Toxic Masculinity

[jserraglio]

Art imitates life, and vice versa. Set against Gertrude, Goneril and Lady Mac, one finds Portia of Belmont, Portia Catonis, Rosalind, Viola, Beatrice, Marina, Desdemona, Imogen, Miranda, Isabella, Emilia, Hero, Lady Macduff, Juliet, Hermione, Miranda, Katherina & Bianca Minola, Cordelia, Ophelia and so on. All told, the inverse ratio of Ladies Vice to Ladies Virtue is pretty overwhelming.

[barney]

Still, it's a real point. The vast majority of domestic violence is men against women, and the vast majority of women don't invent stories about it. But if 10% do, that should not be removed from discussion - it is clearly a factor to be taken into account.

[Belle]

Still, it's a real point. The vast majority of domestic violence is men against women, and the vast majority of women don't invent stories about it. But if 10% do, that should not be removed from discussion - it is clearly a factor to be taken into account.

Actually two recent studies contradict that; in New Zealand women are the main instigators of DV and a recent report compiled by a teacher here in Australia - having completed a large survey for his thesis - was that 50% of DV is perpetrated by women. He was summarily dismissed from his teaching job because of his findings.

Barney, with regard to DV the goalposts have shifted. My son's lawyer told him (and this is confirmed by my lawyer D-I-L) that arguing with your wife, preventing her from doing something or raising your voice is now considered domestic violence. And that 'preventing' can be anything from stopping her from removing all the cash from your joint account to telling her she cannot travel to Thailand with 10 men in a boxing team!! Both of those things happened to my son.

My close friend's son has been regularly subjected to attacks from his wife; mobile phone thrown at his head resulting in cuts, torn shirts and clothing, verbal abuse (she is a heavy drinker) yet he is in fear of being accused of doing it himself!! He has had two recent spells in hospital because of the stress and had a suspected heart attack. He's 42 years old.

[Belle]

Art imitates life, and vice versa. Set against Gertrude, Goneril and Lady Mac, one finds Portia of Belmont, Portia Catonis, Rosalind, Viola, Beatrice, Marina, Desdemona, Imogen, Miranda, Isabella, Emilia, Hero, Lady Macduff, Juliet, Hermione, Miranda, Katherina & Bianca Minola, Cordelia, Ophelia and so on. All told, the inverse ratio of Ladies Vice to Ladies Virtue is pretty overwhelming.

Oh, if only life was like fiction. And you've forgotten the tradition of courtly love where women were chaste and inviolable.

[Belle]

Apropos the claim that the 'vast majority' of women do not invent stories about DV: the local police in Perth told my son in March this year, "90% of our work is Family Violence Orders, 5% of which are justified". I'd expect police representatives to be at the parliamentary hearings into this matter. I don't know where the 10% figure for female perpetrators of DV comes from but I certainly wouldn't believe female activists, particularly the one I mentioned in my original comments. One of those local police officers who told that to my son was female and the expression she used was "FVROs are thrown around like confetti these days". But the ideology behind the refusal to believe that women do these things is almost unshakeable. It was the Gillard Labor government which removed Perjury from the statute books in family law and after that it was open slather.

Here's a direct anecdote; on Mother's Day 2 years ago our eldest son called us at 1am. His girlfriend wouldn't take no for an answer (one of the army of desperate and dateless 30-somethings) and had broken into his house, desperate to maintain their relationship and drunk as a lord. Our son rang in terror and panic; "quickly; can you come right away as I'm terrified of being accused of violence and being blamed for this". When the female police officer was filling out the paperwork I asked about the incidence of DV and she said, without a scintilla of irony, "it's all the woman today"!!

My husband has a vested interest in the outcome of this inquiry; 3 sons and 6 grandsons - all of whom are and will continue to be affected by the growing misandry in our culture. When I raised ours I little thought they'd be dealing with hatred and prejudice in their adult years.

[jserraglio]

Oh, if only life was like fiction. And you've forgotten the tradition of courtly love where women were chaste and inviolable.

You seem to propose contradictory things: viz. that the villainous literary characters you mention (Lady Macbeth, Medea, Gertrude and the rest) mirror social reality; but that the virtuous ones I list may be dismissed as mere fiction. That's a big leap indeed — from the frying pan into the fire.

Samuel Johnson pointed out, rightly, that Shakespeare's plays give us a just representation of general nature. Accordingly, one might argue that female villains are the exception in Shakespeare's plays, just as they are in life. Also that, ever true to real life, most of the villains in his plays are what we might call today "toxic males".

BTW, the Lady in courtly love literature is not always chaste and inviolable even if the courtly lover portrays her as such. In reality she could be lascivious or adulterous. Cases in point: Guinevere of the Arthurian Legend, and two of Shakespeare's heroines, Cressida and Cleopatra.

[Belle]

I'm for equality between the sexes; both of them are capable of the worst behaviours. Otherwise, equality is just absolute hypocrisy. You have demonstrated that equality didn't exist in Shakespeare's time - and that turns out to be a good thing for women. Right? My comment about courtly love was an ironic one - to demonstrate female hypocrisy.

Our men in Australia are only asking for justice and DUE PROCESS in the Family Court; lock up the wife-beaters (this seldom happens!!) and don't treat the vast majority as toxic males and criminals (because you're unable and unwilling to punish the transgressors and because man-haters want it). Return perjury to the jurisdiction, award costs proportionately and stop the lying, vexatious and false claims - all used to maximize:

1. Maintenance payments ('you cannot force her to work' - wait, what? I thought they wanted equality?)
2. The share of the family home - to make sure they get pretty much all of it (whoa! whatever happened to equality? Relationship fail means never having to work again!)
3. Keep the kids away from the father; have to create a Frankenstein monster out of the partner to camouflage the appalling behaviours of the person doing that. It needs to be said that both men and women resort to this one, but women are doing it now in the majority of the cases, aided and abetted by lawyers.

Ergo, equality on MY TERMS. Unless you have skin in this game you'll never get to find out because activists are preventing people from hearing the truth. That fact alone scares the bejeezers out of me!!

And punishing all men because you're unwilling and incapable of punishing the real offenders reminds me of an erstwhile school Principal; a few of the staff came to work in their casual/work clothes, which the boss didn't regard as professional. Instead of counselling those who did that he roundly abused ALL the staff, reminding them of their dress codes. So it is with justice, Australia-style.

[jserraglio]

Of course both sexes are equal in being capable of the worst behaviors. I am not disputing that. The issue is one of proportion. I am suggesting that men engage in pernicious behaviors to a far greater extent than do women, but for a variety of socio-political reasons that have little to do with gender.

[lennygoran]

I am suggesting that men engage in pernicious behaviors to a far greater extent than do women, but for a variety of socio-political reasons that have little to do with gender.

Just yesterday I watched a new series from PBS I had DVR'ed and one segment showed Wall St harrassment of women in the 1980's and 1990's and what is seems to have lead to today.


Retro Report On PBSEpisode OneLearn social media's addictive power. Discover NFL protests' ties to 1968. See how Wall Street women fought harassment, and a python invasion. Andy Borowitz compares politics ads to cigarettes.


Retro Report on PBSWall Street's #MeToo Moment

Clip: Episode 1 | 37s

In this studio scene from "Wall Street #MeToo," the hosts discuss a wave of harassment allegations in the 1980s and 90s.

https://www.pbs.org/video/retro-report- ... ent-intro/

Also on the Today Show they were discussing the new book bythe woman who Matt Lauer is accused of raping.

Ronan Farrow Book Alleges Matt Lauer Raped NBC News Colleague

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/matt-l ... 203364485/

NBC News calls Matt Lauer’s conduct ‘horrific’ in wake of rape allegation

https://pagesix.com/2019/10/09/nbc-news ... llegation/
Regards, Len

[Belle]

Of course both sexes are equal in being capable of the worst behaviors. I am not disputing that. The issue is one of proportion. I am suggesting that men engage in pernicious behaviors to a far greater extent than do women, but for a variety of socio-political reasons that have little to do with gender.

Well, a point of agreement. But I think it has everything to do with gender; women are more cunning, bitchy and manipulative than men. The latter display a different kind of pernicious behaviour - usually more 'corporate' and systemic. But women can do this too; a recent banking inquiry found widespread corruption and abuse from the top and the company (AMP) had a female in the top job. Naturally there was no talk of her going to jail or facing prosecution; it's what I call "women's tennis equality"!!!

The trouble now is that the little guy is being labelled 'toxic' and having to pay a heavy, damaging opportunity cost in order to exact revenge. The family court is the major battleground and vested interests - including females - are busy trying to shut down scrutiny of it. The young generation of males are quickly learning that they are cash cows to be exploited by women and the state and, because they've had it so good for so long (!!!), their welfare doesn't matter. As a friend said last week, "sorry to tell you this but the nicer the husband is the worse he's going to fare in the courts". Men are killing themselves at a rate of two per week in this country - and it's probably far higher than that. But, as one of our Greens Senators, responsible for the policy, commented some time ago after the deaths of 1200 illegal immigrants trying to reach our shores by boat - "accidents happen".

[jserraglio]

QED. Misogyny trumps misandry.

[Belle]

QED. Misogyny trumps misandry.

Why are either of those labels, or any others, even necessary? We're all human beings. That's the trouble when grievance groups start getting into contests over who has the greater grievance. Men have probably treated women worse than the reverse over the eons, it is true, but this doesn't make women saints. Instead of further demonization of men it's time for healing. There are wonderful men and women out there and let's concentrate on making that better - and making divorce for fathers at least tolerable. The pendulum has swung way too far.

"Thus true philosophers go about their lives trying not to be taken in by what they see and attempting to guess at what they cannot see......But what complicates things for philosophers is that the cogs of the machines that nature presents to us are perfectly hidden". (Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, 1687)

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/1 ... and-women/

[barney]

Of course both sexes are equal in being capable of the worst behaviors. I am not disputing that. The issue is one of proportion. I am suggesting that men engage in pernicious behaviors to a far greater extent than do women, but for a variety of socio-political reasons that have little to do with gender.

it's what I call "women's tennis equality"!!!

Love that line, women's tennis equality. Worth a million ordinary words.

[jserraglio]

Why are either of those labels, or any others, even necessary?

Because like other accusatory terms, they often give a name to deeply felt personal grievances.

[Belle]

Why are either of those labels, or any others, even necessary?

Because like other accusatory terms, they often give a name to deeply felt personal grievances.

And there are just so many of them it's hard to know where it will all end!!

I heard a really great description of all this in a national speech yesterday; hurt feeling, humiliation, outrage, offense... Humpty Dumpty words!!

[barney]

Sue wrote:

Why are either of those labels, or any others, even necessary? We're all human beings. That's the trouble when grievance groups start getting into contests over who has the greater grievance. Men have probably treated women worse than the reverse over the eons, it is true, but this doesn't make women saints. Instead of further demonization of men it's time for healing. There are wonderful men and women out there and let's concentrate on making that better - and making divorce for fathers at least tolerable.

I reply:

Surely we can all agree with Sue here. People are people, whether male or female or however else they may describe themselves; all are capable of generosity and selfishness, regardless of gender. Over the centuries men have had the power and therefore the ability to abuse, and have done so to a greater or lesser extent; where women have had that power, they too have done so to a greater or lesser extent. (I think of both matriarchal societies and of powerful women such as Catherine the Great.)

Any particular divorced father should not suffer for the sins of others, any more than any particular divorced mother. The colossal backlog in our family courts is part of the problem, leading to rushed process so that individual circumstances can be overlooked.

[Belle]

Thank you for these words. My son has been on the edge after months of despair. There are armies of men in a similar situation and yet we are being denied hearing the truth about it.

My eldest son has been through it and is a couple of years ahead of his brother. He was driven to near-suicide and I had to pull him back from the brink myself. OK, he married an emotionally unstable woman but the courts love these types and are ready to protect them - at any cost. She went into court with her brother-in-law (a lawyer) asking for a million dollars from my son - who openly laughed during the proceedings as it was so demonstrably ludicrous!!

Your last sentence partly explains the problem; my son turned up with references from 4 German au pairs they had working for them. All glowing references and very moving tributes to our son. The magistrate (at the FVRO hearing) said, "because of my workload I haven't been able to read these, so I'm putting you on a 'conduct order'!" She had no evidence to substantiate her claim of abuse and when she was forced to withdraw her (entirely vexatious) application for the FVRO to continue magistrate said - and this comment is newsworthy - "that's very generous of you"!!

Interestingly, our estranged daughter-in-law belongs to a family of evangelical happy-clappers. I don't trust or respect these people and their whacky rituals!! And I don't admire our PMs attachment to it either!!

PS: I wonder what would have happened in the teaching profession if I'd arrived at class and said, "because of my workload I'm unable to teach you today"?

[barney]

Your last sentence partly explains the problem; my son turned up with references from 4 German au pairs they had working for them. All glowing references and very moving tributes to our son. The magistrate (at the FVRO hearing) said, "because of my workload I haven't been able to read these, so I'm putting you on a 'conduct order'!" She had no evidence to substantiate her claim of abuse and when she was forced to withdraw her (entirely vexatious) application for the FVRO to continue magistrate said - and this comment is newsworthy - "that's very generous of you"!!

PS: I wonder what would have happened in the teaching profession if I'd arrived at class and said, "because of my workload I'm unable to teach you today"?

Well, that's grotesque. That's a kangaroo court, not justice. If you can't read the evidence, delay the hearing. Better still, read the evidence.

[Belle]

Your last sentence partly explains the problem; my son turned up with references from 4 German au pairs they had working for them. All glowing references and very moving tributes to our son. The magistrate (at the FVRO hearing) said, "because of my workload I haven't been able to read these, so I'm putting you on a 'conduct order'!" She had no evidence to substantiate her claim of abuse and when she was forced to withdraw her (entirely vexatious) application for the FVRO to continue magistrate said - and this comment is newsworthy - "that's very generous of you"!!

PS: I wonder what would have happened in the teaching profession if I'd arrived at class and said, "because of my workload I'm unable to teach you today"?

Well, that's grotesque. That's a kangaroo court, not justice. If you can't read the evidence, delay the hearing. Better still, read the evidence.

It's all a reason for my son's ongoing despair. $55,000 in legals for practically zero result. And it gets worse. His lawyer keeps telling him that if he disagrees with his wife and writes in the least bit strongly that she can re-apply for domestic violence orders. The courts say that unless husband and wife can get along there's no chance of 50/50 custody. How easy for her, then, to deny him rights all the time!! He doesn't have to say or do anything to be 'not getting along'!! Meanwhile, the children have no sport, no friends over and she does whatever she can to prevent them having a normal life. If my son complains out come the threats of DV orders!! He lives in a constant state of fear.

Whatever way men turn is wrong and it's the lot of many many hundreds of men in this country. Bring on this inquiry, and quickly. I'm looking forward to "Insight" on SBS on Tuesday night to see what it's like when people have amicable divorces!!

[lennygoran]

Interestingly, our estranged daughter-in-law belongs to a family of evangelical happy-clappers. I don't trust or respect these people and their whacky rituals!! And I don't admire our PMs attachment to it either!!

Belle reminds me of how the evangelicals refuse to turn on Trump-just on how he speaks in public at his rallies-kiss obama's ass, arsehole nations, bull crap-he's using these words more and more in public. Regards, Len

[Belle]

The one thing I'll say about Trump is that it always makes me laugh the way he claps himself in front of a crowd, repeating exactly the same manoeuvre as the hairstyle-challenged North Korean, er, leader.

Even people on game shows in Australia clap themselves too!! Not a lot of self-awareness there!

[lennygoran]

bull crap-he's using these words more and more in public. Regards, Len

Wow I just noticed the word I used was turned from bulls... to bull crap-too bad some one can't do this to Trump's words! Regards, Len

[Belle]

Even Donald Trump cannot be blamed for our hideous Family Court system which is severely prejudicial against men. I remember Trump's first wife said, "don't get even; get everything". I think many Australian women have taken both those instructions to heart - even when they have the affairs!!!

We all know there are bad men out there who abandon families and don't pay child support, but there's no use in trying to punish the good ones because of it. Reminds me of my later father's comments about the Tax man: it's easier to him to treat everybody like a criminal!!

[lennygoran]

The one thing I'll say about Trump is that it always makes me laugh the way he claps himself in front of a crowd, repeating exactly the same manoeuvre as the hairstyle-challenged North Korean, er, leader.

Yep these are his people-Kim, Putin-at least Putin knows how to comport himself. Still when I think of trump I think more of McCarthy and MussoliniRegards, Len

[lennygoran]

I remember Trump's first wife said, "don't get even; get everything".

You mean the one he raped! Regards, Len

[Belle]

The one thing I'll say about Trump is that it always makes me laugh the way he claps himself in front of a crowd, repeating exactly the same manoeuvre as the hairstyle-challenged North Korean, er, leader.

Yep these are his people-Kim, Putin-at least Putin knows how to comport himself. Still when I think of trump I think more of McCarthy and MussoliniRegards, Len

Did you get the allusion to the 'hair-style' challenged? The ginger mien versus the black 'basin'. See "The Man Who Wasn't There" - a Coen Brothers film about hair-cutting (among other things!).

[Belle]

I remember Trump's first wife said, "don't get even; get everything".

You mean the one he raped! Regards, Len

She was laughing when she said it; that's all I can tell you.

[lennygoran]

Did you get the allusion to the 'hair-style' challenged?

Yeah but that's neither HAIR nor THERE! Regards, Len [fleeing]

[Belle]

The one thing I'll say about Trump is that it always makes me laugh the way he claps himself in front of a crowd, repeating exactly the same manoeuvre as the hairstyle-challenged North Korean, er, leader.

Yep these are his people-Kim, Putin-at least Putin knows how to comport himself. Still when I think of trump I think more of McCarthy and MussoliniRegards, Len

Yes, Putin comports himself well - especially when he's directly addressed by an Australian Foreign Minister after having his henchmen in Ukraine shoot a Malaysian airliner out of the sky killing lots of Australian people. One family from Perth lost grandfather and 3 children. They were found in the fields of Ukraine still strapped to their seats.

[Wallingford]

Sweet baby Jesus!!!!

Let me say, this is the first time I've ever seen fit to use this particular violation of the Third Commandment.

I'm living proof of the oppressiveness of 'toxic masculinity' and the constrictions it's worked--insidiously--on my own development as a male. In grade school my mother subscribed to 'Boys' Life' for me and had endless conversations with my psychologist about my overall lack of interest in all things macho, while they kept explaining to her that I simply marched to the beat of a different drummer; meanwhile my father harbored resentments and frustrations about my lack of interest in farming, fishing and sports. I was raised in a community with the WASP-oriented, small-town attitude toward the arts as effeminate--or, simply, abnormal.

And don't ask me about the crapola I took from my male peer group in school.

This is all that's bubbled to the surface in my brain as yet; I swear, I'll have more to add soon. This is what I finally have to add, now that the can of worms has been opened again.

[Belle]

In Australia we call them "baby cheeses", but never mind - we weren't talking about food.

I was bullied by girls at school from aged 13 because I wouldn't conform to their world views. Because I was interested in classical music, ballet, theatre and films rather than boys, sex, having my hair and nails fixed, clothes and talking about weddings and glory boxes (don't ask!). Girls (the less bright ones) talked about boys, boys, boys and boys. I could never speculate what the boys were talking about back then (I was the oldest of 4 girls), but from later having 3 sons of my own I learned they were not talking about girls. Or chasing them. That came later for the boys. Meanwhile, it was the girls who did all the phoning and pursuing - and fighting amongst themselves over the boys!

Anti-bullying strategies have been implemented in all Australian schools because of the massive extent of the problem - with both boys and girls. It is by no means unusual to see images taken on mobile phones of students laying into each other at school in physical fights; both boys and girls. Of course, women don't shoot people en mass like they do in the USA. But women have been known to allow their sons to hold up the heads of captured journalists and parade them before the cameras from the middle east. These brides of Islam are every bit as toxic as their terrorist husbands, putting their own children in the firing line. Right now we have a band of these "Australians" in Syria with their kids and some people here are calling for them to be repatriated.

It's sad for you that your own parents treated you the way they did, and this was obviously very hurtful and stressful for you. My gay sister was over-compensated because she was gay and received the lion's share of our father's estate. But I can assure you that abuse in families can operate in reverse. With the rapidly aging population and increased life expectancy one form is recognized as "elder abuse" and it mainly comes from families who want their inheritance and become impatient waiting for it!!

[barney]

With the rapidly aging population and increased life expectancy one form is recognized as "elder abuse" and it mainly comes from families who want their inheritance and become impatient waiting for it!!

I am very concerned to leave an inheritance for my children, a concern I inherited from my father. It depends, of course, on how long I live - the best thing I could do financially for them would be to die now!
But, Sue, many baby boomers have their own answer to the problem you outline above - to spend it all as fast as possible.

[barney]

PS, of course my wife would have to die too, and she is in fine health and comes from a long-lived line.

[lennygoran]

I am very concerned to leave an inheritance.. to spend it all as fast as possible.

Barney don't forget my Metropolitan Opera as you spend that money! Regards, Len [on the run]

[barney]

I haven't forgotten, Len. You get one fifth, along with a fifth each for my four children. Right now, $1.27.

[lennygoran]

I haven't forgotten, Len. You get one fifth, along with a fifth each for my four children. Right now, $1.27.

Barney thanks-this should help when we go for a new car-afterall how much longer can the 1995 Saturn keep going for us as our second car. Regards, Len

[Belle]

With the rapidly aging population and increased life expectancy one form is recognized as "elder abuse" and it mainly comes from families who want their inheritance and become impatient waiting for it!!

I am very concerned to leave an inheritance for my children, a concern I inherited from my father. It depends, of course, on how long I live - the best thing I could do financially for them would be to die now!
But, Sue, many baby boomers have their own answer to the problem you outline above - to spend it all as fast as possible.

We both used to feel exactly like this and we've heard all the gags from peers referring to themselves as SKINs (Spending Kids' Inheritance Now). We have changed our minds quite dramatically.

Elder abuse is a real, live issue and we know of cases ourselves. One family put their ailing 90 year old mother into a house in a prosperous suburb, with a pool, after she 'downsized' from the family home. Instead of going into care or some kind of independent-living/assisted housing she's rattling around that house now at 99 and in very bad shape - but the property values continue to rise!!!

[Belle]

I am very concerned to leave an inheritance.. to spend it all as fast as possible.

Barney don't forget my Metropolitan Opera as you spend that money! Regards, Len [on the run]

You make the joke, but I think giving back to the society is a big part of being retired; whether through voluntary work, donations or both. Huge numbers of retirees are doing both of these things.

[barney]

Yes, I agree. Before one runs out of energy...

[Belle]

Yes, I agree. Before one runs out of energy...

Yet another person in our music group diagnosed with cancer: they're falling like nine-pins. When you're in the over 60 cohort this is standard-issue livery!! And that's why we're making 'succession' plans for our estate while we are still breathing!!

[barney]

Yes, I agree. Before one runs out of energy...

Yet another person in our music group diagnosed with cancer: they're falling like nine-pins. When you're in the over 60 cohort this is standard-issue livery!! And that's why we're making 'succession' plans for our estate while we are still breathing!!

Is that to spend it as fast as possible. Or the reverse?
Yes, I'm nearly in the age group where ailments are the chief conversation - a topic I tend to find tedious. (unless they're mine, of course. Just joking.)

[Belle]

Yes, I agree. Before one runs out of energy...

Yet another person in our music group diagnosed with cancer: they're falling like nine-pins. When you're in the over 60 cohort this is standard-issue livery!! And that's why we're making 'succession' plans for our estate while we are still breathing!!

Is that to spend it as fast as possible. Or the reverse?
Yes, I'm nearly in the age group where ailments are the chief conversation - a topic I tend to find tedious. (unless they're mine, of course. Just joking.)

"Nearly in the age group"?. 'Luxury' (as the Four Yorkshiremen might say)!!!

No, I mean giving them part of their inheritance now - but in a structured way were we all win. Before government decides that death taxes would be a good idea, and while they're still young enough to get the benefit (in their 40s).

[Belle]

Women aren't toxic, or anything! MEOOOW!!

Democrat Tulsi Gabbard lets rip at Hillary Clinton over Russia remarks
It’s Hillary Clinton vs. Tulsi Gabbard on the sidelines of the 2020 presidential race.

The Hawaii congresswoman fought back unsparingly after Clinton appeared to call her “the favourite of the Russians” in a recent interview and said she believes the Russians have “got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate.” Clinton, the former senator, U.S. secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, did not name Gabbard directly.

In a series of tweets Friday, Gabbard called Clinton the “personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long.” Gabbard also alleged there has been a “concerted campaign” to destroy her reputation since she announced her presidential run in January.

“It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me,” Gabbard tweeted about Clinton. “Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.”

There is lingering trepidation in the Democratic Party of a repeat of the 2016 presidential race, when Russia interfered in the U.S. election in an effort to help Donald Trump defeat Clinton. U.S. intelligence agencies have warned that Russia intends to meddle in the 2020 presidential election, as well. Russian President Vladimir Putin has mocked that possibility, joking earlier this month that Moscow would “definitely intervene” again.

During a Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday, Gabbard criticised a TV commentator who she said had called her “an asset of Russia.” She called the comments “completely despicable.” Without naming Gabbard, Clinton seemed to echo the commentator’s remark during a podcast appearance this week on “Campaign HQ with David Plouffe.” Plouffe was campaign manager for President Barack Obama in 2008 and served as served as a senior adviser to the president.

“She’s the favourite of the Russians,” Clinton said, referring to the person she had earlier identified as a woman “who’s currently in the Democratic primary.” “They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.” Clinton also called Trump “Vladimir Putin’s dream” in the interview. She went on to say that Trump’s inauguration speech was “like a declaration of war on half of America.” Clinton also describes 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein as “a Russian asset.” The Russians know they can’t win without a third-party candidate, Clinton added. Stein, who ran against Trump and Clinton as a Green Party candidate, received about 1% of the vote in the 2016 election, but some Democrats said her candidacy siphoned votes away from Clinton and helped Trump win, particularly in states like Wisconsin. The Senate Intelligence Committee asked Stein for documents as part of its probe into Russian interference in the election because she attended a 2015 dinner in Moscow sponsored by Russian television network RT with Putin. Stein has said she attended “with a message of Middle East peace, diplomacy and co-operation.” In a tweet Friday, Stein accused Clinton of “peddling conspiracy theories to justify her failure instead of reflecting on real reasons Dems lost in 2016.”

[Belle]

SURELY this is a big mistake; only men are violent and toxic!! In our area, about 10 years ago, a woman killed her 2 children, husband and then shot herself.

Filicide: why do parents kill their children?

CAROLINE OVERINGTON
ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THE AUSTRALIAN

The neighbours heard the screaming first. Then the sirens. When paramedics arrived, they found two children dead, and a hammer on the floor. Police arrested the mother.

The news came as a shock. Mothers give birth. They create life. They nurture, protect and shield. They aren’t meant to kill.

But they do.

The crime of filicide, where a parent or step-parent kills a child, is the only violent crime in a grim constellation — rape, assault, murder — that is as much the province of women as men.

Former­ homicide detective Terry Goldsworthy, now associate professor at Bond University, says “it’s different from every other homicide, where it’s 80 per cent men who are the perpetrators. With filicide, it’s split right down the middle.”

Regular occurrence

Statistics bear him out: a February report by the Australian Institute of Criminology, Filicide Offenders, examined 238 incidents of filicide involving the death of 284 children between 2001 and 2012. It found that filicide “is a regular occurrenc­e in Australia, not a rare one”, with one child a fortnight killed by a parent or step-parent.

The incidence has remained steady over decades, unlike adult homicide, which is dropping.

Unlike adult homicide, a crime overwhelmingly committed by men — when women are killed, the offender is male 80 per cent of the time; when men are killed, it’s almost always men who kill them — the report found that the offende­r in filicide was almost as often female­ (48 per cent) as male (52 per cent.) In South Australia, the offender is female in more than 70 per cent of cases.

Professor Thea Brown, a founder of the Monash-Deakin Filicide Research Hub, says the gender split is a confronting factor for researcher­s seeking to find ways to prevent what to many is the most shocking crime of all.

“The most frequent occurrence of filicide is at the hands of mothers, then fathers, then stepfathers, who are disproportionately represented,” she says.

“Mothers and stepfathers can be a terrible combination, too. But in every case, we say we are blindsided, and we didn’t see it coming. And with women, when these outbursts occur, it defies conventional thinking because popular culture is powerful, and we don’t see women as violent, but they can be violent towards children. There are often signals. We know that but more research is needed.”

High Australian rate

Li Eriksson, a lecturer in crimin­ology at Griffith University, says “everyone feels horror when confronted with stories about parents who kill their children”.

“This is particularly the case when the perpetrator is a mother because, culturally, women are expecte­d to conform to the ideal feminine stereotype, and women who kill their children do not conform­ to this ideal,” she adds.

No parent is supposed to kill their child, yet Australia has one of the highest rates in the Western world.

Goldsworthy says filicide sometimes involves “psychotic episo­des, such as the case in Cairns where a mother killed seven of her children; neglect and mistreatment, such as the case where a couple starved their twins to death; the so-called altruistic killing, where a parent thinks the child will be better off dead”.

When men kill children, they are more often in a rage, or else practising “extreme discipline”. One example, reported to the NSW coroner earlier this year, was the case of “Levai”, a small boy whose name has been suppressed, who died in Sydney after being made by his mother’s boyfriend to stand on upturned pails with his arms outstretched, starved of food given to his siblings, and forced to eat faeces when he soiled himself.

Revenge

Most children aren’t killed by step-parents or boyfriends, however, but by custodial parents. That said, “we can’t overlook spousal revenge­”, says Goldsworthy. “That’s a big factor, too.”

The “revenge” cases are also the ones we tend to remember, explod­ing as they do into public consciousness, and searing in our collective memories.

There was Arthur Freeman, who threw his four-year-old daughter, Darcey, off Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge on what was to have been her first day at school; Robert Farquharson, who one Father­’s Day drove his three boys into a dam west of Geelong and drowned them; John Edwards, who tracked his teenage children, Jack and Jennifer­, to the sanctuary their mother had created for them in Sydney’s West Pennant Hills, and shot them dead as one tried to shield the other; and Fernando Manrique, who killed himself, his wife, their two children and dog by rigging poison gas cylinders into the roof of their home in Davidson, in Sydney’s northern beaches.

Preventing tragedy

Can such tragedy be prevented? An earlier report, which investigated filicide deaths in Victoria between 2000 and 2009, found 16 child victims killed by their mother, 15 by their father, nine by a stepfather and one by both parents.

Some miserable trends emerged: boys are more commonly killed than girls, especially by stepfathers.

Male victims of filicide tend to be aged between one and nine years, whereas female victims tended to be either younger than one, or else between 10 and 14.

The most common cause of death is violent beating, then strangulation, then drowning.

But why does it happen? That is the question that has proven so difficult to answer. Researchers have in recent years isolated criminal history — especially of fathers and stepfathers — as a key risk ­factor. Men also tended to report problems with alcohol, and prior violence in their own lives.

“But overall we can say that families with multiple factors are at greatest risk,” Brown says.

“If you have a stepfather in the family, if he is relatively young, if he has a background that includes violence, you have risk factors.”

Eriksson’s most recent report, Maternal and Paternal Filicide: Case Studies from the Australian Homicide Project, examines the characteristics of offenders, as revealed­ in interviews conducted with 231 men and women convicted of murder or manslaughter betwee­n 2010 and 2013.

Fourteen had perpetrated filicide. Five were mothers and nine were fathers, and the filicides resulted­ in the deaths of 16 children under the age of 18.

The face-to-face interviews were undertaken at correctional facilities and probation and parole offices around Australia.

In two cases, the fathers were enacting a particularly vicious spousal revenge. Their female partner had threatened or attempt­ed to leave “and the homicides were in direct response to her desire to leave. The killings were intentional. As one man put it: ‘I knew I was going down there to kill her, the kids, everyone.’ ”

By contrast, two of the mothers reported killing their children for “altruistic reasons”, where death was seen as “preferable to a life of suffering” (one child victim had a chronic physical disability.)

“The killing of children is partic­ularly newsworthy,” Eriksson tells The Australian. “What happens, however, when tragedy strikes, is that we focus so much attentio­n on the individual case that we lose sight of the bigger ­picture. We need to focus on prevention­ and intervention. We need to make sure that society provides support for parents who are struggling.”

Unfathomable

But it’s complex, and every case is different.

There are some “important gender differences among filicide perpetrators”, Eriksson adds. Male perpetrators are more likely to report­ unemployment, or alcohol and drug problems.

Female perpet­rators, by contrast, are more likely to report mental health problems.

The fathers had often experienced violence in their own childhood compared with the mothers. The fathers were also more likely to abuse alcohol. Men who killed stepchildren also “generally displayed problematic backgrounds, with low levels of education” and juvenile delinquency. Most had been exposed to severe and frequent­ violence in their own families, including observing their fathers’ abusive behaviour towards their mothers.

Eriksson’s research, examining the backgrounds and criminal histories of offenders, as well as drug and alcohol use and childhood ­experiences, will provide “one piece of the overall puzzle”.

The filicide research now being conducted is a serious attempt to make sense of an unfathomable event. “We still don’t understand why it happens in every case,” says Brown. “We can look at individual cases, we can look at aggregates, but we are still a long way from being able to predict, let alone prevent. And when you think of the consequences, it’s something we have to examine, and we have to try to understand.

‘They do give us signals’

“We know that it’s not rare, and we do know there are many risk factors, not just one. It’s three or four, acting together, but it’s hard to develop intervention if we don’t see the issue. Instead, we often hear people saying: ‘Oh no, how did that happen? Why did nobody intervene?’ We often hear, ‘there were no signs’. But they do give us signals. The signs are often there.

“In the case of Farquharson, he told his best friend what he was going to do, and he didn’t believe him. Because it’s so hard to believe that somebody would do that.

“And when you look at the (gas canister case, they) seemed like such a nice family. But when you look deeper, all the risk factors were there: his wife had, in effect, left him, she had made arrangements to go, and that triggered something in him. They were in debt, he was having an affair, so superficially it looked like they didn’t have problems but they did.

“We can’t go on saying we just don’t know why it happens. But when we first started looking, the research was so limited we could not hold a conference and get people­ to come, (so) we started off by having them overseas, because there is greater recognition of the problem in the UK and Canada.

“Now we are up to our fourth, and there is finally enough recognition to have one in Australia.”

Much of the inform­ation on filicide comes from police case files and media reports. Brown says the conference aims to generate more academic research. The genesis was her own studies on violence in Family Court disputes “where some children describe­d alle­gations of abuse but it wasn’t abuse, it was attempted murder. Men and women. That’s when I decided to look into filicide.”

A senior lecturer in criminol­ogy at Deakin University, Danielle Tyson, shared her concerns. Together they established the conference, and “are slowly edging now towards recognising the problem”.

Addressing Filicide: Fourth International Conference for Cross National Dialogue will be held on November 14 and 15 at Deakin Downtown, Melbourne

Prominent cases of filicide

Anthony Harvey

Harvey, 25, murdered his three daughters, Charlotte, 3, and two-year-old twins Alice and Beatrix, as well as his wife and her mother, in Bedford, Western Australia, in September last year. He has appealed against his life sentence.

Arthur Freeman
Freeman, 50, threw his four-year-old daughter, Darcey, off Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge on what was to be her first day of school in January 2009. He was found guilty of her murder by a jury in 2011 after it rejected his defence of mental impairment. He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum period of 32 years.

Robert Farquharson

Drove his three sons — Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey, 2 — into a dam near Geelong on Father’s Day in 2005. He claimed to have had a coughing fit but was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in jail with a 33-year minimum.

Fernando Manrique
Suffocated himself, his wife, Maria Lutz, and their children, Elisa, 12, and Martin, 11, in their Davidson home in Sydney’s north by pumping carbon monoxide into the house from a canister he had installed in the ceiling in October 2016. He had been having an affair with a 17-year-old barmaid he met while working in The Philippines.

Gabriela Garcia
Put her 22-month-old son, Oliver, in a Baby Bjorn and used a milk crate to climb a fence then leap from the West Gate Bridge in June 2008.

Donna Fitchett

Fitchett, 51, murdered her sons Thomas, 11, and Matthew, 9, at their home in Balwyn North, Melbourne, using drugs and knives in 2005. Their father, David Fitchett, thanked prosecutors for persisting with the case, describing the loss of his sons as “an absolute nightmare”.

Mersane Warria
Killed eight children — seven of her own and her niece, aged between 2 and 14 — in Cairns in December 2014. She was declared unfit to plead.

Charmaine Harris McLeod
The 35-year-old and four of her children — Aaleyn, 6, Matilda, 5, Wyatt, 4, and Zaidok, 2 — died in May after a head-on collision with a truck on the Bunya Highway at Kumbia, west of Brisbane. Both vehicles burst into flames. Police are treating the incident as a murder-suicide.

Jason Lees
In June 2012, Lees, 40, a teacher at one of the nation’s most exclusive schools, Brisbane’s Anglican Church Grammar School, threw his son, Brad, 2, over the safety rail of the Story Bridge then jumped, killing both of them.

Akon Guode
Drove the youngest of her seven children into Lake Gladman in Wyndham Vale, in Melbourne’s southwest, in April 2015, killing four-year-old twins Hangar and Madit and 16-month-old Bol. Older sister Alual, 5, was rescued. Guode was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment.

[Belle]

And here's another from an area very close to our former farm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Folbigg

Note that 'on appeal' her original sentence was commuted to 25 years. That's 6.25 years per child and such leniency most certainly would not have been available if it was the father doing the killing.

Gotta love that justice, Australia-style. More 'womens' tennis equality'.

[Belle]

I forgot to include this woman in my discussion about vile women and how bad they can be:

Magda Goebbels ... who administered poison to all her children. She was a monster of the highest degree.

[Belle]

Whoa!! Avert your eyes now!!

https://www.sydgram.nsw.edu.au/special-announcement

[Belle]

Another 'toxic' male and domestic violence?

Mother charged with murder after two children found dead in hot car in Logan, south of Brisbane

Two children found dead in car may have been 'exposed to extreme heat'
Queensland Police say two children found dead in a car south of Brisbane appear to have been exposed to “exposed to extreme heat ". The pair were found unresponsive in the car.

A 27-year-old mother has been charged with murder after her two young children were found dead in a hot car south of Brisbane on Saturday afternoon.

The girls, aged just one and two, were found unresponsive at the Waterford West home in Logan shortly after 1.30pm.

Police and paramedics were called to the horrific discovery at the Logan Reserve Road residence but were unable to revive the girls. They were declared deceased and a crime scene was established as officers worked to determine the cause of the deaths.

Queensland Police took the parents in for questioning and just after midnight announced that a woman had been charged with two counts of murder. It’s understood the woman is the mother of the girls.

She will appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on November 25.

Queensland Police are urging members of the public who may have any information regarding the matter to contact them.

9News reports it understands the girls’ mother discovered the pair and rushed them inside in an attempt to cool their bodies.

Detective Inspector Mark White said Queensland Ambulance Service staff had made attempts to revive the two children, but both were declared dead at the scene, the ABC reported.

The maximum temperature in the area today was about 30 degrees.
THE AUSTRALIAN

[Belle]

Another one: our disgusting Family Court at it again! And another woman kills her kids.

Dad’s plea to change law to spare others the same fate
EXCLUSIVE
By STEVE JACKSON
The weeks before Christmas are a difficult time for Harley Cuzens — it was in December that his former wife murdered two of their daughters before stabbing herself to death.

He will be forever haunted by the tragedy — and the fact it could have been so readily avoided: Mr Cuzens had been warning the Family Court for almost a decade that she was capable of such frenzied filicide.

Eight years later, Mr Cuzens, who lives in Broome in the far northwest, has opened up for the first time about his feelings of betrayal at having not received so much as an apology from the court for its failings — and his ongoing dismay that nothing has been done to help ensure such horrors never happen again. “Nothing’s changed. If I went to court all over again, the result would be the same,” Mr Cuzens, 52, told The Australian.

“I’ve met with the Chief Justice of the Family Court and he told me his court did everything right.”

Mr Cuzens’s comments come in the wake of a promise by ­Attorney-General Christian Porter last month to consider revising the strict secrecy laws that prevent scrutiny of the Family Court to “balance privacy issues with open justice”.

Mr Cuzens’s daughters, Jane and Jessica, were just 12 and 10 when their mother, Heather Glendinning, killed them in her home at Port Dension, 350km north of Perth, on December 5, 2011, in a murder-suicide that rocked Western Australia.

The only solace was Mr Cuzens’s eldest daughter, Grace, who was 13 at the time, was spared the same fate because her father had convinced the Family Court to let him send her to a private school in Perth. Grace, now 21, is about to enter her final year of studying for her law degree.

“I’ll always be in awe of Grace — I’m astonished by everything she has achieved, given the deep scars she’s got,” said Mr Cuzens, who runs a fishing charter boat out of Broome. “I speak to her every day on the phone. She calls me to check on my welfare — she’s so smart and attractive. She’s incredible.

“The job I’ve had in parenting just one of my children has made me immensely proud. At the same time, it reminds me that my other girls should be here with me, too, and enjoying those same opportunities. It haunts me every day — but this time of year, ahead of Christmas, is particularly difficult. The anniversary of their death is coming up this week and I don’t know what I’ll do.

“Even driving past the school Jessica and Jane used to go to, I have to look away because I’ll think I see their beautiful little faces in the schoolyard and I’ll just break down all over again. They’re buried next to my father but it’s hard for me to go see them there.”

Mr Cuzens is now preparing to mount a legal challenge for an ex gratia payment from the government to compensate for the pain and anguish caused by what he calls “a flawed system that was biased from the very outset”.

“It’s destroyed my family and completely broken me, and it was senseless. It was absolutely avoidable — there’s been absolutely no accountability. That’s what makes it so hard,” he said.

Liberal senator Sarah Henderson has been leading a push for ­reform since The Australian revealed the laws were preventing any examination of psychologists in the family law system, including one charged with child abuse, ­another found guilty of misconduct and a third who believed that 90 per cent of abuse allegations were lies.

Senator Henderson said section 121 of the Family Law Act, which prevents the naming of any witnesses involved in family law proceedings, including expert witnesses, should be revised to improve transparency. “A family report which gets it wrong can have devastating consequences, including for child safety. Section 121 of the Family Law Act should be amended,” she said.

Mr Cuzens blames those secrecy provisions for hampering his attempts to seek justice for the Family Court’s failings.

“Those psychologists and expert witnesses hold a lot of power and their decisions impact your entire family’s future,” he said. “If the court doesn’t like what they say, they just appoint another one and the whole thing keeps on going for years and years until you’re completely ground down.

“I was accused of being uncompromising but, in my view, there was no compromise.

“Their mother was not sane and fit to have custody of them — and no one wanted to hear that until it was too late.”

The warning signs had been there all along, said Mr Cuzens,

His former wife’s mental health had been in decline for years, her psychosis and paranoia exacerbated by her drug use and the stress of her protracted custody battle with Mr Cuzens regarding their daughters.

Glendinning’s growing instability had been noted by a range of government agencies, including the Department of Child Protection, the police and health ser­vices, as well as by her doctor and a growing number of friends. The couple split in 2001, instigating a progressively acrimonious legal battle, which began with disproved allegations Mr Cuzens had been violent and abusive throughout their relationship.

By March 2010, Glendinning, who was later found by the Coroners Court to be self-medicating with marijuana, had began regularly calling police to make fanciful claims that her daughters were being preyed upon by a pedophile ring involving lawyers, judges and politicians, but that they were all somehow being protected by Mr Cuzens and his family.

She also made a string of allegations against Mr Cuzens and his father, accusing them of sexually assaulting the girls. All of her claims were investigated by the authorities and dismissed.

In late November 2011, the lawyer representing the girls in the Family Court became so concerned about Glendinning’s deteriorating mental state and the welfare of the children she pushed for an urgent review of their circumstance — but her application was put off until January 2012.

Two weeks later, Jane and Jessica were found dead, alongside their mother.

At an inquest into the murder-suicide in 2016, the coroner “was satisfied that in the prevailing circumstances, it was difficult to see how the agencies could have acted differently”.

Although the coroner did recommend greater co-operation and information-sharing between the Department of Child Protection and Family Services and the Family Court of Western Aus­tralia — and an increased focus on obtaining psychiatric assessments — it came as little recompense to Mr Cuzens.

“The anger never goes away; there were just so many missed opportunities to save Jessica and Jane,” he said.

“My case was cut and dry — Heather was out of control when we broke up, that’s why we broke up, but I’m the one who got treated like a criminal for 10 years for trying to keep my kids safe.

“The Family Court got it wrong from start to finish and Legal Aid, who funded Heather, fuelled the fire. Together, they basically forced me to sell every asset I had because they allowed her to make so many allegations against me all paid for by the government, while everything I said was completely discounted.

“The court-appointed counsellor told me I was too angry. Too right I was angry — but it’s OK to be angry when you’re worried about your kids’ welfare. It’s what you do with that anger.

“I wanted my girls to be safe. Why else would I have spent 10 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting for them in court? No one wants to take any responsibility and there’s been no justice for my girls.”

Mr Cuzens said he struggled with bouts of depression that put increasing strain on his work and personal life, but did his best to remain strong for those around him.