All things Politics

[DinoSoar]

It is recognised that this is a fraught topic for any number of you posting here. Some of you will have family in Israel or Palestine. Some of you will have connections to either side of the conflict. What you need to understand is that this site has rules governing posting standards and the appropriate way to talk to other posters, and you will abide by them.

How this interacts with this thread is that the following will result in your post being deleted, with a recurrence of the same behaviour resulting in (depending on severity) a threadban for a week and a day off:

• direct labelling of someone as anti-semitic or a terrorist sympathiser for posting that is merely critical of Israel's response over time. Israel has the right to defend themselves from violence, but that does not mean that Israel has carte blanche to attack disproportionately towards people under their care.
• deliberate goading or flippant responses, designed to get people reacting to your posting emotionally.
• abuse.
• attempts to turn this into a Left vs Right shitfight.
• Use the word 'Nazi' in here, you had better be able to justify it in the post you're making and the comparison had better be apt. Godwin's law is in full effect for the purposes of this thread; if you refer to Nazis, you've lost whatever argument you're involved in.
• Any defense of Hamas' actions on the basis of justification. There's no justification for genocide, regardless of whether or not they have the power to do so.

Please recognise that this is a difficult time for all involved, and some level of sensitivity is absolutely required to permit discussion to flow. From time to time, mods will reach out to specific posters and do some welfare checks; we may even give posters who get a bit too involved some days off to give people some time to cool down. This is not a reflection on you as a poster, merely that this is an intense subject.

I get that this is a fairly intense topic about which opinion can diverge rather significantly. If you feel you cannot be respectful in your disagreement with another poster, it is frequently better to refuse to engage than it is to take up the call.

From this point, any poster who finds themselves directly insulting another poster will find themselves receiving a threadban and an infraction, with each subsequent reoccurance resulting in steadily more points added to your account.

It has also become apparent that this needs to be said: just because someone moderates this forum that does not hold them to a different standard of posting than anyone else. All of us were posters first, and we are allowed to hold opinions on this and share them on this forum.

Treat each other with the respect each of you deserve.

Maggie5 Gone Critical Anzacday Jen2310

 

[Black_White]

I’m over the politician weasel words and “mental health” excuses. How do we, or the media, allow our elected officials to ignore an issue affecting pretty much 100% of 50% of the population?
Ask any woman if they have felt sexually abused, be it physical or verbal, and I think you will find it extremely hard to find one who would say “never”.
I‘m a male. A male coming of age in the 70’s. I’m as guilty of these crimes as much as any of my peers.
But I will stand up, apologise for my actions, own my misdoings, and try to learn from those mistakes.
I refuse to hide away and use my mental health as an excuse to deny scrutiny.
I would love to see my elected officials do the same. They sit in our various parliaments because we believe they live their life to a higher standard than us. And we elect them with that belief.

 

[domus]

I’m over the politician weasel words and “mental health” excuses. How do we, or the media, allow our elected officials to ignore an issue affecting pretty much 100% of 50% of the population?
Ask any woman if they have felt sexually abused, be it physical or verbal, and I think you will find it extremely hard to find one who would say “never”.
I‘m a male. A male coming of age in the 70’s. I’m as guilty of these crimes as much as any of my peers.
But I will stand up, apologise for my actions, own my misdoings, and try to learn from those mistakes.
I refuse to hide away and use my mental health as an excuse to deny scrutiny.
I would love to see my elected officials do the same. They sit in our various parliaments because we believe they live their life to a higher standard than us. And we elect them with that belief.

What crimes did you commit against women? What actions and misdoings are you talking about? I have never done anything to a woman or girl in my life which I have to apologise for. Talk about projection. Just because you did some shameful things in the past doesn't mean your peers did too. And why do you write as if females don't and haven't abused men or other women, either verbally or physically? Ask any man if he has ever been verbally abused or emotionally damaged by a woman. Ask any man if he has ever been physically assaulted by a woman and you will get a very similar response. It's just that no-one cares enough about blokes to ask the question.

And what is your definition of verbal and physical abuse? it seems to expand more every year." I felt uncomfortable when he smiled at me" could now be listed as sexual harassment or intimidation.

This endless, desperate need to create female victims is a cancer in our society. When you have a school captain giving a speech in which he says "Don't be boys, be human, and he is lauded and praised for saying it, you know our society is in a sick state. When boys are told to stand and apologise for things they have never done, we are crossing into Stalinist style behaviour.

 

[JB1975]

What crimes did you commit against women? What actions and misdoings are you talking about? I have never done anything to a woman or girl in my life which I have to apologise for. Talk about projection. Just because you did some shameful things in the past doesn't mean your peers did too. And why do you write as if females don't and haven't abused men or other women, either verbally or physically? Ask any man if he has ever been verbally abused or emotionally damaged by a woman. Ask any man if he has ever been physically assaulted by a woman and you will get a very similar response. It's just that no-one cares enough about blokes to ask the question.

And what is your definition of verbal and physical abuse? it seems to expand more every year." I felt uncomfortable when he smiled at me" could now be listed as sexual harassment or intimidation.

This endless, desperate need to create female victims is a cancer in our society. When you have a school captain giving a speech in which he says "Don't be boys, be human, and he is lauded and praised for saying it, you know our society is in a sick state. When boys are told to stand and apologise for things they have never done, we are crossing into Stalinist style behaviour.

Stalinist-style behaviour?

Makes sense, Stalin was quite a fan of collective apologies after all...

My dear domus, to complain about conflated ideas in one paragraph while escalating with some hyperbole in the next doesn't seem an especially useful way of advancing discussion.

 

[domus]

Stalinist-style behaviour?

Makes sense, Stalin was quite a fan of collective apologies after all...

My dear domus, to complain about conflated ideas in one paragraph while escalating with some hyperbole in the next doesn't seem an especially useful way of advancing discussion.

The notion of collective guilt (regardless of the demographic targeted) is pure evil. All tyrants and dictators employ this tactic. When you have school principals ordering boys to apologise for something they have not done and showing them a speech which included the words, Don't be boys, be human we are no longer talking theory- the dehumanizing has already begun.

 

[TradeDraft]

Coalition is Shitting on the NDIS

Secret documents show department inserted chapter into NDIS review

The independence of a controversial NDIS recommendation is in doubt after drafts appear to reveal the relevant chapter was inserted by the department.

www.smh.com.au

 

[domus]

I didn't attend any of yesterday's Marches 4 Justice, but I know plenty who did, and it was a day in which the pain and anger of a lot of people was heard.

Feminism has achieved a lot of good in Australia, and as a country we might have a tendency to rest on our laurels, to think that we're an equal country and that we're doing alright.

Yesterday, nearly 900 names of women and children killed by men's violence since 2008 were inscribed on a scroll and unfurled before the crowd, which tells us clearly that we haven't done enough.

The Morrison government is copping flak for Christian Porter and Brittany Higgins, but little doubt that the problems run deeper than whichever bunch of careerists happen to be in power at any given moment.

But the fact that they only listed the women and kids killed by men demonstrates just how politicized feminism is. If you genuinely cared about victims of family violence you wouldn't exclude all of the men killed by their partner or family member or the countless kids killed by their mums.

For a comparison, let's imagine a group decided to march in the hope to bring attention to the shocking suicide rates in Australia. This is a scourge which overwhelmingly affects men. Imagine this group only read out the names of boys and men who have killed themselves and refused to mention females simply because there were less of them. Whenever suicide is discussed it is never presented as a "gendered issue" even though men are killing themselves at three times the rate of women. I agree with this approach. Every suicide is a tragedy. The fact that over 2000 males kill themselves each year and around 600 females kill themselves does not in any way lessen the horror of families who lost a mum, daughter or sister. Sadly, family violence doesn't take this approach. Despite the fact that a third of all victims are male, men are entirely invisible in any government funded campaign. When Rosie Batty led candlelight vigils she only read the names of women and children killed by men. This is an indictment on all who claim to care about family violence.

How often do you hear or read this mantra? We must protect our women and children from Family Violence. The very clear and inaccurate inference is that men and only men harm our children and women never perpetrate violence. Both lies. Yet these statements are constantly used by our government, media and police.

Male victims get no funding. Women get hundreds of millions of dollars. Governments are supposed to care for all of their constituents regardless of their race, gender or creed but this is not the case.

When that poor woman and her family were burned to death by her husband last year the community outrage and media coverage continued for weeks. We saw tv programs, editorials, radio interviews and endless discussion of the problem with masculinity. No-one but a handful of people realized that three different men were burned to death by their wives during the same year. Why? Because the media barely mentioned their deaths. A few months ago another mum stabbed her three kids to death. The story was covered by the media for one day before disappearing from sight. No TV editorials, no references to women and their propensity for killing their children (which is of course the right approach given the tiny minority of women who do this). The fact that a tiny minority of men do the same doesn't stop the press, feminist groups, police and our media from branding all men responsible.

When the mum in Cairns hacked her 8 kids to death, Batty gave a speech to the National press a week or two after and made no reference to it as she branded family violence a gendered issue which occurs as a result of toxic masculinity. Hundreds of men have died during the same period you mentioned and I believe more kids have died at the hands of their mum than dad in the past decade. So how do you imagine the grieving fathers feel about the fact their children's' names are not called out at these marches and vigils which claim to care about victims?

The fact that people who claim to be compassionate and care about the issue of family violence can be so selective as to who warrants their compassion bewilders me.

These words by a politician, Jewell Drury not long after that shocking incident sum up my feelings. I might add her list doesn't include some more recent murders by mums.


Floral tributes have been laid today for the victims of yesterday’s murder with public outcries cursing the man to hell.
The Fathers Facebook videos are being used and spammed on every network interviewing “so called experts “ as they blanket this tragedy as yet another assault on women and their children.

In stark contrast the murders of children by their mothers below were represented as a mothers tragic cry for help or a woman who couldn’t cope with the pressures of the family and of course the mother MUST have suffered DV at the hands of the Father, which has been found to be completely untrue in all of these cases below……

Tamara Gurney is currently awaiting trial after allegedly murdering her three year old Isla Gurney.
The mother was charged with murdering the child and then setting her daughters bedroom on fire, the same day she was to give the child to the child’s Father after he was awarded full custody.

Akon Guode, killed her three youngest children by deliberately driving her car into a lake.
Guode was last year jailed for 26½ years for driving into Lake Gladman in Wyndham Vale with four of her children in the car on April 8, 2015.

Milka Djurasovic, 38, was found by police with self-inflicted wounds at Mullaloo Beach hours after the bodies of her daughters, 10-year-old Mia and six-year-old Tiana, were discovered at the family’s Madeley home in Perth’s northern suburbs.
She was charged with two counts of murder after bludgeoning her daughters with a hammer.

Charmaine McLeod, 35, murdered her four children Aaleyn, 6, Matilda, 5, Wyatt, 4 and Zaidok, 2, when she deliberately collided head-on with a truck on May 27, 2019.
Ms McLeod was also killed.

A Horrifying massacre took place at Cairns home six days before Christmas 2014.
Eight children aged between 2 and 14 were stabbed to death by Raina Thaiday, mother of seven of the children and the aunt of one.

A mother charged with the murder of her eight-year-old son died in jail.
Joanne Finch, 42, from Tootgarook on the Mornington Peninsula, was charged with murder over the death of her son Brodie Moran, 8, at their seaside home in March.

Mother, Deirdre Morley Murdered her three young children by sedating them using injections before they died of suffocation or lethal overdose.

Makavelii Leoni, 13 months, was not breathing when he was pulled from the bath
His mother Lina Daley, 20, has a history of drug use but claims she is not to blame
Bite marks, bruises, head graze and a possible burn mark found baby’s body
Ms Daley insists she’s not to blame but admitted to drug use and suicide attempt.

Newly divorced mother, 39, shot dead her three children all aged under 12 before turning the weapon on herself.
Ashley Auzenne, 39, was found dead Tuesday along with her children.
Her divorce with the children’s father, Murvin, had been finalized just last week
Murvin Auzenne Jr. said his estranged wife was ‘was very upset with the result’

These are just a few cases of hundreds I have found.

I really believe it is time to check ourselves.

Why is it when a woman kills her children or husband , societies first thought is that the mother needed help because of mental illness and points the finger at the Father?
They think of her with compassion and sorrow.

When a man kills his children or his partner, he is a selfish , evil monster who deserves an eternity in hell.

All acts are despicable but we can’t have it both ways .

The truth is, there is an epidemic of parents killing their children .

Why is this happening ?

We must be outraged at every murder of a child and not merely pick and choose the ones that Fathers have committed.

This isn’t about “ a narrative “ that all men are violent and all women are victims like many would have us believe .

Men and women can be violent.
Violence has no gender .
So why has yesterday’s tragedy become another assault under the banner “ mens war on women”

Every child in these stories is a victim of family violence, so why are the family violence laws gendered?

Why don’t the family violence laws reflect women and men as perpetrators of violence.

It’s time to call out the double standard that exists .

Let’s support ALL victims of domestic and family violence regardless of age, gender or sexuality .

Let’s identify the true narrative that Violence is not gendered .

You are right, don't live in an equal society.

 

[JB1975]

But the fact that they only listed the women and kids killed by men demonstrates just how politicized feminism is. If you genuinely cared about victims of family violence you wouldn't exclude all of the men killed by their partner or family member or the countless kids killed by their mums.

For a comparison, let's imagine a group decided to march in the hope to bring attention to the shocking suicide rates in Australia. This is a scourge which overwhelmingly affects men. Imagine this group only read out the names of boys and men who have killed themselves and refused to mention females simply because there were less of them. Whenever suicide is discussed it is never presented as a "gendered issue" even though men are killing themselves at three times the rate of women. I agree with this approach. Every suicide is a tragedy. The fact that over 2000 males kill themselves each year and around 600 females kill themselves does not in any way lessen the horror of families who lost a mum, daughter or sister. Sadly, family violence doesn't take this approach. Despite the fact that a third of all victims are male, men are entirely invisible in any government funded campaign. When Rosie Batty led candlelight vigils she only read the names of women and children killed by men. This is an indictment on all who claim to care about family violence.

How often do you hear or read this mantra? We must protect our women and children from Family Violence. The very clear and inaccurate inference is that men and only men harm our children and women never perpetrate violence. Both lies. Yet these statements are constantly used by our government, media and police.

Male victims get no funding. Women get hundreds of millions of dollars. Governments are supposed to care for all of their constituents regardless of their race, gender or creed but this is not the case.

When that poor woman and her family were burned to death by her husband last year the community outrage and media coverage continued for weeks. We saw tv programs, editorials, radio interviews and endless discussion of the problem with masculinity. No-one but a handful of people realized that three different men were burned to death by their wives during the same year. Why? Because the media barely mentioned their deaths. A few months ago another mum stabbed her three kids to death. The story was covered by the media for one day before disappearing from sight. No TV editorials, no references to women and their propensity for killing their children (which is of course the right approach given the tiny minority of women who do this). The fact that a tiny minority of men do the same doesn't stop the press, feminist groups, police and our media from branding all men responsible.

When the mum in Cairns hacked her 8 kids to death, Batty gave a speech to the National press a week or two after and made no reference to it as she branded family violence a gendered issue which occurs as a result of toxic masculinity. Hundreds of men have died during the same period you mentioned and I believe more kids have died at the hands of their mum than dad in the past decade. So how do you imagine the grieving fathers feel about the fact their children's' names are not called out at these marches and vigils which claim to care about victims?

The fact that people who claim to be compassionate and care about the issue of family violence can be so selective as to who warrants their compassion bewilders me.

These words by a politician, Jewell Drury not long after that shocking incident sum up my feelings. I might add her list doesn't include some more recent murders by mums.


Floral tributes have been laid today for the victims of yesterday’s murder with public outcries cursing the man to hell.
The Fathers Facebook videos are being used and spammed on every network interviewing “so called experts “ as they blanket this tragedy as yet another assault on women and their children.

In stark contrast the murders of children by their mothers below were represented as a mothers tragic cry for help or a woman who couldn’t cope with the pressures of the family and of course the mother MUST have suffered DV at the hands of the Father, which has been found to be completely untrue in all of these cases below……

Tamara Gurney is currently awaiting trial after allegedly murdering her three year old Isla Gurney.
The mother was charged with murdering the child and then setting her daughters bedroom on fire, the same day she was to give the child to the child’s Father after he was awarded full custody.

Akon Guode, killed her three youngest children by deliberately driving her car into a lake.
Guode was last year jailed for 26½ years for driving into Lake Gladman in Wyndham Vale with four of her children in the car on April 8, 2015.

Milka Djurasovic, 38, was found by police with self-inflicted wounds at Mullaloo Beach hours after the bodies of her daughters, 10-year-old Mia and six-year-old Tiana, were discovered at the family’s Madeley home in Perth’s northern suburbs.
She was charged with two counts of murder after bludgeoning her daughters with a hammer.

Charmaine McLeod, 35, murdered her four children Aaleyn, 6, Matilda, 5, Wyatt, 4 and Zaidok, 2, when she deliberately collided head-on with a truck on May 27, 2019.
Ms McLeod was also killed.

A Horrifying massacre took place at Cairns home six days before Christmas 2014.
Eight children aged between 2 and 14 were stabbed to death by Raina Thaiday, mother of seven of the children and the aunt of one.

A mother charged with the murder of her eight-year-old son died in jail.
Joanne Finch, 42, from Tootgarook on the Mornington Peninsula, was charged with murder over the death of her son Brodie Moran, 8, at their seaside home in March.

Mother, Deirdre Morley Murdered her three young children by sedating them using injections before they died of suffocation or lethal overdose.

Makavelii Leoni, 13 months, was not breathing when he was pulled from the bath
His mother Lina Daley, 20, has a history of drug use but claims she is not to blame
Bite marks, bruises, head graze and a possible burn mark found baby’s body
Ms Daley insists she’s not to blame but admitted to drug use and suicide attempt.

Newly divorced mother, 39, shot dead her three children all aged under 12 before turning the weapon on herself.
Ashley Auzenne, 39, was found dead Tuesday along with her children.
Her divorce with the children’s father, Murvin, had been finalized just last week
Murvin Auzenne Jr. said his estranged wife was ‘was very upset with the result’

These are just a few cases of hundreds I have found.

I really believe it is time to check ourselves.

Why is it when a woman kills her children or husband , societies first thought is that the mother needed help because of mental illness and points the finger at the Father?
They think of her with compassion and sorrow.

When a man kills his children or his partner, he is a selfish , evil monster who deserves an eternity in hell.

All acts are despicable but we can’t have it both ways .

The truth is, there is an epidemic of parents killing their children .

Why is this happening ?

We must be outraged at every murder of a child and not merely pick and choose the ones that Fathers have committed.

This isn’t about “ a narrative “ that all men are violent and all women are victims like many would have us believe .

Men and women can be violent.
Violence has no gender .
So why has yesterday’s tragedy become another assault under the banner “ mens war on women”

Every child in these stories is a victim of family violence, so why are the family violence laws gendered?

Why don’t the family violence laws reflect women and men as perpetrators of violence.

It’s time to call out the double standard that exists .

Let’s support ALL victims of domestic and family violence regardless of age, gender or sexuality .

Let’s identify the true narrative that Violence is not gendered .

You are right, don't live in an equal society.

My own post referred to those aspects of the protests which expressed dismay about domestic violence, but just for completeness it should be noted that they were about much more, not least sexual assault.

At it's broadest, the protests were a comment on the way in which women are regarded by men. Plenty of people --including yourself-- might think that there's nothing much to be up in arms about, but that's the position of someone who is blind or determinedly ignorant.

Violence is gendered, I'd say. The fact that 95% or more of the violence in our society is committed by men tells us something about that.

It's also gendered in the nature of the violence.

Women do commit violence, quite often against children, but the fact that they give birth to those children and that they often endure physical and psychological complications from that process, and the fact that they almost always have primary responsibility for caring for those children, provides a rather different context for the violence which sometimes follows.

This is not the story of the men. Their violence is rarely the result of this sort of distress and despair. Sometimes it is an aggression which comes from outside the home, from their own history, from work, maybe from the loss of their football team, and often it mixes with alcohol and bursts upon one or more members of the household. Sometimes they're just sadistic a-holes who enjoy laying emotional siege to their family, keeping them all in permanent fear of violence and every once in a while backing it up with actual fury. My first step-father was a capable practitioner of that particular brand of shittiness.

Few men are primary carers, weighed down with any sort of post-partum difficulties or the mind-numbing boredom of looking after children. Instead, they are in the business of aggressive control, almost always underpinned by some sense that they have a right to control others, that violence is an acceptable or in any case frequently necessary tool for enforcing that control.

If we were to break down the violence committed by people dissatisfied with one or other aspect of the operation of the Family Court, I think we know that men would be overwhelmingly represented in those sad statistics.

Making the gendered distinction isn't about blaming men or absolving women (I know that you will take particular issue with that, because it's how you roll): it is primarily about understanding the issues and finding meaningful ways to address them.

I recently read a book about 1970s Australia, which in part talked about the increased awareness of violence committed by women against their children during that decade. That recognition brought efforts to create social and psychological support services for women who were at risk of causing harm, which remains an ongoing effort.

But the staggering amount of violence committed by men and the causes of that violence demands its own attention and its own sophisticated approach, and one element of it is to acknowledge and change men's attitudes.

You will continue to deny that there is a problem. You'll deny that you're denying there's a problem as well, by some flimsy suggestion that you are simply trying to acknowledge all violence and to counter the demonisation of men.

I know that you believe yourself, and you've written letters to people like Rosie Batty to let her know how misguided she is in her quest for change, and I know well enough that nothing I say here will shift your thinking one little bit.

But I don't give a f*** about changing your mind; I simply want to call it out for the demented mess that it is. It is a mind which glories in diminishing and obfuscating some of the worst aspects of what men can be, out of some ill-conceived and hopelessly fragile sense that all of what men are has come under attack.

 

[JB1975]

For a comparison, let's imagine a group decided to march in the hope to bring attention to the shocking suicide rates in Australia. This is a scourge which overwhelmingly affects men. Imagine this group only read out the names of boys and men who have killed themselves and refused to mention females simply because there were less of them.

It's worth addressing this point separately, because it gets used a lot by those types --like yourself-- who are looking for ways to cast men as victims, and because it has a special sort of ridiculousness.

Any broad-based consideration of suicide statistics that I've ever come across usually mentions and often focuses upon the fact that there is a pronounced gender division in suicides. Acknowledging this, programs have been devised to help men to talk about and deal with whatever stressors lead them to considering an end to their life.

And so, your hypothetical group of oddballs who choose to only read the names of males would be seen for what they are, which is a deranged collection of loons bound together by their emotional and intellectual poverty and a perverse inclination to politicise suicide for their own warped ends.

 

[domus]

It's worth addressing this point separately, because it gets used a lot by those types --like yourself-- who are looking for ways to cast men as victims, and because it has a special sort of ridiculousness.

Any broad-based consideration of suicide statistics that I've ever come across usually mentions and often focuses upon the fact that there is a pronounced gender division in suicides. Acknowledging this, programs have been devised to help men to talk about and deal with whatever stressors lead them to considering an end to their life.

And so, your hypothetical group of oddballs who choose to only read the names of males would be seen for what they are, which is a deranged collection of loons bound together by their emotional and intellectual poverty and a perverse inclination to politicise suicide for their own warped

It's worth addressing this point separately, because it gets used a lot by those types --like yourself-- who are looking for ways to cast men as victims, and because it has a special sort of ridiculousness.

Any broad-based consideration of suicide statistics that I've ever come across usually mentions and often focuses upon the fact that there is a pronounced gender division in suicides. Acknowledging this, programs have been devised to help men to talk about and deal with whatever stressors lead them to considering an end to their life.

And so, your hypothetical group of oddballs who choose to only read the names of males would be seen for what they are, which is a deranged collection of loons bound together by their emotional and intellectual poverty and a perverse inclination to politicise suicide for their own warped ends.

You are genuinely unhinged. The feminist groups you lauded are doing the very thing you have labelled loopy if done by men concerned about suicide rates.
You have not explained why the names of male victims of family violence or children who died at the hands of their mum's should not be read alongside the women who died or children killed by men.
You are the perfect example off the contempt most people have for male suffering. You brand anyone who dares raise the fact that children are killed by mothers and men killed by family members and partners as some kind of mentally ill goofball.
It is disgusting. It is shameful.
Unlike you, I feel compassion for any adult or child who suffers any form of abuse
Please explain why you support the invisibilty of male victims and children who are victims of female violence.

Why does a request for compassion for everyone rather than a specific group draw such a vitriolic response?

 

[JB1975]

You are genuinely unhinged. The feminist groups you lauded are doing the very thing you have labelled loopy if done by men concerned about suicide rates.
You have not explained why the names of male victims of family violence or children who died at the hands of their mum's should not be read alongside the women who died or children killed by men.
You are the perfect example off the contempt most people have for male suffering. You brand anyone who dares raise the fact that children are killed by mothers and men killed by family members and partners as some kind of mentally ill goofball.
It is disgusting. It is shameful.
Unlike you, I feel compassion for any adult or child who suffers any form of abuse
Please explain why you support the invisibilty of male victims and children who are victims of female violence.

Why does a request for compassion for everyone rather than a specific group draw such a vitriolic response?

Most of your post makes no sense to me.

To answer the last question of your nonsense, which asks why 'a request for compassion for everyone rather than a specific group draw such a vitriolic response', it's pretty simple. The call for compassion for everyone is solely designed to make particular forms of suffering less visible and to actively undermine any campaign against them.

I don't know who you think you're kidding, but most people can see very clearly that it isn't a call for compassion at all: it's a pathetic effort to depict male violence as a feminist-driven fiction, and it is actually rather vicious in its intent.

 

[domus]

Most of your post makes no sense to me.

To answer the last question of your nonsense, which asks why 'a request for compassion for everyone rather than a specific group draw such a vitriolic response', it's pretty simple. The call for compassion for everyone is solely designed to make particular forms of suffering less visible and to actively undermine any campaign against them.

I don't know who you think you're kidding, but most people can see very clearly that it isn't a call for compassion at all: it's a pathetic effort to depict male violence as a feminist-driven fiction, and it is actually rather vicious in its intent.

What utter BS. You think you know me. You've got me all figured out. You have no idea who I am or what motivates me but it feels good to slot people into neat little categories and then dismiss them. How dare you infer I want to somehow distract attention away from helping women or sabotage efforts to improve their safety or health. What a sick perspective.

You never did explain how you would justify excluding the children slain by mothers to their grieving fathers. Why are their kids less worthy of honouring because their killer was female? The same can be said for men killed by their partners.

All I said was perfectly reasonable and logical. If you are having a march and you list all of the victims of family violence on what grounds could you possibly exclude a substantial number based upon their immutable characteristics. You accuse me of having an agenda. You have to be joking. I think people who deliberately exclude victims of violence because they don't fit a narrative are the people with a clear agenda.

 

[domus]

It's worth addressing this point separately, because it gets used a lot by those types --like yourself-- who are looking for ways to cast men as victims, and because it has a special sort of ridiculousness.

Any broad-based consideration of suicide statistics that I've ever come across usually mentions and often focuses upon the fact that there is a pronounced gender division in suicides. Acknowledging this, programs have been devised to help men to talk about and deal with whatever stressors lead them to considering an end to their life.

And so, your hypothetical group of oddballs who choose to only read the names of males would be seen for what they are, which is a deranged collection of loons bound together by their emotional and intellectual poverty and a perverse inclination to politicise suicide for their own warped ends.

Oddballs, types like yourself looking to cast men as victims- a special sort of ridiculousness. Deranged collection of loons. What's wrong with you?

You have the nerve to talk about politicizing an issue for political gain. What a frigging joke. You can't think of any groups who politicize violence on an almost daily basis? Talk about projection. A man kills a woman. For days afterward we have candlelight vigils, premiers and PM's lecturing us and telling all men they are responsible and must step up and do something about it. Collective guilt and blame every single time. Then the call for more funding and more laws and further restrictions on men. One English politician suggested a curfew for all men. But I'm the one politicizing an issue.

I find your views deeply unsettling.

I'm looking to cast men as victims says the man who would have you believe women are under siege in a society which treats them unfairly. Projection should be your second name.

 

[JB1975]

You never did explain how you would justify excluding the children slain by mothers to their grieving fathers. Why are their kids less worthy of honouring because their killer was female? The same can be said for men killed by their partners.

For future reference, I'm not obliged to answer a question simply because you ask it. I find most of your tangents, questions and hypotheticals completely irrelevant, and I'm content to make my own points without having to address yours.

But I'll respond to the above. As I mentioned before, the marches for justice were broadly about the need to address the attitudes of men, and especially the attitudes of men towards women. To put it another way, the very long list of names wasn't just about honouring the dead, it was about remembering the circumstances in which they died.

 

[JB1975]

Oddballs, types like yourself looking to cast men as victims- a special sort of ridiculousness. Deranged collection of loons. What's wrong with you?

You have the nerve to talk about politicizing an issue for political gain. What a frigging joke. You can't think of any groups who politicize violence on an almost daily basis? Talk about projection. A man kills a woman. For days afterward we have candlelight vigils, premiers and PM's lecturing us and telling all men they are responsible and must step up and do something about it. Collective guilt and blame every single time. Then the call for more funding and more laws and further restrictions on men. One English politician suggested a curfew for all men. But I'm the one politicizing an issue.

I find your views deeply unsettling.

I'm looking to cast me as victims says the man who would have you believe women are under siege in a society which treats them unfairly. Projection should be your second name.

I find your views unsettling as well. I think they're a f****** horror show. I think it's nice to point out and emphasise these sorts of similarities between us.

One difference between us is that you deny your agenda, and I'm happy to claim mine. I believe that a lot of men have an unhealthy relationship to violence and equally unhealthy attitudes towards women, that too often these are combined, and I would like our society to find a path to positive change.

You don't have any agenda, apparently. No mate, of course you don't.

 

[domus]

My own post referred to those aspects of the protests which expressed dismay about domestic violence, but just for completeness it should be noted that they were about much more, not least sexual assault.

At it's broadest, the protests were a comment on the way in which women are regarded by men. Plenty of people --including yourself-- might think that there's nothing much to be up in arms about, but that's the position of someone who is blind or determinedly ignorant.

Violence is gendered, I'd say. The fact that 95% or more of the violence in our society is committed by men tells us something about that.

It's also gendered in the nature of the violence.

Women do commit violence, quite often against children, but the fact that they give birth to those children and that they often endure physical and psychological complications from that process, and the fact that they almost always have primary responsibility for caring for those children, provides a rather different context for the violence which sometimes follows.

This is not the story of the men. Their violence is rarely the result of this sort of distress and despair. Sometimes it is an aggression which comes from outside the home, from their own history, from work, maybe from the loss of their football team, and often it mixes with alcohol and bursts upon one or more members of the household. Sometimes they're just sadistic a-holes who enjoy laying emotional siege to their family, keeping them all in permanent fear of violence and every once in a while backing it up with actual fury. My first step-father was a capable practitioner of that particular brand of shittiness.

Few men are primary carers, weighed down with any sort of post-partum difficulties or the mind-numbing boredom of looking after children. Instead, they are in the business of aggressive control, almost always underpinned by some sense that they have a right to control others, that violence is an acceptable or in any case frequently necessary tool for enforcing that control.

If we were to break down the violence committed by people dissatisfied with one or other aspect of the operation of the Family Court, I think we know that men would be overwhelmingly represented in those sad statistics.

Making the gendered distinction isn't about blaming men or absolving women (I know that you will take particular issue with that, because it's how you roll): it is primarily about understanding the issues and finding meaningful ways to address them.

I recently read a book about 1970s Australia, which in part talked about the increased awareness of violence committed by women against their children during that decade. That recognition brought efforts to create social and psychological support services for women who were at risk of causing harm, which remains an ongoing effort.

But the staggering amount of violence committed by men and the causes of that violence demands its own attention and its own sophisticated approach, and one element of it is to acknowledge and change men's attitudes.

You will continue to deny that there is a problem. You'll deny that you're denying there's a problem as well, by some flimsy suggestion that you are simply trying to acknowledge all violence and to counter the demonisation of men.

I know that you believe yourself, and you've written letters to people like Rosie Batty to let her know how misguided she is in her quest for change, and I know well enough that nothing I say here will shift your thinking one little bit.

But I don't give a f*** about changing your mind; I simply want to call it out for the demented mess that it is. It is a mind which glories in diminishing and obfuscating some of the worst aspects of what men can be, out of some ill-conceived and hopelessly fragile sense that all of what men are has come under attack.

What do you mean gendered distinction isn't about blaming men? What an utterly disingenuous statement. Men and boys are constantly blamed for the violence committed by individuals who happen to share their gender. You have no credibility when you pretend otherwise. When female journalists look down a camera lens and tell fathers to teach their boys not to rape and tell men to speak with their mates and tell them rape is not acceptable I would suggest she is blaming men for the rape committed by a tiny minority. This is a regular occurrence in our mainstream media.

Advertisements which feature men and boys committing all of the violence in the family home is another sick, bigoted approach to a complex issue which is not gendered.

You talk about the staggering amount of violence committed by men. What a disgusting slur. Staggering amount. They call DV an epidemic. What a sick lie. One life is one too many. Fifty a year is fifty too many. But it is no where near an epidemic nor is there a staggering amount of violence committed by men. Our society would not and could not function if your hyperbolic assertion was true. I am so sick of these sweeping, bigoted statements.

You twist yourself inside out finding excuses for female violence. Again, you are so disingenuous. You present all female violence as a result of mental illness and depression. male violence is simply a result of their anger and hate.

You refer to me as a loon with an agenda when you spruik every bloody talking point of feminists about men's violence. Some men are controlling. Some women are just as manipulative and controlling. The women who burned their partners alive last year were vicious, angry people who wanted to lash out and harm someone, just as some men do. Have you no experience of life? How can you so neatly draw a line and break up gender violence into two neat categories? Women can be cruel, vicious and vindictive. My daughter in law worked for years with broken families and fostering kids and she said she heard endless stories about mothers burning their kids with cigarette butts and beating them black and blue. Your excuse? Well women have to look after the kids so you'd expect some of them might be prone to losing their cool and belting them. Is that always simply depression or something far more sinister?

Yet if a man was the primary carer and shook a baby or killed a child, there is no way you would provide him with the same get out of jail card.

You mention alcohol, anger about work, frustration as factors which lead men to violent behaviour. Are you seriously going to tell me these very same factors don't influence women in the very same way? Female alcoholics, drug addicts and bullies exist. Why do you so desperately try to remove any sense of autonomy from the actions of violent women? Many families are dominated by the mother and people tip toe around her moods and desires. What planet do you live on?

How can anyone believe that any person, man or woman who kills their kids , is not mentally damaged or sick? But we only provide that "out" to women. You see this when the two others who between them hacked 11 kids to death in the past two to three years are treated in the media in comparison to a man who does the same thing?

When Farquharson drove his boys into the dam he was branded evil and his name was on everyone's lips for months. Perhaps he was. When the Sudanese mum did the committed the very same act, the story was presented in an entirely different way and to this day they are fighting to cut her sentence.

I have never denied there is a problem with regard to family violence. Never. Why do you say I have? You say I am simply trying acknowledge all violence as though that is a sick and twisted thing to do! My God, if we talk about men who are stabbed to death by their wife or kids who are drowned and beaten to death by their mums, people might begin to think women aren't the only victims of family violence! Heaven forbid. The government might try to send some resources in the direction of men and we cannot have that!

Listen to yourself. You act as if expressing a desire for men's suffering is a fringe dweller, basement living, big time loony loser thing to do. Your belief says far more about you than it does me.

Until my dying breath I will regard Rosie Batty's stance on family violence as shockingly misguided. For a woman who understands the agony of losing a child to family violence to choose to very deliberately exclude fathers who have lost their children due to female violence from her list of victims to support and grieve with or completely ignore the female perpetrators who murdered men in order to promote the message that family violence is the result of toxic masculinity and nothing else, is unforgivable.

You are simply continuing that tradition.

If you wish to bring up personal anecdotes to reinforce your point of view allow me the same privilege. My elderly uncle Walter Hughes was kicked to death on a suburban footpath. His killer was a woman. She broke his neck in the process of killing him. She was a drug addict. My best mate was sexually abused by his mum.

My son and my daughter have both been victims of vicious assaults on the street. Both bear the scars that resulted and will have them forever. Do you think I felt more shattered for my daughter? Do you think I shed more tears for my girl? I'm afraid to hear your answer. It's that bloody simple. Everyone who is a victim of violence deserves our recognition, empathy and protection. Feminists do not agree. I want to help everyone. They want to help a subset of the victims as do you.

I'm off to read a story to my beautiful grandson who is sleeping over.

Goodnight. All the best.

 

[domus]

I find your views unsettling as well. I think they're a f****** horror show. I think it's nice to point out and emphasise these sorts of similarities between us.

One difference between us is that you deny your agenda, and I'm happy to claim mine. I believe that a lot of men have an unhealthy relationship to violence and equally unhealthy attitudes towards women, that too often these are combined, and I would like our society to find a path to positive change.

You don't have any agenda, apparently. No mate, of course you don't.

Insanity. What are you on about? Who in hell do you mix with? There are just as many women who hold unhealthy attitudes about men and boys and these too often involve violence. I have an agenda. Let's love and care for anyone who is mistreated or abused. I prefer my all embracing approach to your one of exclusion.

 

[JB1975]

Goodnight. All the best.

Goodnight, and all the best to you as well.

JB.

 

[JB1975]

Until my dying breath I will regard Rosie Batty's stance on family violence as shockingly misguided. For a woman who understands the agony of losing a child to family violence to choose to very deliberately exclude fathers who have lost their children due to female violence from her list of victims to support and grieve with or completely ignore the female perpetrators who murdered men in order to promote the message that family violence is the result of toxic masculinity and nothing else, is unforgivable.

This post was liked by a couple of others, so it must be gratifying to know that you're not alone in whatever moral universe you occupy, but I maintain that your campaign against Rosie Batty is repugnant and completely devoid of empathy or understanding.

Batty was victim to a controlling husband. She sought a peaceful life beyond the clutches of a man who wouldn't let go, which is a circumstance faced by tens of thousands of women around the country, and that man took the life of her 11 year-old son in revenge for her temerity.

She committed herself to a campaign to bring attention to the ways in which those tens of thousands of cases can suddenly and most horribly escalate, to warn against and try and prevent the story of her life playing out again and again and again. For this suffering, for this trauma, and for her efforts she gets angry letters from morally demented types like you.

What delusion and f****** arrogance allows someone like you to write a letters of outrage to someone like her, just because she isn't campaigning for whatever issue you think is worthy of equal attention?

Instead of writing such garbage, why don't you launch your own campaign and foundation for what you think is important, rather than abusing and seeking to undermine the cause of someone who has pushed through pain to fight for what they believe in and what they have been through?

It doesn't matter to you that her perspectives on male violence have been around for decades, advanced by individuals and groups long before Batty. You never trouble yourself with those. For you, it seems to be much more fun to sink your teeth into the woman who actually had to live through the abuses of a tyrannical husband, long enough to see her son murdered by the man. What do you think that says about you?

You can hold onto your embittered perspective until your dying breath, but I have some hope that perspectives like yours will indeed die and drift away soon enough. Change hasn't been easy, never is, but it is happening, and in a weird way it is the fulmination of you and those of a similar bent which reinforces the need to keep pushing.

You asked in another post, what sort of people must I associate with to have views like mine? The sort of person who had friends, family and colleagues who attended the marches for justice, who thinks that the issues are worth marching for, the sort of person who is rather mainstream.

On the other hand, I think that you are a salient reminder of all that needs to be left behind.

 

[domus]

This post was liked by a couple of others, so it must be gratifying to know that you're not alone in whatever moral universe you occupy, but I maintain that your campaign against Rosie Batty is repugnant and completely devoid of empathy or understanding.

Batty was victim to a controlling husband. She sought a peaceful life beyond the clutches of a man who wouldn't let go, which is a circumstance faced by tens of thousands of women around the country, and that man took the life of her 11 year-old son in revenge for her temerity.

She committed herself to a campaign to bring attention to the ways in which those tens of thousands of cases can suddenly and most horribly escalate, to warn against and try and prevent the story of her life playing out again and again and again. For this suffering, for this trauma, and for her efforts she gets angry letters from morally demented types like you.

What delusion and f****** arrogance allows someone like you to write a letters of outrage to someone like her, just because she isn't campaigning for whatever issue you think is worthy of equal attention?

Instead of writing such garbage, why don't you launch your own campaign and foundation for what you think is important, rather than abusing and seeking to undermine the cause of someone who has pushed through pain to fight for what they believe in and what they have been through?

It doesn't matter to you that her perspectives on male violence have been around for decades, advanced by individuals and groups long before Batty. You never trouble yourself with those. For you, it seems to be much more fun to sink your teeth into the woman who actually had to live through the abuses of a tyrannical husband, long enough to see her son murdered by the man. What do you think that says about you?

You can hold onto your embittered perspective until your dying breath, but I have some hope that perspectives like yours will indeed die and drift away soon enough. Change hasn't been easy, never is, but it is happening, and in a weird way it is the fulmination of you and those of a similar bent which reinforces the need to keep pushing.

You asked in another post, what sort of people must I associate with to have views like mine? The sort of person who had friends, family and colleagues who attended the marches for justice, who thinks that the issues are worth marching for, the sort of person who is rather mainstream.

On the other hand, I think that you are a salient reminder of all that needs to be left behind.

Shaming tactics are always the tactic employed to shut down any person who speak outs and demands recognition of the abuse and suffering of men and boys. Always.

You employ it repeatedly.

Again, you wrote utter emotive tosh.

Most adults have endured loss and suffering. I don't think there would be anything worse than losing a child. I have repeatedly acknowledged that in my correspondence with Ms. Batty. I could sit with her tomorrow and cry with her as she spoke about her grief and how much she misses her boy. I could also take her to task for not feeling compassion for men in the same position. It is not an either/or situation.

Using your logic, no politician or public figure with the power to influence government policy and spending should ever be subjected to questioning or criticism if they suffer the loss of a loved one.

How dare you, or Ms. Batty use that tragedy as a shield to ward off any potential criticism when she has chosen to be a public figure who has an enormous influence on government law making and the spending of literally hundreds of millions of dollars. How can that be a fair position to assume? I will guide the government in its law making, sentencing and funding but if you dare to question or criticize my public role and the decision I make I will brand you a heartless, vicious woman hater and worse- an abuser of a woman who has lost her only son.

If any political figure suffered a loss I would hope all of the community would offer them their compassion and empathy but I have no doubt the political decisions they continued to make would be subject to criticism and scrutiny. Conflating criticism of a person's opinions and policy making with an attack on a grieving mother is as low and sick as it gets.

Your hypocrisy is breathtaking. Rosie Batty, a person who has experienced the devastating loss of her son, chose to ignore the devastating grief of any parent who was male. I have every right to call out an attitude which is this "we should do all in our power to protect and support females and children who suffer violence at the hands of a man."

It is outrageously bigoted and heartless. It is completely unnecessary. Rosie has had no problems with accusing people who disagree with her approach nasty names and I'm sure many of them have endured their own personal losses in life.

I heard Batty say she didn't think men who suffered family violence at the hands of their partner felt the same fear or stress as women. And you dare to call me, arrogant! Men have been killed by their partners. Men are at a total loss due to attitudes like Batty's. If they are in an abusive relationship they have nowhere to turn. Women have a range of options- police will jump in the moment they say they are fearful. The are provided with safe houses and financial assistance. Men get nothing. I know blokes who have gone to the police and been laughed at. My nephew was told to "man up." One bloke I was acquainted with was stabbed by his wife. He had never harmed her in his life. He said he felt he was dying as he was wheeled into the hospital and said he still remembers a nurse saying: 'I wonder what he did to her!" If a bloke hits back-he is finished. He will be arrested and jailed. If he leaves the home he will most likely lose the house. Men are trapped.

Your arguments are ridiculous.

How would Batty's campaign for ending family violence or at least bringing greater awareness to the suffering of men, women, boys and girls, be in any way hampered or ruined if she expressed concern for all victims?

I get this line all of the time. If I speak out about male victims I am called a supporter of violence against women. Yep. I kid you not. I have had feminists write that I am a danger to all of the girls I teach because I dared to suggest men and boys require support too. They attempted to have me sacked. They said I hated women and girls. At one stage if my name was googled some of this s**t came up. This is the feminist way. You can scroll through everything I ever written on this issue and you will never find one bad word about women or girls. I adore the women and girls in my life. I have established deep and lasting friendships with many of the girls I've taught. I walked one of my former students down the aisle on her wedding day and had the honour of giving her away.

I often did yard duty while holding the hands of junior girls who ran up to me. I loved it. I have always been openly affectionate with kids and they reciprocate.

My wife is my soulmate as is my daughter. I have three granddaughters. I have many female friends as a result of my teaching career. Tomorrow I am lunching with Bernie. Next Monday it will be Meg. I had dinner with Josie and Ann two weeks ago. I believe I have more genuine female friends than most men.

I say this because the retort I so often get when I speak up for men is" You must hate women!" (Phil Cleary loved to employ this one). Or I am a basement dweller who is still a virgin living with his parents. This is the same s**t I get served up time and again. You do it too. So childish.

Justifying the fact Rosie Batty only expresses concern about one gender because she is a woman, is as insane as saying a man who lost his father due to lung cancer and was named Australian of the Year, should have every right to committing his life to getting billions in funding for men affected by lung cancer and for setting up a system that ensures men and only men with lung cancer have the best chance of early detection and the best doctors on hand to operate or medicate them as they saw fit. Absurd. I'm sure there would be no pushback to this approach.

When asked about the thousands of woman who contract the disease he could simply say" Well, my father lost his life so my focus is on men." Imagine this man then wins the ear of the Prime Minister and has hundreds of millions of dollars directed toward ending men's lung cancer. We see billboards screaming "Australia says no to male lung cancer!" We see an endless barrage of ads showing men struggling with lung cancer and a demand that we all do something about this shocking state of affairs.

What a bloody farce. You are trying to tell me there would not be a reaction to his approach? You are telling me that women would happily support the countless demands for funding to bring an end to male lung cancer?

How would you have felt if due to the fact Rosie lost her son, she decided to campaign for an end to the beating and killing of boys and only boys in family violence incidents? That is no less absurd than the justification given for Batty's gendered compassion.

I went through an experience of bone cancer many years ago and lost a leg. An experience like that opens your eyes to the suffering of others. You meet so many incredible people in hospital and in rehab. My heart and emotions expanded. I felt such compassion for anyone who suffered a cancer experience but especially bone cancer and the amputation of their leg. I did manage to raise a few thousand dollars for research into bone cancer. I didn't ask that it be used to help men only. I don't even think of people in that way. I meet good people. Some are male and some are female.

What kind of human being divides people into tribes based on whatever difference you care to pick? Rosie chose genitals as the tipping point. If you are born with the wrong ones, she has no interest in the fact you experienced the same agonizing loss as she did. I have seen her confronted by male survivor of family violence at a Q and A session and she and the other panelists dismissed him. They dismissed him!

Save your stupid shaming tactics for someone who cares. I will never stop calling out anyone who is gender selective in their compassion. How is it any less bigoted or prejudiced than ignoring a group based on their skin colour, race or religion?

You dare to call me embittered. You brand me this way simply because I express my dismay and anger over a person who refuses to acknowledge the suffering and loss suffered by men. Let's allow others to be the judge of who is bitter and twisted.

I found this long comment on You Tube underneath a story on the boys being forced to apologise for rape at the school in Warrnambool.

His name is Ryan Flack. I would suggest he is the tip of a large iceberg. Read his story and see what Rosie Batty's insistence that family violence is gendered has done to him and many like him.

Ryan Flack

1 day ago

This reminds me alot of the white ribbon ceremonys in school. When I was in Yr 12 the female teachers asked all the boys to pledge to never be violent towards a female. now I was at the time experiencing a domestic violent relationship with my mother and my sister which I was sleeping in the local botanic gardens to get away from. so I said I didn’t want to participate because I felt that it should be non violence against all not a single gender. I was belittled by the female staff and made out to be a terrible individual because I didn’t want to take part and that what happened to me didn’t matter. I was still forced to go to the White ribbon day event. When I arrived I walked up to the women handing out flyers for those seeking help and asked them if there was anything they could give to me. She was surprised and said that there wouldn’t be any hotline to help me for Another 5 weeks. I was in hospital due to having my wrist smashed with a sledge hammer 3 weeks before an organisation could have been able to be contacted and provide assistance. To this day I’ve always thought about how there’s very little help for men being abused by men or women, which I’ve never really understood. I understood and surported the importance of a victim having the ability to get assistance from an organisation. I always understood the importance of teaching the younger generations the signs and prevention measures to keep others safe. What I’ve never understood is how gender effects the way you receive or wheather you even deserve to be given said assistance (apologies half of this is more emotional than logical so my opinion is probably not the best one to take into consideration but I’d like to ask if you contacted domestic violence or sexual assault helplines. How many turn you away if you’re a man. Because 5 years ago every single hotline in Australia did

 

[JB1975]

Shaming tactics are always the tactic employed to shut down any person who speak outs and demands recognition of the abuse and suffering of men and boys. Always.

You employ it repeatedly.

Again, you wrote utter emotive tosh.

Most adults have endured loss and suffering. I don't think there would be anything worse than losing a child. I have repeatedly acknowledged that in my correspondence with Ms. Batty. I could sit with her tomorrow and cry with her as she spoke about her grief and how much she misses her boy. I could also take her to task for not feeling compassion for men in the same position. It is not an either/or situation.

Using your logic, no politician or public figure with the power to influence government policy and spending should ever be subjected to questioning or criticism if they suffer the loss of a loved one.

How dare you, or Ms. Batty use that tragedy as a shield to ward off any potential criticism when she has chosen to be a public figure who has an enormous influence on government law making and the spending of literally hundreds of millions of dollars. How can that be a fair position to assume? I will guide the government in its law making, sentencing and funding but if you dare to question or criticize my public role and the decision I make I will brand you a heartless, vicious woman hater and worse- an abuser of a woman who has lost her only son.

If any political figure suffered a loss I would hope all of the community would offer them their compassion and empathy but I have no doubt the political decisions they continued to make would be subject to criticism and scrutiny. Conflating criticism of a person's opinions and policy making with an attack on a grieving mother is as low and sick as it gets.

Your hypocrisy is breathtaking. Rosie Batty, a person who has experienced the devastating loss of her son, chose to ignore the devastating grief of any parent who was male. I have every right to call out an attitude which is this "we should do all in our power to protect and support females and children who suffer violence at the hands of a man."

It is outrageously bigoted and heartless. It is completely unnecessary. Rosie has had no problems with accusing people who disagree with her approach nasty names and I'm sure many of them have endured their own personal losses in life.

I heard Batty say she didn't think men who suffered family violence at the hands of their partner felt the same fear or stress as women. And you dare to call me, arrogant! Men have been killed by their partners. Men are at a total loss due to attitudes like Batty's. If they are in an abusive relationship they have nowhere to turn. Women have a range of options- police will jump in the moment they say they are fearful. The are provided with safe houses and financial assistance. Men get nothing. I know blokes who have gone to the police and been laughed at. My nephew was told to "man up." One bloke I was acquainted with was stabbed by his wife. He had never harmed her in his life. He said he felt he was dying as he was wheeled into the hospital and said he still remembers a nurse saying: 'I wonder what he did to her!" If a bloke hits back-he is finished. He will be arrested and jailed. If he leaves the home he will most likely lose the house. Men are trapped.

Your arguments are ridiculous.

How would Batty's campaign for ending family violence or at least bringing greater awareness to the suffering of men, women, boys and girls, be in any way hampered or ruined if she expressed concern for all victims?

I get this line all of the time. If I speak out about male victims I am called a supporter of violence against women. Yep. I kid you not. I have had feminists write that I am a danger to all of the girls I teach because I dared to suggest men and boys require support too. They attempted to have me sacked. They said I hated women and girls. At one stage if my name was googled some of this sh*t came up. This is the feminist way. You can scroll through everything I ever written on this issue and you will never find one bad word about women or girls. I adore the women and girls in my life. I have established deep and lasting friendships with many of the girls I've taught. I walked one of my former students down the aisle on her wedding day and had the honour of giving her away.

I often did yard duty while holding the hands of junior girls who ran up to me. I loved it. I have always been openly affectionate with kids and they reciprocate.

My wife is my soulmate as is my daughter. I have three granddaughters. I have many female friends as a result of my teaching career. Tomorrow I am lunching with Bernie. Next Monday it will be Meg. I had dinner with Josie and Ann two weeks ago. I believe I have more genuine female friends than most men.

I say this because the retort I so often get when I speak up for men is" You must hate women!" (Phil Cleary loved to employ this one). Or I am a basement dweller who is still a virgin living with his parents. This is the same sh*t I get served up time and again. You do it too. So childish.

Justifying the fact Rosie Batty only expresses concern about one gender because she is a woman, is as insane as saying a man who lost his father due to lung cancer and was named Australian of the Year, should have every right to committing his life to getting billions in funding for men affected by lung cancer and for setting up a system that ensures men and only men with lung cancer have the best chance of early detection and the best doctors on hand to operate or medicate them as they saw fit. Absurd. I'm sure there would be no pushback to this approach.

When asked about the thousands of woman who contract the disease he could simply say" Well, my father lost his life so my focus is on men." Imagine this man then wins the ear of the Prime Minister and has hundreds of millions of dollars directed toward ending men's lung cancer. We see billboards screaming "Australia says no to male lung cancer!" We see an endless barrage of ads showing men struggling with lung cancer and a demand that we all do something about this shocking state of affairs.

What a bloody farce. You are trying to tell me there would not be a reaction to his approach? You are telling me that women would happily support the countless demands for funding to bring an end to male lung cancer?

How would you have felt if due to the fact Rosie lost her son, she decided to campaign for an end to the beating and killing of boys and only boys in family violence incidents? That is no less absurd than the justification given for Batty's gendered compassion.

I went through an experience of bone cancer many years ago and lost a leg. An experience like that opens your eyes to the suffering of others. You meet so many incredible people in hospital and in rehab. My heart and emotions expanded. I felt such compassion for anyone who suffered a cancer experience but especially bone cancer and the amputation of their leg. I did manage to raise a few thousand dollars for research into bone cancer. I didn't ask that it be used to help men only. I don't even think of people in that way. I meet good people. Some are male and some are female.

What kind of human being divides people into tribes based on whatever difference you care to pick? Rosie chose genitals as the tipping point. If you are born with the wrong ones, she has no interest in the fact you experienced the same agonizing loss as she did. I have seen her confronted by male survivor of family violence at a Q and A session and she and the other panelists dismissed him. They dismissed him!

Save your stupid shaming tactics for someone who cares. I will never stop calling out anyone who is gender selective in their compassion. How is it any less bigoted or prejudiced than ignoring a group based on their skin colour, race or religion?

You dare to call me embittered. You brand me this way simply because I express my dismay and anger over a person who refuses to acknowledge the suffering and loss suffered by men. Let's allow others to be the judge of who is bitter and twisted.

I found this long comment on You Tube underneath a story on the boys being forced to apologise for rape at the school in Warrnambool.

His name is Ryan Flack. I would suggest he is the tip of a large iceberg. Read his story and see what Rosie Batty's insistence that family violence is gendered has done to him and many like him.

Ryan Flack

1 day ago

This reminds me alot of the white ribbon ceremonys in school. When I was in Yr 12 the female teachers asked all the boys to pledge to never be violent towards a female. now I was at the time experiencing a domestic violent relationship with my mother and my sister which I was sleeping in the local botanic gardens to get away from. so I said I didn’t want to participate because I felt that it should be non violence against all not a single gender. I was belittled by the female staff and made out to be a terrible individual because I didn’t want to take part and that what happened to me didn’t matter. I was still forced to go to the White ribbon day event. When I arrived I walked up to the women handing out flyers for those seeking help and asked them if there was anything they could give to me. She was surprised and said that there wouldn’t be any hotline to help me for Another 5 weeks. I was in hospital due to having my wrist smashed with a sledge hammer 3 weeks before an organisation could have been able to be contacted and provide assistance. To this day I’ve always thought about how there’s very little help for men being abused by men or women, which I’ve never really understood. I understood and surported the importance of a victim having the ability to get assistance from an organisation. I always understood the importance of teaching the younger generations the signs and prevention measures to keep others safe. What I’ve never understood is how gender effects the way you receive or wheather you even deserve to be given said assistance (apologies half of this is more emotional than logical so my opinion is probably not the best one to take into consideration but I’d like to ask if you contacted domestic violence or sexual assault helplines. How many turn you away if you’re a man. Because 5 years ago every single hotline in Australia did

To be honest, domus, I think we both write in an emotive sort of strain. There's a definite similarity. I'll go further and suggest that some of the sexy fireworks between us comes from such similarities.

You seem concerned about the Warrnambool high school incident, which is fair enough. My own view is that it was absurd to call upon boys to apologise for their gender, and I was taken aback when I heard about it. A couple of friends I've spoken to since I came across that news, people whose politics are close to mine, also agree that is was ridiculous and misguided.

I have a son, a beautiful and sensitive young man who is in the final year of VCE. I'll be truthful and tell you that I often worry about the effect of media chatter around 'toxic masculinity' upon him, how it effects his sense of self. It seems that 'toxic' has become a permanent prefix for masculinity, and I know that this is not a fair reflection upon boys and men.

I went camping in the Grampians with him over Easter, and I reckon that 2 hours of the car trip there was spent talking about these things, and I'll talk for countless hours more if it helps to ensure that he never feels bad about himself simply because he's a boy.

But mate, I think that you are horribly wrong in your targeting of Rosie Batty.

She's not a public figure who deserves to have pot shots taken at her because she's 'put herself out there': she's an activist who fights for a specific issue related to her own very painful experience. The issues she campaigns around are legitimate and they remain in desperate need for attention, and it seems poisonous to me that a bloke would attack her simply because she doesn't advocate for another cause.

All victims of violence should be acknowledged. Let there be no doubt about that, no qualification, and I'm sorry to hear about the harm done to people you love.

I suppose our life experiences will inevitably shape or dictate where we stand. From birth to teens, my upbringing was studded with a hideous gallery of men who did a lot of harm to me, to my Mum, to my Grandma, and to others in our family. Not sexual abuse, but an ever-present stream of physical abuse, threat of physical abuse, and psychological terror. Violence was a language, a form of communication, and in my family that language was let loose by males upon people they were meant to care about.

That's not a call for sympathy, but a way to make my own position and perspective more clearly understood. You suggested that I sound bitter, and I have to confess that I most certainly am.

I say all the best, and I mean it.

 

[Black_White]

What do you mean gendered distinction isn't about blaming men? What an utterly disingenuous statement. Men and boys are constantly blamed for the violence committed by individuals who happen to share their gender. You have no credibility when you pretend otherwise. When female journalists look down a camera lens and tell fathers to teach their boys not to rape and tell men to speak with their mates and tell them rape is not acceptable I would suggest she is blaming men for the rape committed by a tiny minority. This is a regular occurrence in our mainstream media.

Advertisements which feature men and boys committing all of the violence in the family home is another sick, bigoted approach to a complex issue which is not gendered.

You talk about the staggering amount of violence committed by men. What a disgusting slur. Staggering amount. They call DV an epidemic. What a sick lie. One life is one too many. Fifty a year is fifty too many. But it is no where near an epidemic nor is there a staggering amount of violence committed by men. Our society would not and could not function if your hyperbolic assertion was true. I am so sick of these sweeping, bigoted statements.

You twist yourself inside out finding excuses for female violence. Again, you are so disingenuous. You present all female violence as a result of mental illness and depression. male violence is simply a result of their anger and hate.

You refer to me as a loon with an agenda when you spruik every bloody talking point of feminists about men's violence. Some men are controlling. Some women are just as manipulative and controlling. The women who burned their partners alive last year were vicious, angry people who wanted to lash out and harm someone, just as some men do. Have you no experience of life? How can you so neatly draw a line and break up gender violence into two neat categories? Women can be cruel, vicious and vindictive. My daughter in law worked for years with broken families and fostering kids and she said she heard endless stories about mothers burning their kids with cigarette butts and beating them black and blue. Your excuse? Well women have to look after the kids so you'd expect some of them might be prone to losing their cool and belting them. Is that always simply depression or something far more sinister?

Yet if a man was the primary carer and shook a baby or killed a child, there is no way you would provide him with the same get out of jail card.

You mention alcohol, anger about work, frustration as factors which lead men to violent behaviour. Are you seriously going to tell me these very same factors don't influence women in the very same way? Female alcoholics, drug addicts and bullies exist. Why do you so desperately try to remove any sense of autonomy from the actions of violent women? Many families are dominated by the mother and people tip toe around her moods and desires. What planet do you live on?

How can anyone believe that any person, man or woman who kills their kids , is not mentally damaged or sick? But we only provide that "out" to women. You see this when the two others who between them hacked 11 kids to death in the past two to three years are treated in the media in comparison to a man who does the same thing?

When Farquharson drove his boys into the dam he was branded evil and his name was on everyone's lips for months. Perhaps he was. When the Sudanese mum did the committed the very same act, the story was presented in an entirely different way and to this day they are fighting to cut her sentence.

I have never denied there is a problem with regard to family violence. Never. Why do you say I have? You say I am simply trying acknowledge all violence as though that is a sick and twisted thing to do! My God, if we talk about men who are stabbed to death by their wife or kids who are drowned and beaten to death by their mums, people might begin to think women aren't the only victims of family violence! Heaven forbid. The government might try to send some resources in the direction of men and we cannot have that!

Listen to yourself. You act as if expressing a desire for men's suffering is a fringe dweller, basement living, big time loony loser thing to do. Your belief says far more about you than it does me.

Until my dying breath I will regard Rosie Batty's stance on family violence as shockingly misguided. For a woman who understands the agony of losing a child to family violence to choose to very deliberately exclude fathers who have lost their children due to female violence from her list of victims to support and grieve with or completely ignore the female perpetrators who murdered men in order to promote the message that family violence is the result of toxic masculinity and nothing else, is unforgivable.

You are simply continuing that tradition.

If you wish to bring up personal anecdotes to reinforce your point of view allow me the same privilege. My elderly uncle Walter Hughes was kicked to death on a suburban footpath. His killer was a woman. She broke his neck in the process of killing him. She was a drug addict. My best mate was sexually abused by his mum.

My son and my daughter have both been victims of vicious assaults on the street. Both bear the scars that resulted and will have them forever. Do you think I felt more shattered for my daughter? Do you think I shed more tears for my girl? I'm afraid to hear your answer. It's that bloody simple. Everyone who is a victim of violence deserves our recognition, empathy and protection. Feminists do not agree. I want to help everyone. They want to help a subset of the victims as do you.

I'm off to read a story to my beautiful grandson who is sleeping over.

Goodnight. All the best.

Barely got past the first paragraph.
You appear to be pushing an agenda of domestic violence/deaths as being a 50/50 split. Women as equal perpetrators of violence/deaths as men.
Its simply untrue.
Get educated.

Rates of domestic and family violence in Australia - SAFER

The data shows that domestic abuse is a serious problem in Australia and that gender plays a critical part in the violence.

www.saferresource.org.au

 

[Magpie Girl]

To be honest, domus, I think we both write in an emotive sort of strain. There's a definite similarity. I'll go further and suggest that some of the sexy fireworks between us comes from such similarities.

You seem concerned about the Warrnambool high school incident, which is fair enough. My own view is that it was absurd to call upon boys to apologise for their gender, and I was taken aback when I heard about it. A couple of friends I've spoken to since I came across that news, people whose politics are close to mine, also agree that is was ridiculous and misguided.

I have a son, a beautiful and sensitive young man who is in the final year of VCE. I'll be truthful and tell you that I often worry about the effect of media chatter around 'toxic masculinity' upon him, how it effects his sense of self. It seems that 'toxic' has become a permanent prefix for masculinity, and I know that this is not a fair reflection upon boys and men.

I went camping in the Grampians with him over Easter, and I reckon that 2 hours of the car trip there was spent talking about these things, and I'll talk for countless hours more if it helps to ensure that he never feels bad about himself simply because he's a boy.

But mate, I think that you are horribly wrong in your targeting of Rosie Batty.

She's not a public figure who deserves to have pot shots taken at her because she's 'put herself out there': she's an activist who fights for a specific issue related to her own very painful experience. The issues she campaigns around are legitimate and they remain in desperate need for attention, and it seems poisonous to me that a bloke would attack her simply because she doesn't advocate for another cause.

All victims of violence should be acknowledged. Let there be no doubt about that, no qualification, and I'm sorry to hear about the harm done to people you love.

I suppose our life experiences will inevitably shape or dictate where we stand. From birth to teens, my upbringing was studded with a hideous gallery of men who did a lot of harm to me, to my Mum, to my Grandma, and to others in our family. Not sexual abuse, but an ever-present stream of physical abuse, threat of physical abuse, and psychological terror. Violence was a language, a form of communication, and in my family that language was let loose by males upon people they were meant to care about.

That's not a call for sympathy, but a way to make my own position and perspective more clearly understood. You suggested that I sound bitter, and I have to confess that I most certainly am.

I say all the best, and I mean it.

Although I mostly agree with Domus on this issue I respect your viewpoint and feel for the pain you must have suffered during your upbringing JB
No violence is acceptable, and no partner or child abuse is acceptable- regardless of gender. I’m fortunate in that I don’t know anyone personally who has suffered abuse (except for my Mum and her siblings growing up in the depression) however my sister was a social worker with Children’s Protection Services and the things she encountered on a daily basis were too horrific for her to talk about. It defies belief how parents, both mums and dads, can be so wilfully abusive to their children.
I do think men need a bigger, louder voice to gain more attention to their side of the equation, to their needs, and the plea should be for all domestic violence and mental abuse to stop.
Women may not be so physically violent but they can cause a great deal of mental and emotional harm by such things as withholding access to the children etc

And I think, generally speaking, women’s actions are more often excused, or they more easily gain public sympathy

Rosie Batty had the ear of the nation and could easily have made it a plea for all domestic violence and abuse to stop.


And I heartily commend you for having those conversations with your son JB

 

[magpie_marty]

We should celebrate the fact we have free and fair elections unlike other countries.

 

[TradeDraft]

We should celebrate the fact we have free and fair elections unlike other countries.

Who said are our Elections are not Rigged

 

[magpie_marty]

Who said are our Elections are not Rigged

Good point,
Our system has flaws.
For example my local member loses the popular vote for the last 8 years and still wins.
But compared to other countries I think we get a better outcome.