Shaming Male High School Students: Aussie Style

This is a true story, it happened recently at a government high school in an Australian state capital city, and similar scenarios play out across the country on a regular basis.

Good morning class, today we have invited Ms. Hatesmenalot from the local Violence Against Women Service to host a discussion with you about “Healthy Relationships.”

But first whilst you (pure pristine) girls stay in this room, we want all you (bad nasty) boys to move into the next room and we will all fill in this questionnaire highlighting the ways men abuse women in relationships. We will then meet together again to discuss your answers (shame the boys), how’s that sound!

You can see images of the survey here (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL IMAGE)

Whilst reading the questionnaire may engender a feeling of disbelief, in reality this is just another example of the pervasive ideological feminist governance that saturates our education and social service systems, part of the ongoing narrative of gender stereotyping intended to shame and further marginalize our boys and young men.

Unlike the false and misleading disclaimer in the box at the top of the questionnaire “that most domestic violence occurs by men to women” the professional literature on dating violence in teens is clear:

In teen dating relationships females are as physically abusive or more physically abusive than males.

As Ms. Misogyny Gillard would say, let that sink in!

In teen dating relationships females are as physically abusive or more physically abusive than males.

The Australian National Crime Prevention Survey (2001) [1] reported on a sample of 5000 Australian teens. The key findings were that one in three females and males say they have experienced at least one type of physically violent behavior from a girlfriend or boyfriend – this includes children as young as 12. Although both boys and girls reported similar rates of victimization, girls were more likely to slap, kick or bite, compared to boys who were more likely to push, grab, shove, threaten, physically control and try to force their partner to have sex.

In 2008 renowned violence researcher Murray Straus published the results of the International Dating Violence Study (Dominance and symmetry in partner violence by male and female university students in 32 nations. Children and Youth Services Review 30 (2008) 252–275.) The key finding of this study was that that almost one-third of the female as well as male students reported physically assaulting a dating partner in the previous 12 months, and that the most frequent pattern was bidirectional, i.e., both were violent, followed by “female-only” violence. Violence by only the male partner was the least frequent pattern according to both male and female participants. For the Australian cohort the violence rate was 20% overall and of these cases, in 14 % of the violence was male only perpetrated, in 21% female only perpetrated and bidirectional in 65%.

Critically the paper concluded that prevention and treatment of partner violence (PV) could become more effective if the programs recognize that most PV is bidirectional and act on the high rate of perpetration by women and the fact that dominance by the female partner is as strongly related to PV as dominance by the male partner.

University of Georgia researcher Pamela Orpinas has overseen a large ongoing longitudinal study that found that nearly one in three middle and high school students who date say their relationships include violence. Girls were more likely to perpetrate violence than boys but were also more likely to be the victims of sexual violence or incur injuries.[2]

Several papers on Teen Dating Violence were presented at the recent American Psychological Association’s annual convention.

A new study, by Michele Ybarra at the Centre for Innovative Public Health Research in San Clemente, reported on a survey of 1,058 young people aged 14 to 20. She found that 35 % of girls reported perpetrating abuse, 41 % said they were victims, and 29 % said they were both victims and perpetrators. For boys and men, the numbers were 29%, 37% and 24%, respectively. Females were more likely to say they were victims of sexual violence and perpetrators of physical violence. Males reported committing more sexual violence.

In another study of 635 students interviewed 5 times over 6 years from middle school to high school, Low and Espelage found that bullying at a younger age can increase dating violence among young Americans in later years. Those who reported higher levels of bullying in the earlier surveys were seven times more likely to report being physically violent in relationships at the conclusion of the study.

The remarkable thing about the research on partner abuse is the consistency of the findings of bi-directionality and gender symmetry of perpetration across the demographic spectrum. This had been confirmed as well by conclusions drawn from the largest domestic violence research data base?with summarizes some 1,700 peer-reviewed studies the Partner Abuse State of Knowledge project (PASK).

Returning to the Australian High School incident, the school at which the incident occurred (as indeed most Australian schools), gives a commitment to stamping out bullying and promoting an environment of equality and non-discrimination. They proudly promote a zero tolerance of bullying and link to the Australian Government Anti-Bullying Takeastandtogether website.

On the “Take a stand together website” you will find this definition of harassment:

“Harassment is behaviour that targets an individual or group that offends, humiliates, intimidates or creates a hostile environment. This could be because they belong to a specific race, religion, gender or gender-orientation group or have a disability, for example.”

There is no doubt that some of the boys in the class felt targeted, offended and intimidated simply because of their male sex. Indeed when objections were voiced the hostility of the environment became clear, they were silenced, accused of being disruptive and threatened with disciplinary action.

The research on bullying and the approach to remedying it does not single out males because it is well known that females bully each other and males and vice versa, albeit that the preferred techniques differ. Boys being more likely to physically bully and girls more likely to emotionally bully. A link between bullying and partner violence has been established and the partner violence literature conclusively demonstrates gender symmetry in perpetration.

Given these facts why would a school allow gender ideologues to breach their own policies on non-discrimination by peddling false and counterproductive feminist propaganda to impressionable students? By doing so they not only breach their duty of care to their students male and female, but miss an important opportunity to significantly impact on actually reducing future incidents of partner violence.

Relationships are exactly that a 2 way street with give and take, regardless of whether they be family, work, school, dating or initiate relationships. Helping our young people negotiate the joys and pitfalls of relationships is a valid endeavor for our schools. But we do our girls no favors by suggesting to them that within dating and intimate relationships they represent passive individuals lacking in agency, simply waiting to be abused by a violent male, and instructing them as to best place to seek assistance if this prophecy comes to past – your local feminist violence against women service of course.

We do our boys no favors by falsely telling them that all relationship problems will be averted if they can simply control a mythical but supposedly ubiquitous tendency to abuse.

We do our future generations no favors by not alerting our boys and girls to the tyranny of false allegations of abuse, family breakdown, biased family law courts and parental alienation.

Of course this is exactly what the DV grievance industry wants, an ongoing source of female victims, ensuring ongoing funding for their services and ongoing employment for their graduate gender ideologues.

Until our boys and girls are treated as true individuals, in a sex and sexual orientation inclusive way, without gender profiling the partner abuse merry go round with continue to wreck it’s havoc on all, just as planned.[3]