Monthly Archives: July 2024

Culture, Feminism, Media, Radicalism

Janice Fiamengo: her feminist story

Below is Janice Fiamengo’s fascinating and instructive story of how she was mesmerized by the feminist siren and later escaped its delusionary grip. She is perhaps the most articulate of those writing against the torrent of man-hatred that infects the western world.

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The Making and Un-Making of a Feminist Radical: My Story

Though I lived off the outrage-rush for years, I was, in the end, thoroughly sickened by feminism’s hypocrisy and hatefulness

JANICE FIAMENGO MAY 09, 2024

New York Radical Women Feminist Collective: An Oral History

I’ve told this personal story in bits, but here it is for the first time in one go.

Born in Vancouver in 1964, I grew up at the height of the feminist movement. In the Second Grade (’71-’72), I was taught by a feminist zealot who had her students color pictures of women wearing hardhats or driving fire trucks to make the point that girls could be and do anything. Even then, it seemed like overkill: nobody had ever indicated otherwise. The culture was overtly pro-female, and I rode the girl power wave without a thought.

Growing up, I received kind and respectful treatment from every man I encountered in school and elsewhere. My father thought it a matter of course that I would make something of myself. I was not sexually harassed or demeaned, and never witnessed or heard of such from female friends. My parents expected me to take responsibility for my life. I didn’t always follow their advice—in fact, I was a foolish pot-smoking, fast-car-riding teenager fascinated by the romance of danger—but I was never given cause to see myself as a victim.

I always had a passion for reading. With my parents’ encouragement, I completed a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s, and a PhD in English literature at the University of British Columbia. After two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University, I landed my first full-time teaching position at the University of Saskatchewan, where I taught for four years. After that, I became a professor at the University of Ottawa, where I remained until my retirement in 2019.

When I interviewed at both Saskatchewan and Ottawa, there was not a single man on either four-person shortlist. So-called equity hiring—which usually amounted to the outright (or near-outright) exclusion of men from job competitions—was in full swing; it had been going on for about a decade and is still going on now, 25 years later (see the research of Martin Loney on the history of such hiring in Canada). How many generations of young men will have to be sacrificed to the great god of equity before feminists say enough?

The feminist mantra of heroic female victimhood had been the air I breathed as a university student, and it offered a near-irresistible fantasy of moral purity. I was a woman and therefore good. Men had to prove themselves good by allying with women against other men. I came to like the heady rush of sisterhood and the exhilarating fury of feeling oneself part of a wronged group. I particularly enjoyed the vision of myself as a bold heroine speaking against oppression (and being applauded and rewarded for it).

Teaching Feminism in High School: Moving from Theory to Action | Feminist Teacher

Everything on campus was about women. Vigils for the Montreal Massacre were a yearly opportunity for ideologues to decry the supposedly widespread misogyny that made women’s lives, even at the most progressive institutions on earth, a hell of assault, put-downs, and discrimination. The university women’s center, where no man could tread (well, actually …), offered women a “safe space” to learn about patriarchy and to plot its downfall.

Read the rest here . . .

Culture, Islam, Law, Media

The ABC must hold the line against Lattouf

Antoinette Lattouf is a type. We all know what that type is. I have already posted several comments on the case she is running against the ABC with the help of the leftist law company Maurice Blackburn.

That type is the insufferable self-entitled young woman who does not think she owes it to anyone to follow the rules of the organization she works for. I thought the self-declared Lebanese Muslim was another irritating Gen Z type who couldn’t keep her mouth shut. She just had to give her opinion on a matter that was off limits for ABC employees. But Antoinette is suffering arrested development. She is older than the Gen Z age bracket.

Now Lattouf has offered the ABC a settlement via her lawyers which they describe as ‘modest’. The offer is in the headline to the SMH article below.

As I have said before; the ABC must not back down in this straightforward case of an employee flagrantly ignoring the rules of her employment. It would set a precedent for every self-entitled, young woman who thinks the world must know and benefit from her views.

For once, show some backbone ABC management

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Lattouf’s ‘modest’ ABC offer: $85,000, replacement shifts and an apology

Calum Jaspan, Sydney Morning Herald, July 14, 2024
Compensation of $85,000, a public apology and reinstatement as a fill-in radio presenter are the three items on Antoinette Lattouf’s wish list from the ABC, should the national broadcaster want to avoid a costly trial in the Federal Court.

Lattouf’s legal team, led by Maurice Blackburn’s head of employment law, Josh Bornstein, wrote to the ABC last week offering a compromise settlement after mediation between the parties failed last month.

The message from ABC chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor confirming Lattouf would be stood down.
The message from ABC chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor confirming Lattouf would be stood down. CREDIT: MARIJA ERCEGOVAC

“The offer is modest and is made on an open basis. It is a compromise on what our client could be awarded at trial if she is successful, particularly having regard to any penalties that may be imposed,” said the letter, seen by this masthead.

In the letter to the ABC’s lawyers at Seyfarth Shaw, Bornstein and his team said if the offer were rejected, they estimated the broadcaster would spend an additional sum in the hundreds of thousands in legal costs, on top of the significant sum it had spent to date.

Lattouf’s team is holding the line on its accusation the ABC breached its disciplinary policies in its enterprise agreement by sacking her for reposting a Human Rights Watch post in December while presenting the Mornings show on ABC Radio Sydney for five days.

Read the rest here . . .

Culture, Feminism, Law, Media, Radicalism

Gynocentrism and man-hatred – the state of play

We must be thankful for Bettina Arndt who does the heavy research work to bring together the facts of feminist control over just about every aspect of our society.

That a woman fills a position of power and authority is not the problem. It’s only a problem when that woman who does not have the skills and experience to fill that position, is chosen on a quota system, and – worse – uses that position to promote the feminist agenda – which is just about always.

All feminists are political activists.

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Women on top

-Why so many prized jobs are now in female hands.

BETTINA ARNDT, JUN 26, 2024

A picture speaks a thousand words. Look at this line-up, showing all the ACT Supreme Court judges. This formidable female-dominated bench wouldn’t exactly inspire confidence if you were a poor sucker facing a last-ditch appeal of a guilty verdict following a false rape accusation.  

All the more so when the bench is led by Chief Justice Lucy McCallum who recently grumbled in a newspaper interview about the “intractable problem” of “ensuring an accused person has a fair trial.” Women’s groups are working hard to solve her problem, with all sorts of inventive solutions that do away with any notion of a fair trial – like an alternate court system with a lower standard of proof.

Whenever there’s a big job announced in Australia, you can bet your bottom dollar that the prize will fall to a woman – even when that means the newcomer is decades younger and less experienced than her predecessors.

Gender is the trump card wiping out all other merit-based considerations. It must be rather maddening to be a high achieving Australian man clawing your way up the ladder knowing that the top rung is no longer available.

Often the result is just absurd. Here are the governors of the six Australian states – once again, there’s just one token man. The recent announcement of “equity advocate” Sam Mostyn as Governor General really took the cake, particularly when Albo announced this week he was proposing an astonishing $200,000 increase in her salary.

Perhaps none of this would matter if we could be assured that this new breed of female top dogs would simply do their jobs, without using their positions to constantly promote women at the expense of men. But across the board we see women in power misusing their positions to stitch men up or grind them down.

Queensland Chief of Police Katarina Carroll was forced out of her job when officers began to revolt. The police service had been found by the state’s anti-corruption watchdog to have engaged in “corrupt manipulation” to achieve a 50 per cent female hiring target. The report found 200 meritorious male applicants missed out on joining the force due to this corrupt practice.  

And it is hard to forget that Australia’s very first female top cop, Christine Nixon, also ended her career in 2009 thoroughly disgraced when it was found she spent the morning of Black Saturday, Australia’s worst bushfire, with a 90-minute appointment at the hairdresser followed by a 45-minute meeting with her biographer. In the evening, as the town of Marysville burned to the ground, she was having a leisurely meal in the pub.

And then there was NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb who desperately needed a reset after a series of unforced errors plagued her leadership. She was renowned for being an appalling communicator, failing to promptly address the media when police officer Jesse Baird was murdered, and following the tasering of a 95-year-old grandmother. Luckily, she was given a reprieve when she was able to bask in the glory of a female police officer’s heroics in the Bondi Junction attack.

Now she is making a name for herself tackling the scourge of domestic violence. She’s launched a series called Operation Amarok – where so far more than 3,500 domestic violence offenders have been rounded up and arrested. Nothing like scooping up thousands of wife batterers to win applause from the media. No one is going to bother to ask about the evidence supporting these arrests.

Clearly our female top cops haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory; and it is interesting that men have been slipped back into the job in Queensland and Victoria. Right now, Webb is the only remaining female chief.  

Read the rest here . . .

Culture, Feminism, Law, Media

Another horrific case of domestic murder

Again, it is sheer coincidence that I was alerted to the ABC report below not long after I finished posting the previous report.

I must congratulate the ABC reporters for their restraint. In the recent past, cases like the present have unleashed fiery condemnations from the ABC about the pernicious nature of maleness – as exhibited by a man setting his house on fire to kill his family.

However, this is a preliminary report, and the ABC may still have the chance to express their fury over that poisonous male entity in our society.

Two points are pertinent, though. The trio of reporters were able to convey the deadly information that the man tried to stop police from rescuing the children. What an evil bastard. On the other hand, they had to quote police as saying that the man had no criminal record, was not subject to an AVO, or was before the courts.

So, what motivated his murderous violence?

A hint to those man-hating feminists out there: just saying he’s a man is longer enough.

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Three children dead after house fire in Sydney’s west being treated as domestic violence incident

By Tony Ibrahim, Ethan Rix, and Holly Tregenza, ABC, 7 July 2024

A fire which killed three young children in a house at Lalor Park in Sydney’s west is being treated as a domestic violence incident. 

Fire crews were called to the scene just before 1am on Sunday. 

Police said two boys, aged two and four, were treated by paramedics and taken to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition, but died a short time later.

Fire and Rescue crews extinguished the fire before the third child, believed to be a 10-month-old girl, was found dead at the scene. 

Police allege a 28-year-old man, who is now in custody, tried to stop police and other emergency services from rescuing the children from the burning home. 

“I can confirm during police attempts to get into the property, those efforts were frustrated by a male inside,” NSW Police Acting Superintendent Jason Pietruszka said. 

Police tape cover the driveway of a burnt out home.
Fire investigators are making their way through the low-set brick house on Freeman Street in Lalor Park. (ABC News: Ethan Rix)

The man arrested is the father of the children who died and was under police guard in hospital. 

He was in an induced coma and being treated for burns and smoke inhalation. 

The mother, as well as four other children aged between six to 11 years, were also taken to hospital and were expected to recover.

Superintendent Pietruszka said the incident was being investigated as a domestic violence related offence, and said the man was not the subject of an AVO and was not before the court for any matter. 

“He is not adversely known to police at all,” Superintendent Pietruszka said. 

“We’re treating this as a domestic-related homicide, multiple homicide. “

Read the rest here . . .

Feminism, Law, Media, Men

Behind the scenes – driven to despair?

It is sheer coincidence that Janice Fiamengo’s latest piece follows my previous post in which I mentioned the horrific case of the man who killed his wife and children. He threw petrol over the car in which they sat and set it alight.

Naturally, I wrote, feminists blame his being a man as the sole motivation for this horror. No other explanation necessary. But I wondered what circumstances would bring a man to kill his family in that way. In her latest piece on her substack, Janice Fiamengo added crucial background information as a prelude to another issue concerning men and women.

No normal man kills his family just because he is a man. No, there must be other factors playing a crucial role. In this case, the man, Rowan Baxter, was driven homicidally crazy by a custody battle. Familiar circumstances for a growing multitude of men. That does not excuse Baxter’s murderous behavior, just as it does not excuse the behavior of women driven to homicide. But it does offer an explanation.

It is significant that the detective in charge of the case was booted off when he alluded to Baxter’s torment. Of course, a female was appointed to take his place. Oh, yes, she would provide the right perspective, wouldn’t she?

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Everyone Agrees that the Murder of a Child is a Dreadful Crime

Except when a woman is the killer


JANICE FIAMENGO, JUN 29, 2024

Ohio mom who left toddler alone when she went on vacation sentenced to life in prison

When Rowan Baxter murdered his estranged wife and three children by pouring petrol on their car and setting it on fire in Brisbane, Australia in February, 2020, the news reports were unsparing with the sickening details, describing the raging flames that engulfed the children and relating how Baxter’s wife, Hannah, who escaped the car with “her skin melting off,” begged neighbors to save them. Readers were encouraged to dwell in imagination on the unhinged cruelty of the father, who “tried to stop bystanders from rescuing them as they burned to death before stabbing himself in the chest when he knew his evil deed was done,” as the Daily Mail Australia narrated. (In fact, nothing could have been done to save the children; the father merely screamed at passersby.)

Even the headline made sure no reader could fail to simmer with contempt: “Gutless father who set family car alight tried to stop bystanders saving his three children as they burned to death inside.” Various relatives of the dead woman were quoted calling the ex-husband a “heartless monster” and a “disgusting human being,” and dozens of reports quoted statements about Baxter from Hannah’s friends and family as if they were fact.  

When the detective in charge of the investigation suggested at a press conference that it was possible Baxter was “driven too far” by events of the preceding year, his comment caused an immediate uproar because he raised the mere possibility that a fierce custody battle, rather than innate cruelty, may have influenced the murder-suicide. That detective was immediately taken off the case and replaced by a woman who said he should not have spoken as he did.

It was clear that Baxter must be seen as an emblem of pure masculine evil. Nothing must be allowed to humanize him, nothing to assuage public outrage. When Premier Jacinta Allan of Victoria, Australia announced her new Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behavior Change (focused on “prioritizing the safety of women, children, and communities”), readers remembering Baxter would have had no trouble recognizing the need. No one, after all, doubts the reality and impact of men’s violence.

Women’s violence, however, is another matter. Less than a year later in Australia, this time in Melbourne, a mother was the killer of three children, and the reporting was entirely different. A report of the crime, “Police reveal Tullamarine’s Perinovic family home deaths likely a murder-suicide,” is typical in eschewing sensationalism; it refrains in the title even from identifying the mother as the killer. Katie Perinovic, the same age as Rowan Baxter when he committed murder, is listed with her children as one of the “victims of Thursday’s tragedy,” and the mood evoked by the report is one of uncomprehending sadness rather than outrage. Neighbors remember a lovely family and wonder how to break the sad news to their children. The event is repeatedly referred to not as a “shocking murder-suicide” (as in the case of the Baxter car inferno) but as a tragedy, a “heartbreaking experience” for everyone involved, almost as if it were a natural disaster rather than a deliberate human act.

No cause of death is given, no horrifying details are provided, and there are no comments from family members of the bereaved father calling the mother a “disgusting human being” or “heartless monster.” In another report, neighbors gave glowing depictions, calling her “the best mum” and “one of the nicest people you’d meet.” An earlier report, before it was determined that the mother had carried out the killings, referred to “gruesome injuries” inside the family home, but these were not mentioned, or explained, in later reports. It seems clear that in the first hours of the investigation, the father was a suspect; if he had been charged with the murders, we would have heard a good deal more about the “gruesome injuries.” But with the mother as the killer, such details came to be seen as inappropriate.

Read the rest here . . .