The federal Marriage Act Sect 46(1) always required celebrants to provide a definition of marriage as part of the ceremony. The wording required is “Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life“, or “words to that effect” (Source)
The percentage of the Australian population who self-identify as gay or lesbian is uncertain, but is probably in the range of 4-6%.
This month Australians were given the opportunity to vote on the issue of same-sex marriage (‘SSM’) in Australia via a postal survey. The postal survey asked a single question that question could only be answered with a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’. The question was “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?”.
I voted ‘no’, and no, it’s not because I am hateful or homophobic. Does that make me a hypocrite or a liar? No it doesn’t, and I think it’s simplistic to the point of childishness for anyone to suggest otherwise.
The linked video clips show separate incidents where ‘yes’ voters aggressively harangue people holding ‘It’s OK to vote no’ signs (example 1/example 2/ example 3). Just as with Trump/Clinton supporters in USA, it’s not the conservatives (typically labelled ‘far right’) who are behaving aggressively.
Some readers will be asking “How is this a men’s issue?“. No doubt there are gay men who would appreciate having the option to marry in preference to the alternatives already available to them. I mean them no disrespect. I was motivated to write this post mainly due to the parallels with how the broader gender debate is playing out, recognising this to be a major obstacle to achieving recognition of men’s issues and true gender equality.
The SSM postal vote is far from being a worthy model of the way to create legislation or govern the country. Our politicians must be told this in very clear and unambiguous terms.
At an estimated cost of $122 million it is also an incredibly wasteful exercise. The propensity of our state and federal government to convene Royal Commissions or Inquiries in order to delay or avoid making difficult decisions is a long-standing embarrassment, but compared to the SSM vote they are a bargain.
Further, the SSM vote is almost certain to be ineffective, not least because either the government and/or the ‘yes’ lobby or ‘no’ lobby will not accept the result. In particular, you can bet your bottom dollar that if the ‘no’ vote gets up on the day, then we are set to witness a replay of the Hillary Clinton loss all over again.
A draft bill was prepared some time ago, but I understand that no commitment has been made that this version will be put up for parliamentary vote should the ‘yes’ vote prevail.
The voting paper asks “Should the law be changed …?” What will an answer to a question this vague tell our politicians that they could not judge for themselves in the context of a parliamentary vote?
So exactly how will the primary enabling legislation (the Marriage Act) be changed? What other legislation and regulations will subsequently need to be amended, and in what manner? What will be the likely tangible flow-on effect of these changes for ordinary Australians, for example in terms of financial costs/benefits?
If this were about a major infrastructure project then all relevant facts (or at least, estimates) would be set out for objective consideration. Instead the scope of discussion in relation to same-sex marriage has been, for the most part, remarkably narrow. Alternately tugging on heart strings/shaming those with alternative views, or dishing out some bible quotes, does not constitute an intelligent political debate.
Why so little discussion, for example, of what has happened in those countries that have approved SSM? (see here for discussion of the UK example, with related comments by Rowan Dean here)
“The destructiveness of identity politics is that it poisons relations between human beings by claiming that historic injustices require civic inequalities to remedy them today. This requires that some groups be classified as victims and others as villains”
“Because part of this strategy is to provoke an equally irrational response from the Yes campaign”. Joe, wake up to yourself mate! No-one is manipulating the ‘Yes’ bloc into performing their special brand of craziness. No-one needs to – it’s what people in this sociopolitical milieu do now. And not just with this issue, but many others. For a recent Australian example just look at my post regarding the ‘Red Pill’ movie.
On the issue of conflating the right to marry with other issues, which Mr Lau had also raised, Ms Wong said conflating issues was a tactic of the “No” campaign. “The ‘No’ campaign is finding every other issue to talk about,” she said. “It’s a deliberate scare campaign, and I think it’s a tactic Australians are seeing through. And it’s a disappointing tactic.”
Leftists/feminists have no problem with conflating issues when it suits – the most common being the feminists=women furphy. In this case what Penny is really railing against is that other related issues might be considered, issues outside of the narrow parameters for debate approved by people such as herself.
Sure some of these factors will be over-reach or downright wrong. Most however will be legitimate and deserving of serious consideration in reaching an informed decision on this particular matter. And the many others that will follow.
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):
Nor does contemporary research typically investigate impacts on males and/or attitudes towards men (examples here, here, 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:
To suppress Evidence
To avoid obtaining data inconsistent with the Patriarchal Dominance Theory
To cite only studies that show Male Perpetration
To conclude that results support Feminist beliefs when they do not
To create “evidence” by citation
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)
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 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.
“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.
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’.
“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:
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
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):
One of the most egregious, shameless statistical falsehoods I’ve seen in a long time, one that thoroughly shames @MayorofLondon & @TenderUKin 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
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.
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.
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’.
‘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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
(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)
“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.
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.
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
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.
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 1, example 2, example 3, example 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.”
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
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.
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.
“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)
These final linked articles address the predominant influence asserted by feminists in conducting research, and in the subsequent formulation of DV policy:
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.
“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.”
“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.”
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:
I came across an article some time ago that detailed the results of a study that looked for any bias shown by Human Resources (HR) personnel when recruiting new staff.
“… we’re talking about the human resource professionals who, thumbing through resumes, act as the gate-keepers to employment around the world. Are they men or women? Because sadly, oh-so-uncomfortably, it matters.”
The researchers detected a significant incidence of bias. They found that, for example, more attractive men where often selected in preference to less attractive men whilst less attractive women were chosen in preference to more attractive women. The researchers considered and disallowed the ‘dumb blonde’ stereotype (i.e. attractive women as being more likely to be stupid) as a reason for this discrimination.
“So the cause of the discrimination must lie elsewhere. Human resources departments tend to be staffed mostly by women. Indeed, in the Israeli study, 93% of those tasked with selecting whom to invite for an interview were female. The researchers’ unavoidable—and unpalatable—conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the women to discriminate against pretty candidates.”
It is becoming increasingly apparent that gender discrimination that may have begun as bias demonstrated by particular individuals has become a systemic practice.
It should come as no surprise that the domestic violence industry, for example, features many organisations that include few or no men in either their boards or their ranks of employees (some examples here). In June 2021 one such organisation, Women’s Safety NSW, advertised two positions – Policy Officer and CEO. They state “We are hiring a Policy Officer to join our team of fabulous women! If you are passionate about women’s justice, safety and wellbeing please click the link to read more.” Both ads featured the proviso that “Women’s Safety NSW considers being a woman a genuine occupational qualification for this position under s 31 of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW)”
Cern scientist: ‘Physics built by men – not by invitation’ (1 October 2018) Scientist Alessandro Strumia earns feminist and White Knight outrage because he suggested, amongst other things, that female scientists were given a distinct advantage in the recruitment process.
“We are proud to be recognised by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency as an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality for the past 7 consecutive years.” This has to be a joke, right?
“Are lawsuits like these a good thing, or are they going to stall efforts to move towards more diversity in Silicon Valley?” (Because fighting discrimination is only OK when it’s the right kind of discrimination, huh?)
“He also found that less than 5 percent of men working part time received callbacks. However, the study found no negative effect for part-time employment among women.”
Tasmania’s top public servant targets gender parity (17 February 2016) Given that 70% of the state’s public service is female, will Greg Johannes also be writing to head of agencies with >50% women to ask them to recruit more men? Gee, I doubt it.
Can anyone suggest other sources that explore this issue? I would be particularly interested in any studies that looked at HR staff displaying discrimination against older job applicants. In my experience most HR staff are not only females, but younger females, and I think it’s quite likely that they display an equal or greater degree of bias against older job applicants (as they appear to display against men).
