Government’s Aid Program.” (Source, p27)

Or how about ‘The Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault‘? This is the page that I came across first. It reads like a grant application for a feminist spend-fest doesn’t it? I had a very quick look at their site and found nothing along the lines of guidelines to help female perpetrators, or anything about male victims. I searched on “sexual assault of men” and did come across a page entitled ‘Engaging men in sexual assault prevention‘ though. You know the sort of advice that helps us men curb the frothing rapist lurking within each and every one of us.

The ‘About us‘ page tells us that there are no male staff at the Centre, as well as providing the following information:

The Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA) was established in 2003 by the Commonwealth Office for Women. It is funded by the Department of Social Services and is hosted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

ACSSA is a central collection point for research, information and resources about sexual assault in Australia. Our key role is to facilitate access to the growing evidence-base on sexual assault and to support organisations, agencies and others use research and evidence in shaping policy, practice and research directions in responding to, and reducing, sexual assault.

We collect, synthesise and summarise developments in:

  • research and evaluation;
  • practice knowledge and resources;
  • law reform and legislation; and
  • policy initiatives.

OK, well there is no mention there of the agency being restricted to only dealing with the sexual assault of women by men. Given, however, that it’s an offshoot of the ‘Commonwealth Office for Women’, I think it would be a safe bet that that is in fact the case. Of course if there was a corresponding ‘Office for Men’, then I guess that they would deal with male victims and female perpetrators. But there isn’t, because … men can deal with it (?)

With regards to their budget, all I’ve found at the moment is this somewhat dated page for the Government’ entire ‘Womens Safety Agenda‘, which mentions a total budget of $75.7 million over four years. The 2014/15 budget shows an allocation of $3.5 million for the Office of Women this year (refer page 31), but there may well be further allocations under the Social Services budget (and elsewhere?). On 23 June 2014 I sent an email to Treasury seeking this information:

“I am aware that a womens budget statement is regularly prepared to identify expenditure that is expressly designed to support Australian women. I would like to know if there is a similar statement identifying expenditure designed to support men.
Alternatively, and assuming there is not … is there any source that you can either provide me with – or point me towards – that enables a side-by-side comparison of expenditure for men and women? I look forward to receiving your advice on this matter. Thank you”

… but no reply since. Hmm.

Postscript: Sarah Game MLC has provided the following information regarding the Office for Women in a Twitter discussion thread (February 2024)Image

See also: The Australian government hands out hundreds of millions per year in grants to businesses. We find much of it is wasted (18 July 2024)

What’s happening overseas?

Meanwhile over in the USA Barack Obama introduced one (1) federal program to assist men and boys (as against the dozens that assist women and girls), only to have the feminist backlash begin immediately (and see related reddit discussion here). Somehow, sadly, I can’t see Malcolm Turnbull stepping into the breech with anything similar here in Australia. Ooh, please don’t call me a misogynist, please, please! (See this blog post re: lack of political support for men/boys)

See the article at http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/women-are-the-biggest-budget-losers-20140523-zrl4n.html (22 May 2014) It seems quite extraordinary to me that the journalist who wrote this piece felt justified in claiming that “women are the biggest losers” without providing any information whatsoever about what men received/lost in the budget. It’s moments like these I feel like a member of the forgotten gender!

In Wales (U.K) someone did the maths and found that women’s groups/causes were handed 77 times as much funding as were men’s groups/causes (August 2016).

Further organisations slated for review

Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia Senior staff and Board members are all women. In the year ending 30 June 2015 the organisation was the recipient of $8,194,146 in government grant funding, out of a total annual income of $8,795,650. Their main expense was ‘Salaries and On-costs’ at $7,502,877 (Source)

Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety Limited (ANROWS). Oh, and look, 80% of Board members are women as are all of the staff listed in their web site. I guess that’s to be expected given that I read that men bash women, lack the capacity for empathy, and are thus are clearly unconcerned about women’s safety … so why oh why would they want men working there? Oh, but wait, wouldn’t that be sexist stereotyping? And what of equal employment opportunity?

The latest annual report and financial statement provided in the ANROWS web site as of July 2022 is for the financial year 2020-21. ANROWS receives substantial government funding support and in 2020/21 “grants income” was listed as being $6,628,189. In 2019/20 it amounted to $10,410,025, and the year earlier it received $4,995,793.

Now I wonder how much the federal government budgeted for researching men’s issues in recent years? Absolutely nothing? But I shouldn’t ask naughty questions like that – it’s probably why ANROWS blocked me on social media.

Domestic Violence Prevention Centre Gold Coast Inc.

The Centre is listed in the ACNC register here. That’s just as well as there does not appear to be any financial details provided in their web site, and only vague information about who is running the organisation – and how. The Centre employs 12 f/t employees, 20 p/t employees, and three casuals.

The Centre is wholly supported by government funding, with no donations or bequests received in 2014/15. The consolidated income statement shows receipts of around $2.8 million per annum in goverment grants (refer page 5). The main costs for the Centre are “salaries and on costs” ($1.9 million per annum), “office and centre expenses” ($407,167), rent ($227,841), and superannuation ($174,128).

An article from May 2016 citing disparaging comments about male victims of DV made by Centre director Amy Compton-Keen can be accessed here (NB: Reader reaction to that article was illuminating).

Y-Gap/Polished man campaign (level of government support currently unknown). Y-Gap’s ACNC register entry is here. Related Reddit mensrights discussion thread here.

Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research based at CQ University, Mackay Campus. All female staff? tick Only consult with female-focussed groups with just a token male for appearance sake? tick Statistics within web site ignores male victimisation and resources for men assume they are perpetrators of violence? tick (see ‘Working with Men’).

“The Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research receives defined term funding from the Queensland Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services to undertake research and develop educational resources pertaining to domestic and family violence in Queensland. In addition, CDFVR is supported by CQUniversity and receives grants from a range of other sources to conduct research and professional development activities.”

Queensland University of Technology, Crime and Justice Research Centre Perform research and teach in subject areas including sexual assault and domestic violence. They appear to have a strong pro-feminist bias and from what I have read of their work thus far, they routinely follow and promote the men perpetrators/women victims model. (More details here)

Domestic Violence Victoria All female staff? tick

The 2013 Annual Report here tells us that DVV’s total income in 2013 was $677,211 of which $609,361 arrived in the form of grants. Some of their major expenses included wages $489,783, super contributions $42,618, media awards $35,251, provision for holiday and long service leave $32,789, consultants $10,675, board fees $4,500 and staff training/welfare/amenities $3,261 (these items totalling $618,877)

Victoria_DV1

Canberra Men’s Centre Outwardly compassionate about men’s welfare but it’s been suggested that CMC are a feminist ‘Trojan horse’ that dances to the men bad/woman victim tune. Their annual report for the year ending 30 June 2013 (the most recent in their web site as of March 2015) informs us that they received around $2 million from the ACT Dept. of Disability, Housing and Community Services in both 2011/12 and 2012/13. Their main expenses were lease payments ($340,118 in 2012/13) and salaries ($277,799 in 2012/13).

Safe Steps Family Violence Resource Centre (web site and Facebook page)

This Victorian organisation first came to my attention when I heard about a function they were planning for 6 May 2015 at which they will be lighting candles for women and children. On 27 April 2015 I submitted a cordial post to their Facebook page just querying why men killed through domestic violence would not be similarly remembered. Well, that post was deleted faster than you can say ‘feminist censorship’.

One hundred per cent female directors and staff (Source, see p9)

Total income in both 2012/13 and 2013/14 exceeded $3 million – nature of source not disclosed. Salary costs and director remuneration not disclosed (p10)

Fast forward to 28 January 2020 and Safe Steps issued this tweet:

“Women, children and young people are not the only ones affected by #familyviolence. Often, women need to leave but are reluctant to leave their beloved pet behind. We assist where possible to enable women and their children to leave safely with their pets.”

That’s right, no men in the families that this group deals with. Funny thing that.

(Other groups in the queue for consideration include: Science in Australia Gender Equity, OWN NSW … )

Elsewhere in this blog you might be interested in reading:

So what exactly is the ‘Domestic Violence Industry’?

Re-instatement of the Women’s Budget Statement in Australia? Bring it on, but consider men too