Alan Jones: Parents worried about their sons as they walk on eggshells

The statistics do not bear out the narrative that Australia is an unjust country for victims of rape but the people suggesting otherwise are making all men out as sinners, writes Alan Jones.

In a provocative but relevant piece in last week’s Brisbane Sunday Mail, Peter Gleeson headlined his story: “Who’d want to be a young bloke these days?”

This subject is reminiscent of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s historical fiction The Scarlet Letter about the nature of sin and the danger of revenge.

The scarlet letter is initially, in the novel, a symbol of shame. Wear it as a proclamation of your sin.

If you listen these days to the noisy minorities, “the mob”, you’d be entitled to believe that every man should be branded with the scarlet letter “A” to symbolise the sin of all men.

Parents are writing to me worried about the fate of their sons. The issue of “sexual consent” has young men walking on eggshells.

The sexual consent app idea from NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller was widely panned. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

It was only a month ago that a sexual consent app on your phone was being discussed, where two adults both click the button on the app.

It was reducing important relationships to nothing more than buying a ticket to the cinema. Would the “sexual consent” allow you one sexual intercourse, valid for 24 hours?

I have made the point many times that the vast majority of men, far from lusting to abuse women, actually see themselves as protectors of women.

Bettina Arndt is a highly qualified writer and commentator who specialises in sex and gender issues.

She has been vilified from one end of the country to the other for simply arguing that, and here I paraphrase, not all men are rapists and that women aren’t at risk of being raped.

Acclaimed author Bettina Arndt.

A 35 year old female project manager has written about “a mainstream of idiocy, incivility, fallacy and blatant self-interested power grabbing that we are subjected to …

“I am sickened to see the push by modern feminists, activists and social justice warriors to ostracise, sedate and punish men so unfairly to the extent of removing their right to fair legal processes …

“I am supportive of improving the lives of women who continue to face injustice and hardship. However, I am perplexed as to how anyone thinks this should come about by making men’s lives unliveable.

“A just society that is fair for women can only exist if it is also fair for men.”

Well, mothers and men are fighting back via a website MothersOfSons.info. These are predominantly women, appalled that governments are being sucked into this anti-male crisis.

Mothers are being invited to write to politicians to say they have to stand up to the man hating minority.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that there is an agenda in place here – not rule by law, but rule by mob and the media; denigrate our criminal justice system in order to promote independent inquiries; undermine the due process rights of accused men in order to make decisions using a lower standard of proof; and, above all, an orchestrated campaign to damage the Morrison government.

Men have become a target. Artwork: Terry Pontikos

It is extraordinary that many of these protest movements are based on slogans that can’t be justified via known research.

Statistics show that it is not true that women aren’t safe walking at night. Statistics show this is a very safe country where violence is decreasing and males are twice as likely to be attacked as women.

Statistics show that our justice system is not failing rape victims; contrary to misinformation, conviction levels of sexual assault have never been higher. Two-thirds of NSW sexual assault cases result in a guilty verdict.

Statistics show that most incidents of sexual assault are date rape cases, involving a young woman with a known partner, sometimes boyfriend/girlfriend and half the time involving alcohol.

Then the fallacious argument that women don’t report rape because they don’t trust the justice system.

The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics investigated why fewer cases were going through to trial and found the major reason was there had been an increase in cases where the victim knew the offender and didn’t want to give evidence against the accused person.

Teaching young children about sexting is problematic.

No one is suggesting that rape is not a serious crime deserving of the strongest punishment; but the way this matter is being handled by activists is not in the interests of women, nor in the interests of men.

There is now talk about consent courses being taught in schools and universities.

I asked two politicians on my television program last week whether they knew what was being taught in schools and they didn’t. I asked whether they knew that children as young as 14 were to be taught sexual consent lessons under the guise of respectful relationship courses.

Neither of these prominent MPs was aware of the course content. Neither of them knew what was being taught in schools.

Both of them agreed that teachers teaching children in years 10 to 12, at 15 years of age, about sexting and sexual consent was something that gave cause for concern.

Brittany Higgins speaks at the Canberra Womens March 4 Justice last month. Picture: Jamila Toderas/Getty Images

Yet the lesson material on sexual consent and respectful relationships, for kindergarten through to year 12, was signed off by all State and Territory governments in 2015.

But neither politicians nor parents know anything about it.

The Federal Government has spent $7.8 million on a Respect Matters program to promote “positive attitudes, behaviours and equality within schools.”

It all sounds very innocent, but politicians, parents and the taxpayer have no access to this material in order that it be reviewed before it hits the classroom.

Thank God in some of the nation’s big cities, we have run out of classrooms; keep the children at home to prevent their minds being further polluted.

And as for the notion that female quotas in parliament would address the problem in relation to predatory men, Brittany Higgins was employed by two female ministers.

She accused them of treating her unsympathetically. It seems that gender offered no protection.

Mothers are worried about this ant-male crisis; so too are sons. And, in this climate, with some justification.

The website is MothersOfSons.info