Opinion
Readers take note: April Fool’s Day was over a month ago, so it’s not a hoax when I write this: I finally agree with something Waleed Aly says.
Long time BFD readers will know just what sort of contempt I hold for little Wally, but even a stopped clock is right once a day. I should also qualify that I don’t entirely agree with Wally’s latest eructation, in which he manages to shoe-horn in his standard but-what-about-the-Muslims whinge, as well as peddling bogus statistics, but he does make at least some good points.
In this case, about the so-called “femicide”, which, like all the rest of the “-cides” and “-phobias” the left whine about, is little more than their febrile imaginations and eternal guilt complexes.
Malcolm Turnbull declared that “disrespecting women does not always result in violence against women. But all violence against women begins with disrespecting women”. Here, Turnbull echoed what seemed to be the dominant explanation of domestic violence at the time. But I couldn’t repress a simple thought when I heard Turnbull’s comment: I just don’t think that’s correct.
That’s because my academic work was studying the roots of violence, where research overwhelmingly identifies factors like humiliation, shame and guilt as motivating drivers, not a lack of respect. When the literature mentions respect at all, it isn’t about the perpetrator disrespecting the victim: it’s more about the perpetrator feeling someone had disrespected them.
One need only consider the tidal wave of mass shootings in the US, which are almost entirely driven by the phenomenon of young black men pulling a gun and blasting randomly whenever they feel they’ve been “dissed”. The Kansas City shooting — which notably dropped off the media-left’s radar with astonishing rapidity — was a drearily typical example. Within seconds, “Watchoo lookin’ at, nigga?” becomes a hail of bullets.
In his massive study on human violence, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker cites research which shows that cultures with strong notions of honour/shame tend to be far more violent. One study tested northern and southern students subjected to a slight — pushing past in a hallway — and their reactions. The northerners tended to laugh it off — “Whatever, asshole” — while the southerners, where honour traditions are still strong, were “absolutely fuming”.
In that respect, far from Marama Davidson’s “cis white men”, it’s notable that famously non-white cultures, with strong “honour” traditions, dominate violence statistics.
Speaking of statistics, Aly also notes a glaring disruption to the narrative: same-sex relationships. Although he avoids mentioning the rug-munchers specifically, if it’s solely because of male violence, then how is it that lesbian relationships are statistically the most violent of all?
But elsewhere, Aly flugs his statistic, falling for the fake narrative.
Men are killing women at a faster rate.
The Australian
Which is, of course, completely untrue.
Australian Institute of Criminology data on homicides shows that the long-term trend is a massive, ongoing decline in homicides, for both males (who still make up two-thirds of homicide victims) and females. From 1989 to 2023, the homicide rate for both genders decreased by 52%. Female homicides declined by more than 30%.
Anyone who knows anything about statistics knows perfectly well that long-term trends are never uniform. There will be occasional “blips” which, taken in isolation (or, more likely, cherry-picked), distort the facts. The first few months of 2024 are just such a blip — especially aggravated by a very rare, one-off phenomenon like the mass stabbing attack in Bondi.
Periods of societal dislocation are also strongly correlated with temporary blips in violence, and 2023, with its combination of post-Covid and economic crises, was no different.
Even so, 2023 was one of the safest years for women in Australian history, and still more than 30% safer than the late 80s.
So, when feminists screech about “women’s bodies piling up”, it’s purely and simply a fact-free lie.
Indeed, as one wag noted, women in Australia are more than 50 times more likely to die from obesity than from violence.
Perhaps instead of marching, they should take up jogging.