How not to conduct an interview

One of the first rules of journalism is to know about your subject before interviewing them. No journalist wants to appear ignorant of the basic facts about a person, particularly when that information is easily acquired.

Another important rule is to respect the subject. Obviously this will not apply to everyone. Sometimes a journalist may need to be confrontational. In most cases, however, there is no need to badger the subject. Respect garners better interviews than disrespect.

Those two basic rules escaped the hosts of an Australian morning talk show:

Feminist proves MRAs have a point by trying to disprove that point: Part 2

This is a continuation of my previous post about Suzzanah Weiss’s article in which she explains where men’s rights activists go wrong in their arguments by ironically proving their arguments. Here we go:

2. Fathers Are as Important as Mothers

Another common men’s rights issue is child custody and, more generally, men’s ability to play as active a role in the family as women do.

Feminists totally agree with this as well. Everyone should have a choice regarding what role they play in the family, and their a/gender shouldn’t factor into that.

That is an interesting position given that feminists either ignore or oppose efforts to increase father’s roles in their children’s lives. For example, the National Organization for Women opposes shared parenting laws, claiming that they give abusive men access to their victims.

Feminist organizations pushed for government-funded family programs that often exclude fathers as potential beneficiaries. Family courts routinely grant custody to mothers, even in cases in which the fathers are the primary caregivers. Child support laws appear gender neutral, yet they are applied primarily to fathers. Noncustodial fathers often receive limited contact with their children, which is subject to change at the mother’s request. Yet rather than supporting fathers in their attempt to address this bias, feminists claim that the bias is a myth concocted by bitter men and sexist men’s rights activists.

In fact, having more equal households benefits people of all a/genders. In relationships between men and women, for example, women whose male partners are helping out around the house are more able to prioritize their careers.

That has nothing to do with recognizing the roles fathers play in their children’s lives. Rather, it prioritizes women’s desires over fathers’ importance. It also assumes that men do nothing in their homes or that want they do matters less than what women do.

But men’s smaller role in the household is also not evidence that they’re oppressed.

The argument about oppression does not come from men’s role in the household, but how they are treated when it comes to custody issues. Men are held financially responsible, yet treated as physically negligible regardless of the clear importance to their children’s lives. When both parents agree to a particular arrangement, say that the father will work and the mother will stay home with the children, this equal decision is flipped on men during separations or divorces and used against them. Now they can be shut out of their children’s lives, lose a significant among of their pay check, and face mounting legal bills because of the “sacrifices” the woman made to stay at home.

The Red Pill: A Review

After years of waiting, I finally got the chance to watch Cassie Jaye’s documentary The Red Pill. Jaye’s documentary began as her examination of the men’s rights movement, and grew into her journey out of feminism.

The film received a great deal of backlash during its filming, post production, and initial release. All of the negative response, from people contacting Jaye’s financiers to cut her funding to people backing out of interviews to protests against the film, came from feminists. Most notably, they came from feminists who never saw the bulk of the footage or the completed film.

The reaction has been so overblown that it has likely increased people’s desire to see this horribly misogynistic film that gives a platform to rape apologists. Or something to that affect.

Is that Jaye’s film? Is it a love letter to women haters? Is it an attack on feminism? Does it excuse male violence against women?

How to deal with politically correct busybodies

Years ago there was a syndicated radio show called His Side with Glenn Sacks. Sacks is a father’s rights advocate who hosted the show from California. He regularly brought on prominent feminists to debate men’s issues, primarily father’s rights. He also had people call into show and ask questions.

On one episode, he invited a newcomer feminist blogger named Amanda Marcotte to talk with him. Marcotte had made name for herself with her blistering diatribes and rants on her blog Pandagon. The vitriol that came from her digital mouth knew few limits. There was little she would not write in order to trash men, the men’s rights movement, and advocates like Glenn Sacks.

So as one would expect, when Marcotte appeared on the show she spoke in the most restrained, mousey voice humanly possible. She presented the complete opposite of her online personality, acting afraid and timid and barely speaking loud enough to be heard despite the microphone being inches from her face. When challenged by Sacks on the various charges she had made against him and other advocates, Marcotte had only soft spoken, non-committal remarks.

She proved the utter coward.

Bulletin Board v295

Abuse of inmates in youth detention and adult facilities happening daily, prison chaplain says — Reverend Alex Gater has called for a royal commission into youth detention in the NT to cover Queensland, saying abuse has been happening for years in both prisons and juvenile detention centres. The royal commission was announced following revelations of abuse raised on ABC’s Four Corners program that have also led to the minister responsible for the detainees being sacked. Reverend Gater said her grandson had spent time in a detention centre and a prison, where she said he was physically abused by officers.

Boy tells court he does not blame mother for abuse he suffered — The 12-year-old son of a woman found guilty of child cruelty has told a court in a victim impact report that he doesn’t believe she did anything wrong. The child said he put the blame on his father (64), who was convicted last May of nine counts of raping the boy when he aged six and seven. The trial at the Central Criminal Court heard he also put the child in a wooden box and nailed it shut in their Waterford home.

Jury hears accounts of historical abuse at the hands of Caister man — Robert Brown, of Eastern Avenue, Caister, is on trial accused of sexually abusing five boys at a children’s home where he worked in the 1970s. Brown, 69, lived at the home in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, at the time. He has pleaded not guilty to 16 charges of indecent assault on five boys in the 1970s. Two witnesses told the Warwick Crown Court jury of incidents which took place during trips from Manor Court Road children’s home to Brown’s home town of Great Yarmouth.

Bulletin Board v286

Catholic church’s secret archives key to exposing sex abuse scandal — Huddled in a law office on Hamilton Street, the district attorneys of the five counties in the Allentown Catholic Diocese spent days poring over files that detailed nearly two dozen allegations that priests had sexually abused children over several decades. That unprecedented step came in May 2002 after sex-abuse allegations exploded in the Boston Archdiocese, prompting Allentown Bishop Edward P. Cullen to grant the five prosecutors, including Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin and Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, a rare glimpse into the diocese’s secret archives.

German Man Handed 1-Year Sentence for Sex Abuse of Boys — A German man was convicted yesterday for committing indecent sexual acts against two boys in Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov district, but was handed the minimum sentence of one year, meaning he will be free in a matter of months. Udo Sabiniewicz, 56, was arrested in June for allegedly sexually abusing six boys after the mothers of two of the children filed complaints with the police. Keo Thea, chief of the municipal police’s anti-human trafficking bureau, said at the time that the boys had accused Mr. Sabiniewicz of repeatedly molesting them.

Legal action launched by victims of ex Scout leader who indecently abused children in Hinckley — Victims of a former scout leader who sexually abused four boys in the 1980s have instructed lawyers to take legal action against the Scout Association. Michael Medhurst, 61, was jailed for more than five years earlier this week after admitting a string of indecent assaults against four children between 1981 and 1987 in Leicestershire. The charges related to four victims, all from the Birmingham area, who were assaulted by Medhurst between September 1981 and September 1987 in Hinckley and Castle Donington.

Addressing the boy crisis

The Honey Badger Brigade interviewed author and activist Warren Farrell concerning the growing boy crisis. Farrell has spoken previously about the importance of paying attention to boys’ needs and understanding the unique role fathers and male mentors play in boys’ lives.

Farrell has been on the receiving end of much feminist hatred, including a concerted effort to paint him as a supporter of statutory rape. Much of their complaint about Farrell is simply that he criticizes their policies and methods.

Like several notable critics of feminism, Farrell used to be a feminist. He was once the president of the National Organization for Women. I think this makes his criticism more irritating to feminists, much like a former believer criticizing their old religion.