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There is a war going on in Australia, which has spread from other parts of the developed world, and it isn’t the fight against Covid-19. It is a war against men. It is happening on several fronts.
The reasons for the war are complex. It is mixture of a power grab by a new generation of feminists who have run out of things to be angry about, the sheer cowardice of politicians and policy makers in the face of new feminism, and misinterpretation of social problems.
Rape and domestic violence are real and pressing evils. They always have been, but the causes are too often quite deliberately misinterpreted as being about “gender”, particularly about male gender. But the causes of sexual violence are complex and often involve the pathologies that plague our whole society, both men and women.
Scott Morrison discusses freedom of religion during Hillsong conference / screenshot Guardian News
There was a joke in my family that I was more pre-Council of Trent than post-Vatican II. You don’t have to be a Catholic to get it (but it helps). Hence, I am not a fan of the Pentecostals unlike Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.
Their emotional style of worship whipped up by frantically fervent preaching just isn’t my style. I belong to an older tradition, shared by several former prime ministers and, we are told, the current President of the United States.
Lately Morrison has been criticised for remarks he has made about the relationship of his faith to his view of modern, impersonal culture and even his prime ministership. That he believes social media could be a tool of the devil is no surprise. Anyone looking at social media lately can see that. Even the outrageous comedian Sacha Baron Cohen made the pertinent remark: “Imagine what Goebbels could have done wi
Women will not be silenced again
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By Virginia Haussegger
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The Minister for Families and Social Services, Anne Ruston, is right. There is âa rot in societyâ. But Scott Morrison is wrong. Anointing a âprime minister for womenâ, even as a joke, and creating a âtaskforceâ of female ministers, will not âshake up what needs shaking upâ.
Like most rotten attitudes and behaviour towards women, the decay begins at home. Right now, one of the worst offenders is that big house hiding under Canberraâs Capital Hill, whose very foundations are infested with rot. What needs the most vigorous shake-up is the masculinised machinery of government, along with the power-hording men who oil its wheels and the women who limp along and toe the party line.
Parliament House, Canberra / Photo by Michael on Unsplash
For the past three weeks Canberra, the city in which I live, has been labelled as having a “toxic culture” mired in the most tawdry series of accusations of rape among the political class.
Now rape is rape, whether it happens behind the pub or in Parliament House. So far, none of these accusations has as yet resulted in a prosecution. But in the meantime the reputation of a male minister has been all but terminally besmirched, the physical health of a female minister has been damaged, and the Prime Minister has had doubts cast on his “humanity” because he consulted his wife about the issue although many women might think it a good idea if more men would talk to their wives.