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).
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)
And I’m thinking ‘Wow, how one-sided is this?’ … Online misogynistic content and harmful algorithms drive new anti-domestic violence push (16 June 2024) Misandry? Effect on girls? Witness the feminist frenzy that’s happening here
Some other relevant posts in this blog:
Fudging the figures to support the feminist narrative
Australian taxpayer funded organisations that do little/nothing for men (other than demonising them)