Glossary items: (these are not ads.)
End of list.
Glossary items - A to D
Achieving legal equality
The process of achieving change for men and fathers will have to pass through several stages:
Stage 1: Denial – "No problem". Society, media, politicians, judiciary and government agencies refuse to acknowledge that prejudicial treatment of men and fathers is a problem.
Stage 2: "The problem is Men / Fathers". Men’s differences are seen as the problem and society, media, politicians, judiciary and government agencies are encouraged to believe that the solution lies in men changing.
Stage 3: Incremental Adjustment. Society, media, politicians, judiciary and government agencies begin to recognise something is wrong when good men keep opting out. But community leaders and commentators go on expecting more men to keep rolling up and taking the fall. Nothing is changed in the media, community, government agencies or legal system, so the cycle continues.
Stage 4: Commitment to a New Culture. Eventually men opting out is recognised as a symptom of deeper cultural problems and true leaders step up and take responsibility for removing prejudice and encouraging change.
All through this process we can expect self-appointed gate-keepers in media, politics, academia and government agencies to continue to oppose change, by pushing discussion back to stages 1 and 2. At the same time these people will pursue a self-interested scramble for whatever spoils they can get before change is enacted.
Mahatma Gandhi described the type of response fathers can expect. "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
Or as Arthur Schopenhauer said - "All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
Asset stripping and skirting
A general term for government programmes that aim to bring about a mass transfer of financial assets from men to women. The transfer is achieved through various discriminatory policies and legal practices.
Australian financial companies are being given strategic presentations telling them how a large portion of the nation's assets will soon transfer, and be consolidated under sole female control - through either divorce, or the husband's early death. This will concentrate accumulated assets from both family lines - i.e. both the husband's and wife's inherited assets - into female hands. See sample presentation slide (company details removed).
See also country risk, divestment risk, super delusion.
Ballateral damage
Damage to men doesn't matter - they are ballateral damage. Damage to men, as a result of policy changes or women's actions, is often ignored. At best, ballateral damage is fobbed off, as inconsequential, with the claim that not many men are effected. Arguments made to justify ballateral damage, are often the complete reverse of arguments made about damage to women in similar situations.
Derivation: People with balls are collateral damage of gender war prosecuted by tax-funded groups.
See also Wimdria law and when numbers count
Bitch-whistle marketing
A method of promotion, or self-promotion, based on the fact that women like to see men and fathers portrayed as negative stereotypes.
This negative depiction of men and fathers is often false and offensive, but that isn't seen as important.
The aim is for the negative message about men or fathers to attract women. Hopefully, these women are then attracted to the person, or brand, providing the message. If women are attracted, they are more likely to buy what is being 'sold'.
The effect compounds when a media outlet uses a bitch-whistle marketing strategy to promote itself as well. People who want to get publicity, manipulate their PR releases to fit with media preferences. If the PR release fits with a media outlet's view, the release is more likely to get a run. So, journalists or media outlets, with a bitch-whistle marketing strategy, cause others to write similar advertorial.
Any negative effect on men or children is just ballateral damage in the process of generating a beneficial or commercial return.
Country risk
Country risk is a concept used in investment risk analysis. It aims to compare the relative risk of investing in each country. Each country gets a risk rating covering risks that may result in significant losses to investors. The rating covers risks such as a country's government defaulting on its debts, or nationalising an industry or business in which you have invested.
The risk to personal and family 'investments' in a county can be rated in this way as well. In some countries, there is high risk of significant losses from biased practices in government agencies - such as relationship law or asset stripping and skirting programmes.
The solution, in a global employment and residential market, is to have much better disclosure of relationship law, and gender based employment and asset transfer practices. This will allow men to understand the relative risks of investing their time and efforts, in various countries and relationships. Such risk analysis is especially important before deciding to have children in a particular country.
See also divestment risk, and super delusion.
Dicktation tests
Dicktation tests are one of the indicators of gender-based corruption. A Dicktation Test is a negative test - it finds men and fails them, but allows women to pass or avoid the test.
Derivation: Dictation tests where part of the White Australia Policy of the early 20th century. Legislation allowed potential migrants to be tested with a 50 word dictation test in a European language. But in practice the test was only given to people who administrators wanted to fail.
Failure was ensured by making the test words difficult, and choosing a rare European language. In reality, the dictation test was a way to exclude people on the basis of race, without making it explicit. Of those given the test, 96% failed before 1909, and 100% failed between 1909 and 1934.
The test was challenged successfully in the High Court in the 1930s. The case showed a Czech refugee passed successive dictation tests in several languages. Testing continued until he failed a dictation test in Scottish Gaelic - a language so rare that the test administrator, who had grown up in northern Scotland, couldn't speak himself. The High Court found that administering the Act in this way was unfair.
An example of a dicktation test is Pru Goward's claim that Australian men who work "need an autocue to remember their children's names".
At the time Goward said this, the Family Court was the subject of a Parliamentary Inquiry to see if the Court's practices discriminated against men and should be changed. Goward made her comment as part of her lobbying campaign to prevent reform of Family Law.
Goward's statement is obviously false - there isn't any research showing men can't remember their children's names. But Goward's statement also implies a father can't care for his children, and isn't even interested in his children, just because the father works. An offensive suggestion, again without any evidence.
What makes it a 'dicktation test' is that Goward left her own young children in Adelaide, and moved to Sydney to live and work there. So, Goward applies one standard to herself, but wants a different, more harsh judgement to apply to all men, based purely on their gender. Goward is lobbying for this harsher standard, that she couldn't pass herself, to be used in judging men (but not women) before the Family Court.
What makes it 'corruption' is that Pru Goward was the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the time she made the comments - in effect supporting continued discrimination against men in Family Law.
The joint party Parliamentary Inquiry eventually concluded that Family Law reform was necessary - effectively finding the Courts were discriminating against men. This was the opposite to Goward's claims. So much for her credibility.
Also see lacktation tests and gender-based corruption and fella nullius.
Divestment risk
Many men spend a lot of time trying to build up financial assets and reduce risk from market forces. They might check various prospectus documents, look at risks compared to expected return, and compare the risk profile of investments. Often financial planners are engaged to prepare reports on investment strategy under various scenarios.
However, these men give little thought to the biggest financial risk in their life. That is being in a relationship, having children and then being processed through the Family Court. These men become targets of the government's asset stripping and skirting programme.
The Family Court's approach to property settlements is deeply flawed and anti-father. It is also unregulated, Judges can do whatever they want.
The last Parliamentary Inquiry into family breakdown investigated child access and child support. The Inquiry found that a large part of what men were saying about child access and child support was true and discriminatory, and some changes were made.
However, property settlements were excluded from the Inquiry. Financial settlements remain parochial, outdated and discriminatory. Men get very little. Often a father's contact with his children, and the expense of legal action, are used as extortion to extract a "generous financial settlement".
While this situation exists, men should be much more careful about their choice of partner, and particularly about having children.
Consider very carefully the stability of your partner and how she conducts her relationships with her friends and family. Are these relationships turbulent with people being ostracised for long periods? Does she have periods of mood swings, lack of social control and substance abuse?
Don't be bullied or manipulated into getting married, or especially having children, until you've thought through the incredible risk that you are taking on.
You might also like to rethink whether accumulating assets is such a good idea since you won't be getting them. In many ways you might be better off to consume more now, rather than save for later.
This might mean you rent a better quality house rather than struggle to buy one. Take a holiday now, rather than save for a holiday house or overseas trip that may never happen. Spend money on your children's education now, rather than saving an education fund.
Value that you've already consumed can't be taken away from you and your children.
Divestment risk, via their own family, is the biggest financial risk that most men will face. However, compared to other risks, divestment risk is hidden away, unregulated, and rarely thought about until it's too late.
Parents of sons also have a responsibility to see their children are well informed. After all, any funds your son inherits will be skirted as well.
Also see Super delusion
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Copyright © 2007-2008, Max Rollins. All rights reserved.