And when the father sees a doctor or therapist to help if he is dealing with suicidal ideation, the notes and records are subpoenaed and used against him in family court.
So no dad in a custody battle is safe seeking help.
My psychologist records were subpoenaed, and I sat for a couple hours being cross examined on them.
So do I advise men to seek help? It's a question I have.
We've recently held two royal commissions relating to sexual abuse in institutional settings. Whilst the media has tried to keep it secret about 80%(95% in Victoria) of the identified victims are male. All of them had been excluded from taxpayer funded mental health services for victims, many for decades. If the numbers of suicides known of by witnesses in the Victorian inquiry were extrapolated across the nation they would number in the thousands. Many of those suicides wouldn't have occurred had they been able to access the help they needed.
Those responsible, particularly certain class ideologues, will never be called to order but should never be forgiven.
Thanks for caring, Bettina. I went to bed around 2 am two nights ago after engaging in a futile debate (6 on 1 which is a far better ratio than usual) on a football forum of all things. The issue of the abuse being meted out to female umpires in Aussie Rules comps was the topic and all of the usual shit was being spewed after a "report" carried out by a feminist found that the abuse of females was somehow far more heinous and dangerous than any abuse flung at male umpires.
I jumped in and asked why we had to continually make every issue a gendered one with the women always apparently copping the worst be it umpiring, climate change, war, natural disasters, politics, poverty etc.
I was mocked and a number said I had to be joking when I suggested men are in fact far more negatively impacted by almost any measure you care to apply to the well being of our men and women. I wrote about suicide. workplace deaths, homelessness, education, our Family Law courts and health.
I was accused of being a supporter of violence against women, a vomit spewing moron with some kind of weird woman hating agenda and another said he recalled I had the temerity to write an angry letter to Rosie Batty and that told him all he needed to know about me.
They said I wanted women to have all their rights stripped away and would be much happier if men were dominating like they did in the dark ages pre the 1960's. I also got the obligatory line about having been rejected by a woman as an explanation for my obtuse demand that we give the same amount of compassion and empathy to the suffering of men and boys as we do
women and girls.
I wrote calmly without a one negative word about women, yet this was the shit which reigned down upon me.
I went to bed feeling demoralized and depressed. It is such a hopeless task, yet I will continue to speak out and write the occasional article. But how devastating it is to be reminded for the thousandth time just what contempt males are held in by most of the men and women in our society.
Scratch the surface-dip your toe in the water of advocacy for men and boys and watch the incoming flak. It is shameful and makes people like you all the more extraordinary, Bettina.
I well know all the argument points you describe, and have seen it both online and IRL. That is, yet another article in the MSM describing female victimhood. It could be bringing out an old chestnut, such as murderous and men and "coercive control", and "nothing's being done about it", or uncovering yet another species of female "victimhood" - in the case you describe, abuse of female umpires. I saw that one btw on the cover of our local rag, and just rolled my eyes and avoided it.
It's all so familiar, and also the response your received is familiar, which is to ramp up the personal abuse, including of course "violence against women" and the portrayal of any mention of men's suffering as "bitter men" and MRA itself as a term of abuse - taking for granted that anyone who can't see that women are the primary sufferers of everything, everywhere, has a dishonest agenda to destroy women's rights and keep men in control (as if they are already in control!).
As you describe...
"I was mocked and a number said I had to be joking when I suggested men are in fact far more negatively impacted by almost any measure you care to apply to the well being of our men and women."
Now, I must mention one exception to this rule. When feminist articles appear in NewsCorp (The Australian, Daily Telegraph, etc) press, as the regularly do, the comments section can be relied upon to be critical, and relevant to the topic. If it's dv, for example, they'll remind people of male victims. Importantly, the balance of men and women making these comments is about 50/50. For an article such as the one you describe many would point out that this is not a uniquely female problem, as you've done, as you've done, and also point out that we are sick of female "victimhood" stories. Caveat - The Australian recently has become more feminist. I've had a couple of comments rejected which directly mentioned "feminism", where I usually get through if I avoid the word, and also keep the tone down.
I've also found that IRL men are willing to mention the crappy deal they and other men are getting, and to criticise the way women are increasingly dominating society. Eg. if the ABC comes up it's easy for one to say that they never watch it because it's "always about women". Women will also make these comments, especially mothers who have raised a family and stayed married.
So, I had come to the impression that while feminism is dominating the MSM and government, and that nasty, loud women will dominate any conversation they can get into, that there is a stream of popular resistance, and that many, perhaps most, have had enough and have stopped listening to the bs.
So, I am genuinely surprised and disappointed to hear your story of battling alone against a group of MEN in a football discussion, and to hear that the 6-1 is a good ratio for you in these discussions, but I appreciate the information!
I am reminded of Bettina Arndt's videos on Men's Sheds and also Pink Day at the SCG where many men dutifully supported "women's issues" with utter obliviousness to men's issues.
I am also reminded that the only party which has said anything about what's happening to men, ie. One Nation, sits on just 3% of the vote, and are regarded as contemptible in most educated circles.
Your experience with those MEN is food for sober thought.
"But how devastating it is to be reminded for the thousandth time just what contempt males are held in by most of the men and women in our society."
Devastating, and to me also a dire warning. Your experience tells me that we've passed the point of no return.
Thanks, Stephen. I've been pushing back against the mob on that particular forum for over a decade, so much so that I am regarded as the MRA nutter-exactly as you described. It doesn't matter how many facts you present or how calm and balanced you are in presenting them, the moment you dare to question the victim status of women you are attacked with venom- by men and women.
Each time they tell me I have an agenda I ask why they don't accuse those who endlessly post about women's oppression in our society of the same thing? It's only a rant or an "agenda" if you are speaking up in defense of males or simply asking for them to receive the same compassion when they are suffering.
I also ask them to quote one negative word I have ever said about women and girls. They never can but just throw another pejorative in my direction and have a circle jerk. It's hard fighting a mob because they feed off each other and constantly back each other up no matter how asinine the comment. It's the online equivalent of being shouted down and threatened by a mob in a pub-reasoned arguments count for nought.
I just want to repeat that I am honestly surprised that you've found so many men, in a football forum of all places, arguing against you in the same manner as hard-core feminists do.
I didn't realise things were that bad!
Just supporting my own point, that there seems to be some hope in the pages of NewsCorp (The Oz, Daily Telegraph) etc, today saw an article pushing some strange grievance about the post covid recruitment of women in service industries.
The comments are against the article, as usually happens with feminist articles in NewsCorp.
Best is this simple comment from a woman, endorsed by a woman....
Anne - This story is pointlessly gendered (9 votes)
Jessica - and somehow patronising
As I said, I hard started to see feminism as dominating the MSM, but not ordinary conversations, so I found your report surprising but very, very telling.
I agree, Stephen and on the newspapers I have found the same encouraging results with far more people questioning the endless focus on female oppression/grievances while ignoring the usually far more serious issues negatively impacting men.
Sadly the AFL has become a very left wing "woke" feminist organization and a lot of their propaganda is flowing down and influencing attitudes on a range of issues. The other interesting fact is many blokes are simply too scared to speak out and push back against this endless demonization of men.
I used to fight battles on a local suburban footy comp forum (The Eastern Football League) and often had numerous men approach me at training or on match day and pat me on the back or quietly say how they agree with everything I said and keep up the good work . I did want to ask why they didn't jump in and support me on the forum but men are afraid to get involved for fear of being branded with the dreaded M or S word. Misogynist or sexist.
Thanks, Phillip. That article is totally outrageous, dismissing the very real reasons men are driven to suicide during marital breakup as simply due to men trying to coerce their partners. How about a few of you writing intelligent letters to these academics telling them their research is deeply flawed and utterly offensive?
I have reading Toby Green's book "The Men's Room" which sadly is out of print. In it she writes about stimulus overload that men experience. This I think is a factor when men lash out, she calls it the Bam factor in one of her body and soul columns.
Just to clarify a point... men who would never ever contemplate suicide, when it suddenly hits home that the marriage and family that they presumed to be their life until "death do us part", is now gone forever, something like a panic attack can occur. Everything goes dark. The walls close in. A feeling of utter abandonment and profound loss rushes in like a black pavillion collapsing down around one. The feeling is unbearable and anything outside ceases to exist. It must end. It has to end.
If one has the means of killing oneself, it happens then. If not, it does not.
This attack can last for an hour, or for a day or even weeks. The longer it lasts the more likely that suicide will occur. People say it is the gutless way out but the victim is eons beyond such considerations.
It was my observation as a worker coming into contact with family breakups, that men are way more committed to marriage relationships than are women. There is sociological evidence that Australian and American women go through a pre-menopausal period of alianation and anger, which may be part of the problem, but the text describing this could not contribute and explanation.
That's a interesting point about the panic attack due to destruction of man's basic beliefs about marriage. I don't believe you are right about the pre-menopausal issue. Women of all ages are leaving marriages, from women in their twenties through to their 70s.
I appreciate what you are saying, Bettina, and I agree, but this was an observation in a sociology text my wife was studying at uni 30 years ago. The author said it was a well-observed phenomena but nobody could account for it, but it was clearly only observable in Australia and America.
If it was/is a valid observation, (and it was certanly true of my then wife when she turned forty), considering the timing would be 1970s, I would lean towards the Rupert Murdoch programme of femininne alienation that he dispersed in Oz and US media at that time, concocted by him and David Rockefeller in 1973, as an adjunct to the Trilateral Commission.
This was the repression of old-school feminists and the counter-promotion of the elitist man-hating brigade.
"This was the repression of old-school feminists and the counter-promotion of the elitist man-hating brigade."
The large support which existed for the womens' libbers in the seventies became complacent because most of the trigger issues were being dealt with. The radicals, who'd largely been kept at arms length previously, were in firm control of the movement's direction by the mid eighties. The majority of folk these days don't know anything but the super radical variant and it's given the status of a religion.
Rebel News records the anti-intelligence of the counter protests to right-to-lifers protests, revealing the vehenence and non-sensical replies, which surprised me. In the prelude to the possible US Supreme Court ruling on "Wade Versus Roe", a doctor provided an 8 minute description of a trimester abortion, which visibly shattered the politicians who previously wore bored expressions. Faced with a call for abortions to be legal within 28 days of birth, this is the kind of shock that Americans need to alert them to emerging hyper-extremeism... https://newtube.app/user/ClickHere/DmmcMVo
Men: 2384, Women: 755, Gender Imbalance = 1629 men
Intimate Partner Murder:
Men: 9, Women: 34, Gender Imbalance = 25 women
But we all know that men are disposable—their lives are worth less than women’s, right? And therefore, the tragic deaths of those 25 women is a national emergency, but the tragic deaths of those 1629 men needs to be swept under the rug, right?
We should be spending much more money and effort on preventing those 25 female deaths than on preventing those 1629 male deaths, right?
Another very important contribution Bettina. This confirms my view as a single man that things like suicide, homelessness, poverty and incarceration are overwhelmingly male issues though you would never know it with things like the fabricated "gender pay gap" and the "super pay gap" being bandied about as if they are actually real, which they are not. I'd like to put a slightly different take on this relating to my deep disgust at seeing some of the truly offensive advertisements that are being displayed on the sides of Sydney buses by Sydney Mission which are not only designed to denigrate homeless men, but also to hijack the homelessness issue and turn it into something to do with domestic violence. If some suicidal men see these appalling advertisements and take their lives as a result this is hardly surprising. I recently heard the CEO of Sydney Mission talking about the increase of 'at risk' people which allows her to conveniently speak about women instead of men. If you're 'at risk' it means that you aren't actually homeless but you can still qualify for support. Call me a cynic but I suspect this is a great way to deny support to homeless men and diverting scarce resources to 'at risk' people who are invariably women who may not even be in need of accommodation. After seeing these advertisements which I believe may be tied to government support on condition that they turn homelessness into a domestic violence issue, I absolutely refuse to donate any money to these once worthy institutions because the impression I get is they now deliver absolutely the worst type of community service i.e. a service that makes politically motivated judgment calls against the most vulnerable people in society that are entirely based on what somebody looks like rather than their personal needs.
Joe, I've seen exactly what you describe with charities turning homelessness into a "women's issue". I've also seen what you describe, but had forgotten until your reminder, their linking it to "domestic violence" (male perpetrated, of course), which is an affront to the majority of homeless, ie. men.
After 40 years as a practicing Catholic, giving reliably and generously to the major charities, esp. Vinnies, I stopped when I saw this sort of advertising IN OUR PARISHES for two years in a row!!! The men of Vinnies and the priests dutifully told the congregation how Vinnies comes to the rescue of a homeless women who are fleeing "domestic violence", and then asked for donations. All around the parishes there are posts reminding us of the suffering of women in "domestic violence" and everything else (esp. "education" and "gender inequality") both nationally and internationally. There may be just 1 in 10 pictures with a suffering male - and almost never white.
Your observation of the CEO talking about "at risk" people (ie. women) as a priority, rather than those who are actually homeless (ie. men) is spot on!
The Australian Catholic Bishops penned a "voting guideline" for the election and it mentioned women twice (not too bad.. hehe..) and men not once. Curiously, one of their two women's issues was homelessness! LOL! "The crisis of homelessness in women over 55". The feminists have worked out a message with this one, stuck to it, and now it's mainstream.
"I absolutely refuse to donate any money to these once worthy institutions because the impression I get is they now deliver absolutely the worst type of community service i.e. a service that makes politically motivated judgment calls against the most vulnerable people in society that are entirely based on what somebody looks like rather than their personal needs."
Thanks Stephen, you make a fantastic point. I don't want this to be a rant against charities but your comments remind me of the time I helped out serving dinners for a well known charity one night many years ago. What was noticeable was more than nine out of ten attendees for this homeless event were men. Without giving too much away I have subsequently listened to the person who runs this charity many times on the radio going on about how terrible homelessness is, particularly for women. Like most people I know, the vast majority of the visible homeless I see, including the underpass sleepers who I used to see every day on my way to work, are men. This has left me absolutely flummoxed to say the least.
Thanks for that personal anecdote, Joe! Very, very telling!
I'm saving that in my database of important information for future reference, because it's going to become increasingly difficult to say that the "majority of the real homeless are men", as the contrived statistics become the accepted narrative.
We once ran a campaign calling out Mission Australia when they first started running the campaign linking homelessness and domestic violence. We even organised for male victims of violence to meet with their CEO and he seemed convinced they had made an error of judgement. There were a couple of ads including male victims and now they are back to their own tricks. If any of you have spare time please write to the CEO and explain. It would be particularly good if some of my female readers could make the effort to do this. Our voices carry more weight - a sad fact but true.
That's great Bettina and all credit to you for a much needed campaign - I was genuinely shocked and outraged. I should've mentioned the figures you provide are equally outrageous. I just noticed reading the budget papers (I don't do this normally) - another $2.1 billion will be squandered on women's programs which are of no economic benefit to anyone. I guess that's what you get with not only a Minister for Women but also an Assistant Minister for Women. It'd be different if any of this actually achieves anything positive but it almost never does. While we're on the subject of buses have you seen the pink bus being driven around that is dedicated to contribution made by female bus drivers? Needless to say, there is no bus being driven around that is dedicated to the contribution made by male bus drivers which, it seems to me, is a far more significant contribution. Another win for diversity and inclusion!
"I guess that's what you get with not only a Minister for Women but also an Assistant Minister for Women."
Just imagine what it would be like if women were running the entire show. You think it's bad now? There are reasons women have been denied power through the ages.
Male suicide following a relationship breakdown is an absolute tragedy, but in many ways, unsurprising.
A study I read recently (will add the citation if I can find it) claimed that men are often much more emotionally invested in a marriage or long term relationship than women.
One of the primary observations was that men often give up most of the relationships they had with male peers, with the relationship becoming increasingly centred around the female partners existing social network.
When men go into a relationship, they often go all in, while women have a tendency to have one foot outside of the relationship, which is facilitated by their strong female network.
Males are also literally invested in the relationship with a traditional approach to financial obligations such as mortgages and other liabilities often still resting squarely on the shoulders of men. When these assets are divided during a separation, the ledger rarely accurately represents the equity contribution of each party, frequently leaving men substantially worse off relative to their financial contribution to the relationship.
Women also have an expectation that men should bring assets into a new relationship, even if the women doesn't have any herself. For many women, a man without assets is a definite non-starter.
A telling reality of the emotional commitment to a relationship, and perhaps even the degree of true love itself, is that men commit suicide when their wife leaves the relationship out of despair and a broken heart. Women are most likely to commit suicide when their husband retires, spending almost all of his time with his wife - a scenario she can no longer contend with.
Facts don’t lie.
Women think they have a mortgage on love and commitment. I don’t believe that for a moment.
I have never suffered from suicidal ideation even though I have been going through Dante’s 9 circles of Family Court Hell for over 7 years (and still not finished) and now suffer from chronic depression.
My psych has raised this as a talking point over the past 7 years and all I can really say for why I am not at risk of suicide is that I’m too damned stubborn.
Over the years I have lost too many family members, friends and acquaintances to suicide (nearly all of whom have been male) which is one of the compelling reasons I couldn’t contemplate taking my own life; I would never want to place this trauma on my kids.
Having experienced it myself, I can understand and appreciate the pressures, angst and utter despair caused by our barbaric duluthian Family Courts and DV courts that drives some men to self-harm, reclusiveness, others to suicide and some men to acts of domestic violence; neither are justified, but until we publicly admit the predominant causes of male suicide in Australia, this escalating tragedy will continue unchecked.
Wow, that must have really annoyed the abuse class people when you cited my book. Good for you, Mr T. You might like to look at this old video I made with a guy who was thrown out of one of these batterers courses because he was too argumentative. It is pretty funny!
Well said! Thank you!
Bravo Bettina!!! Thank you....
Good new article (from Baskerville) explaining how the feminist-government industrial complex works and ties in with woke politics:
https://chroniclesmagazine.org/featured/revolt-of-the-fatherless/
And when the father sees a doctor or therapist to help if he is dealing with suicidal ideation, the notes and records are subpoenaed and used against him in family court.
So no dad in a custody battle is safe seeking help.
My psychologist records were subpoenaed, and I sat for a couple hours being cross examined on them.
So do I advise men to seek help? It's a question I have.
Will be be blocked here again - Unemployed Peoples Embassy@gmail.com
We've recently held two royal commissions relating to sexual abuse in institutional settings. Whilst the media has tried to keep it secret about 80%(95% in Victoria) of the identified victims are male. All of them had been excluded from taxpayer funded mental health services for victims, many for decades. If the numbers of suicides known of by witnesses in the Victorian inquiry were extrapolated across the nation they would number in the thousands. Many of those suicides wouldn't have occurred had they been able to access the help they needed.
Those responsible, particularly certain class ideologues, will never be called to order but should never be forgiven.
Thanks for caring, Bettina. I went to bed around 2 am two nights ago after engaging in a futile debate (6 on 1 which is a far better ratio than usual) on a football forum of all things. The issue of the abuse being meted out to female umpires in Aussie Rules comps was the topic and all of the usual shit was being spewed after a "report" carried out by a feminist found that the abuse of females was somehow far more heinous and dangerous than any abuse flung at male umpires.
I jumped in and asked why we had to continually make every issue a gendered one with the women always apparently copping the worst be it umpiring, climate change, war, natural disasters, politics, poverty etc.
I was mocked and a number said I had to be joking when I suggested men are in fact far more negatively impacted by almost any measure you care to apply to the well being of our men and women. I wrote about suicide. workplace deaths, homelessness, education, our Family Law courts and health.
I was accused of being a supporter of violence against women, a vomit spewing moron with some kind of weird woman hating agenda and another said he recalled I had the temerity to write an angry letter to Rosie Batty and that told him all he needed to know about me.
They said I wanted women to have all their rights stripped away and would be much happier if men were dominating like they did in the dark ages pre the 1960's. I also got the obligatory line about having been rejected by a woman as an explanation for my obtuse demand that we give the same amount of compassion and empathy to the suffering of men and boys as we do
women and girls.
I wrote calmly without a one negative word about women, yet this was the shit which reigned down upon me.
I went to bed feeling demoralized and depressed. It is such a hopeless task, yet I will continue to speak out and write the occasional article. But how devastating it is to be reminded for the thousandth time just what contempt males are held in by most of the men and women in our society.
Scratch the surface-dip your toe in the water of advocacy for men and boys and watch the incoming flak. It is shameful and makes people like you all the more extraordinary, Bettina.
Thanks.
Mark, I find that story astonishing!
I well know all the argument points you describe, and have seen it both online and IRL. That is, yet another article in the MSM describing female victimhood. It could be bringing out an old chestnut, such as murderous and men and "coercive control", and "nothing's being done about it", or uncovering yet another species of female "victimhood" - in the case you describe, abuse of female umpires. I saw that one btw on the cover of our local rag, and just rolled my eyes and avoided it.
It's all so familiar, and also the response your received is familiar, which is to ramp up the personal abuse, including of course "violence against women" and the portrayal of any mention of men's suffering as "bitter men" and MRA itself as a term of abuse - taking for granted that anyone who can't see that women are the primary sufferers of everything, everywhere, has a dishonest agenda to destroy women's rights and keep men in control (as if they are already in control!).
As you describe...
"I was mocked and a number said I had to be joking when I suggested men are in fact far more negatively impacted by almost any measure you care to apply to the well being of our men and women."
Now, I must mention one exception to this rule. When feminist articles appear in NewsCorp (The Australian, Daily Telegraph, etc) press, as the regularly do, the comments section can be relied upon to be critical, and relevant to the topic. If it's dv, for example, they'll remind people of male victims. Importantly, the balance of men and women making these comments is about 50/50. For an article such as the one you describe many would point out that this is not a uniquely female problem, as you've done, as you've done, and also point out that we are sick of female "victimhood" stories. Caveat - The Australian recently has become more feminist. I've had a couple of comments rejected which directly mentioned "feminism", where I usually get through if I avoid the word, and also keep the tone down.
I've also found that IRL men are willing to mention the crappy deal they and other men are getting, and to criticise the way women are increasingly dominating society. Eg. if the ABC comes up it's easy for one to say that they never watch it because it's "always about women". Women will also make these comments, especially mothers who have raised a family and stayed married.
So, I had come to the impression that while feminism is dominating the MSM and government, and that nasty, loud women will dominate any conversation they can get into, that there is a stream of popular resistance, and that many, perhaps most, have had enough and have stopped listening to the bs.
So, I am genuinely surprised and disappointed to hear your story of battling alone against a group of MEN in a football discussion, and to hear that the 6-1 is a good ratio for you in these discussions, but I appreciate the information!
I am reminded of Bettina Arndt's videos on Men's Sheds and also Pink Day at the SCG where many men dutifully supported "women's issues" with utter obliviousness to men's issues.
I am also reminded that the only party which has said anything about what's happening to men, ie. One Nation, sits on just 3% of the vote, and are regarded as contemptible in most educated circles.
Your experience with those MEN is food for sober thought.
"But how devastating it is to be reminded for the thousandth time just what contempt males are held in by most of the men and women in our society."
Devastating, and to me also a dire warning. Your experience tells me that we've passed the point of no return.
Thanks for the report.
Thanks, Stephen. I've been pushing back against the mob on that particular forum for over a decade, so much so that I am regarded as the MRA nutter-exactly as you described. It doesn't matter how many facts you present or how calm and balanced you are in presenting them, the moment you dare to question the victim status of women you are attacked with venom- by men and women.
Each time they tell me I have an agenda I ask why they don't accuse those who endlessly post about women's oppression in our society of the same thing? It's only a rant or an "agenda" if you are speaking up in defense of males or simply asking for them to receive the same compassion when they are suffering.
I also ask them to quote one negative word I have ever said about women and girls. They never can but just throw another pejorative in my direction and have a circle jerk. It's hard fighting a mob because they feed off each other and constantly back each other up no matter how asinine the comment. It's the online equivalent of being shouted down and threatened by a mob in a pub-reasoned arguments count for nought.
Thanks for your comment.
Thanks for the follow up, Mark!
I just want to repeat that I am honestly surprised that you've found so many men, in a football forum of all places, arguing against you in the same manner as hard-core feminists do.
I didn't realise things were that bad!
Just supporting my own point, that there seems to be some hope in the pages of NewsCorp (The Oz, Daily Telegraph) etc, today saw an article pushing some strange grievance about the post covid recruitment of women in service industries.
The comments are against the article, as usually happens with feminist articles in NewsCorp.
Best is this simple comment from a woman, endorsed by a woman....
Anne - This story is pointlessly gendered (9 votes)
Jessica - and somehow patronising
As I said, I hard started to see feminism as dominating the MSM, but not ordinary conversations, so I found your report surprising but very, very telling.
I agree, Stephen and on the newspapers I have found the same encouraging results with far more people questioning the endless focus on female oppression/grievances while ignoring the usually far more serious issues negatively impacting men.
Sadly the AFL has become a very left wing "woke" feminist organization and a lot of their propaganda is flowing down and influencing attitudes on a range of issues. The other interesting fact is many blokes are simply too scared to speak out and push back against this endless demonization of men.
I used to fight battles on a local suburban footy comp forum (The Eastern Football League) and often had numerous men approach me at training or on match day and pat me on the back or quietly say how they agree with everything I said and keep up the good work . I did want to ask why they didn't jump in and support me on the forum but men are afraid to get involved for fear of being branded with the dreaded M or S word. Misogynist or sexist.
The latest effort from the Conversation, links the threat of suicide with coercive control.https://theconversation.com/perpetrators-of-family-violence-sometimes-use-threats-of-suicide-to-control-their-partner-182416
Thanks, Phillip. That article is totally outrageous, dismissing the very real reasons men are driven to suicide during marital breakup as simply due to men trying to coerce their partners. How about a few of you writing intelligent letters to these academics telling them their research is deeply flawed and utterly offensive?
"That article is totally outrageous"
It conforms to the pattern however. Ideologues want you to believe men claim to be victims as an act of abuse.
I have reading Toby Green's book "The Men's Room" which sadly is out of print. In it she writes about stimulus overload that men experience. This I think is a factor when men lash out, she calls it the Bam factor in one of her body and soul columns.
Just to clarify a point... men who would never ever contemplate suicide, when it suddenly hits home that the marriage and family that they presumed to be their life until "death do us part", is now gone forever, something like a panic attack can occur. Everything goes dark. The walls close in. A feeling of utter abandonment and profound loss rushes in like a black pavillion collapsing down around one. The feeling is unbearable and anything outside ceases to exist. It must end. It has to end.
If one has the means of killing oneself, it happens then. If not, it does not.
This attack can last for an hour, or for a day or even weeks. The longer it lasts the more likely that suicide will occur. People say it is the gutless way out but the victim is eons beyond such considerations.
It was my observation as a worker coming into contact with family breakups, that men are way more committed to marriage relationships than are women. There is sociological evidence that Australian and American women go through a pre-menopausal period of alianation and anger, which may be part of the problem, but the text describing this could not contribute and explanation.
That's a interesting point about the panic attack due to destruction of man's basic beliefs about marriage. I don't believe you are right about the pre-menopausal issue. Women of all ages are leaving marriages, from women in their twenties through to their 70s.
I appreciate what you are saying, Bettina, and I agree, but this was an observation in a sociology text my wife was studying at uni 30 years ago. The author said it was a well-observed phenomena but nobody could account for it, but it was clearly only observable in Australia and America.
If it was/is a valid observation, (and it was certanly true of my then wife when she turned forty), considering the timing would be 1970s, I would lean towards the Rupert Murdoch programme of femininne alienation that he dispersed in Oz and US media at that time, concocted by him and David Rockefeller in 1973, as an adjunct to the Trilateral Commission.
This was the repression of old-school feminists and the counter-promotion of the elitist man-hating brigade.
"This was the repression of old-school feminists and the counter-promotion of the elitist man-hating brigade."
The large support which existed for the womens' libbers in the seventies became complacent because most of the trigger issues were being dealt with. The radicals, who'd largely been kept at arms length previously, were in firm control of the movement's direction by the mid eighties. The majority of folk these days don't know anything but the super radical variant and it's given the status of a religion.
Rebel News records the anti-intelligence of the counter protests to right-to-lifers protests, revealing the vehenence and non-sensical replies, which surprised me. In the prelude to the possible US Supreme Court ruling on "Wade Versus Roe", a doctor provided an 8 minute description of a trimester abortion, which visibly shattered the politicians who previously wore bored expressions. Faced with a call for abortions to be legal within 28 days of birth, this is the kind of shock that Americans need to alert them to emerging hyper-extremeism... https://newtube.app/user/ClickHere/DmmcMVo
This is a horror story.
In Australia in 2020,
Suicides:
Men: 2384, Women: 755, Gender Imbalance = 1629 men
Intimate Partner Murder:
Men: 9, Women: 34, Gender Imbalance = 25 women
But we all know that men are disposable—their lives are worth less than women’s, right? And therefore, the tragic deaths of those 25 women is a national emergency, but the tragic deaths of those 1629 men needs to be swept under the rug, right?
We should be spending much more money and effort on preventing those 25 female deaths than on preventing those 1629 male deaths, right?
https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-03/sr39_homicide_in_australia_2019-20.pdf
https://lifeinmind.org.au/about-suicide/suicide-data/suicide-facts-and-stats
Another very important contribution Bettina. This confirms my view as a single man that things like suicide, homelessness, poverty and incarceration are overwhelmingly male issues though you would never know it with things like the fabricated "gender pay gap" and the "super pay gap" being bandied about as if they are actually real, which they are not. I'd like to put a slightly different take on this relating to my deep disgust at seeing some of the truly offensive advertisements that are being displayed on the sides of Sydney buses by Sydney Mission which are not only designed to denigrate homeless men, but also to hijack the homelessness issue and turn it into something to do with domestic violence. If some suicidal men see these appalling advertisements and take their lives as a result this is hardly surprising. I recently heard the CEO of Sydney Mission talking about the increase of 'at risk' people which allows her to conveniently speak about women instead of men. If you're 'at risk' it means that you aren't actually homeless but you can still qualify for support. Call me a cynic but I suspect this is a great way to deny support to homeless men and diverting scarce resources to 'at risk' people who are invariably women who may not even be in need of accommodation. After seeing these advertisements which I believe may be tied to government support on condition that they turn homelessness into a domestic violence issue, I absolutely refuse to donate any money to these once worthy institutions because the impression I get is they now deliver absolutely the worst type of community service i.e. a service that makes politically motivated judgment calls against the most vulnerable people in society that are entirely based on what somebody looks like rather than their personal needs.
Joe, I've seen exactly what you describe with charities turning homelessness into a "women's issue". I've also seen what you describe, but had forgotten until your reminder, their linking it to "domestic violence" (male perpetrated, of course), which is an affront to the majority of homeless, ie. men.
After 40 years as a practicing Catholic, giving reliably and generously to the major charities, esp. Vinnies, I stopped when I saw this sort of advertising IN OUR PARISHES for two years in a row!!! The men of Vinnies and the priests dutifully told the congregation how Vinnies comes to the rescue of a homeless women who are fleeing "domestic violence", and then asked for donations. All around the parishes there are posts reminding us of the suffering of women in "domestic violence" and everything else (esp. "education" and "gender inequality") both nationally and internationally. There may be just 1 in 10 pictures with a suffering male - and almost never white.
Your observation of the CEO talking about "at risk" people (ie. women) as a priority, rather than those who are actually homeless (ie. men) is spot on!
The Australian Catholic Bishops penned a "voting guideline" for the election and it mentioned women twice (not too bad.. hehe..) and men not once. Curiously, one of their two women's issues was homelessness! LOL! "The crisis of homelessness in women over 55". The feminists have worked out a message with this one, stuck to it, and now it's mainstream.
"I absolutely refuse to donate any money to these once worthy institutions because the impression I get is they now deliver absolutely the worst type of community service i.e. a service that makes politically motivated judgment calls against the most vulnerable people in society that are entirely based on what somebody looks like rather than their personal needs."
I agree entirely, and do the same.
Thanks Stephen, you make a fantastic point. I don't want this to be a rant against charities but your comments remind me of the time I helped out serving dinners for a well known charity one night many years ago. What was noticeable was more than nine out of ten attendees for this homeless event were men. Without giving too much away I have subsequently listened to the person who runs this charity many times on the radio going on about how terrible homelessness is, particularly for women. Like most people I know, the vast majority of the visible homeless I see, including the underpass sleepers who I used to see every day on my way to work, are men. This has left me absolutely flummoxed to say the least.
Thanks for that personal anecdote, Joe! Very, very telling!
I'm saving that in my database of important information for future reference, because it's going to become increasingly difficult to say that the "majority of the real homeless are men", as the contrived statistics become the accepted narrative.
We once ran a campaign calling out Mission Australia when they first started running the campaign linking homelessness and domestic violence. We even organised for male victims of violence to meet with their CEO and he seemed convinced they had made an error of judgement. There were a couple of ads including male victims and now they are back to their own tricks. If any of you have spare time please write to the CEO and explain. It would be particularly good if some of my female readers could make the effort to do this. Our voices carry more weight - a sad fact but true.
That's great Bettina and all credit to you for a much needed campaign - I was genuinely shocked and outraged. I should've mentioned the figures you provide are equally outrageous. I just noticed reading the budget papers (I don't do this normally) - another $2.1 billion will be squandered on women's programs which are of no economic benefit to anyone. I guess that's what you get with not only a Minister for Women but also an Assistant Minister for Women. It'd be different if any of this actually achieves anything positive but it almost never does. While we're on the subject of buses have you seen the pink bus being driven around that is dedicated to contribution made by female bus drivers? Needless to say, there is no bus being driven around that is dedicated to the contribution made by male bus drivers which, it seems to me, is a far more significant contribution. Another win for diversity and inclusion!
"I guess that's what you get with not only a Minister for Women but also an Assistant Minister for Women."
Just imagine what it would be like if women were running the entire show. You think it's bad now? There are reasons women have been denied power through the ages.
Thank you again , I can empathise with men going through this pain
Excellent article bettina , thank u for your concern for the welfare of these men .
Male suicide following a relationship breakdown is an absolute tragedy, but in many ways, unsurprising.
A study I read recently (will add the citation if I can find it) claimed that men are often much more emotionally invested in a marriage or long term relationship than women.
One of the primary observations was that men often give up most of the relationships they had with male peers, with the relationship becoming increasingly centred around the female partners existing social network.
When men go into a relationship, they often go all in, while women have a tendency to have one foot outside of the relationship, which is facilitated by their strong female network.
Males are also literally invested in the relationship with a traditional approach to financial obligations such as mortgages and other liabilities often still resting squarely on the shoulders of men. When these assets are divided during a separation, the ledger rarely accurately represents the equity contribution of each party, frequently leaving men substantially worse off relative to their financial contribution to the relationship.
Women also have an expectation that men should bring assets into a new relationship, even if the women doesn't have any herself. For many women, a man without assets is a definite non-starter.
A telling reality of the emotional commitment to a relationship, and perhaps even the degree of true love itself, is that men commit suicide when their wife leaves the relationship out of despair and a broken heart. Women are most likely to commit suicide when their husband retires, spending almost all of his time with his wife - a scenario she can no longer contend with.
Facts don’t lie.
Women think they have a mortgage on love and commitment. I don’t believe that for a moment.
I have never suffered from suicidal ideation even though I have been going through Dante’s 9 circles of Family Court Hell for over 7 years (and still not finished) and now suffer from chronic depression.
My psych has raised this as a talking point over the past 7 years and all I can really say for why I am not at risk of suicide is that I’m too damned stubborn.
Over the years I have lost too many family members, friends and acquaintances to suicide (nearly all of whom have been male) which is one of the compelling reasons I couldn’t contemplate taking my own life; I would never want to place this trauma on my kids.
Having experienced it myself, I can understand and appreciate the pressures, angst and utter despair caused by our barbaric duluthian Family Courts and DV courts that drives some men to self-harm, reclusiveness, others to suicide and some men to acts of domestic violence; neither are justified, but until we publicly admit the predominant causes of male suicide in Australia, this escalating tragedy will continue unchecked.
I can see where they are coming from
Having been through the Strategic DVO system
The Arresting Police Officers don't want to hear your story "tell it to the judge!"
The local police domestic abuse unit was always too busy to see me or return my calls but rolled out the red carpet for my ex.
The Judge put up his hand "Unless you are pleading guilty you are wasting the courts time!"
The court social worker put up his hand "don't tell me your problems I am not your lawyer!"
The court ordered compulsory abuse class kept failing me because I citied #MenToo rather than their USA prison book.
It was only my family support and Bettina's #MenToo book that gave me the mettle to see it through.
Essentially as a male you can not tell your side of the story because the #beleivewomen movement has quashed your right to respond.
Even now if I cite #MenToo in a course paper I am at risk of getting marked down.
Thankyou Bettina for shining a light on mens' issues.
Hopefully one day soon the pendulum will swing back to the centre.
Wow, that must have really annoyed the abuse class people when you cited my book. Good for you, Mr T. You might like to look at this old video I made with a guy who was thrown out of one of these batterers courses because he was too argumentative. It is pretty funny!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUktWq7fFY8