Men's Hour

Sexist Oxfam tusnami figures - Why no big cities in there? Why no big city women victim count?

Some have gone over my figures about the sexist Oxfam report. This is fine. By all means check the figures. I’m not complaining but I would add that it is in some sense pandering to feminist/PC notions. In other words we’re playing on their home field. They are choosing what figures we see and therefore are able to check or dispute. We need to get them to play on our home field. What I mean by that is that as I have suggested all these Indonesian villages mentioned are fairly small. Very little information is available about them on the Internet and they are not visible on any map of Indonesia. I can find (I even abandoned the internet and actually got up from my desk and looked at a real live map of Indonesia and I still could not find any of these places, except Sawang). For comparison let’s look at Banda Aceh..

Sexist Oxfam sex-selective tsunami, needs a pinch, or maybe a truckload, of salt

Before anyone goes mad thinking about this sex-selective tsunami, why not take a pinch, or maybe a truckload, of salt with it? I didn’t give to the tsunami fund because Oxfam, one of the recipients, has website pages saying women are disadvantaged in refugee camps in Sudan and men sit around doing nothing. I already had my suspicions about Oxfam, so I gave to Save the Children (One of the tsunami charities) (If the ever change their name to Save the Girls…). I seem to recall reading somewhere that aid agencies and charities, like Oxfam, are only giving aid to women, in Africa, in case men don’t give it to the family. There was even a report of a man in Africa who took aid food and sold it for “drugs” (Apparently the “drugs” were penicillin for his sick daughter). Now I can’t confirm any of this because I can’t find the article again. If anyone has chapter and verse on this, please let me know.

But about the tsunami report. First of all, looking at the report it cites maybe a dozen villages. The figures they do give are only about a few thousand out of the 400,000 death toll cited. So based just on their figures even if we have say 4000 women dead to 1000 men then we still have 395,000 unaccounted for. Now they could be doing a random choice of villages and this is terrible bad luck for women. If it can be generalized then it would mean that 320,000 women/girls died to 80,000 men/boys. I’m having a lot of trouble accepting that. Let’s take Lampu’uk in Indonesia (page 3 on the downloadable report).

Sexist Oxfam says more tsunami dead women than men.

BBC - Most tsunami dead female - Oxfam

More women than men were killed by the Asian tsunami, Oxfam figures from India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka suggest. In some regions the disaster claimed four times as many women as men.

Dr Michael Pelling in contempt but judges can name the child. I'll have whatever the judges are smoking.

Dr Michael Pelling has been fighting a legal battle against the family courts and challenges their legal basis for judging child custody issues.  In the latest in a long legal battle, he is accused of contempt of court for publishing the judgement in his family court case.  Since this is apparently to protect the children, it seems strange that the child’s name in this case can be known but the judgement is still secret.

From the Scotsman/PA News Fathers 4 Justice Doctor Accused of Contempt 8 Feb 2005

The Attorney General today asked the High Court to jail a Fathers 4 Justice campaigner who revealed full details of a private county court judgment relating to contact with his son.

Fathers 4 Justice in Downing Street or on to be more precise

From The Scotsman Man arrested as fathers take protest to Downing Street

A MEMBER of the Fathers 4 Justice campaign was arrested last night after carrying out a "superhero" protest, during which he scaled the walls of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The unnamed man, who was dressed as Captain America, had spent the afternoon perched about 50ft above the junction of Whitehall and Downing Street with two other members of the lobby group, disguised as Batman and Robin. The trio, disguised as workmen, reached the ledge on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office building during the afternoon, after climbing a ladder balanced on the back of a flatbed lorry. Just before 10pm last night, one protester climbed into the Foreign Office, where police officers were waiting. The men dressed as Batman and Robin were continuing their protest on the ledge.

Today is self-injury awareness day, but it seems no-one gets cut up about it.

Apparently today, March 1st, is Self-Injury Awareness Day 2005, but no government seems interested. Self-Injury Awareness Day: March 1, 2005

Self-Injury Awareness Day (SIAD) is a global day for the recognition of Self Injury. So far it hasn't been recognized officially by any nation and only 1 state in the United States recognizes the day. This is a grassroots campaign. In order to get recognition you can write to political figures telling them about the day and asking them to do something to get recognition for the day. You could also write to the papers telling them about the day. Also an orange ribbon has become the universal ribbon color to represent Self-Injury.