Tag: Australia

Women in Engineering scholarship query

On Saturday 22 October 2022 I sent two emails to an Australian tertiary educational institution regarding financial assistance and support programs that they provided to female students. Here is the first one that I sent:

“Good morning

I have just come across your scholarship at https://www.qut.edu.au/study/fees-and-scholarships/scholarships/women-in-engineering-scholarship

Would you please confirm that there is no corresponding Men in Engineering scholarship. Assuming that there is not, would you kindly advise why a scholarship is maintained for women as it would seem to be inconsistent with current consensus regarding gender equality. I look forward to hearing back from you in due course.”

On 24 October 2022 they duly replied:

“Dear Mr. X,

QUT strives to create an equal, equitable and diverse teaching and research environment that is fully inclusive for all people. We are not a complete community until all individuals are included and afforded opportunity, regardless of their backgrounds, characteristics, beliefs and circumstances.

The Gender Equity and Diversity in STEMM Action Plan reflects QUT’s long-term commitment to addressing the under-representation of women, trans and gender-diverse people in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine) disciplines.

Based on this action plan, women in engineering scholarship are committed to support people who identify as a woman, and increase the number of graduating female engineers, which at the moment is only 15% of all of the engineering students. This scholarship will help build a cohort of female future leaders in engineering professions.

However, there are other ongoing scholarships, that students who are not identifying as women are able to apply:

QUT – Find a scholarship

Kind regards

Engineering engagement team”

The second email I sent was similar, but was sent to the university’s ‘Discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion Manager’ and focused on one particular page in their website.

(Postscript: 6 January 2023, and thankfully a further response has come to hand … )

“QUT does offer a number of scholarship that are not gender specific including academic, equity and industry-funded (currently being updated for 2023) and they can be found here.  QUT – Scholarships

Engineering has a long history of being a male-dominated profession. In several disciplines and areas of practice such as biomedical engineering, much progress has been made on this front. However, in other disciplines such as mechanical engineering the number hasn’t moved much in 30 or more years. I graduated in mechanical engineering in 1993 with only a few other females in my cohort of around 120. And the numbers haven’t improved significantly since then and neither has the aggregate proportion of qualified professional engineers who are female, which is still low at 13% (and the proportion of female engineers who are working in an engineering role is at 11%). (cited Jane MacMaster, FIEAust EngExec CPEng MRAeS Chief Engineer, Engineers Australia Women in engineering | Engineers Australia pp4)

With women severely unrepresented in the engineering work force QUT sets out to increase and support the number of females studying engineering by building a strong support program for students including engineering scholarships. 

The scholarship program includes mentoring, flagship Engineers Australia events such as the Women in Engineering Annual Dinner, Young Engineers Australia Executive Breakfasts, GEMS student club events, National Association of Women in Construction events and Alumni panel and industry workshops. 

The ongoing women in engineering program connects and showcases the opportunities for women in the engineering industry to help solve local and global challenges. It also encourages young people to consider an engineering career, join and invest in engineering and become the future of engineering.  

We offer many funding and engagement opportunities to all of our Engineering students at QUT however to address the gender imbalance in the engineering industry we seek to provide a program that not only supports women but also encourages new entrants into the field of engineering.

I hope this responds to your query and if you are seeking additional research on Women in Engineering please let me know and I will send it through.

Kind regards”

Other posts in this blog that are relevant to this subject:

Regarding the granting of gender-specific scholarships in Australia

We’ve all heard of the gender ‘income gap’, but what about the ‘expense gap’? (Scroll down to ‘education’)

Apparently there’s not enough “educated” men nowadays

Four things that happened to some anonymous guy online

Sometime things happen in your life that you remember many years later. And you wonder why. Here are four that happened to me:

  • The time I shared a meal with an African-American
  • The time I almost didn’t hire a guy who was different
  • The time I was a guest in the home of an Aboriginal family
  • The time I lived in Asia as a member of an Asian family

My African-American dinner guests

American’s might be puzzled by this one, but you don’t see a whole lot of African-Americans in an Australian city. As a consequence most Australians have a picture of African-Americans manufactured by media and the entertainment industry.

The husband worked for the USA consulate, and I think perhaps his wife did too. He had a benign sounding job title but the vibes he gave off had me imagining him chasing Jason Bourne. The two of them were probably the most articulate and polite people I have ever had at my dinner table.

My Iranian right-hand-man

In my first ever job (local government) I was tasked to create a work group of four to be managed by yours truly. I was in my early 20’s. One of the applicants stood out as somewhat unusual. He was Iranian, in his mid-40’s, and had a PhD. I wondered how I would manage and whether he would work in with the others in the team. I talked to my boss, and he encouraged me to give the guy a chance.

Fast forward many years. Farrokh was the best right-hand-man/colleague I have ever had the pleasure to work with. Initiative, creativity, reliability, productivity, patience … measured anyway you like.

Visiting indigenous folks

The first time I visited Cairns (North Queensland) I somehow got myself invited to have a coffee at the home of a local family. Again, and like many Australians, my only experience dealing with Aboriginals was avoiding substance-abusers at railway stations, or watching a succession of grifters on TV bad-mouthing (non-aboriginal) Australians whilst helping themselves to untold millions of taxpayer revenue.

The family I visited were nice. They were friendly and hospitable. Their home was just like most Australian homes I had visited. They were ordinary Australians.

Turning Asian

I lived for a time in an Asian country. Before that I had only had the briefest of visits to that part of the world. I learnt a lot there. About their culture and, subsequently, about ours. For example I learnt that concepts like ‘common sense’ and ‘good manners’ were not universal … they were specific to the country or region. So just because people didn’t act in accordance with the Aussie model of good manners, didn’t mean they were ill-mannered. It just meant that they were following their own version. Or sometimes they were ignoring both versions. Just like we do sometimes.

Conclusion

All four events at least somewhat surprised me at the time they happened. Why? No doubt someone out there will offer a theory.

As a consequence of these experiences, do I feel that:

  • all members of these various sub-sets of society are wonderful people?
  • that we should throw open the doors of Australia that everyone might settle here?
  • that I am guilty for something my ancestors did, or are alleged to have done to the group in question?

Not one bit. In fact, woke begone!

I do however better recognise that in the absence of first-hand experience, we do rely a lot on the media to form our opinions of others for us. And that the media often presents a distorted and incomplete image.

NSW provides a world of opportunity. For women

I received an email on 21 June 2022 advising me of the following. No mention of any opportunities for men – I guess that will follow later …

“The first Women’s Opportunity Statement was published today alongside the NSW Budget 2022-23. The Statement sets out the NSW Government’s plans to make New South Wales the best place in Australia for women to live, work and raise a family, and commits $5.6 billion towards outcomes for women and $10.9 billion towards children’s education and development outcomes over the next 10 years. The Statement draws on the findings of the Women’s Economic Opportunities Review, and the advice of the Expert Reference Panel, chaired by Sam Mostyn.  A letter from the Review’s Expert Panel to the NSW Treasurer was also published today.

The Statement sets out the following five strategic priority areas of reform:

  • Increase women’s workforce participation
  • Improve the experience of women in the workforce
  • Support women in small business and entrepreneurs
  • Support and raise awareness of women’s health needs
  • Respect for women and women’s financial security

Alongside the Statement, we have also released the NSW Treasury Technical Research Paper Women’s economic opportunities in the NSW labour market and the impact of early childhood education and care, which sets out NSW Treasury research on the key drivers of unequal outcomes between women and men in the labour market, as well as the modelling approach used to assess the package of early childhood education and care reforms announced by the NSW and Commonwealth Governments.

Kind regards,

WEOR Secretariat”

Women’s Economic Opportunities Review 52 Martin Place, Sydney NSW 2000 e: weo.review@treasury.nsw.gov.au | www.treasury.nsw.gov.au

Teaching sexual consent – Responsible men and vulnerable women

by Bettina Arndt (25 March 2022)
Sydney schoolgirl, Chanel Contos

Last month it was announced all Australian high school students are to be taught about sexual consent and coercion. Mandatory education programs are being rolled out across the country teaching boys not to rape.  

It’s mainly due to Sydney schoolgirl Chanel Contos (pictured above), who burst into the limelight last year when she announced that a school sex education course had led her to discover she’d been raped two years earlier. As a 13-year-old she’d been “forced” to go down on a boy at a party but it took a Year-10 school sex education course for her to realize what had happened to her. She started a website encouraging other girls to tell stories of similar sexual assaults and nearly 2000 obliged. Ever since she’s been out there calling out male misbehaviour and lobbying for school sexual consent courses.

This is just the latest front in the mighty feminist battle to rein in male sexuality and punish more rapists. I wrote recently about how the NSW parliament was misled by false statistics which were used to assist the smooth passage of enthusiastic consent regulations into law. At much the same time over 1500 school kids were signing a Contos petition calling for enthusiastic consent to be taught in schools.

Our compliant media dutifully pushed the fearmongering as Contos met with members of parliament and other power brokers to make it all happen. We heard shocking stories of drunk girls waking up to discover males taking advantage of them, boys behaving badly, circulating photos of their mates having sex, etc – some truly unacceptable male behaviour.

But gradually questions started appearing in online comments about why so many girls were finding themselves in these risky situations, why were so many vulnerable youngsters attending these alcohol and drug fueled parties? Naturally any suggestion that girls needed to take care of themselves were howled down. A principal of a Sydney girls school dared to suggest that along with more sex education in schools, parents need to be “having conversations regarding consent, the impact of alcohol, risk-taking behaviours and self-respect.” Her sensible suggestion was treated with disdain by journalists who lined up enlightened souls to put her straight. The problem is “not about girls” pronounced an executive from the Alliance of Girls’ Schools, but rather about the “underbelly of disrespect, privilege and callousness displayed by young men towards young women.”

“This is a systemic, centuries-old societal problem,” she explained. “Behaviour that endorses male sexual entitlement, lack of accountability and a power imbalance.”  

That’s it, you see. Feminism 101, all designed to tie in nicely with the “respect for women” ideological claptrap already rolled out in the “Respectful Relationships” programs allegedly tackling domestic violence, which are currently indoctrinating children in schools – teaching them about toxic males and helpless females.

Now sexual consent education will reinforce that message. I’ve just been sent snapshots taken from the brand-new curriculum being introduced in one South Australian school. Apparently, there’s flexibility in how the educators choose to address the topic but it seems most schools will take a similar approach.

It’s fascinating seeing how the educators twist themselves into knots to avoid any hint of victim blaming.  They’ve come up with a new slogan: “Vulnerability is not the same as responsibility.” Look at this little scenario featuring Kim.  Be warned, it’s pretty confusing because we aren’t given the gender of Kim, who uses the pronoun “they.”

Kim is out drinking, and a man “they” knows offers “them” a ride home but instead drives to a secluded spot, parks and wants to have sex. Our educators spell out the message very clearly: it’s the villain, the driver, who is 100% responsible for his actions and whether or not Kim is safe. Kim is simply “vulnerable” as a result of decisions “they” have made to get into this situation.

Neat, eh? In this particular scenario we don’t know the gender of the potential victim, but the bulk of the responsibility/vulnerability examples given in the curriculum involve males taking advantage of girls who arguably signal sexual interest in various ways by wearing low-cut dresses or inviting a boy to “snuggle” with them in a private room at a party. Here’s a classic example, featuring Jen and Luke. Note that it is taken from an American publication called “Men Stopping Rape” – which says it all….

The predominantly female teachers who will be guiding the students’ discussion of these scenes will no doubt work hard to convince the kids that the boy is inevitably 100% responsible while the innocent girl is simply vulnerable.

Very occasionally they do present a girl as the baddie. Like the sexually aggressive Mila who is all over her boyfriend Luke and gets very indignant when he says he wants to take his time. “I said it was time to be a real man and do the deed,” responds Mila. A rare toxic woman but overwhelmed by large numbers of pushy blokes who don’t take no for an answer, have sex with sleeping girls and boast about having sex to their mates.

The curriculum does include one scenario, Ali and Josh, describing the situation of a girl who has sex because she fears her boyfriend might dump her if she doesn’t. That’s true to life… a very good example of a girl giving consent she may later regret. The great pity is there is so little in this curriculum about the many reasons girls might be ambivalent about consent. The central myth of the “enthusiastic consent” dogma is the notion that girls/women know their own minds and clearly indicate their desires. The truth is males are forced to interpret the muddy waters of female sexual ambivalence, obfuscation, and confusion. The apparent “Yeses’’ that are really “Maybes’’ or secret “Nos’’.

This week I had a live chat on thinkspot with a famous YouTuber, Steve Bonnell – also known as “Destiny.” I hope you enjoy our interesting conversation and will “like” the video and share it.

Bonnell has made big bucks as a video game “twitch streamer” but this clever, articulate young man is also a political commentator, debating all manner of issues usually from a leftist perspective. Funnily enough, just after our conversation Bonnell was banned from Twitch for “hateful conduct” which might just have included our chat about sexual consent, which certainly would have got up the nose of the woke folk running social media.

Bonnell regularly challenges the new dogma on this issue, throwing down the gauntlet by declaring that women no longer have bad sexual experiences – if was bad, it was rape and the man’s fault. His argument is that men are being forced into a parental role – treating women like infants with no agency of their own. Bonnell also declares that if you invite someone to your house, you must expect them to see that as a sexual invitation. And that when it comes to stealthing, women shouldn’t have sex with anyone whom they wouldn’t be comfortable telling not to remove a condom.

Naturally I agreed with him on these points, but amusingly Bonnell was very careful not to align too strongly with what he sees as my overly protective pro-male stance. I was intrigued to hear him talk about young women today, whom he claims enter every sexual encounter with some element of fear. As I pointed out, I’ve never felt like that and see this as a total failure of modern feminism. Whatever happened to feminism’s celebration of women’s female strength and independence? Remember Helen Reddy’s triumphant song – I am woman, hear me roar?

Many of you will know Camille Paglia’s famous story about being in college in the 1960s when girls were still chaperoned and locked safely away from boys at night. She describes their fight to rid themselves of this protectionism, the fight for the freedom to risk rape. “I think it is discouraging to see the surrender of young women of their personal autonomy,” she says, amazed that women are welcoming “the intrusion and surveillance of authority figures over their private lives.”

That’s the bottom line here. The sexual consent courses being introduced in our schools are simply the latest effort to convince young women that they are all potential victims, needing protection from dangerous males. Another step to creating a divided society.

Meanwhile another campus fizzer

Five years ago, I wrote about the huge let down for feminists when they persuaded the Australian Human Rights Commission to conduct a million-dollar survey to prove there was a rape crisis on campus. All they found was a lot of unwanted staring and tiny rates of sexual assault. Not that we heard the good news from mainstream media which beat up a new narrative about widespread campus “sexual violence” which activists used to bully universities into setting up the kangaroo courts, implementing sexual consent courses and the like.

Now they’ve tried again, and the results are even worse for them. The latest survey published this week was even more of a dud, with sexual harassment rates less than a third of those reported in 2015-16 (8% compared to 26%), and minimal rates of assault (1.1% for the year surveyed compared to the earlier figure of 0.8 %).

What a joke, given that they’d done everything they could to expand the definitions of sexual misconduct, as I explained in this blog last year. The latest survey included as harassment such items as staring, making comments about your private life or physical appearance, and repeated requests to go on a date.

Enthusiastic consent featured in defining sexual assault, with all sexual acts including kissing deemed assault if your partner “made no effort to check whether you agreed or not” and including all sexual acts as assault if you were “affected by drugs or alcohol.”

The response rate for the survey was just 11.6%  – 43,819 self-selected responses from those  invited to participate, who were in turn just part of the 1.6 million university students  in this country. So the new report is based on a piddling 2.7% of the student population. 

Not that the statistics matter two hoots when our blinkered media remains determined to sing from the feminist songbook. They carefully shifted the goal posts, highlighting such critical matters as the newly discovered peak sexual assault rates for pansexual students and claiming one in three students experienced sexual assault over their lifetimes, a figure which no doubt includes all the drunken schoolkid gropes that feature in Contos’s testimonials – nothing to do with the supposed campus rape crisis.

Not a single one of the so-called reporters bothered to look at official sexual assault rates for this age group. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Personal Safety Survey shows sexual harassment rates for 18-24-year-olds of 27.3% and sexual assault at 3.4% – making it very clear that our universities are extremely safe compared to the general community.

For the last two days my loyal followers have been sending in groveling emails graduates are now receiving from Vice Chancellors apologising for the ongoing crisis and promising to do better.

It’s inspired me to put a call out to all you Australian graduates – asking you to spend a few minutes telling these sniveling leaders of your former institute of higher learning that we’ve had enough. Call out their lack of integrity in participating in this farcical misrepresentation of the important issue of the safety of our universities. And urge them to put a stop to this ongoing, contrived campaign to demonise the next generation of vulnerable young men.

Please consider supporting the ongoing excellent work of the author of this paper, Bettina Arndt, by becoming one of her paying subscribers. © 2022 Bettina Arndt 

A review of the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act – A submission by the One in Three campaign

Queensland’s discrimination law is thirty years old. In May 2021, the Attorney-General asked the Queensland Human Rights Commission to undertake a review of the Anti-Discrimination Act. The review presented a valuable opportunity to make sure the law is keeping up to date with the changing needs of our society.

The Commission was asked to look at whether our anti-discrimination law protects and promotes equality and non-discrimination to the greatest extent possible.

‘One in Three‘ is a diverse group of male and female professionals – academics, researchers, social workers, psychologists, counsellors, lawyers, health promotion workers, trainers and survivor/advocates.

One in Three aims to raise public awareness of the existence and needs of male victims of family violence and abuse; to work with government and non-government services alike to provide assistance to everyone affected by family violence; and to reduce the incidence and impacts of family violence on Australian men, women and children. One in Three believes our society has the capacity to support all victims of family violence, whether male or female, young or old, gay or straight, rich or poor, wherever they live.

In their submission, the One in Three Campaign identifies five different ways in which male victims of family violence are discriminated against in Queensland:

  1. Discrimination in service provision – not available to male victims or female perpetrators
  2. Discrimination in service provision – access allowed, but service provided is harmful or poor
  3. Discrimination in funding
  4. Discrimination within research
  5. Discrimination in public health campaigns.

One in Three’s proposed solution would be to establish a competent triage system based upon severity of violence, risk and need (not sex/gender), that would ensure the limited services available would go to those who need them the most. In order to do this, Section 104 of the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (“The Act”) would require amendments to remove the Example, “It is not unlawful to restrict special accommodation to women who have been victims of domestic violence.”

Here is a link to One in Three’s submission to the Queensland Government (March 2022)

Here is a link to One in Three’s website

Women’s Economic Opportunities Review (NSW Treasury)

“The Review will consider how to improve women’s economic security through increased economic participation over the next 5-10 years. ​

Your ideas will help inform and refine the next steps taken towards improving women’s economic opportunities. This is an important occasion to have a direct voice about the changes you want to see in your community and our society.​” (Source)

More details are provided in the media release here.

The deadline for public submissions for this enquiry is 6 March 2022.

If you’re content to see the economic welfare of men and boys now routinely disregarded then there’s no need to bother having your say.

A copy of my submission now follows:

Submission to the Women’s Economic Opportunities Review (New South Wales)

I note that “The Women’s Economic Opportunities Review will consider how to improve women’s economic security over the next 5 – 10 years, including through increased participation in the workforce. 

The review will identify barriers to women’s participation in work and propose reform opportunities to address structural and non-structural barriers to support women to enter, re-enter and stay in the workforce.” (Source)

Elsewhere I note that “The next NSW budget will splash cash on fixing women’s inequality in the economy as a way of lifting the state out of the financial shock of the pandemic and the recent omicron surge.

Improving access to childcare and reworking school hours – something flagged by the government last year – are among the items that may be addressed in June’s budget.

Premier Dominic Perrottet has not promised a blank cheque but says the government will implement what it can of recommendations of a state review into boosting economic opportunity for women in NSW.” (Source)

I thought that one quick and easy, albeit imperfect, gauge of the NSW’s Government position regarding gender would be to look at what posts I have created in my blog in relation to gender issues. A relevant listing is available at https://www.fighting4fair.com/?s=nsw. The tone of the matters I discuss in those posts seems to paint the NSW Government as being overtly pro-feminist, and with little or no interest in recognition and support for men and boys and the issues they face. Have a look and see what you think, but the balance seems to lean rather heavily towards gynocracy rather than gender equality to me.

As a consequence I am assuming that the NSW Government has no intention of pursuing a corresponding and similar process in relation to men’s economic opportunities. I hope that one day it will pay more than mere lip service to the notion of gender equality, and do so.

The information that I would like to present in relation to each of your designated outcome areas (for women) now follows.

Early childhood education reform and care

‘On boys and education’
‘No place for feminist propaganda in our schools or universities’, and
‘Is child abuse a gendered crime too?’

Equity and respect at work

‘Harassment and discrimination in business and the workplace: Surprise, surprise, it goes both ways’

‘Recruitment bias favours hiring female staff’

‘On affirmative action and the imposition of gender quotas’, and

‘Organisations with women at the helm perform better (so they say)’

Economic security for women

‘When banks divert from banking to social engineering’
‘Achieving personal financial security is important for everyone. Dodgy research helps no-one’, and
‘On taxation and the ‘Female Economy’’

On the basis that your agency has chosen to completely disregard the interests and the welfare of one half of the community (in this case, men and boys) then I anticipate that you would support my right – in the context of this submission – to do likewise. Looking towards the future … I suggest losing the unfortunate ideological bias and trying to do better. For all our sakes.

And finally, a few parting words and diagrams regarding the male perspective:

For every 100 women

#GenderEqualityWhenItSuits: A submission to the Review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012
Re-instatement of the Women’s Budget Statement in Australia? Bring it on, but consider men too
Prediction: No college graduation speaker will mention the 29% 'gender college degree gap' for the Class of 2018 | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

Accelerating Women (Telstra Business Awards)

Australian telecom behemoth ‘Telstra’ runs a program they’ve entitled the “Best of Business Awards”, within which there are eight categories. One of these categories specifically relates to gender, and it’s called ‘Accelerating Women’.

It’s said to be for “businesses actively challenging exclusion and inequality to create meaningful and lasting equity for women” (Source).

There is no award category specifically for men and/or boys. Why? Because males are doing so well in society that they don’t need (let alone deserve) any encouragement?

I’m not sure, so let’s ask them. (Done)

If and when they choose to respond then rest assured that I will post details here. Alternately should this post remain unchanged from this day forth, then you may confidently assume this organisation to be little more than a biased virtue-signaling joke.

Draft National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032

The Australian Government is developing a National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 to replace the existing National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010–2022.

The deadline for public submissions was 25 February 2022.

Firstly, here is a link to a copy of the draft Plan

“The draft National Plan has been developed through consultation with victim-survivors, specialist services, representatives from the health, law and justice sectors, business, and community groups, all levels of government and other experts. This consultation opportunity builds upon previous consultations including:

I prepared a brief submission using the online questionnaire format which was relatively quick and painless, however I couldn’t easily save a copy to reproduce on this page.

Below are just some notes that I made earlier on in the process:

Let’s start nice and simple with a word search of the draft Plan looking for the terms ‘male victim’ and/or ‘female perpetrator’ and/or ‘abusive women’. How about a reference to the best known/established Australian organisation that represent male victims of domestic violence, the One in Three group? And what about the important term ‘bilateral violence’? Ok, surprise, surprise, no hits anywhere there.

Normally these sort of documents begin with a section entitled ‘What is domestic violence?’, and then trot out the tired claim that ‘whilst sometimes men may be victims of domestic violence, the overwhelming majority of domestic violence is perpetrated by men against women’ (and then aim to use this as justification for ignoring male victims for the remainder of the document). The draft Plan gets around that believability problem by entitling the relevant section as ‘What is violence against women and children?’, creating the impression that domestic violence is limited to that one form of action or behaviour. (Page 10)

The first modification of the Plan that I requested was a change in its name to the ‘National Plan to Reduce Domestic Violence in the Community’ (or similar). The current name of the plan is a ridiculous, outdated affront to the victims of abusive women/girls and their families.

Next, the draft Plan features a section identified as “Drivers of violence against women and children” (Page 12), wherein the authors note:

Violence against women is not caused by any single factor. However, Australia’s national guide to prevent violence against women, Change the Story, sets out that violence against women has distinct gendered drivers. Evidence points to four factors that most consistently predict or drive violence against women and explain its gendered patterns.

  • Driver 1: Condoning of violence against women.
  • Driver 2: Men’s control of decision-making and limits to women’s independence in public and private life.
  • Driver 3: Rigid gender stereotyping and dominant forms of masculinity.
  • Driver 4: Male peer relations and cultures of masculinity that emphasise aggression, dominance and control.

The primary driver of violence against women is gender inequality, however this also intersects with other forms of discrimination and disadvantage that can marginalise people and make it more likely that some groups of women and children will experience greater levels of violence than others.

But what of two factors that studies have shown to be absolutely seminal – although not in feminist-conducted research – in their influence with regards to fostering domestic violence? These are the initiation and routine use of violence by the female partner, and the childhood experiences of parental neglect and abuse of those people who become adult male abusers?

More related online references:

Ministers agree on ‘pathway’ finalising national plan to end violence against women and children (22 July 2022)

Advocates weigh in on new plan for ending violence against women (11 July 2022)

Jobs for the girls

This is a job description that appeared in the Queensland Government’s website for vacant employment positions in December 2021.

You might well ask, ‘are there any equivalent positions available in relation to the prevention of violence against men and boys?’. Dream on!

Principal Program Officer, Justice and Attorney-General, Office for Women and Violence Prevention

The Office for Women and Violence Prevention support women and girls to participate fully in the social, economic and cultural opportunities that Queensland offers; and to achieve their full potential.

We deliver services and supports that victims and their children need to be free of violence, and that ensure perpetrators are held to account for their actions and given opportunity to change their behaviour.

We also drive reform to strengthen community and whole of government responses to gendered violence by changing community attitudes and behaviours, integrating service responses and strengthening justice system responses.

The proposed annual salary is $112,502 – $120,480

From the position description:

“The team leads and delivers the Investing in Queensland Women grant program, utilizing tools such as Smartygrants and P2i. We lead and support Queensland Government sponsorship agreements with high profile partners such as the Women of the World Festivals and the Australian Women in Music Awards to ensure benefits are delivered for Queensland women and girls. We also liaise with community groups and organisations across Queensland to engage the community on a range of initiatives that promote and protect the rights, interests, leadership and well-being of women and girls.”


Australia’s E-Safety Office: A potentially sound initiative now awash with feminist kool-aid

What finally prompted me to write this post was a tweet issued by the Australian Human Rights Commission yesterday about ‘Scam Awareness Week’, with an associated forum apparently being run by a group called the eSafety office.

I mean to say, imagine an agency heavily funded by tax-payers (predominantly male) to support and protect all Australians, but which devotes the overwhelming majority of its efforts on services for women/girls … sounds like a potentially scam-rich environment to me. And who better qualified to champion such a model than the #AHRC?

The Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner was opened on the 1 July 2015, with an initial budget allocation of $2.4 million per annum. My, my, how it has grown since. They described themselves in the following manner:

“The Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner is a one-stop-shop for online safety. The Office provides Australians a range of up-to-date information and resources, coupled with a comprehensive complaints system to assist children who experience serious cyberbullying.” Sounds good so far.

“The eSafety Commissioner (eSafety) is Australia’s national independent regulator for online safety” (Source). Their mission is to “safeguard Australians at risk from online harms“. Not ‘women’ mind you, but ‘Australians’. The key legislation that it operates under is the Enhancing Online Safety Act, 2015, but in its Plan it’s noted that its “remit has been broadened since our establishment four years ago” (p3). I’d suggest that perhaps it’s narrowed, in fact.

eSafety is an independent statutory office supported by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). It’s budget, courtesy of Australian tax-payers, is considerable. This year, for example, their allocation includes $21 million for “a women’s online package” (Source).

ACMA/eSafety currently reports to the Hon. Paul Fletcher MP, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts.

The e-Safety Strategy doesn’t seem to hammer home a strong bias towards barracking for women/girls versus men and boys – just a few mentions re: gender – in fact. Under ‘Programs’ for example it mentions the provision of support for “those who are most susceptible to online harm. These include women experiencing domestic violence …” (p8). And men experiencing domestic violence aren’t harassed online? Oh, sorry, I digress. The Plan also notes that “in 2017 parliament expanded our remit to all Australians” (p12).

Now let’s briefly look, mainly with reference to their web site and primary Twitter account (@eSafetyOffice), at what the Commission actually does nowadays. And how it interprets the term “all Australians“. A good place to start is the e-Safety women’s page … because “all women have a right to be safe online“. And no, there isn’t an e-Safety men’s page. I’d suggest browsing the women’s page now, before continuing with this post.

See, for example, the paper entitled ‘Lifeline or weapon? How technology is used to control and silence women‘ (7 September 2021) which is one of the listed papers and media releases with a gender focus. Nowhere is mention made of women as perpetrators and/or males as victims, and that’s not because such folk constitute rare aberrations. It’s essentially because of the pervasive , and largely unchallenged, influence of feminist ideology. Minister, are you awake?

Next you might perhaps take a look at ‘Understanding the attitudes and motivations
of adults who engage in image-based abuse‘ (12 September 2019). More than 50 mentions of the term ‘men’ here, but all such references relate to portraying men as perpetrators of abusive behaviour and/or as attendees of behaviour change programs. No women are presented in this manner – not one. And yet – reverting to real life now – look at the significant number of court appearances of women for ‘revenge porn’ – targeting both men and other women (examples here).

eSafety

What follows now are some snippets of information drawn from the 2020/21 annual reports for the ACMA and eSafety:

The word ‘women’ appears 62 times in the report whilst ‘men’ appears 0 times.

The gender ratio of Authority members who are male/female is 2:7, and the gender ratio of Executive Management members who are male/female is 1:6.

The annual base salary of the (female) CEO = $344,631, and the annual base salary for nominated ‘Key Management Personnel’ = $2,656,056 (this group includes seven females and one male).

The budgeted revenue from government for ACMA/eSafety in 2020/21 was $100,615,000 (p161 of Annual Report)

In the ‘Commissioner’s Foreword’, the number of references to men/boys was 0 (p201 of Annual Report), whereas in ‘Our year at a glance’, the number of references to men/boys was 0 (p204 of Annual Report)

(Update 7 July 2022: A must-read article by Bettina Arndt)

Finally, I’ll now run through the corresponding programs and consultancies that the Office thoughtfully provided specifically for the assistance of men and boys …

<the sound of crickets chirping>

Oh, and news just to hand, the eSafety Commissioner’s contract has just been extended for a further five years.

Thank goodness, presumably that means there’ll be more time to reach out and help women like this:

Influencer slams ‘jealous women’ for posting ‘hate comments’ (11 March 2022)

Some other relevant posts in this blog:

Regarding online harassment

Fudging the figures to support the feminist narrative

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