I cannot see the connection beween the Aurukan incident and "gynocide". The Aurukan incident was reflection of the standards (based on hopelessness) of that society within which it took place.

Girls, women and girls with a cognitive impairment, and women and girls targeted for gang rape by men were thought to be outside the group of women who weren’t allowed to say no. ??

I dont think feminists have a monopoly on 'horror' of the wider community. I believe these matters are of a kind that were just commonplace in an uncivilised community. This was normal practice pre settlement and still is in remote areas getting under radar for decades.

This is what Robert Manne demanded they be bought home to endure, boys and girls. Barbaric and uncivilised as it seems, I am sure many Aboriginals who have suffered and partaken in all this tribal abuse all thier lives, all their living relatives lives 'shake thier heads' and wonder what the fuss is all about. it happened to Nan, mum and now me, no-one intervenes because it is given that this is practice an uncivilised tribes right of self government.

Of course Robert Manne, who initiated the debarkle, fabrication of Australian History and perversion, is known to be a "little strange" with his perverted, sick notions, like "suicide bombers are extraordinarily, indeed fanatically, brave. Nor can than they plausibly be described as terrorists" ?? http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/06/1049567563645.html Tell that to the families of suicide bombers in Bali Mr Manne, and explain how "Bringing them Home" is not paramount to accessory to the most hienus crimes committed to women and children in the Western World.

I found the Report severally flawed and incompetant, I really wonder if the Bringing them Home Report was concieved before or after the terms of Reference were 'created' for the Inquiry which made the submission to the UN, committing innocent Australian's ancestors to a verdict of genocide of Aboriginal people, which niether occured (it would have if that had been the intention, like Tasmania's resolve)it was never concieved and even if written strangely in a pre PC legislation of another time and place, was "never enacated", or success would have been certain.

Healthwatcher "I cannot see the connection beween the Aurukan incident and "gynocide".”

I would agree with you.

I was sure of my understand of the definition but decided to confirm what “genocide” meant with the dictionary for which I found the following,

Genocide: “the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.”

Now lets look at two events

Arakune – genocide – well, I understood the offenders were all aboriginal and the victim was aboriginal. I would suggest a description cultural “suicide” would be more fitting than “genocide”:.

Werribee was an act by males against one female, in itself not particularly “notable”, except for the distribution of the video/CD after. Nothing to compare it, to Arakune.

I would note the Werribee perpetrators received penalties which the parents of the victim endorsed as “appropriate”.

I would further note the hoo-haa about the Arakune sentencing (or absence there of) was vocal criticism of the FEMALE presiding judge in dismissing the case without penalty. I would note the criticism was not the single voices of “feminism” but included many males who found the dismissal to say the least “extraordinary”

So the articles author view that “Gynocide: the idea that men create a social system where women live entirely as instruments of men’s interests.”

Is nothing more than a cheap propagandist redefinition for the interest of sensationalism.

Hardly a laudable pursuit for anyone who wants their “feminism” to be taken seriously.

So we get to the “feminists”

The article states “The Werribee and Aurukun cases therefore leave feminists facing a bleak reality.”

I recall dearest Margaret Thatcher and her view of “feminism”

“I owe nothing to Women's Lib.”

And

“The battle for women's rights has been largely won.”

Margaret, a feminine lady with balls of steel.

I note the author “is a PhD candidate at the Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne.”

Well, I guess Caroline Norma should spend some time researching and understanding how a successful woman like Margaret Thatcher made a more significant contribution to the world than all the “Bleak futured” feminists put together

I caution against the use of the word "gynocide" in this article. This was coined by Mary Daly in the popular book "Gyn/Ecology" in reference to the Witch Hunt's in early modern Europe. Daly made the claim that up to nine million people, mostly women, were killed as a result of the witchhunts. As bad as they were, scholarly research claims that the figure is more like 75,000. Making an error by a factor of 120 is likely to bring ridicule even when the issue is of import.

Likewise I believe it is worth mentioning that contrary to the article's claim ("The shock for feminists was that no one described it [the Werribee assault] as rape") is incorrect as even a modicum of research will show (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Melbourne_teenage_DVD_controversy,
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/10/25/1161699379876.html
)

I am also very concerned on the author's conclusion. She seems to be implying that "consent" is no longer a valuable basis for agreement to sexual acts and indeed it will be a form of "gynocide". I would suggest that to compare the consent of adults of adult reasoning to engage in sexual acts with those of the Werribee and Aurukun cases is extremely inaccurate and politically supportive of totalitarian solutions. I certainly hope this is not the case, and would welcome correction if I have interpreted the conclusion incorrectly.

"Female genocide", give me a break., this has nothing to do with white middle class female politics and shame on you for involving a ten year old Aboriginal girl in your politics.

Have you forgotten that a white female judge let these mongrels get off free and that a white female premier of the state is trying to cover it up. What about the white previous chief Minister of the NT she did nothing to assist Aboriginal women in her Territory from sexual and physical abuse for years.

Its not the gender in question here its the race of the child that has allowed this to happen. Any black person from the north like me can tell you that if these blokes had done this to a white child, they would have automatically been placed in jail once it became a police matter.

I half understand what the writer is getting at at note the caution in the last thread. I'm not sure the writer has demonstrated her case. I would say that many aboriginal women emphatically disagree with any form of abuse and this has been the focus of many articles in The Australian, the SMH and The Age as well as TV.

I'm strongly for the Govt intervention and the crack down on booze. Having said that, am I strongly for the Govt intervention and crack down on eccies and booze in western sydney and the northern suburbs of melbourne? Dunno.

RE feminist media: check out the Sat Age, most of the female columnists at The Advertiser and certain factions in the Fairfax press gallery in Canberra.

There are 2 issues here

1. Only "deserving" women can take sexual assault cases to court. In Victoria in the early 1970s that meant white, middle class, virgin of unimpeachable character. Clearly the woman who took Geoff Clark to court on rape charges failed one of those characteristics. This rolls through to other areas of justice. Many women have been denied justice in the workplace, in the courts and in their family life by this society's rigid application of madonna - whore dichotomy.

2. The very suggestion of sexual assault stirs the emotions of many people.
We demand the utmost punishment for those found guilty of sexual assault out of proportion to the actual damage inflicted with generally no consideration of restorative justice.
People committing more damaging assaults escape community outrage and as severe a sentence.

The core part of the cult of feminism is to stereotype and vilify the male gender, and to portray men as being abusers of “women and their children”.

I am a man, but I have never seen a rape.

I haven’t even seen a woman having sex with another man

I have never seen a gang of men attack a female.

I have never seen a woman with a black eye, amongst the many thousands of women I have seen (from Hobart to Cairns)

So what should I have to do to be a man as stereotyped by feminists?

Uh-huh, dem eeevil boyz-to-menz strike again.

Typical blinkered view about gender identity politics. Feminists have raised one-way femicentric gender consciousness in recent decades. Using hideous acts of rape cynically employed to whip men with the guilt/shame schtick. You've zoned people out.

Feminists have themselves to blame, with the oppressor/oppressed victimology copout. They've realised how difficult it is to build consensus (feminism suffers deep ideological fragmentation, to the point that it means anything you choose, effectively meaning no-thing). Its avoided the hard self examination and broad based inclusiveness that will bring the masses of men on board, instead becoming defensive in the face of such notions, aka... attack mode.

Feminism has many parallels with unionism.

Politics is essentially about POWER. Its extremely difficult to negotiate. Each side seeks to control debate, define the terms in advance of agenda, namely... POWER. Everyone knows this and gets tired of quibbling behind the facade of illusions like equality.

Gender is a psycho-social construct, built upon projected insecurity of ego identity, predicated on reproductive biology. Essentially empty, having no basis in reality, merely imagined, constructed. Everyone bleeds red.

Men are currently fashioning discourse around their gender issues, under the radar. Not wanting to get shot down, men are figuring it out themselves. Excluded from public discourse, mediating personal changes and living them out. You can see them underfoot, the main one being doing your own thing, staying out of harms way and getting on with it. The world's a noisy place and everyone's got a basket of in-yer-face personal issues that you are expected to answer for.

Court/legal reform that men will support?... The family courts and family law. This area is a major obstacle that you have laid in your own path. A system administered on old world views of women, interpreted by old fashioned chivalrous patriarchs, ironically drawing no attention from equality minded, modern, independent types. Too much leverage/power to give up l suspect.

Responsibility, accountability and ownership is required by EVERYONE. Dont hold your breath, its someone elses' fault. We're all victims now.

Oh dear!

another article written in an highly inflammatory manner, which kind of has the smell of a fire and brimestone preacher.

If one takes a look at the issue of consent, it was not until sometime around 1890 was the age of consent for girls raised from 11.

I thought Dworkin had died, but it seems that this author is her reincarnated.

Uninformed,

This is a quite off-topic, however, your criticism of Robert Manne is quite wrong. Suicide bombing can indeed be brave, and indeed non-terrorist. It is not the act itself, but who it is directed against. Would an ANZAC who blew themselves up among advancing squad of Nazi's so their alliess can escape be considered a "terrorist" in your definition; I presume not. The suicide attack in Bali, against unarmed civilians, was indeed cowardly and terrorist. The same cannot necessarily be said of suicide bombers in Iraq, which the article you reference refers to - especially when they are against military and para-military targets.

As for his defense of the "Stolen Generation" I can only recommend his own work when debating Andrew Bolt on the matter: Please consider it.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/robert-manne/the-cruelty-of-denial/2006/09/08/1157222325367.html

Col Rogue,

Margaret Thatcher is, and not for the first time, mistaken. After all, this is the person who claimed "And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families", ignoring the inherent contradiction of mentioning "families", which is certainly a social variable with differering cultural norms and ignoring the fact she used English!

So when she says she owe's nothing to Women's Lib, she may wish to consider the right of women to vote, to stand for public office and, of course, the cultural contribution of many and varied femists who showed that women can engage in public debate and discussion.

HRS,

Your anaedoctal evidence aside, empirically women are often the victims of violent and sexual crimes perpetrated by men. No collectively (as some would like to think) but individually. Please put aside the fact that you personally haven't seen a woman with a black eye from Cairns to Hobart and do some reading on domestic violence statistics; or at least talk to some people from a shelter on the matter.

JamesH,

You're right. Google the authors name, find out who her PhD supervisor is and then google that name. It is very revealing. (Let's just say "Not my idea of feminism", shall we?)

Lev,
What is anecdotal? This feminist is accusing me of somehow sexually exploiting women, because of some isolated incidents that have occurred in parts of Australia that I have never been in.

“and racism leading to Aboriginal women and girls being left unprotected from men”

“It refers to men creating a social system where women live entirely as instruments of men’s interests.”

"The idea can be most easily understood in relation to men’s sexual behaviour."

"Social institutions and individuals simply believe that women want whatever men do to them."

"Women always “consent”, in other words, because no view different to that held by men is permitted or recognised"

"But now the judiciary, as a major social institution, has said that even 10-year-old Aboriginal girls are part of the female group that men can legally buy for abuse."

The word “men” is being used quite heavily throughout, and it classifies ALL MEN as being one and the same.

But as a man, I have never carried out any of the things I am being accused of, so I accuse this feminist of discrimination.

The fact that she is studying for a PhD means absolutely nothing.

Erin Pizzey said;

“Well you can't make actually your own unique human experience - you cannot extrapolate that to then include everybody else. If your father, like mine, was a violent bully, it doesn't mean that every man I know is going to be a violent bully.”

Professor Daphne Patai in Heterophobia explores the predictable process where claim makers firstly bring a problem to public awareness and then expand the claims beyond its initial boundaries.

This Phd author firstly establishes two horrendous and emotive unrelated events. One in Werribe and the other in Aurukun.

She then expands these events to be evidence of Gynocide.

“The idea of gynocide has been in feminist thinking for more than 30 years now, and could be described as a core idea. It refers to men creating a social system where women live entirely as instruments of men’s interests.”

If women in our society were really just an instrument of men’s interests, then women would not have many of the legal protections that they have today. Rape has been against the law for perhaps a thousand years.

The social system we have (however imperfect) evolved to serve the interests of the community, not just the interests of one gender. What feminists tend to forget is that women themselves played a big role in the evolution of our society, overtly and covertly.
Feminist do not see that (some) women also exploit men. So the social system served women as well.

She has one thing right in that feminist ideas, sometimes do come from outerspace and misandry and antagonism towards heterosexuality and men is still alive and well.

There are a number of studies on mating rituals such as "Women are natural born flirts" and even alpha males do not approach women until they are invited by the first glance.

It is women who control the mating ritual, not men. So this does not support the arguement that society is 'gynocide'.

JamesH as I understand it "gynocide" is the disappearance of female identity.

In the last 100 years women have
1. got the vote
2. had their employment in underground mines curtailed - good thing
3. achieved equal pay for equal work
4. stepped into men's jobs in the work force in World War 1 and WW2
5. pushed out of the workforce in 1932 and 1945 to free up jobs for male breadwinners
6. encouraged into the workforce, now most mothers work from the time their baby is 1.
7. forced to pay for expensive child care with restrictive hours in inaccessible locations
8. expected to spend money and effort on appearance. Hairdressers charge women 6 times as much for the same haircut as men and women earn less money

The above is all about women being subservient to men's needs

Australian Marie Claire used to have an article an issue about transgender issues. It should be a women's mag - not a drag queen self help manual

HRS,

an·ec·do·tal, –adjective
"based on personal observation, case study reports, or random investigations rather than systematic scientific evaluation: anecdotal evidence."

The author has made errors of generalising majority cases to a universal cases. You are making the error of suggesting your personal experience is equally universal. You are correct to accuse this particular feminist of discrimination, but by expressing your personal experiences in this particular context neglects aggregate empirical evidence ie.,

a) domestict violence is a serious issue, beyond being isolated [1]
b) women than men are victims [2]

I would humbly suggest that your claim "The core part of the cult of feminism is to stereotype and vilify the male gender, and to portray men as being abusers of 'women and their children'" is incorrect. Whilst this is certainly the case among a certain type of feminists who do extreme discredit to the name (cf., Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism?, 1994) the principle objective of feminism has been civil and legal equality with men. I presume you support civil and legal equality for all adults of adult reasoning, but perhaps I'm being presumptuous.

1] According to the Centers for Disease Control, domestic violence is a serious, preventable public health problem affecting more than 32 million Americans, or more than 10% of the U.S. population (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000).
2] In the United States, 20 percent of all violent crime experienced by women are cases of intimate partner violence, compared to 3 percent of violent crime experienced by men (although by the same token men comprised 24% of domestic violence homicide victims.)

(No, I don't have Australian statistics. I am reasonably sure they are similar however)

If the "real" feminist view actually did get a wider airing in the media, it might be forced to deal with some of the outer-space elements which are so evident here.

It's a great shame it doesn't, because as this article so clearly demonstrates, there are plenty of noxious elements being brewed up by university intellectuals well out of the critical eyes of wider society (including the wider female society).

Based on this article I'd have to agree with HRS's claim that "the core part of the cult of feminism is to stereotype and vilify the male gender, and to portray men as being abusers of 'women ..."

I'm not so widely read in feminism to know whether this author's views are indicative of the whole field, but the author has put herself out there as a representative of it, so you can hardly blame HRS for making this assumption (ie Lev).

This author is saying there is no such thing as a consenting woman, which makes all men, by default, rapists. "Women always "consent", in other words, because no view different to that held by men is permitted or recognised"

This is a terrible point of view to hold and if the author is heterosexual, I wonder how this meshes with her personal experience. It is one thing to preach from your academic pulpit and it is another thing to extend those principles to everyday life.

This article unfortunatley confirms broader society's fears that modern feminism has become a man-hating, anti-heterosexual extreme agenda.

The author has ignored the fact that a significant proportion of public office holders (the "Social institutions and individuals" who "simply believe that women want whatever men do to them.") are in fact women. Like the judge who handed down the sentence!

Doing a PhD unfortunately doesn't give you access to better knowledge than the (wo)man in the street. It seems to cocoon you in an academic bubble which is so far out of touch with the real world, its opinions are never actually aired in the media because they'd get laughed down in ten seconds.

While I might quibble with the use of the term ‘gynocide’ here, the author makes a fair enough point that, in a patriarchal society, crimes committed against women by men are routinely stripped of their gender political context.

Underlying judgements such as Arukun and Werribee, is the belief that women’s rights – sexual or otherwise – can be, and often are, traded off against other rights deemed more worthy or more immediate by the wider society. With each trade-off, women’s long road to equality becomes even longer and more treacherous.

And BTW, I Googled the word 'gynocide' to get an idea of how others were using it. The very first entry was a link to a porn site. I rest my case.

Lev

Just a point or two about this comment you made …

‘Mary Daly made the claim that up to nine million people, mostly women, were killed as a result of the witchhunts’'

Daly was far from alone in citing this figure. She was working from figures that had been around – and for the most part, accepted – for two centuries. The ‘9 million’ figure dates back to the 18th-century and often appeared in 19th and early 20th century texts, essays and songs. The scholarly research that has since refuted the ‘9 million’ figure had not yet been made at the time Daly wrote Gyno/Ecology in 1978.

Daly has been much vilified for her use of the figure (as with just about everything else she’s written) – and is often mistakenly portrayed as having first cited it. By contrast, I don’t see the same levels of vilification or misinterpretation directed at, for example, Benjamin Christensen, who used it in his celebrated 1922 film ‘Witchcraft through the Ages’, or Charles Murphy who used it in his song ‘The Burning Times’.

I'm not quite in agreeance with the hysteria over this article. HRS in particular has as usual completely taken the female point of view entirely out of context. After the little snippet he took from the article, he should have read:
"This doesn’t mean that every single woman works to serve men’s interests in every single situation. It just means that major social institutions, and the way most people (men and women) think, don’t consider women as having a viewpoint different to men."

This quote is relevant in defining the viewpoint that the author is coming from. That said, the author clearly identifies herself as a capital F Feminist, whereas I relate more as a little f feminist (as I think most women do). What's the difference? Mainly not seeing conspiricies around every corner, and simply wanting to be given equal opportunity (my opinion is no less valuable than my husbands, and if he disagree's, I'll withdraw his allowance!).

I dont agree with the author's stance on gynocide. But I do agree that there is a worrying implication if the men in these situations are seen as less guilty than if they had assaulted a screaming middle-class mother of 2. I dont see what the difference is. Of course there is cultural problems ingrained in many indigenous communities that has an effect on both the men and women of these communities and drives the standards of what is acceptable (and before anyone cries racist, I've lived in one of these communities, and KNOW that 5 yo's are considered fair game). It still shouldnt stop the rest of society working to change those standards.

Such moral outrage and vilification of a young woman who dares to challenge the patriarchy. Surely the men who rape children and perpetrate violence against women are more deserving of your rage.

‘Mary Daly made the claim that up to nine million people, mostly women, were killed as a result of the witchhunts’'

Posted by MLK,

There seems to be a huge debate over this figure with other sources quoting somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000

Also some sources say 5% were men and other sources put the figure as high as 25% male.

It appears though rather than the burning times as being a war against women, it was actually a war against paganism or what some of the leaders of the church deemed to be paganism.

Heretics were also sentenced to death.

I beleive before the burning times, the church was outlawing many pagan behaviours, and making them a sin.

One of the problem with radical feminists is they may be small in number and publish wildly exaggerated statistics or arguements which do get refuted, but people tend to remember the exaggerations as being fact. So urban myth gets accepted as fact, mainly because it is highly emotive. The arguement of the Sophists.

History is littered with case examples of where truly brutal people gain power and commit horrendous crimes, however to judge history from our modern perspective it is easy to distort what happened, add our own meaning in order to understand what happened.

Country Gal wrote about the abuse of children, what worries me is how did we get to this point and what is happening that maybe contribuiting to child sexual abuse. Sometimes it is children behaving in a sexual manner with other children.

One thing I have learnt Country Gal is even other men have different viewpoints to my own and sometimes they are insightful.

"Surely the men who rape children and perpetrate violence against women are more deserving of your rage." - Les those men have been raged against on other threads and places. The horror of their offense does not make this article any the more rational or fair.

The whole concept of gynocide seems to suggest that women have had no role in shaping society, that they are powerless victims. That approach seems to be an insult to both women and men. It ignores the massive role women have played in child rearing throughout history (and most of the research I've seen suggests that formative years are the most significant in shaping values).

It ignores the reality that it's mostly men who die on the job and in war - hardly the actions of those creating a world for their own convenience. It ignores the countless men and women who have given their lives in toil and hardship for the sake of their childrens futures. It ignores far too much for the sake of a simplified view of the world that makes women less able and less responsible.

The truth is much more complex, women and men have both played roles which have provided privilige and hardship. Many of the pressures women face and the things that hold them back seem to be often enforced by other women.

The events the author refers to lie at the extreme in society, they do not represent what many would consider acceptable treatment of women (or of any human being). The authors attempts to use those events to paint a picture of the status of women in society is way off the mark.

R0bert

MLK,

To claim that a person is "vilified" by pointing out their promotion of a falsehood is deserving of ridicule. I certainly hope that if I ever engage in such errors of fact my peers will be as quick to point them out as well. That is how scholarship develops.

The nine million figure that Daly uses was derived from the writings of Matilda Gage from "Woman, Church and State" (1883) - perhaps I erred in not stating that, but merely a modicum of research is required.

The Benjamin Christensen film Häxan (1922) is obviously a work of fantastic fiction (indeed, it has been described as the first mockumentary) and for that I am more than prepared to accept inflation of facts for aesthetic purposes. I shall have to take it from you that Christensen used such a figure as I have only seen stills of demons etc from the film.

The same applies for Charles Murphy's "Burning Time" however your claim that he also used a nine million figure is most certainly wrong, even if he does inflate the actual number some fifteen fold.

The first hit from google on gynocide, contrary to your claim, is someone's livejournal (http://gynocide.livejournal.com/). That is not a porn site, even if it does have an image of a bottom (oh noes!). The second an article from Mother Jones. The third is this thread. The fourth is a blog reporting mass graves and bodies uncovered in Juarez and Basra. So where exactly is this porn site you allegedly found?

It would appear that 'resting your case' is code for 'making stuff up as you go along'.

I suppose I'm now vilifying you as well, right?

but by expressing your personal experiences in this particular context neglects aggregate empirical evidence ie.,

a) domestict(sic) violence is a serious issue, beyond being isolated [1]
b) women than men are victims [2]

Posted by Lev,

Lev it depends on what empirical evidence you want to use.

But for once can we not discuss DV, I sick to death of how interesting debates degenerate down to being about DV.

MLK, is right in pointing out that people have been vilified for pointing out falsehoods.

I rest my case.

‘To claim that a person is "vilified" by pointing out their promotion of a falsehood is deserving of ridicule. I certainly hope that if I ever engage in such errors of fact my peers will be as quick to point them out as well. That is how scholarship develops’.

It is also a good tool to silence the writer and divert attention away from the real issues raised by the work. How many other young women would voluntarily expose themselves to similar treatment? I would suggest very few.

Unfortunately, your falsehoods are facts for too many children and women in our society.

Les,

As mentioned by r0bert, you are quite right that the perpetrators of violence are deserving of great rage as has been expressed throughout the media etc on the incidents. Indeed, today's Online Opinion article (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6795) gives an excellent summary of the responses in the Aurukun case and some genuinely practical solutions.

I am however perplexed by your claim "Unfortunately, your falsehoods are facts for too many children and women in our society". The falsehood I pointed out referred to the quantity of witches killed in early modernity. In what way is witch killing a fact for women in children in our society?

Overall, I am generally supportive of the article, as is evident by what I have written in the discussion. However I am concerned with its cavalier disregard to matters of fact that effect the conclusion which correlates "consent" with "gynocide". Serious issues such as the Werribee and Aurukun (and most certainly their victims) are deserving of better scholarship than what was presented.

On reflection I would include this author with Dorwkins, MacKinnon and Morgan. All who display similar traits to the authors of 'The Malleus Maleficarum'. Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger.

"All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman." -- Catherine MacKinnon

"The idea of gynocide has been in feminist thinking for more than 30 years now, and could be described as a core idea. It refers to men creating a social system where women live entirely as instruments of men’s interests."

Author Esther Vilar had different ideas where she believed that it was men who worked for women, not the other way round. She described men as being women's slaves, and that women trained and conditioned men in a similar way to how Pavlov trained and conditioned his dogs.

In 'White Feather' feminism it is described how women would haze men and intimidate them into joining the armed services. So if society really was constructed for mens interests, how come these women were able to intimidate men into joining the armed services and to risk dying for their country.

I strongly suspect that if Australia came under imminent military threat, equality ideals would fly out the window and thousands of women would volunteer their men to be used as cannon fodder.

White feminists writers were not the least bit interested in Aboriginal women issues 30 years ago and this clumsy retrospective hardly makes up for it.

To throw every women into the feminist pot and declare them all "feminists" is not only insulting but ignorant.

Black woman have been fighting for women's rights well before some middle class white women discovered 'patriarchial domination'.

I think the Author needs to do some more research.

The English suffix -cide denotes an act related to killing. From Latin caedere "to cut, kill, hack (at), strike". In its wider meaning, it may also signify the destruction or dismantling of an object or concept.

As far as I recall the incidences at Aurukun and Werribee, are not acts related to killing.

If the concept of gyno-cide is related to the loss of female identity, then it must be remember that earlier feminists wanted society to be more androgynous and they supported the concept that it was nurture rather than nature(hereditary) that influenced gender identity and behaviour.

Gynocide: the idea that men create a social system where women live entirely as instruments of men’s interests.

If such a social system exists, it does not exist in Australia because such a social system where women lived entirely as instruments of men's pleasure would not have any laws designed to protect women from being abused or have laws that punished the abuser.

The author is correct when she states that some feminist concepts and thinking seem like they come from outer space.

The really scary bit is that this is written by a Ph'd student.

Seeing it's Christmas day I wasn't going to post anything until I saw this.

http://www.cooltools4men.com/2007/12/if-men-have-all-power.html#links

I had forgotten about the book "If men have all the power, How come women make all the rules?"

"Women's power is the opposite of monumental. It's like wall-to-wall carpeting, or a snowfall, everywhere and unavoidable, not concentrated into a few narrow, vertical monuments, like men's."

I am surprised that some woman who-calls-herself-a-feminist, hasn't come with the idea that Christmas Day is just another example of patriarchial oppression of women.

Merry Christmas everyone.

I want to discuss Caroline Norma's piece on gynocide, and specifically the hostile responses it has thus far received.

The issue of gynocide - and the issue of sexual abuse in Indigenous communities that Norma also cites in her article - are bound to be met by a range of often quite different, but frequently impassioned responses.

That said, though, I found the responses to Norma's article to be shockingly anti-intellectual and sexist. Norma is criticised for being a radical feminist, for being a PhD student, and even for stating the simple fact that women are still being subject to violence and murder at men's hands.

(It's interesting that when a certain now-departed Prime Minister's government put out brochures reading 'Australia Says No to Violence Against Women', he wasn't met with similar vitriol).

I am not suggesting that Norma's piece is beyond debate or criticism. No piece of writing is! However, her hostile critics could do a bit better than to attack her for her politics or her postgraduate studies. Or for stating what I agree is the truth: that is, violence against women is still a major problem in our community.

Daphne Patai author of Heterophobia;

"Sexuality is not private, but is political and related to power. 'Compulsory heterosexuality' is part of a power structure benefiting heterosexual males at the expense of women and homosexuals. This inequity is justified by an ideology that sees heterosexuality as natural, universal and biologically necessary and homosexuality as the opposite. The system also is reinforced by legal sanctions and violence against women (rape, battering, incest, and murder) and against lesbians, gays, and transgendered persons (verbal harassment, physical assault and murder)." This is the definition of heterosexuality that has found its way into a standard reference work by a major publisher!"

"I've documented many, many cases of what sound like lunatic statements made by feminists about the unnaturalness of heterosexuality. Some of the more mellow people say you can't blame a woman for having been heterosexual in the past, because after all she was trained to it, but now that she hears what we have to say, she certainly is responsible for the decisions she makes in the future. So, in other words, heterosexuality is obviously not the thing she should be choosing."

"I conclude from all of this, that there is antagonism to heterosexuality within the women's movement. Now, this isn't news. It's just that feminists have spent so much time pretending this isn't true and insisting that the accusations against them of "male bashing" was just backlash against feminists."

"They claim it's a misrepresentation of feminism, but it's not a misrepresentation. As someone who spent 10 years in women's studies, I know that male bashing has always been a very important part of feminism."

"This mindset, which has shaped so much public discourse today, has found its way into law. I call it feminist extremism. The language used by feminist extremists has become so ubiquitous that it is very difficult for reasonable people to frame arguments in something other than that language."DP

GYNOCIDE: : the idea that men create a social system where women live entirely as instruments of men’s interests.

Thus the word gynocide just becomes another tool to diss men.

Human mating

A buyers' market
Dec 13th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Men propose; women dispose

WOMEN often complain that dating is like a cattle market, and a paper just published in Biology Letters by Thomas Pollet and Daniel Nettle of Newcastle University, in England, suggests they are right. They have little cause for complaint, however, because the paper also suggests that in this particular market, it is women who are the buyers.
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10283290

I think this research kind of puts a really big dint in the Gynocide arguement.

Lev,
The author describes herself as being a feminist and not a “radical” feminist. In the article she makes generalised statements about the male gender, and discriminates and vilifies the male gender, but there are very few feminists who do not.

Try finding some document written by a feminists that says something positive about the male gender.

There are about 0.04% of males who carry out sexual abuse of children (of both boys and girls), and from that we are supposed to assume that we live in a gynocide society.

I suppose the weather in Canberra is representative of all parts of Australia also.

Country Gal,
I’m surprised feminist cult members have not complained by your intended use of domestic violence against your spouse.

“my opinion is no less valuable than my husbands, and if he disagree's, I'll withdraw his allowance!.”

Withdrawing funds or an “allowance” from a spouse if they did not agree with you is a form of financial violence, but feminist cult members normally say they that they do not believe in any form of domestic violence.

Or maybe it is all a sham, and in reality, feminist cult members only oppose domestic violence when carried out by a male towards a female.

Happy New Year to all.

HRS, Col Rouge and others, hope you keep up the good work.

Country Gal

HRS is right when he point out the withdrawing your husbands allownace is classified as domestic violence, however unlike HRS I do not assume that the allowance you are with holding is financial, it is perhaps withdrawing sex, or affection.

So basically it is sexual and/or emotional and psychological abuse, because your husband doesn't agree with you.

It was written that if women only had sex with men who walked on their hands, pretty soon almost half the world would be walking around on their hands. So withdrawing sex and affection will bring the most stubborn recalcitrant male to heel, most of the time.

James H,
I wish you a happy new year also.

I was surprised that the author herself did not comment about Country Gal’s intention to carry out domestic violence against her spouse.

The violence of feminism is not greatly physical, but involves distortion of information and the discrimination and vilification of 50% of the population.

To educate someone from pre-school to PhD level would possibly cost the taxpayer between $100,000 to $200,000 (or more), and for this the taxpayer gets someone who distorts information and attempts to discriminate and vilify 50% of the population.

That person is then excused by other feminists as being a “radical” feminist.

However universities now want more money, so a reasonable question to ask is “To do what”?

HRS

I wonder what George Orwell would write about feminism today?

His book 'Animal Farm' was one of the books I studied at school ages ago. Little did I realise that that book is as relevant today, as the the day it was printed.

Even the introduction to Gynocide reminds me of the introduction in Animal Farm where it was claimed that men were the problem and getting rid of men would solve the problem.

Old Major claimed that men had a system that benefited them and not the animals.