The Family Court of Australia has made some really odd decisions in the past decade, which it uses as precedents when making decisions now.
There are a long list of cases that will blow your mind, and today, here’s just one of them.
In Josey & Meibos [2009] FMCAfam 470, the Family Court harshly reprimanded a mother when she changed her kids’ school to try to keep herself and her children safe from their father, who had a history of violence and anger against them.
Not only that, but the court ordered her to re-enroll the kids in their original school and creche, and ordered the mum to make all decisions like this jointly together with the dad in future.
New research released by the Australian government has found that more than 1 in 3 average Aussie men freely admit to having committed domestic violence against their partner.
It proves what many women in Australia have known for years – even if it’s “not all men”, it’s more than 1 in 3.
And that is just the men who are happy to say, yep I’m committing violent acts against against people I claim to love. The rest, we are left to wonder about.
These statistics come from the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS), in a longitudinal study that compares men’s health and self-reported behaviour in 2023-24 and 2013-14.
I dislike the name of this study, but I really hate the truths that the study uncovered.
In 2013-14, it was only 1 in 4 Australian men (25%) who freely admitted to having committed domestic violence against their partner.
It is not okay that more Aussie men than ever before are abusing women.
And it’s not okay that more men than ever before think this behaviour is so normal, that they’ll happily admit to committing literal crimes against women.
It cannot be overstated – these are self-reported behavioural statistics, from a huge sample size of 26,000 men.
This means these statistics really do represent what men think and do in Australia.
I’m so proud and happy for all the teachers and educators and staff who are on strike today across Queensland.
It’s their first strike since 2009, and it’s well and truly needed.
Teaching has become a physically and mentally impossible job in this state over the past 50 years, and they deserve everything they’re asking for! (Scroll down to see the needs they’re asking for from the Qld government.)
As a student teacher (called a preservice teacher in Queensland), I was so hopeful going into my first prac this year.
But although the students were DELIGHTFUL, and the school itself was excellent, and I was receiving positive feedback from my incredible supervising teacher, I’m starting to think I may never be a teacher in this state.
If you’re ready for a hilarious and engaging listen this weekend, start with Pod Like A Girl’s breakdown of the charity fails by “The Better Blokes” podcast.
You can listen to Pod Like A Girl on all the podcast apps, or visit the website to listen to it there:
Or you can watch this important conversation with video on YouTube:
Or you can even download the mp3 file to listen to it another way.
Full disclosure, it’s not just amazing, it’s also enraging, but only because we’re talking about the unashamed misogyny and idiocy of these two man childs.
And Rach and Mia are absolutely the right women for the job, because they’re intelligent and informed.
They’ve also spent years advocating to eliminate misogyny, sexism, and violence from Australia’s culture – and advocating for victims of this misogyny, which we know also harms men themselves.
The men who are going to The Better Blokes project for advice are more likely to be harmed, not helped, by what these blokes are spouting.
It’s the Aussie brand of the Andrew Tate manosphere, where men are encouraged to be a real man, and women are NOT welcome.
Like their videos telling women to “shut the f*** up” and let men speak (direct quote). 🤢 🤮
Which is a problem, because their governing legal documents, their charity charter, says they exist to improve men’s mental health… Not to indoctrinate men with misogyny and encourage violence against women, non-binary people, and even kids.
It’s harder to say “happy new year” when you remember that 101 women were killed by men in 2024 (Femicide Watch Australia, 2024).
It might not sound like a huge number, until you compare it to the 46 women who were killed by men in the 2022-23 financial year (AIHW, 2024).
Men killing 101 women in 12 months is horrific because it is a doubling of violence against women in Australia.
Domestic and family violence is a national emergency, with 1 in 4 Australian women having experienced violence from a male partner (White Ribbon, 2024).
With that in mind, I read the following books last year, and I believe they would help any Australian man who wants to understand the current war on women and children in our nation.
More importantly, this information can help any person who wants to help us end the war on women.
I was thoroughly impressed by the way these writers gathered measurable data and research from all around Australia and sometimes internationally.
I’m sure you’ll find the statistics astounding – because I did, and I’ve already been reading on these topics for 20 years.
A note on gender references: All references in this article to “women” include trans women. Much of the data on “women” also includes non-binary people, who are routinely marked as female “for insurance purposes”.
Always was, always will be, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land, air, and waters.
So I was delighted to see First Nations Senator Lidia Thorpe call out the current King Charles… and disgusted to see mainstream media reporting it as “angry woman attacks 80-year-old man with cancer”.
Senator Thorpe is a Gunnai, Gunditjmara, and Djab Wurrung mother, grandmother, and advocate.
Senator Thorpe had tried earlier that month and that week to arrange a private meeting with King Charles to discuss these matters outside of the public forum, but he had refused.
She waited politely until King Charles had finished his speech before she made her statement to him.
Then Lidia Thorpe delivered her now already-famous speech.
Lidia Thorpe’s speech to King Charles
“You are not my king. You are not sovereign. You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us, our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty. We want a treaty in this country. This is not your land. This is not your land. You are not my king. You are not our king. Fuck the colony.”
The second I saw this ad campaign by Bumble, I immediately uninstalled the app (I never use it anyway) and submitted a 1-star rating everywhere I could, and so did thousands of others.
Here’s why.
Note: This article refers to “women and other genders” and to “non-men” in an attempt to represent the reality of as many people as possible. Anytime I’ve written “women”, “trans women”, “trans men”, or “non-binary people”, know that I’m trying to remind people of a gender fluid spectrum, rather than trying to call out specific genders.
How Bumble offended every non-man in just 2 days
Bumble launched their “celibacy is not the answer” ad campaign in early May 2024, and it’s worse than anyone expected.
How to edit truly bad stories Image source: Fonts and Fiction Blogspot
This post is a long one, sorry, but stick with it! I really believe this is something we need to make time for.
Recently, I was looking for inspiration for a part of my novel where one character interrupts a battle to give a passionate speech that marks the beginning of the road to peace. One of the first results when you Google “speech about peace and war” is Martin Luther King Jr.’s little-remembered 1967 speech opposing American involvement in the Vietnam War, ‘A Time to Break Silence’.
I had no idea that reading this speech would change the topic that I would blog on today.
“A time comes when silence is betrayal. In Vietnam, that time has come for us.” – Martin Luther King Jr., ‘A Time to Break Silence’, 1967
Many of you, upon reading the title of this post, assumed that I’m talking simply about my profession of editing. “I say there are bad stories being written out there, and we gonna git ‘em fixed!”
I wish I was.
In the world today, as there has been every year since the dawn of man, there are bad stories being written. By governments and individuals. By my government in Australia. By individuals who I know who think that the government is doing the right thing.
And I need to talk about it. I need to tell you about it. I need to talk about why we are writing a “bad” story and how we can edit it so that we aren’t ashamed of what we have written.
“I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.” – George Orwell, ‘Why I Write’ Essay
TJ Withers 