“The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) is a Melbourne-based Australian Government statutory agency established in 1980 under the Family Law Act 1975.
The Institute has a proud record of high-quality, responsive and impartial research into the wellbeing of Australian families. Our vision is to make a positive contribution to the wellbeing of Australian families by advancing understanding of the factors affecting Australian families and communicating findings to policy makers, service providers and the broader community.
The Institute operates within the portfolio of the Department of Social Services (DSS) and is responsible to the Minister for Social Services. The Institute has ongoing relationships with various other government agencies, policy makers and the community sector. Staff at the Institute are employed under the Public Service Act 1999.” (Source)
The latest annual report for the AIFS tells us that it burnt through almost eighteen million taxpayer dollars in financial year 2015/16, and that as at 30 June 2016, there were 75 staff (3/4 of whom were female).
Regrettably, the Institute appears to have a strongly feminist orientation and corresponding anti-male bias. Even more regrettably, it is but one of dozens of publicly-funded organisations of similar persuasion.
In June 2017 the AIFS issued a publication entitled ‘Fathers who use violence‘. And no, for reasons that are not acknowledged, there is no corresponding document regarding abusive mothers. Of course the document should have been entitled ‘Parents who use violence‘, but apparently that would have constituted a little too much gender equality for those in the driver’s seat.
Another indicator of the extent of feminist bias in the AIFS is the inclusion within their web site of contributions by Michael Flood (example) who holds views highly antagonistic towards the men’s rights movement. In this example it would have been far more appropriate for Dr. Flood’s view to be presented with a counter-argument provided by someone from the men’s rights movement, but clearly that concept didn’t make it past the powers-that-be (if indeed it was even considered at all). More on Dr. Flood and his tortured relationship with the men’s rights movement here, here, here and here.
Yet more gender bias on display in this report on female sex offending by Senior Research Officer Mary Stathopoulos. Reddit poster ‘DougDante‘ comments thus:
“The bias was clear in the introduction. “the debate”, which is really about providing boys and men equal access to services for victims of domestic and sexual violence, constructed as if doing so would imply that police must be forced to waste resources trying to identify equal numbers of victims and perps of each gender, “is dangerous”.
Denying boy and man victims services and silencing them – not dangerous.
The survey also highlighted shocking disparities in New Zealand where only 0.6% of convictions were against women offenders, more than 5 times lower than other nations. Are women there more moral, or is that a female rapist’s paradise?
Perhaps I missed it, but the authors did not recognize that shocking number a signal of a systematic rape culture that ignores women’s sex crimes, and used it to justify ignoring boy and man victims.
Excuses are often made for female abusers such as in the report when they stated, “most striking feature is a history of previous victimisation”, but male abusers have the same histories!
This is why it’s important that no one be allowed to abuse any child or adult.”
See also:
Footnote as at 24 October 2022: I responded to a Tweet issued by AIFS concerning recent research undertaken by them which appeared to have an anti-male bias.
I asked AIFS, “So all demographics are at risk but you’ve only studied men. Presumably it’s important to portray women in a positive light, whilst avoiding the risk of uncovering data inconsistent with feminist imagery, yes?”.
Credit to them for replying, but they did not answer my query as to why only men were studied in a project about problem gamblers:
“Hi there, this data comes from Ten to Men: The Longitudinal Study of Male Health, which is focused on male health. You can find out more at tentomen.org.au“
Gender bias in Australian Institute of Family Studies Experiences of Separated Parents Study (2 November 2017)
Footnote as at 19 January 2022: Sometime this week I was blocked from the AIFS Twitter account. I have today written to the AIFS asking them the reason why I was blocked, and requesting a copy of their relevant policy. l will post a copy of their response as and when one is received from them. In the meantime you might be interested in reading this post and/or this post.
Footnote as at 20 January 2022: The AIFS lifted the Twitter block & stated as follows: “Thank you for your enquiry. We apologise for blocking your Twitter account as this was done inadvertently. We have now unblocked your account.”
