I know it looks like I’m picking on Australian media. That’s not the intent at all, and I apologize for the appearance, but the fact is that Australian media is occasionally the exception to what seems to be a tacit (I hope) agreement in English-speaking media to completely ignore anything to do with men’s rights, including MGTOW.
First off, a disclaimer: the article that I’m referring to here is poorly written, in a news channel apparently devoted to Australian television, and the web page is full of clickbait and auto-starting videos. Sorry.
The Project hosts left speechless during interview with controversial US film director (www.news.com.au)
What we have here is a television interview with Cassie Jaye, the creator of the documentary film The Red Pill. Yes, I have seen it, even though I haven’t written directly about it here before. Frankly, I probably should have, but the film evoked a mix of strong emotions, even though I was already familiar with all the salient points, and after a couple of drafts of posts about it I began to doubt that I had the skill to do justice to my own reaction, or the film itself, in any short format.
In my opinion, the only way anyone could possibly be offended by the content of this film is if they are so obsessed with women’s issues that they completely refuse to acknowledge that men can have any legitimate issues at all, or that any possible men’s issues are “dwarfed” by the import of women’s issues simply because they are women’s issues, the underlying value being that men’s issues cannot be important because men are not important.
I got a full dose of this attitude just recently while watching some news coverage that talked about the recent terrorist killings on London Bridge in the UK. Over and over I heard the TV talking-heads repeat “women and children killed”. Many times. “Women and children”.
It is most certainly a tragedy that women and children were killed in the attack, but most of those killed were men. Is it too much just to acknowledge that the men killed is also a tragedy? Honestly, show a little cultural self-awareness. We, as a society, report the death of animals with much more sympathy than the death of men.
To be fair, The Red Pill does not dwell on the woman-bashing that is unfortunately prevalent in circles devoted to men’s issues. On the other hand, we have all been expected to listen to, but never, ever point out the rabid man-bashing that has been prevalent in feminist circles for decades now. In either case you can’t focus on the message without filtering out the noise, so it’s hard to see how this amounts to more than trying to be fair and balanced in portraying both sides.
The question at hand in the interview is why there has been more resistance to the film, more protests against it even being seen in Australia than elsewhere, more even than in deepest feminist-controlled Canada. This is a serious situation, apparently proposals to let Australians see this documentary have been met with death threats.
Apparently in complete sympathy to those willing to invoke violence to prevent the film from being seen, the going-in position of the interviewers is that Cassie Jaye is somehow missing the point entirely with her film. And what, exactly, is “the point” that she’s missing?
The interviewers are somehow trying, from the start, to tie an innocent film about the difficulty in getting anyone to seriously consider men’s rights issues to the case of a man who brutally murdered his own son.
Why would anyone want to associate these two issues at all?
Quote from the article:
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Carrie Bickmore explained that it was largely due to the fact domestic violence is “really on the agenda” here, and pointed to the campaign run by Rosie Batty, whose son Luke was murdered by his own father in 2014.
“And it was his son that passed [away]?” Jaye questioned the hosts.
A confused Aly clarified: “It was her son that was killed by his father.”
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The tragic death of Luke Batty is being used to make a point, but let’s analyze what was actually said. Luke was the son of Rosie Batty and Greg Anderson, the man who killed him. In other words, Greg Anderson, by all reports, killed his own son. Cassie Jaye seems to be just trying to be clear on that point by asking “And it was his son that passed?”. The factual answer is “yes”, but one of the interviewers corrects her anyway, stating that it was her (Rosie Batty’s) son that was killed by his father.
Let’s be clear on who is confused here. Cassie Jaye is just seeking clarification, but the interviewer stating “It was her son that was killed by his father”, not his son. This fundamental misunderstanding in itself seems to reveal something of the bias of the interviewers. The important point, to them, is that it was her son, not that it was his son.
Why that emphasis? Because in order for this horrible incident to reinforce the world-view that they’re pushing, the real victim must be a female. A male victim just doesn’t fit the narrative. Rosie Batty is the victim, because she lost a son.
Mentally step back and consider for a moment. Would Rosie Batty still be considered the primary victim of this tragedy if Greg Anderson had fathered and killed a daughter? Of course not.
If you think that’s a ridiculously extreme position (and I truly wish it were), just consider this famous quote from Hillary Clinton:
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“Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat”.
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There it is. In this world-view, women are the primary victims when their husbands, fathers and sons are killed. This only makes sense if, and only if, males cannot be victims, even when they are the ones being killed.
That is, indeed, exactly what the interviewers seem to be insisting is the case:
Quote from the article:
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“That’s interesting, because it shows that there are male victims of domestic violence,” Jaye replied.
The response left the entire Project panel in a moment of stunned silence, before Aly dived back in.
“Sorry — that’s the lesson you took from that?” he asked incredulously.
“The point I think a lot of people take from that is that the violence was perpetrated by the man in that situation — as it overwhelmingly is — particularly in cases where there’s a fatality.”
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The clear intent here is that we are all supposed to be outraged that Cassie Jaye is missing the point.
The point, just in case you’re missing it too, is that men are evil.
The media treats a father killing a child or children as “domestic violence” or “domestic abuse”, obviously a case of testosterone-driven rage. Even when the father is obviously completely insane, gender is almost always implied to be a major factor. Compare that to the “senseless tragedy” coverage that women receive when they kill their children, whether they shoot them, drown them in a station wagon, or intentionally leave them to cook to death in a hot car. In those cases the media never invokes “domestic violence” or “domestic abuse”, but is apt to cite “disturbed” mothers or postpartum depression as factors, carefully implying with neutral wording that nobody is really at fault. In other words, when father kills his own child gender is immediately put forth as a factor, but they never, ever imply that the gender is a factor if the killer is female.
Ask yourself: Would the media ever try to use the case of a woman killing her own child or children (which happens all the time) to imply that it was due to characteristics inherent in her gender, and thus to discredit a film about feminist issues?
Of course not. Any journalist that tried to associate the two would be fired in a storm of outrage… but we accept the reverse bias without need for comment. We’ve gotten to the point where it seems natural to us, but it is no less than routine demonization of men and devaluation of boys.
Cassie Jaye, under pressure, summed up her rational position admirably. From the article:
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“This is a very touchy subject which can quickly offend people, so I’ll use my words wisely,” she told the hosts.
“It’s something I really thought long and hard about while I was making The Red Pill … we have to distinguish between victims and perpetrators, or criminals, because a boy who is being abused by a parental figure, that is a boy that deserves care and compassion and resources if he needs to find help.”
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Yet that clear, concise and rational response is characterized in the article with “But Jaye didn’t budge…“, clearly implying that she should have. They are shocked that she is not joining in their knee-jerk reaction to blame the gender of the male killer, but instead has the gall to point out that the real victim of this tragedy is male, and, as her movie makes very clear, there is virtually no support available in our society for such male victims. In fact, there’s huge resistance to even the concept of helping male victims. Any mention of male victims of domestic violence is painted as sexist and misogynistic.
She’s right. They’re wrong.
The fact that one man murdered his own son does not reflect on all men, does not justify treating men as unworthy of human rights, any more than the cases women murdering their own children reflect on all women and make them unworthy of human rights.
It’s time we stopped thinking like metaphorical lemmings, following the herd to whatever destination they lead us to without objection or dissent, and start thinking like human beings instead, with some compassion for other humans regardless of gender, even in the face of societal or media disapproval.
“Human rights” are not just female rights.
All human lives matter.
A valid subset of that postulate is that all male lives also matter. Luke Batty’s life mattered. The male victims on London Bridge mattered.
MALE LIVES MATTER.
– Robert the Wombat
All lives matter – or none do.