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Category: Gender (Page 6 of 7)

Mohler Men Could Have Ruled Over A House Of Horrors

November 19, 2009 / / 0 Comments

But I seriously doubt it.

Six male members of the Mohler family in Missouri have been charged with various sexual offences after being accused of raping and sodomising a group of children over many years.

Such things do happen.

But in this case, the accusations rested initially on ‘recovered memories.’ In other words, likely fantasies.

I have seen people severely psychologically damaged after being told by therapists that people with eating disorders (depression, forgetfulness, diffculty sleeping, etc, etc) have often suffered sexual abuse as children, and that if the client does not remember being abused he or she (usually she) probably was anyway, and should try to recover those memories, and that doing so will help her find the cause of her illness, and then recover.

Rubbish.

The only things we know for certain about ‘recovered memory therapy’ is that the memories recovered rarely have any basis in reality, and that the longer a client stays in such ‘therapy’ the worse his or her mental health will become, for example:

Suicidal ideation or attempts by patients increased by a factor of 6.7 during therapy, from 10% to 67%.

Hospitalization of patients increased by a factor of 5.5 during therapy, from 7% to 37%.

Self-mutilation increased by a factor of 8, from 3% to 27%.

Other people have since come forward to support the first complainant’s story in the Mohler case. They have told stories which, if true, would be able to be confirmed by clear physical evidence.

But so far, despite a week of intensive searching around the Mohler house and yard, no phyiscal evidence has been found.

The police must investigate, of course. But the media focus on this story has all the hallmarks of Salem type, Azaria Chamberlain type, witch hunt hysteria.

Maine and Marriage

November 9, 2009 / / 0 Comments

A referendum in the US state of Maine has rejected homosexual marriage.

There are five states in the US in which homosexual couples’ co-habitation can legally become a marriage. In the majority of those, the necessary changes to the law have been a result of court decisions.

Wherever the people have had a say, the answer has been no.

California and Maine were probably the best chance to get the nature of marriage changed by a popular vote. There is intense disappointment and anger amongst gay lobbyists at the Maine vote.

Does this mean that the majority of people in the US are anti-gay? I don’t think so.

The best man at my wedding, one of my best friends, is gay. One of my brothers is gay, as is my brother in law. I love them dearly, and want them to have stable, long lasting relationships in which they can find security and happiness.

But those relationships are not, and cannot be, a marriage. Marriage is between male and female.

That’s it. That is the way it is.

The word itself does not matter. You could have a law which decrees that homosexuals are entitled to be ‘married.’ The law could define any relationship in which two or whatever number of people of whatever gender who have made a public commitment to one another, as a marriage.

But then you would need to find, and people would find, another word for real marriages.

Because they simply are different, and changing the word won’t change the reality, whatever Wittgenstein may say.

NSW Dept of Community Services Stuffs Up Again

November 9, 2009 / / 0 Comments

A twelve year old girl has given birth to a baby boy after having become pregnant to her fifteen year old live -in boy friend.

Live in boyfriend? Yes. The girl lives with her mother, who was apparently unconcerned by the ongoing statutory rape/molestation of her daughter.

The girl’s father was concerned, and repeatedly asked DOCS to intervene. Nope. Too busy. And anyway, he was only her father.

What is most alarming about this is not just another appalling mess which DOCS was too ideologically blinded or too lazy to address, but the comments from DOCS minister Linda Burney which make it clear that nothing will change:

“I’m treating this very much as a private matter… the role of community services is to make sure that the young girl and her baby and her mother are getting all the support that they need.”

Actually DOCS has another role, which includes acting on complaints of child sexual abuse, and taking steps to ensure children are not repeatedly raped in their own homes.

And the girl’s mother? How much can her care be relied on to ensure this new baby’s safety and well-being?

Maryam and Marzieh

October 8, 2009 / / 0 Comments
Maryam and Marzieh Languish in a Teheran Jail

Maryam and Marzieh Languish in a Teheran Jail

Maryam and Marzieh are Christian women. They are from Islamic families. They live in Iran.

So of course, they are in jail.

They are denied medical care or contact with the outside world. One of the prison guards told them they should be executed for apostasy. They were arrested in March. Neither has yet been charged, but when they are, the death penalty is a real possibility.

Maryam and Marzieh’s story in detail at Elam Ministries.

Elam is a Iranian Christian ministry and advocacy group. Support them if you can.

Daycare Makes Children Fat

October 4, 2009 / / 1 Comment

A study of more than 12, 000 British children between the ages of seven and nine has found that children who spend large amounts of time in daycare because both parents (or a sole parent) work, are significantly more likely to become obese, and to suffer other long term health problems.

Naturally there are howls of outrage. An article in the Australian says the results have been refuted by Queensland mums. No they haven’t. To refute something means to show it is untrue. A couple of working mothers saying ‘Well my kid’s healthy, and eats salad and stuff’ does not refute the findings of an independent study of over 12,000 children.

Previous studies have found that extensive time in daycare in the early years can have long term negative effects on vocabulary acquisition and behaviour – effects which may be cause children to struggle at school and in later life.

Time to think again about subsidised daycare.

My general rule is that if something needs to be subsidised, it probably shouldn’t be.

For example, South Australian taxpayers pay about $2 for every $1 a commuter pays for a train or bus ticket in Adelaide. I travel 100 kilometres to work and back each day, with petrol prices on the island about 30% higher than in the city. So why should I be asked to subsidise the transport costs of people who travel 10 kilometres to work and back each day, and already pay less for petrol?

Likewise, why should parents who make the decision to sacrifice income so that one of them can parent their children full-time, be asked to subsidise parents who both work? The only reason would be that doing so provided some clear benefit to the wider community. But the now well established negative effects of long term early day care make it difficult to see any such benefits.

Parents shouldn’t be stopped from sending their children to daycare, of course. But they shouldn’t expect other people to pay for it.

A Brisbane lawyer and mother of four children, Mrs Tempe Harvey, agrees. She is establishing a lobby group for children’s welfare, the Kids First Parents Association of Australia. One of their policies is the scrapping of childcare subsidies. Good news.

Sexist Ads

July 29, 2009 / / 6 Comments

The two major Australian grocery retailers are both currently running offensively sexist ads.

The Coles ad is the less offensive of the two. ‘You shouldn’t be taxed for being a woman’ it says. So Coles will pay the GST on the whole range of feminine hygiene products.

How nice. I don’t think I should be taxed for being a man, either. So why aren’t they paying the GST on shaving products, or hair restoring products?

I also don’t think I should be taxed for having to eat, or having to wear clothes, but I doubt any retailer is going to say ‘Well that’s unfair, we”ll pay the GST on life’s essentials.’

Women spend most of the family income, so it is natural that retailers should target advertising to women. But suggesting that women are somehow being victimised by the taxation system, and that they, Coles, are bravely and generously remedying this injustice is dishonest nonsense.

The Woolworths ad is even worse.

A woman is making scones. She talks about the ingredients, and then says that recipe doesn’t say anything about fancy packaging. Then she looks at her husband, and says ‘I’ve never been worried about fancy packaging.’

Imagine the uproar if the ad went like this instead:

A bloke is in his toolshed. He says that every tool is in its place, and every tool has its purpose. He adds that tools don’t need fancy packaging, and then looks at his wife and says ‘I’ve never been worried about fancy packaging.’

People would recognise this for what it was – a deliberate putdown. They would complain. And they would be right to do so.

So why is it OK for advertisers to belittle men?

No Gayness For Guru

July 11, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Last week India passed legislation decriminalising homosexual acts between consenting adults. This has not been entirely popular.

The world’s most popular guru, Swami “Baba” Ramdev, (he has an international TV audience numbering about 85 million) has said a number of things that the gay community will not like. Particularly, that being gay is a defect.

Homosexuality is a curable disease and that sufferers could seek a cure. “It can be treated like any other congenital defect. Such tendencies can be treated by yoga, pranayam and other meditation techniques,” he said.

The legalisation would have a “negative effect” on the young, while increasing the prevalence of HIV/AIDs. “These are unnatural acts not designed for human beings. The decision of the High Court, if allowed to sustain will have catastrophic effects on the moral fabric of society and will jeopardise the institution of marriage itself. This offends the structure of Indian value system, Indian culture and traditions, as derived from religious scriptures.”

I pretty much agree with him. Except maybe about homosexuality being curable through yoga.

Homosexual desire, expecially if a person is only attracted to members of the same gender, is an ‘objective disorder.’

I know many gay men and women find such a view offensive.

Gay men and women should not be judged for their disorder. We are all disordered in some way. But it is still a disorder.

I have often heard arguments along these lines: ‘This is who I am’ (well, life is pretty tragic if your identity comes from only or even primarily from who you want to have sex with). ‘I can’t help these feelings, I didn’t choose them’ (quite possibly so, but neither do pedophiles or habitual gamblers choose to have the feelings they have). ‘I was made this way, so these feelings are natural, and because they are natural, they are good.’

Not necessarily. Natural is not always good. We live in a fallen world. Even for a non-Christian, knowing this is true is simply a matter of looking at the natural world.

That falleness affects all of us in different ways. It affects all of us. We are all less than we could be. So it behoves us not to judge others if they are tempted in ways we are not.

But that does not mean we should not be clear about what is right and what is wrong, or settle for saying that wrong is right.

Was Obama Checking Out A 17 Year Old’s Backside?

July 11, 2009 / / 0 Comments

A picture has been circulating around the web over the last few days which seems to show President Obama stealing a longing look at a 17 year old girl’s rear end.

I don’t think Obama is a good or capable leader. But it is important to be fair, and a fair assessment of what happened is probably that it was pure co-incidence that Obama happened to be looking in that direction when Mayara Tavares walked by.

It certainly wasn’t co-incidence that Nicolas Sarkozy was looking her direction, however.

Sarah Palin To Resign As Alaska Governor

July 4, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Maybe she is looking ahead to the 2012 presidential election. Good luck to her if so. She has vastly more experience of real life and of running things, making decisions and managing budgets that work than the present astonishingly inept incumbent.

Or maybe she has just had enough of the fountains of filth directed at her and her children. She deserves to be raped for not being a nice liberal lass, they deserve to be raped because they are her children, having a Down Syndrome baby instead of an abortion means she wants to breed a nation of retards, etc, etc, you get the idea. 

Left wing organisations respond to news of her resignation with (take a minute, guess…) attacks on her children.

These, of course, are from people who support the new, changed, more inclusive and compassionate leadership of the great BO.

Fascinating And Sad

June 30, 2009 / / 0 Comments

That could be the headline for a story about Michael Jackson, but it isn’t.

There is an interesting and moving story here of the women’s orchestra at Auschwitz.

In August 1943, the Austrian musician Alma Rose was coincidentally discovered at the experimental medical station. She was named as the new conductor, despite the fact that she was Jewish. The thirty-seven-year-old violin virtuoso was the daughter of Arnold Rose and the niece of Gustav Mahler.

Rose’s fellow prisoners described her as an extremely charismatic woman. The SS treated Rose with respect, often referring to her as Frau Alma (Mrs. Alma). From the beginning, Rose was the protégé of Hoessler and
Mandl. They placed an entire barrack at the musicians’ disposal for their personal and work use. Alma Rose was even allowed to exchange the old instruments for newer ones with better tone; she herself was given a particularly valuable instrument.

Through diplomatic maneuvers, Rose was slowly able to obtain better living conditions for all members of the orchestra. Each woman had her own relatively clean cover, straw mattress, sheet, and slept on her own plank bed. The musicians were able to wash daily and use the provisional toilet.

Nonetheless, music was forced labour, and Rose died before the war ended, probably by poisoning.

But music was also a means of survival, both in the sense of providing some security or (minimal) protection when surrounded by sudden death and unsepakable horror, and as way of finding hope and humanity and beauty.

Children At Work, Infants In The Senate

June 22, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Kathy and I cared for foster children over a number of years, including babies and toddlers.

I well understand the diffculties of blending work and the responsibilities of caring for children. There are a number of worksplaces and public facilties which are not supportive of people with children. Whether it is appropriate to expect that they should be or need to be is another question.

The Australian Federal Parliament is not a child-unfriendly place.

The work that senators do is serious. They review legislation which potentially affects the lives and well-being of every Australian. They are paid well to do so. Parliament is set up so they can do their work in an atmosphere free from distactions and unnecessary annoyances.

Senators come from all walks of life. I am glad that amongst the business men and women, unionists and career politicians, there are some people with young children.

As well as personal staff, members of parliament have access to tax-payer funded child care services, and quiet rooms where they be with their children without disrupting discussion in the house, where they can hear any debate, and from where their vote can be recorded.

So with all this support, and other options available, why did Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young insist on taking her two year old daughter Kora into the Senate chamber?

As Wendy Hargreaves pointed out in yesterday’s Herald Sun:

Infantile screaming is nothing new to our Federal Parliament. Political bawlers come in all ages and political colours.

But this week’s wah-wah effort by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young takes political mewling to an all-time low …

It’s not enough that they make us feel guilty for turning on a heater. Now they’re sending the Senate into a guilt trip for refusing infants.

This isn’t a play centre. This is the Upper House of Australia’s Federal Parliament.

Australian parents know the difficulty and the cost of arranging child care, and the pain of leaving a child to be looked after by someone else. They do it day after day without complaining.

By all means let Senator Hanson-Young take her daughter to Canberra. And to parliament if she cannot organise anything else.

But please Senator, don’t tell us you are hard done by if you don’t follow the rules, and won’t use the resources we pay for to help you do your job.

Wives Becoming More Violent?

June 22, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I seriously doubt it.

This article in today’s Australian points to a 159% increase in the number of women facing dometic violence charges over the last eight years as an indicator that women are becoming more violent.

It is more likely simply that police and care groups are beginning to take complaints made by men about domestic violence more seriously.

For a long time I have been concerned about campaigns which say something like ‘To violence against women, Australia says no.’  Why single out women in particular? Is violence against everyone else OK?

Such campaigns are based on the assumption that violence aginst women needs to be targeted because women are more frequently the victims of violence. But this is simply untrue. Outside the home, men are far more likely to be victims of violence than women.

But what about inside the home?

There is a vast body of research to show that women are just as likely as men to be perpetrators of domestic violence as men. There is a substantial online bibliography collected by Martin Fiebert of the Department of Psychology at California State University. Some research suggests that women are more likely to be the initiators of violence, and are more likely than men to use a weapon against their partner or children.

Erin Pizzey, the pioneer of shelters for victims of domestic abuse, points out that research suggests violence is a learned behaviour. When children see adults using violence as a means to resolve disagreements they learn those behaviours, whether the violence is used by male or female or both.

Women’s violence against men has frequently been treated as joke, both in entertainment (see the film ‘Stakeout’ for example, in which the character played by Richard Dreyfuss is viciously assaulted by his partner in what is meant to be, and to female members of the audience clearly was, a vastly amusing scene) and in real life, where male victims of domestic violence who report such violence to police are belittled or told to be a man and stop complaining.

If feminists and policy-makers are serious about ending domestic violence, they must take violence against men and children as seriously as they do violence against women.

In domestic violence, just as in economic and foreign policy, effective action must be based on facts, not on ideology.

The ABC (pleasant surprise!) has just posted a remarkably fair article on this story, with some interesting comment by Sue Price, co-director of the Men’s Right’s Agency.

They Got Her In The End

June 16, 2009 / / 2 Comments

But Carrie Prejean is still a lady:

I worked in good faith to meet my responsibilities as Miss California USA. I have met every scheduled appearance, and responsibility, as recently as May 31st. I have followed the proper protocol requested of me and haven’t made any appearances or speaking engagements without the consent or approval from the Miss California USA or Miss Universe Organizations. I have not signed with any book publisher or taken on any business proposals. As of today, June 11, 2009, I have done everything possible to honor my contract.

I hope Americans watching this story unfold, take away the most important lesson I have learned through all of this: nothing is more important than standing up for what you believe in, no matter what the cost may be. I’ve done my best under the difficult circumstances to handle the vicious attacks with integrity and show respect to others, even those who don’t agree with me.

A pity that some of those around her did not share her beliefs. No not that one (though I agree with her and so does the new Miss California), the one about acting with integrity and showing respect even to people who disagree with you.

Five Untruths Liberals Like To Believe About Themselves

June 16, 2009 / / 0 Comments

John Hawkins has written a great article at Townhall about five myths liberals believe about themselves.

Here they are, in summary form:

1. Liberals are pro-women. Liberals are pro-women as they as women know their place and have the right opinions. If they don’t, it is perfectly OK in liberal society to belittle and abuse them, and make jokes about their teenage daughters being raped.

2. Liberals are concerned about blacks. And how do they demonstrate this? By encouraging blacks to see themselves as victims, and funding them to remain in places and lifestyles which ensure they will remain outside the mainstream of economic and political life.

3. Liberals are compassionate. Conservatives give consistently more to charity, and are more likely to be involved in church, or as volunteers intheir communities.

4. Liberals are brainier. Pardon? Anyone who has ever engaged in debate with a liberal knows how quickly ad hominem arguments or cruel humour are  likely to be used. In my experience, liberals are far more likely to be driven by feelings, especially about what seems to be right, while conservatives are more likely to be influenced by evidence about what actually works.

5. Liberals are tolerant. Well, yes. Of people who agree with them. Just ask Carrie Prejean or Sarah Palin, or Ian Plimer.

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