To suggest that the Australian Government is currently committed to achieving gender equality is an absolutely farcical proposition. Can an organisation be only half committed? I think not.
I say this as the extent to which the government acknowledges and supports men/boys, relative to the support it expresses for women/girls, overwhelmingly favours the latter. Further, not only is this bias not seen as a problem, it is considered by many to be fair and appropriate.
Neither politicians nor senior bureaucrats dare ask ‘why?’, let alone say ‘stop!’, to proposed developments that might further this imbalance. They know full well that any such gesture would result in immediate negative sanctions. And conversely, that few would be likely to publicly speak in their defence. Such is the overdone mood of the matriarchal moment.
One element of the problem is the lack of a government agency, or even a section within an agency, that is designated to gather or disseminate information, or develop policy, in support of men and boys.
Another is the issue of remnant chivalry, a factor that in an environment of true gender equality, would be recognised as nought but an outdated traditional gender stereotype.
Related online information:
Q: Is there a Minister for Men and/or an Office for Men?
A: No, there is neither, and none is proposed.
Q: Do government agencies provide as much public acknowledgment and support for men/boys as they do for women/girls? A simple example might be publicly acknowledging International Men’s Day versus their response to the multitude of recognised and supported days for women and girls.
A: No, they do not. International Men’s Day is ignored entirely by both state and federal agencies.
Ask the Australian Human Rights Commission, for example, if they have ever issued a tweet or social media notice to celebrate International Men’s Day. Ask any state or federal agency.
Related online information:
Q: Does the government invite representatives of men’s and/or father’s rights groups to participate in committees, in fora and/or (for example) regulatory reviews related to gender issues? For example, the One in Three organisation (http://www.oneinthree.com.au)
A: No, they do not. Nor do they support the establishment and operation of such organisations.
Q: Do women of high public profile (for e.g. female politicians) and/or women’s groups seek to support men/boys either generally or in relation to specific issues?
A: No, generally not. Contrast this to the actions of many high-profile men.
Related online information:
Q: Does the government fund research that explores aspects of the reality experienced by men/boys and/or encourage gender-related research to address or consider issues from both a male and female perspective (for example via the actions of the Australian Research Council)?
A: No, they do not. More and more often males are not surveyed in such studies, unless asked in relation to their views on women’s issues (and with zero reciprocity applying)
Related online information:
Q. Is there compatibility with regards to the extent of funds that the government assigns to groups/agencies and/or issues that primarily affect men/boys, versus what is provided for women/girls? Where relative advantage to a particular gender can be recognised, does the government assign approximately equal support for each gender?
And what about with regards to our foreign aid program?
A: No, they do not. There is a huge disparity in favour of women/girls. The government doesn’t even appear to keep track of how much is spent on men/boys (i.e. there is no Budget Statement produced for men/boys). And not only that, many of the groups that are funded often express views that are particularly negative towards men/boys.
Meanwhile, our foreign-aid program is now deliberately skewed towards providing support for women/girls.
Related online information:
https://budget.gov.au/2021-22/content/womens-statement/index.htm
Q: Do government or government-funded agencies devote as much time and energy to acknowledging, supporting and remedying issues that affect men/boys as they do in the case of their representations for women/girls?
Some examples of organisation to consider might include WGEA, the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ANROWS, the Australian Institute of Family Studies, and the Australian Institute of Criminology.
A: No, they do not. There is a huge disparity in favour of acknowledging, celebrating and supporting the preferences and privileges of women/girls. This often appears to occur in association with a saturation of staff and management who are devotees of feminist ideology.
Ask the Australian Human Rights Commission (for example) if they have ever had a male appointed to the position of Sex Discrimination Commission. Ask them how many times, in (say) the past ten years, they have developed a program or policy that intended as being primarily supportive of men/boys (and was publicly identified as such)?
The AHRC is the ‘go-to’ agency for those seeking to act in a manner that may be seen as providing unequal benefits for one gender over another … an example being to offer a scholarship only to women, or to publicly recruit (only) women for a particular role. Ask the AHRC to state the percentage of times they have exercised this power in a manner that favoured women over men.
Ask the WGEA about how much they have looked at the costs (financial and otherwise) faced primarily or solely by men and boys. And about the growing number of segments in the labour market where women’s salaries exceed those of men. And about those organisations where the staff gender ratio for female representation well exceeds 50% (for example the federal public service), and what (if any) remedial action has been taken.
Related online information:
We’ve all heard of the gender ‘income gap’, but what about the ‘expense gap’?
Q: Domestic Violence is perhaps the highest profile issue in the whole gamut of gender-related topics now being addressed. Many studies support the notion that at least 1/3 of the victims of domestic violence are male (and up to 2/3 in certain contexts).
The Government spends hundreds of millions of dollars ostensibly trying to remedy this scourge. How much of this money is used (for example) to psychologically treat abusive and/or violent women? How much is spent to assist male victims of abuse?
What action is the government taking to ensure both fairness and effectiveness of expenditure? How many of those receiving taxpayer funds are driven by feminist ideology. Does this detrimentally affect their performance for example via prompting them to persist with ineffective principles and strategies, purely because doing otherwise could be seen to compromise their belief system?
A: Well under 1/10th of the money allocated to treating domestic violence finds its way to assist the male and female victims of violent and abusive women. This is a disgrace, and meanwhile the (seemingly allowable) response from the feminist lobby is to cry ‘epidemic!’ and demand that the government give them more money. Meanwhile more men suicide.
Related online information:
http://www.fighting4fair.com/uncategorized/on-the-experience-of-male-victims-of-domestic-violence/
Q: The so-called ‘Gender Wage Gap’ is another high-profile gender issue, and one in which the WGEA has been, and remains, closely involved. Has the manner in which this issue has been presented and addressed to date, been indicative of a commitment to gender equality?
A: No, anything but. The WGEA has even been criticised for the biased manner in which the issue has been approached. Depending on how one drills down into the data, there are several, and a growing number of, instances where female wages exceed male average salaries. This aspect is largely invisible in the public coverage of the topic. Somehow, I very much doubt that’s a coincidence.
Related online information:
http://www.fighting4fair.com/uncategorized/the-myth-of-wage-disparity/
Q: With regards to the specific issue of workplace conditions and workplace safety, is as much emphasis placed on key issues as viewed from a male perspective, as from a female perspective?
A: No, very little emphasis is placed on the consideration of issues from a male perspective, with the exception of the multitude of situations where men’s welfare is ignored entirely.
Related online information:
Conclusion
The Government’s commitment to ‘gender equality’ is largely limited to championing the legitimate and purported interests of women/girls, whilst doing little or nothing about the multitude of negative factors impinging on the health and happiness of boys/men.
Rather than continuing with the use of the feel-good term ‘gender equality’, the current situation can best be viewed through reference to the notion of ‘Gamma Bias’.
“Gamma bias occurs when one gender difference is minimised while simultaneously another is magnified.
The gamma bias phenomenon can be conceptualised as a symmetrical 2*2 matrix of cognitive distortions, the gender distortion matrix. The matrix below describes examples of gamma bias, where perceptions of men and women are differentially magnified (capital letters underlined) or minimised (lower case letters in italics).
GOOD | HARM | |
DO (active mode) | FEMALE male (celebration) | MALE female (perpetration) |
RECEIVE (passive mode) | MALE female (privilege) | FEMALE male (victimhood) |
(Source)
If the Government really wants to be a champion of gender equality then it should begin to treat the genders equally.
And that means equal rights and equal responsibilities.
It also means putting professionalism and impartiality in front of the ideology du jour.
It’s that simple.
Other potential sources of interest
Grants and funding
The Grant Funding Deficit for Washington’s Boys and Men (15 September 2023)
Grants and funding under the Women’s Leadership and Development Program (2023) Zero male equivalent?
A link to copies of submissions to the Inquiry
A link to the WGEA Review Report
Inflating campus sexual assault statistics, by Bettina Arndt (30 August 2023)
Grant awarded to boost gender equality and diversity in Australian politics (23 March 2023). Another generous ($5 million) hand-out to the feminist lobby with zero corresponding support provided for men’s groups.
Janet Albrechtsen article entitled ‘Closing gender pay gap about privilege not equality‘ (30 November 2021)
Bettina Arndt: The rape conviction rate – a scandalous deceit of parliament and the public (19 January 2022) This has nothing to do with the review, but just demonstrates the outrageous level of anti-male gender bias that’s now practiced and accepted.
Opinion: The data are clear: The boys are not all right (9 February 2022) An example of the USA situation
Women’s leadership and development program (8 September 2022) All about 76 projects set to receive $15.84 million in federal grant funding. Anything equivalent for men/boys? Dream on