I’ve known Bettina Arndt since the seventies: we went to the Australian National University at the same time, she in Science, me in Eco.
She became rooooly famous in the eighties and nineties, as the first woman in Australia talking publicly about sex. From her website:
Here is post on her site of what’s been happening lately. Her critics are going after her qualifications and on that basis trying to get the Australian government to rescind an honour recently bestowed on her: the Order of Australia.
She has asked her supporters to email the Australian Governors-General of Victoria and of the Commonwealth of Australia, in support of her. And to the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency in support of her qualifications, which she has elsewhere laid out.
I was happy to do so, and below are my emails. [And if any Aussie nationals want to add their support, she would appreciate it]:
TO: the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency, [email]
She became rooooly famous in the eighties and nineties, as the first woman in Australia talking publicly about sex. From her website:
It was sex that first made Bettina Arndt famous. She started out as one of Australia’s first sex therapists before becoming a respected social commentator on gender issues. Alarmed by the unfair treatment of men in our society, she’s now devoting all her time to making YouTube videos, writing and making media appearances about men’s issues and the anti-male feminist agenda. See her CV here.She’s become hugely controversial because she’s now engaged in the battle against Kangaroo Courts in Australian Universities, that find young men guilty of sexual molestations that are all too often exaggerated or simply invented. She wants these serious charges to be tried in our regular courts. For that she’s come under fire as being all sorts of bad: misogynist, bigoted, rape-apologising, and so on...
Here is post on her site of what’s been happening lately. Her critics are going after her qualifications and on that basis trying to get the Australian government to rescind an honour recently bestowed on her: the Order of Australia.
She has asked her supporters to email the Australian Governors-General of Victoria and of the Commonwealth of Australia, in support of her. And to the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency in support of her qualifications, which she has elsewhere laid out.
I was happy to do so, and below are my emails. [And if any Aussie nationals want to add their support, she would appreciate it]:
TO: the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency, [email]
I have written to the Governors-General Hurley and Hennessy as below.
I support your decision to accept Bettina’s explanation of her qualifications. It is clear that her detractors are misrepresenting her qualifications, with the aim of shutting down her opinions, simply because they disagree with them. They are trying to “cancel” Ms Arndt, in the way that social media “mobs” do, whenever anyone deviates just one iota from their own view of the world. And they are trying to do this in deeply disingenuous ways.
I support Ms Arndt’s support of free speech and her work for the rights of women and men. I support your support of her.
And I stand up for Bettina Arndt’s well-deserved honour of the Order of Australia.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Forsythe
Hong Kong
Email to Governor-General Hurley [Link]
Dear Governor-General Hurley,
I have written to the Governor General of Victoria the email copied below. I do hope that you will not give in to Twitter and other social media “mobs”, by rescinding the well-deserved Order of Australia bestowed on Bettina Arndt.
It strikes me as very *improper* that the Victorian Governor-General should have allowed herself to be used like this (perhaps “duped like this” would be more accurate). That is surely not proper for the exalted position of Governor-General, a position intended to be above the fray, as the Queen she represents has so gracefully shown for so long.
Here is my email to Governor General Hennessy: …. [etc… as below]….
Email to Victoria AG Hennessy
Dear Attorney-General Hennessy, [email]
I have known Bettina Arndt since the early 1970s, and have followed her career with interest since.
It is fantastic that her distinguished service to our country has been recognised with an Order of Australia.
It’s disappointing that some people object to her receiving the award and have managed to convince you to seek to have the honour rescinded.
You must surely be aware — and if not, you should be — that there are mobs “out there”, in social media-land, who have convicted themselves that they are the only repositories of “social justice” and that anyone who diverges one iota from their own views is to be “cancelled”. Hence the efforts to “cancel” Bettina.
You ought to stand above all this. The Governor-Generalship ought to stand above all this.
Instead, you and your office have chosen to join in the efforts to “cancel” Bettina and to “pile on” with an unsavoury twitter mob. That is shameful.
I do hope you will rescind your effort to rescind.
Yours Sincerely,
Peter Forsythe
(Australian citizen)
Hong Kong
