ABS Releases Gender Indicators and Ignores Male Disadvantage

Today the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia's so-called impartial statistical body released its Gender Indicators report: "a summary of gender specific data in six domains representing Economic security, Education, Health, Work and family balance, Safety and justice, and Democracy, governance and citizenship".

The ABS produced a media release about the publication. This release could have noted that:

• Across the board males fare much worse than females in the education system - most notably being 24% less likely to be enrolled in a bachelor degree or above
• Across the board males fare much worse than females in the health arena - most notably suffering death rates from cancer, heart disease, suicide, motor vehicle accidents and drug abuse between 1.6 and 3.4 times higher
• Males are 12% more likely than females to feel their work and family responsibilities are rarely/ never in balance
• Males are almost twice as likely as females to have experienced violence during the last 12 months and one third more likely to be a victim of physical or threatened physical assault.

However, these facts were conveniently ignored in favour of a media release titled "Busy mums want more paid work," citing the rate of underemployment being twice as high for women (8%) than for men (4%). Sadly it seems that the lace curtain extends all the way into our country's top statistical body.

The 'wage gap' myth rears its ugly head once again

The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) has issued a media release claiming that Australian workplaces discriminate against women because of an average gender wage difference between male and female graduates of $2,000. The source data cited actually found this difference was not due to discrimination but due to the fields of study chosen by males and females, along with other factors such as hours worked and type and location of employer.

Here is a copy of the media release along with our letter to the director of the EOWA in response.

Have women swung the pendulum too far?

When discussing gender issues from a male perspective you will often hear people talk about a pendulum that has swung too far.

It’s a nonsense metaphor that serves neither women nor men. The idea that there’s an imaginary pendulum that has been swung in women’s favour promotes a lazy binary thinking that can only view gender work as a Zero Sum Game where there’s always a winner and always a loser.

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Daughters financially better off than mothers, but sons...

Are young people better off than their parents? At least when it comes to income, the answer depends on gender. Today's young women make $1.17 for every $1 their moms earned back in 1980. Young men, however, are earning 10 cents per hour less than their fathers did 30 years ago, new research shows.

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Sex discrimination at London School of Economics

Tom Martin is making headlines around the world for bringing a £50,000 sex discrimination lawsuit against the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE), claiming its gender studies Masters programme he enrolled on consistently promotes biassed, female victim-hood stories, blaming men, in order to justify ignoring male equality debates like those brought by the fathers' rights movement.

Tom discusses his case on A Voice for Men radio, and appears in an explosive new youtube video, asking LSE students if discrimination against men in a gender studies course is ever justifiable, as the university's defence team now argue. Some LSE students are immediately hostile on camera, one declaring “There's no discrimination against men!” - her outburst juxtaposed by a fast-scrolling 160 item A to Z list of discrimination issues faced by males. Other students agree with Tom's complaint, one quietly admitting “I've been here for three years and never heard or read of a study about equal rights or equal opportunities for men, so definitely, there's a case there.”

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