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Isms
In the wake of Serena Willams on-court tantrum to the chair umpire, she threw around a few of these isms. (sexism and racism). Watching the last couple of episodes of Celebrity Big Brother with a gentleman called Hardeep stating a comment by another contestant was borderline racist and as previously discussed from CBB of the Roxanne and Ryan incident (Ryan won by the way), does perspective have to come into the discussion.
Let's start with the Serena Willams tantrum, since this occurrence, an Australian newspaper put our a caricature of her chucking a tantrum, now my understanding of a caricature is that it exaggerates the physical features. For example, I have a big nose so if one was done of me my nose would be massive. Serena's lips were bigger. This has upset a few calling it racist and comparing it to cartoons/comics of yesteryear when racism was a major issue. Now as a Jane Elliot fan I understand that due to the history of what things like this has caused, that it would be upsetting. But on the other side of the coin, it was a caricature so dominant features were exaggerated.
But what if she hadn't thrown around the isms on the court that led to this caricature, would people have seen it as racist? Nobody jumped on the sexist/fatist bandwagon because of the drawing had her a lot bigger then what she really is.
Which brings us to the Hardeep situation. Hardeep comes from a Indian heritage. A proud Indian who wears his turban with honor and pride. While arranging for a play for the following day where they needed bandages another contestant, Sally Morgan asked what the thing was called he wore on his head. (I personally feel like she just plain forgot the name but she may have also been ignorant to the correct term). She wished to borrow the turban for bandages. Hardeep answered no (I perceived it to be aggressive). Then the following day while getting ready for the play, they "ill patients" were in bed and again Sally said to/about Hardeep that they needed some flour to make him paler due to the fact that he looked too well. Which Hardeep stood up and chucked a tantrum calling it borderline racist. This caused another disagreement in the house.
Now Sally didn't say anything about him having dark skin, it was purely about making him look ill. I personally believe saying, borderline racist, leaves the same bitter taste in the mouth as just using the word racist.
Now I have seen discussions for both sides of the two situations and I can see the argument for both sides although I am more on one side then the other.
But my question is, with all the ISMS getting slung around, is there ever going to be a time when the world looks at different situations and get a clear perspective. Are people so jaded by the history of their gender, race, culture, religion or sexuality, that they have blinders on and take offense to just about anything that they deem degrading towards their history?
At the March for Men, the ANTIFA (I found they were the counter-protesters to our demonstration) didn't even know why we were there. So they were protesting against something that didn't exist. It was the same when I had the debate with that person about Non-Binary last week, she was angry with me and argumentive about something she knew nothing about.
Are things we find offensive just an optical illusion because they are things we hold close to our heart, would the illusion disappear if we stood back and looked at the bigger picture?
Perspective is a very funny thing.
Love Nat
xxx
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Silly tantrums
So I was on the bus today on my way to the city when I came across a post by a woman saying "Facebook thinks saying all men are trash is hate speech - it's not". which of course caught my attention. I had just finished reading the article about Serena Williams chucking a tantrum at a chair umpire calling it him sexist.
I just rolled my eyes and carried on trying not to think about these things today. I felt like I needed a few days off, I was beginning to feel very overwhelmed. I still want to continue with this blog and I love fighting for what I believe in. But it was just breaking my heart too much, hearing different stories, getting sent different articles. I felt I needed to step back and regather myself to do this logically and not emotionally. But after the post, I saw today emotions took over and I became pissed.
This article led me to a website that was the reason for this disgusting pathetic attempt of piss weak journalism, called Facebook Jailed. Which I think gave me a short version of tourettes.so I left the article as I couldn't finish reading something that would blow a blood vessel in my brain.
Now, this website started because someone got banned from Facebook for saying all men are scum. (insert shocked face emoji). The person who started to give plenty of bullshit excuses for this, including the old chestnut it was a joke or satire.
I'm not going to go into details of the article or the website to save my brain from exploding. (it's already given me a migraine) But I will go into the fact this absolutely pisses me off. People like this need to stop hiding behind it was only a joke, satire or sarcasm to get away with their feminist branded narrative.
I have seen this countless times of certain people throwing out all these types of generic insults putting men all into one basket. Yes, there are bad men out there and there are also equally bad women. But it's the news articles and the TV media, that squash or report silently the bad women and scream loudly about the bad men.
But even if they silence the bad women and shout it out loud about the bad men, these are still not all men. Because not all men are scum, not all men cheat, not all men rape, not all men murder and not all men hit. In fact, its a minute amount of men that do this. I know this, it's logical, this isn't something I need to look up and find out the statistics.
I admit I have laughed at the memes of women can't drive, 1950's housewife, make me a sandwich jokes. But these aren't calling women scum or trash, rapists or murders. There is a difference, I have been verbally attacked on Facebook (as usual) for finding these memes funny as they are derogatory toward women. Fine let's say for argument's sake they are, they are still aren't calling all women scum.
These memes are truly satire. I am fat and laugh at fat memes, I am unattractive and laugh at ugly memes, I am a natural blonde and laugh at blonde jokes. None of these things are calling me a bad person. There is the difference,
So these silly little girls chucking silly little tantrums over getting a 30-day ban on Facebook need to suck it up and stop sooking for fuck's sake. They went on to complain about the men firing back what was obviously empty threats and insults. yes definitely distasteful and extremely rude and I will never condone some of the things that were said. But you can't throw the grenade and cry victim when you get hit by the shrapnel.
Ok hopping off my soapbox now, nothing to see here, move along.
Love Nat
xxx
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Non Binary
I have done absolutely nothing today except watch AHS Asylum (I told you I was a freak) and my blogs so far have been about things I have experienced and witnessed. But today was my lazy day I am really good at being lazy and couldn't find my mojo to really find words to blog about the list of subjects I want to write about.
But I thought about a fight I had with someone on facebook about a nonbinary joke meme I posted. this is how the meme went "If I had a dollar for every gender there is, I'd have two dollars and a bunch of counterfeits". Now this person thought it had something to do with the LBGTQ community and for those that really know me knows that I would never not in a million years ever say anything against the LBGTQ. I have friends and family that are gay, bi, transgender. My first nightclubs were on Oxford St in Sydney, my mum took in a young man who had come out to his parents and was kicked out of home he went to school with my sister. I have been in the Mardi Gras twice for volunteering at an AIDS house in the 90's. So I was extremely offended that someone could accuse me of all people for being derogatory towards the LBGTQ community.
This particular person lacked the knowledge of knowing about nonbinary because I kept explaining to them that this had nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with nonbinary, but they kept bringing up different types of sexuality. Now she became rather nasty and insulting about a topic she obviously knew nothing about.
So I hear you ask what's this got to do with what men face today and technically nothing. But it did make me think that here is this woman fighting tooth and nail to defend people that she didn't even know existed and what is essentially 2% of the population and all the SJW's would have backed her up. Now I don't give a flying fuck if you want to be seen as fluffy ducks as long as you don't want to change the world's vocabulary to start using fluffy duck terminology. So I am angry about the 2% of the world's population wanting us to use terms like Ze and Zer instead of he and her and she and him. But the SJW's wants us to bow down to these wants.
But here I am fighting for men 50% of the world's population and I get spat on, death threats, called KKK, homophobic, racist, sexist and the list goes on of the number of insults that have been thrown my way. I have been pushed around and punched for doing what I do and I am proud of every step I take to shine a light on men's issues, even those whose strings are being pulled by the feminist narrative
So why am I basically public enemy number one for a majority and the precious snowflakes fighting for just 2% are protected by puppeteers?
Love Nat
xxx
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Back in my day
My son loves it when I use the term "back in my day" as he likes to rub in the fact that I am getting old. But today was my shopping day, after finishing up in ALDI for my fortnightly groceries, my stomach started churning, as much as that kebab I had for lunch was yummy I don't think it agreed with my delicate tummy (for those that know me you can stop laughing now.) I, unfortunately, don't drive so I caught the bus. To add insult to injury school had just finished and yes the bus was packed with girls playing on their phones and trying to get the attention of the cool boys up the back of the bus and pimply faced boys thinking they are so cool with their slicked back hair. I struggled onto the packed bus with my shopping and had to step over the school bags laying in the aisle and stand near the back door as it was the only free space to put me and my bags.
Now back in my day (there it is) school kids always stood up for adults. It was just plain old simple good manners to do this. But not anymore, kids just don't care. But why don't they care?
There was also a man that rushed to get on the bus before I did, now I didn't mind this as such but as the bus was packed with these hormonally charged teens I wasn't even offered a seat or assistance by this man. Is chivalry dead?
So here I am sitting in bed, my stomach is still churning and I have these questions rolling around in my head plus more. Could these two be connected or are they two separate things just with a similar result. This equality thing I am striving for and I want true equality, Is this the price we pay are we all equal?
Now a lot of people would blame the patriarchy for the death of chivalry, but if men have always had the power, thus being patriarchy wouldn't chivalry be alive and well as its only died in the last few decades. So what killed it?
MY POINT OF VIEW is that this third wave of feminism. Now before people start jumping up and down, think about it.
If the suffragettes were the first wave and started in 1903 we most definitely still had chivalry after that. Men still opened doors for ladies, pulled out their chairs and walked on the street side of the footpath.
I call them the bra burners for the second wave started in the 1960's through to the 1980's. I know personally being a stereotypical 1980's teen-adult, that chivalry wasn't dead, but thinking back to it I could see it dying. But I was still treated with respect.
Now the 60's was a good mix of the 1950's leave it to beaver morals and the Woodstock free love morals. As our skirts got shorter and our freedom of sex was more open and our fight for equality was on the rise, that the treatment of females changed. Did we do this to ourselves?
I say I want to be treated like a lady, but I sometimes have this inner turmoil that I don't act like one. I swear like a sailor and I have sex without being in a relationship. So how am I to be treated like a lady if I don't act like one. So I ask again is this the price we have paid for wanting to be treated equal?
Have men really changed though or do they still want to be gentlemen like they were many years ago? As you can imagine I speak to a lot of men both to do with this world and just general chatter and what I have found out is a very high majority of them still have a lot of gentlemanly ways about them. They still want to pay for a date and take care of the female, walk of the street side of the footpath.
But sex always comes into play. Females always chuck a social media tantrum for getting the infamous dick pic, not realizing that the male sending the dick pic has usually received twice as many vajayjay pics. Go to a strip club both for men and women. Men sit back and enjoy the show with the occasional wolf whistle, women go nuts and scream like its the second coming of The Beatles, they paw at these men and wave their boobs in their direction just hoping they can be the strippers babe for the night.
Patriarchy couldn't have done this. But is this the price we have to pay, did we do this to ourselves?
Which brings us back to the horny teens on the bus. The timeline is similar to the death of chivalry. As kids, we were taught to respect our elders, and even at 47 I still do. But kids are running around destroying War Memorials disrespecting our war veterans, abusing our elders instead if respecting them.
"Back in My Day" we would get the cane if we played up at school, now teachers are too scared to even give the student detention in case their parents threaten to sue or they might get attacked by the student.
"Back in My Day", we could spank our children and not be afraid to be criticized by the SJW for beating our children. Now I'm not saying I condone the cane or spanking. But we live in fear of political correctness. We can't speak our mind without being attacked both verbally and/or physically. Margaret Attwood said "Men are afraid women will laugh at them... but women are afraid men will kill them" which is such bullshit. We are afraid gangs are going to kill us, we are afraid the crazy homeless person is going to kill us, we are afraid that horny teen on the bus is going to kill us if we speak up. These aren't men or races or ages we are afraid of these are people of both genders.
We can't blame patriarchy on the demise of our youth, we as parents as a whole fucked up, we stopped being full-time parents and allowed modern technology to raise our kids. We are all addicted to our phones, social media and youtube. "Back in My Day" we had five channels to watch, now we have something like 40, plus Foxtel, then the newest craze of streaming networks like Netflix. Porn was something that was hard to watch as it was hard to get hold of, but we've now got Pornhub and can secretly watch it on our way to work on the train. Men used to hide their playboy under the bed so mattress so their kids wouldn't find it. Playboy is now a sexier version of Woman's Weekly.
We are to blame for our kids not coming home to milk and cookies and made to do their homework. We grab them Maccas on the way home from school and put the telly on. Divorce is easier than marriage so we just go on to the next one. Until we end up alone because there is no such thing as perfection.
So there is a thin thread of connection between the two but they have melded together and come out the other side. We have changed and I'm afraid it's not for the better.
Love Nat
xxx
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Whats the difference?
I went to my local Coles last night to pick up a couple of things. It was about 7:30 at night so I was a bit surprised to see one of those tables still out the front of the entrance trying to raise money for a charity. You know the ones, with all of your might you try and use every brain power to make yourself invisible. It's not that you are uncaring of what the subject matter may be. It's just that you want to spend as little time as possible in and out of the supermarket.
But this one caught my eye, it was to help raise money for the fire department. They were selling the spunky half-naked firemen calendars. Now my girlie parts got excited before my brain said don't stop. Luckily my son dragged me in before the bulky man could get out one syllable of one word.
As I was walking around trying to decide what I wanted to have with my BBQ chicken, it came to me, if that was the other way around and they were selling calendars of half-naked women to raise money for a charity. would we be outraged or would we gladly purchase the calendar and admire the beauty of the human body.
Is there a difference between the two? Would still support it if it was a female calendar? Do we turn a blind eye because it's male?
Now to be completely honest I don't know if there is a law or not, but I do vaguely remember there being an uproar over the famous half-naked sexy female calendars in the local garage, that people wanted to have them outlawed. Apparently "people" found it offensive and objectifying women. So I ask again what is the difference?
I have seen opinions on the other side blaming all of male problems on patriarchy. How is the patriarchy if the definition of the word is as follows "a system or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it". Wouldn't it be mainly women purchasing these sexy firemen calendars?
Now on a personal note, I would love to help support these and all firemen. In the last few weeks, they have saved close friends home from bushfires and they also helped with a factory fire that was burning toxic fumes all over the area in which I live. And if I didn't have this tug-a-war going on inside of me I would have purchased a calendar to show my support. But if I did wouldn't I then become the type of person that I am fighting against.
What is the difference?
Is there a difference?
Should there be a difference?
Love Natxxx
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Pop Culture
If you haven't found out by now I love my TV shows and movies. There are some I can't stand but I am addicted to TV and movies. I have youtube basically running whenever I am at home or I stream stuff. It was earlier this year while binge-watching something trivial basically something I could watch in the background and if I missed something I wasn't that worried. This show was Reba. Now at first, I was just enjoying the silliness of it, then it dawned on me, 'Reba" the central character kept hitting the two main adult male characters.
Shocked at something I had been ignoring. I wondered even in a silly sitcom if we would find it as funny if the gender roles were reversed. In today's pop culture world where we can watch almost anything made. Where we going to allow this or do we just turn a blind eye, because it is just a comedy and its only happening to the male, nobody is hitting Reba?
I don't even think its something you can google. "what TV sitcoms shows a female hitting a male" I tried it just comes up with strong female roles. But it did remind me of Ellen from Seinfeld always pushing the other male characters violently. This wasn't a nudge this was a full on huge push. But we all thought it was funny. I know I did. But what if it was Jerry or George pushing Ellen around or any other female that happened to be in an episode. Once again would we find it as funny or would we demand that it be removed from our screens? I believe it is overlooked because it is just males and it is a sitcom after all.
Something else has dawned on me since are the women's magazines. New Idea, Women's Day have a section called Mere Male, I googled the meaning of mere. (gotta love copy and paste)
adjective
used to emphasize how small or insignificant someone or something is."questions that cannot be answered by mere mortals"
synonyms
I remember reading these as a kid from my mum's collection and would giggle. But its the wording mere that has me upset, For a very long time by the very definition of mere being small or insignificant to describe a male.
Even today after watching the latest episode of Celebrity Big Brother, something popped up on my recommended Youtube account, that read 10 celebrities that can't stand Ellen DeGeneres. I thought this could be funny and mind-numbing for a couple of minutes, I mean who could not like the daytime dancing queen. I thought it was a prerequisite to like Ellen in Hollywood. Most of them were petty little girlie fights, but one stood out and made sense of all people Piers Morgan. It was about the hypocrisy of a photo of Ellen in what looked like she was ogling Katy Perry's breasts and making a light-hearted joke of it, then on another occasion during an acceptance speech at an award show Ellen displayed a large photo of a shirtless Chris Hemsworth. Now as a straight woman I enjoyed the photo, but I have to step back and ask myself now, would I be outraged if it was a man accepting the award and it was a large photo of Margot Robbie in a bikini. But as usual, it gets overlooked because it came from yet again a female.
So this is today's pop culture, TV sitcoms, women's magazines, and daytime talk show hosts abusing a situation and getting away with it just because its funny.
Once again I know there are so many more references to support this, but even these few examples should be enough for us to step back and realize how we ignore violence and abuse against males at large.
Love Natxxx
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Refocus
Something that has just dawned on me today actually. Instead of trying to inform everyone what the issues men face today a lot of "people" are to busy slamming the other side. Something I did learn on the March For Men with the exception of a couple of little snide comments, we really didn't bite back and generally ignored the ugliness of the protestors.
Why don't we continue to do it? Why don't we become the bigger person so to speak and forget about the negativity these idiots throw at us and just focus on trying to spread the word on what men face in today's world.
These shouldn't be men's rights these should be human rights. We need to show and prove the true statistics on male victims of domestic violence. The statistics to show how violent females are when it comes to same-sex relationships, straight relationships and to their children. Also the comparison to the males.
We need to shine a light on the family courts, parental rights, as much as I hate the wording but paper abortion rights (Paper abortion, also known as a financial abortion or a statutory abort, is the proposed ability of the biological father, before the birth of the child, to opt out of any rights, privileges, and responsibilities toward the child, including financial support).. There should never be a term of visitation rights when it comes to ones child/children, (once again unless there is a real issue if a parent) The child's rights first and the equal parental rights.
We do need to discuss men's suicide rates and why it is so much higher. Men and boys being raped by females and why it's not called rape. The fake nature of rape culture. All men are to blame culture, Male circumcision, false accusations and so much more.
These are the things I am going to be blogging about. I am going to try my best not to attack anyone (even Clementine Ford which will be soooo hard). We don't need to feed the other side with fuel. I think its best to ignore and just floor them with facts. I have seen it first hand they can't argue opinions when you throw in facts.
Love Nat
xxx
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Happy Fathers Day
1st of all a huge Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers that are reading this blog.
Secondly a huge happy fathers day to all those in a supportive father figure role in a child's life. There are some amazing step-fathers out there, grandfathers, single mothers etc. This isn't special persons day this is fathers day and for all those that are a father figure in a child's life, you deserve to hear happy fathers day not happy special persons day.
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False alligations
This was going to be a different post. I don't know what it was going to be about but this is something I feel needs to be addressed due to something that has happened in the last 12 hours.
Now I am sure we all have some type of guilty pleasure of an embarrassing TV show. One of mine is the English version of Celebrity Big Brother. I will give you a couple of minutes to either stop laughing, shaking your heads or just wondering how stupid can I really be watching such mindless crap (................. insert waiting game show music).
Anyway, in the latest episode, one of the housemates Roxanne was play fighting with a male housemate Ryan. Who truly accidently MAY of hit her a little too hard in the ribs. Now Roxanne is playing the victim card and acting like he has beaten her up and is crying that she doesn't feel safe. Big Brother has given Ryan a formal warning realizing that it was just playful fighting. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WzjUfPNq0w if interested in watching the incident skip to 23:55 and then continue to watch for her reactions throughout the episode)
Now the far right and SJW's are going to have a field day. The Repercussions of this is going to play into their hands. But what makes it even worse is the REAL victims of DV, both male and female. Something like this makes their claims seems less.
But the SJW's and far right aren't going to think about that. They don't want to look at the facts or the situation. They don't care that she isn't the victim. It was an accident, it wasn't intentional, it wasn't done with any malice.
People need to step back before accusing anyone of any type of violence and look at the situation. When a false allegation is given it takes power away from the real victims and destroys the lives of those accused. Men have committed suicide of these false allegations even after the accuser has come forward and admitted the truth. Because once you throw shit like that, it sticks to even the innocent. They carry that dark cloud over their heads as people look at them and wonder if they guilty of the crime they were falsely accused of. They will always be guilty in the eyes of society.
If you are a female and go out for a night on the town, get drunk and "hook-up" with someone. Don't accuse them of rape, you are accountable for your alcohol intake, you are accountable for going home with someone and you are accountable for having sex with them. I don't give a flying fuck what the law is if you have a voice you can say NO. Also, why are the males responsible if the female is drunk, but the female isn't responsible if the male is drunk.hat about if they are both intoxicated he is still responsible. Why are the males accountable for her drunkenness if they are both drunk. Where is the equality in that?
Mothers don't accuse your ex-partner of DV just to get full custody of your children unless they are violent. This may punish your ex and or his family, but even worse it punishes the child.
So no more false allegations because you are angry or ashamed. There are real victims out there once again both males and females that need to be seen and believed and your false allegations are removing the truth from their situation.
Tantrum over, nothing to see here move along.
Love Nat
xxx
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Why I stand up for men
Yes, I am a woman I have the tits and vajayjay to prove it. Not that I go around flashing them, well not anymore. Just trust me they are there, I check every morning when I go for my first pee. So why do I a strong independent female stand up for men?
Nearly 20 years ago I gave birth to a beautiful (yes all parents say this) blue-eyed blonde haired baby boy. I was so grateful I had a boy. Life was going to be easy for him. A white male the world would lay out the red carpet wherever he went. I came from a strong female background. My grandmother was very strong, spoke her mind, was a real tough cookie. My mother was a powerhouse another strong independent woman, was high in the business world before we saw Joan Collins on Dynasty. My mother and father separated when I was 11. I am not going to disparage my father, but I was basically raised by my mother from this point forward. My older sister moved out of home when she was young and has worked ever since. So I was surrounded by these strong amazing women. I don't think any of them labeled themselves as feminists they were just a result of the first two waves of feminism. I do believe that we as females needed these first two waves. We needed to be treated as equals to vote and be paid the same as our male counterparts.
The first two waves got females noticed, gave us a voice, gave us a right to stand up and be heard. I know this goes against the grain of a lot of people, but this is my blog and my point of view so suck it up buttercup. (that was supposed to be a hahahaha moment, not this bitch is crakers moment).
So here I was a mother of this beautifully perfect baby boy thanking the gods I had a male. His father and I split up, nobodies fault, we just didn't get along and continued to clash. We would just need to breathe loudly and the other one would get pissed off. Before we went our separate ways the father of my had joined the military. So here I was a single mother of an extremely handsome 2 1/2-year-old son. I was living on the mid-north coast of NSW, in a very small country town. This was so small that if you sneezed within the hour everyone believed you were dying of the latest flu outbreak. There were no jobs to be had, so I went on to the single parent's pension. I lived a lonely life as I promised myself I wouldn't be one of those single mothers going from one man to the next trying to find the next father figure for my son. He had a father a great father, who was now in the navy only got to see his son every 6 months. If he could have seen his son more often he would of and I never stopped him from seeing his son. If our son had to take time off school to fit into his father's military timetable we worked within that schedule. My son needed his father, this wasn't told to me, this wasn't lectured to me by any single fathers. To me, this was just logical. It took the two of us to bring him into this world, it was going to take the two of us to raise him.
My life was pretty boring, I spent my days at home watching the telly or going down to the beach to watch the whales sprout water up in the air. The most exciting days were my shopping days. I got to go into Coffs Harbour, I got to go to the big smoke (well medium smoke in this case). As I don't drive this trip was mainly done with my mum. It was on one of these trips home that we had a car accident. We knew everyone, the paramedics, the police, the fireman, the tow truck drivers, the guy that was in the other car was best friends with my son's teacher. This was big news in our small country town. it was round about this time I came to the realization that if I couldn't get a job what hope did my son have. There were mechanic jobs maybe and very occasionally jobs at the local supermarket and these are very good jobs, but that was all, I wanted my son to have options. This was when I moved down to Melbourne. This is when the real world opened up to me again from my 7 years sheltered in a small country town.
Within a few months, I had a job. surrounded by men in a small oil-producing company close to home. Still being new to Melbourne my circle of friends was none existent. So I worked all day, came home to my son who was growing up too quickly. My life was just as boring as it was before the move, but we were now we were in the big smoke. Going to the movies was just walking up the road, ordering takeaway wasn't going to cost me $20 in delivery fees. Now though suddenly I had this new thing called Facebook to keep me company, I could finally talk to adults while still being at home and taking care of my son. The world started to hide behind our phones and laptops. This cut off most of the world to reality. For me, it opened my eyes to how the world really was.
I started to see posts and this new thing back then called memes. All bringing attention to female victims of domestic violence. As much as I believe and support bringing attention to this, my logic set in and I started to think what about men. Women can't be the only ones in a DV situation. I started to ask what about men. The more I asked the more I noticed other people (both male and female) asking the same question. I was added to a few pages dedicated to male victims of domestic violence. This is when the famous rabbit hole started to open up.
Here I was falling down the proverbial rabbit hole. The more I fell the more I learned. I had been red pilled. I started to get heard and make enemies by those that had become puppets by the third wave of feminisms puppet masters. I learned that this ugly third wave was destroying everything the first two waves of feminism. Females and males that once proudly screamed I AM A FEMINIST were now running for the hills, myself included. Feminism started to have voices like Clementine Ford who wanted to put the blame the problems of the world on all men. Reading and seeing her tweets made me violently ill.
The more I read about the negative narrative of the third wave of feminism, the more I could feel my blood turn cold. It was like cold water racing through me like rapids under my skin. My once grateful view of having a baby boy and the red carpet at his feet in his future now turned to a view of society throwing dog shit at him just because he was not only a male but also white. I needed to stand up and be heard for him, I no longer wanted the red carpet, I just didn't want the shit.
I needed to do something I wanted to be supportive. I wanted to be part of something that can help the world change its point of view on males. I made my contacts through Facebook, who fed me information on different things I asked for. I have probably annoyed the crap out of most of them for constantly nagging them for this information.
But what I have learned is it's a lot bigger than just male victims of DV, it was about fathers rights. This hurts me so bad as a single mother, how can anyone prevent the child from seeing its father. Trust me my son's father and I can hardly say two words to each other without arguing, but when it comes to OUR son he is the father and deserves the same amount of respect and time with him as I do. Our son is now 19 and he can choose for himself where he wants to live and visit.
I also discovered that a lot of companies had signed up to the ridiculous white ribbon campaign were men are taught not to hit women. Silly me I thought all men knew this and it was only a very small percentage of the male population that abused their partner. (sarcasm peoples). Of course, men know this, my question is do women know not to do this?
And recently after a horrendous murder and rape of a woman in Victoria by one sick individual and yes a male individual at that, but still one person. All men need to learn not to rape and kill women. I want to scream men know this, all men know this. It is the extreme smallest population that commit such a crime, regardless of the gender.
There has been so much I have learned and I know I haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg of the reality of what men face today. I also want to make it clear I am not a men's rights activist anymore then I am a women's rights activist. But I have seen the pendulum swing too much in the opposite direction and the equality that the first two waves of feminism fought for is none existent. So for my son mainly, but also for the men I have always had in my life and the ones I have met through this, I need to grab hold of that pendulum and bring it to the middle. I need to fight for men's rights to do this and I will continue to do it until I see an even playing field for both sides.
Love Nat xxx
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March for Men
I will go more into my background in later blogs. But I want to talk about the March for Men for my first blog as that and some inspiring people have triggered my wanting to start this blog. (I just wanted to put that disclaimer in first)
So it was a beautiful winter Melbourne day (for once). The last two Saturdays it had hailed. That was one of my biggest fears was that we would be rained or in this case hailed out. I had this image of everyone running for cover over the pelting balls of ice. But as mentioned it was a beautiful sunny day. I don't even think there was a cloud in the sky, I wore a warm blacktop thinking it will at the very least be cold, but part of me wished I didn't wear this particular top as I was overly warm at times. So now hopefully you can picture the day at Federation Square.
As I walked towards Federation Square I could see the crowds swell. But what really shocked me was the police presence, across the road in front of St Paul's Cathedral. Its like they were on standby, this couldn't be for just us I thought as I walked past a very small demonstration of African Australians in red t-shirts and sweaters chanting free Bobi Wine. So I automatically thought that at least part of this massive police presence was for this small group of people. But as I got closer to the congregation of a March for Men and saw several police officers on horseback almost blocking the area that the organizers were setting up for the days events. As a female, I was wondering if they would let me through. Would every female feel this way that came to support the cause? Are people going to look at me and other females thinking is she one of them or one of us?
I got there early and there was a spreading of about 20-30 people getting everything ready. They were all wearing these white t-shirts with a March for Men printed across the front. It was their uniform for the day. They wore them with pride as did everyone else that purchased one for the amazingly cheap cost of $10, the proceeds went to Dads in Destress and the costs for organizing the event. They were handing out free stickers (I put one across my chest because there was no way they had one in my fat size) and flags that we all waved proudly.
I sat at the opposite end of where I entered, there were stairs leading down to Flinders Street. I stood at the top of these stairs before I placed my fat ass on a small brick wall (this would become my home and safe haven for the remaining time of us all being at Federation Square). At the bottom of the stairs was something that literally shocked me. About 10-15 police officers in hi-vis vests were standing side by side to protect us. So I sat my ass down looking at one particular man hoping he was my Facebook friend Robert. He had helped me, supported me and gave me information if I asked for it. I felt safe with the police surrounding us, but this got my adrenaline pumping. I was getting excited. The man I had been looking at approached me recognizing me from Facebook (thank god, I didn't want to be one of those people that put up a pic of themselves that in reality looks nothing like them). Robert and I had finally met, my guru for my personal beliefs. We entered into some small talk as you do when you meet someone for the first time. But he was always going to busy as he was one of the speakers for the event and he knew a lot of people. This in itself made me feel special as I knew someone that important and he took time out to come and greet me and make me feel welcome. I sat back down and waited for the one or two people I knew that would turn up. I was a nobody in this. Just another supporter.
I took a couple of pics of my surroundings including the army of police at the bottom of the stairs trying to soak it all in. My friend James turned up with his beautiful daughter he bought enough t-shirts to clothe a small African village. So we started to mingle with other people around us, all proudly wearing t-shirts and stickers across our chests and backs supporting the day. As more people entered our area there seemed to be more police enter. We heard each other's stories. One elderly lady Mary told me that she was here because her ex-daughter-in-law had stopped access to her son for their children. So she hadn't seen her grandchildren in over 9 months. This broke my heart as my own son lost his grandmother (my mother) 4 years earlier and he missed her every day. But these children were denied access to their grandparents because of the mother. We need to get the message across to all parents that to deny access to the other parent, you may be punishing that parent due to you just plain not getting along, But that parent or the grandparents that have nothing to do with the fight between you and your ex, but you are punishing your child. It takes two to make the child, it should take two to raise them. Yes, I know that there are some extreme circumstances where the child is far better off without the other parent in their life. But in reality, this isn't as common as people are lead to believe, by media or even social media. But what breaks my heart as a woman and single mother it's usually the mothers that deny this access.
So I am sitting watching the crowd growing, listening to people sharing their messages and reason as to why they turned up today. I was walking around taking pics where I could. I started to feel the love thanks to the major organizer Sydney Watson, we had come together a created a family for a few hours. It was a true solidarity.
Robert introduced me to another speaker for the day Chani, it was a quick meet and small pleasantries were exchanged, but to be honest, I didn't know who she was and she didn't know who I was. All I knew is she was a lot more important than myself as she was behind the t-shirt table and talking to the well guarded Sydney who had a tall muscular man dressed all in black and wearing what looked like a bulletproof vest. The image reminding me of the SWAT teams you see in action movies. This was the intensity of the direction the day was heading. Basically, police barricades and a guy that looked like he belonged in one of the Expendables movies was somewhat frightening. They were all there to protect us. But protect us from what. Was it really going to get that bad, was mine and everyone else's life in danger, maybe not life but even just our safety. And if it was, from who. Who was threatening our safety and/or lives for supporting men?
Avi the MC and the other organizer for the day was giving out random announcements about the t-shirts and updating us at the start time. The crowd of 20 had swelled to about 500-600. There were a few other facebook friends that recognized me from facebook. This felt really good as I was finally feeling that I belonged there and they knew I was one of them, So my day family grew and the love for each other grew stronger. People I had been wanting to meet crossed my path as we exchanged hugs of solidarity and pride, knowing that our passion for what we stood for was building in us.
There were people there from different backgrounds, women, children, the wheelchair-bound, different religions and nationalities and sexual orientation. But none of that mattered for we were one. We didn't see each other's nationalities, genders, disabilities or sexual preference. All we saw was support for what we each individually perceived as men's rights.
Now the time came, what we all had gathered for, the main event. Avi was an amazing MC and introduced the beautiful Sydney Watson (yes she is stunning and tiny. Such a strong woman coming from such a skinny body. True admiration from me). She gave her speech with her bodyguard close by, thanking all of us for being there. But the more she spoke the louder the chant from the other side of the wall grew. To my ignorance, I didn't even know who was protesting, I have since been told and still don't know who they are. But they were spewing the most god-awful things calling us Nazis and KKK. Which didn't make sense as to what we were all there for But the speakers stood strong and kept the focus on the messages they needed to share. My now good friend Robert spoke giving examples of stories of what men and boys face in today's world. A lot of what he said I knew, but it still angered me. Other things shocked me like what they do with the foreskin of circumcised males. Here I thought it was just thrown away, was I wrong, sometimes its used in makeup, So here I stood on what was once my seat, feeling ashamed of the makeup I was wearing and not knowing if I had some substance on my face that I didn't want to be there. Do I have to check all my cosmetics to see if they contain foreskin and what do these cosmetic companies call it on the ingredients? as I am sure it's not called willy skin. The lovely Chani got up and shared her story, https://sites.google.com/view/equalityinreproduction/march-for-men-speech. (It's her story to share not mine). Sadly it was during her speech some idiot let off an air horn that I later found out was hidden in a esky. But she didn't give up. She stood strong and continued to share her story.
This was when the protestors moved from the opposite end of where I was standing to behind me. At the bottom of the stairs where there was the 20 or so police stood, grew to three to four rows of police, it looked like there were at least 70 officers down there once again protecting us. This didn't scare me this energized me. I didn't scream any disgusting language back as they were screaming at us. I stood high and proud waving my flag, I also took out my Ipad and filmed the patheticness of their chants. Ours was simple "March for Men, Respect for All". As simple as this chant was the message was strong and united. This wasn't blocking any gender, any race, any sexual preference. This was saying we are here today to stand up for men and we respect anyone and everyone regardless of who or what they may be. We were shuffled away from our safe heaven home of the wall that we had been by for the last few hours by the police, once again for our safety. I thanked a few of them so they knew that we were grateful for them being there, regardless if they supported us or not. I know they were doing a job, but this was personal and everyone is entitled to their own beliefs without fear of persecution. These officers were entitled to their opinion of the event also, but they did their job regardless.
The speeches had finished and we started to march chanting the whole way "March for men, respect for all". We stepped over the horse crap and I think we all had a little laugh. We walked out of Federation Square and down St Kilda Road. There was a sea of white t-shirts and in the distance, we could see the Shrine of Remembrance. Seeing that brought home what men and women have sacrificed to give us this freedom. I always remember a line in a song by Chris Gill called Lest we forget. The line goes "All gave some, but some gave all". Bringing what we were doing home, as in the past it was mainly men (a lot of women also) that sacrificed their lives for our freedom, for our way of life. They were heroes for doing this. Now men are made to feel like second-class citizens. Everyone that attended the march wasn't there to remove any rights of anyone else, they just wanted to be seen and heard and wanted their rights as fathers, as victims of DV and basically not wanting to feel like the boogie monster because of a few bad apples that have committed some horrendous crimes against women.
Our march ended in the park that holds the shrine, opposite the Art Gallery. there were loud cheers for the organizers, all the volunteers and all those that attended. Our day family started to break up, these people that I stood by with solidarity, I wondered if I would ever see again and would we meet up in future like-minded events. I bumped into the lovely Chani again and we were able to talk a bit more. I had already learned about her story but she asked me about mine. Me thinking I didn't have a story just a passion for my version of the cause. I shared a little about myself and my history as a single mother and was surprised to learn that this passion in me has more to do with my history going back to even my mother's story, that more than likely why I feel the way I do.
The day was coming to an end, I had James's African village of t-shirts in my bag so we met up for a drink at a local pub, the longer we were there the more of our day family turned up. Getting to know each other more and share our stories of the day. Talking about what a success it had been. We all shared a beer and still stood in solidarity with pride.
The day finally came to an end as our white t-shirts left one by one. It was time to go home and allow the day's events to soak in. Allow reality of what we had achieved hit us. I sat on the bus updating and thanking people to my Facebook page and reading what others had posted. I was still pumping full of adrenaline. My body and feet were tired, but my brain couldn't be cut off.
I got home after the 6 o'clock news so I was unable to see how they portrayed us. I didn't see anything until basically the next day. What I saw broke my heart. Not one news crew reported the events correctly. They told the world that there were two arrests, and reporting that there had been a couple of knives confiscated. To an outsider, it would come across as if we were the troublemakers. They also showed one man that was on our side smacking a woman on the ass with the end of one of the flags. This was literally the biggest crime that was committed on our side and he hardly touched her, you didn't even see her flinch. The arrests and the knife confiscations came from the protestors, not from us. They interviewed both sides and the words spoken by those that were against the March for Men really didn't know what they were protesting about. Just that it was about men, so let's protest against them because they are men.
A friend posted a clip of one particular news channel when someone who is supposed to be on our side but didn't attend the march, bitched that the negative press was given because of the organizers themselves. Which angered me because I know that it didn't matter who arranged it, the press was always going to spin it and make us look like the world's perception of such beliefs.
All in all the day was a huge success. I met some people that I was facebook friends with but got to know them on a deeper level. I made some great friends that I didn't even know existed but now they have become great friends and heroes. I got to hear more stories to fuel my passion and I got to experience something beautiful and feel like I was part of something I find extremely important.
I am looking forward to meeting more people and learning more stories. But most of all I am looking forward to attending more events like this to show my support.
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