I certainly agree with you there Onthebeach, in that it seems to me that Indigenous women and children in this country are the ones most likely to be hurt by domestic or sexual violence within their own communities, and mostly by their own family members.

When I worked with those communities I felt angry and frustrated at the senseless violence that was ignored by police because it was just "cultural fighting amongst families".
Men, women and children were spurred on by alcohol and substance abuse to beat the c##p out of each other.
I don't know what the answer is.

Dear onthebeach,

Thanks for the article.

Complete objectivity is particularly difficult to achieve
in the social sciences. By rigorously excluding personal
biases and by submitting research findings to the
criticism of the sociological community, however,
sociologists can guard against subjective distortions and
can reach a high degree of objectivity.

It appears that this was not done in the case in the Nordic example
that you've given us and deserved to be defunded. Gender is an
interesting subject worthy of further study. Social reality
turns to have many layers of meaning. The discovery of each
each new layer changes the percpetion of the whole. To be sure,
sociology is an individual pastime in the sense that it
interests some people and bores others. Some like to
observe human beings, others to experiment with mice...

Onthebeach,
Before the advent of the internet it was more difficult to gather and spread information, when a new technology arises and the amount of information available to the public increases it typically takes about 15 years to have an impact. You'll notice that governments and academics will still try to promote BS even though they know that anyone with a few minutes to spare and a computer or smartphone can check the facts of the matter and broadcast their findings to the world.
It's pretty hard to propagate BS ideas like "Gender Theory" in this environment, here's a few videos for the weekend:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqO73PUgMak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ21NLr_Qc8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUMifHT1AwY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUMifHT1AwY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZsKdEl0-dg

I'd posted previously on Feminist research and subjectivity. Broadly from what I can see it seems to be a relatively common tenant of feminist research that objectity is rejected and feminist research should seek to validate the subjective experiences of women.

Dispassionate, objective research is seen as a male construct.

Some links in one of my earlier posts at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4912&page=0#131549

There are a range of other articles around which seem to be written by feminist researchers discussing similar issues, the implications of a rejection of objective research in favor of a subjective approach which seeks to validate a particular set of beliefs is something that seems to not often get serious attention.

R0bert

We should note that there are subject matters that
present research problems of a kind that natural
scientists rarely have to deal with. This is
especially true when the subject matters are not
inanimate objects or unreflecting animals. When
a researcher is dealing with people who are self-aware,
who have complex individual personalities, and who
are capable of choosing their own courses of action for
both rational and irrational reasons things become quite
complex. The fact that a researcher is studying human beings
poses major challenges to research methodology.

1) The mere act of investigating social behaviour may
alter the very behaviour that is being investigated.
When people know that they are being studied, they may not
behave as they normally would.

2) People - unlike bacteria or hydrogen atoms - have
emotions, motives, and other highly individual personality
characteristics. People may give false information
deliberately, to put themselves in a better light, or
unintentionally, becaue they misinterpret a question or
do not understand the reasons for their own behaviour or
attitdues.

3) The origins of sociel behaviour are almost always
extremely complex, involving many social, psychological,
historical, and other factors. It is usually much more
difficult for the sociologist than for the natural
scientist to sort out cause and effect because so many
variables tend to be involved.

4) It is not permissable for ethical reasons to perform
certain kinds of experiments on human beings.

5) The sociologist unlike the natural scientist is part
of the very subject he or she is studying.

All sociologists recognise these problems, but not all are
agreed on how to deal with them.

Those are compelling reasons why feminism, or is that some social science academics, should not be in universities.

Might as well fund a legion of academics justify Creationism. It is a belief too and should have its own faculty. Otherwise it would be discrimination.

Feminist academics lie to society in pretending that their beliefs are based on fact and scientific peer-reviewed academic research, and are not just bogus circular arguments based on an ad hominem.