In April 2009, after 16 months of compiling research and analysis, Australia’s Labor Government, under the guidance of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, approved the controversial project ‘Time for Action; National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’.[1] For the next 18 months, the members of the Governmental council in charge of formulating a plan, gathered information and data from academic institutions, non-profit organizations, clearing houses of research papers and from other Governmental councils already established for the benefit of women only. On February 15, 2011 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), headed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, officially approved the 12 year plan, slating it for immediate action.[2]
The scale and scope of the proposed projects and actions rivaled almost any social program by the Australian government’s history that has targeted only one portion of its population. Before we examine the who, what and why, I think it is important to take a step back, to look at what forces were behind the movement, what their motivations were, how they gathered their statistics and data and how they were able to influence one of the country’s largest pieces of sex/gender based legislation and projects.
As an aside: In PM Rudd’s press release it states “The Government’s position on violence against women is zero tolerance.” I wonder, does that mean that the Australian government has a more than zero tolerance of violence against men? Looking back at the ten’s of thousands of ANZAC bodies of piled up on the shores of Gallipoli; or the unbelievable work of the Aussie and New Zealand ‘diggers’ who held off Gen. Erwin Rommel’s much stronger Deutsches Afrikakorps for over six months in the North African shithole of Tobruk; I’d say the answer to that question is probably yes.
In May of 2011, Melbourne was the host of the Feminist Futures Conference, which billed itself as an “active space for discussing different strategies to create a feminist future.”[3] Before the conference even got underway, a very nasty split erupted between two different factions of the feminist groups. The event sponsors first nixed the anti-porn feminist author Melinda Tankard-Reist for her speaking slot because of her stance on abortion. Then several of the other feminists, mostly transgendered friendly, began a vocal campaign to remove the popular radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys from the program for her outspoken scorn and hatred of transgendered people. Eventually the contingent of radical feminists quit the show all together, and two members of the website Radfem Hub who go by the name Amazon Mancrusher and Allecto, found room to hold a separate conference of their own.
They named it the “Real Feminist Futures Conference,” which featured the radical feminists Renate Klein, Susan Hawthorne, Sheila Jeffreys, Caroline Norma, Lorene Gottschalk as well as the Radfem Hub members Allecto and Amazon Mancrusher.[5] The conference consisted of the normal radical feminist talk concerning anti-porn, anti- transgender, anti-prostitution, how best to destroy male dominance and of course their devotion and admiration for SCUM Manifesto author and attempted murderer Valerie Solanas.[6][7] After the conference, Allecto and Amazon Mancrusher finalized their plans for another conference in Perth that year, which would be a tribute to Valerie Solanas called the SCUM conference.[8]

“THRILL SEEKING FEMALES UNITE! Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore, this THREE DAY RADICAL FEMINIST CONFERENCE is for civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females who want to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex. Workshops, guest presenters and social activities, plus a space to celebrate and re-member the life and work of Valerie Solanas and other radical feminists.”

In late September, 2011, the now larger group of radical feminists gather in Perth for their much anticipated SCUM conference. The fact that the conference was billed as a tribute to a woman who advocated the extermination of men, and called males “walking abortions,” never seemed to bother the well known professors, authors and activists from their excitement of the conference. This time the list of speakers and attendees was much larger than in May. It included:[9]
What happened at the SCUM conference isn’t really what is important. What is important however is the level of interaction with the Radfem Hub website(people who organized the conference), by these somewhat popular writers and professors, especially Susan Hawthorne, Sheila Jeffreys and Betyy McLellan, all of who have made their own guest post on that site. Why is that important? By now, I’m sure you are all aware of the discussions that have occurred frequently on the Radfem Hub and forum, which include talk of gendercide, male infanticide and biological solutions to deal with the problem of men. Some of the more disturbing quotes from the Radfem Hub in just one discussion alone were:[11]

“There have been compelling scientific proofs that men, because of their Y chromosomes, are doomed to extinction anyway…” – Maggie
“Women need to stop raising male children … nobody wants to bite that bullet (except lesbian separatists) but it must be done.” – Mary Sunshine
“… the not raising male children one is difficult one for me as I have one!! I mean, we need female children and I’m so glad I have a daughter. SHe was my first, perhaps I should have stopped at one …” – cherryblossomlife
“More importantly, I think womyn need to stop giving birth to any more males…” – Maggie
“The Y chromosome is deteriorating … Men will eventually become extinct. It is unavoidable.”
– Maggie
“… the only solution to womens suffering under patriarchy *is* a biological one … that men are biologically, genetically mentally ill, and the only solution to this is a biological solution … ” – FCM
“I’m so glad that you and others are open to considering a biology-based analysis of what is wrong with men.” – vliet
“… look at animals… Females live together in groups, they *are* the community, and men hover around the outskirts fighting and killing each other. Let’s go back to the way it’s supposed to be, I say.”– cherryblossomlife
“On a possible matriarchy, this is something I have always missed and am constantly working on. I often wonder why I am a feminist at all given how women have, and do tend to treat me. I am determined, however, to build my own little female centered utopia. Seeking loyal, reliable friends is where I am beginning.
Even if we killed off 90% of men, the majority of women left over would do their best to keep the oppressive system. I’d dare say we’d have to kill off all the women too and leave the little girls and radfems to create the utopia.”– Lilith
“The *magic number* to bring the males under control is ~30% of the population (roughly 2 females per male) … the men have managed to kill themselves off with a lot of warring, then the women get into politics and make a lot of community-friendly political decisions … so much for the MRA scare tactics of a matriarchy being just the reverse of a patriarchy.”– DaveSquirrel
“My Vision:: A world where mothers are in charge, every step of the way … A world where males are shunned by everyone & punished severely …”– patriarchywatch
“It’s *men* that are redundant due to their high fertility. They should be fighting each other, fighting for the right to pass on their genes: survival of the fittest *man* is how it really should be.”– cherryblossomlife

These kinds of brutal, violent and hateful discussions are rather endless on the Radfem Hub and forum, which really begs the question why people like Susan Hawthorne, Sheila Jeffreys and Betty McLellan, among others, would be associated with this site and its administrators and owner. Hawthorne has published nearly a hundred books from dozens of authors at her Spinifex Press. Jeffreys, while her work is controversial and repugnant in its own right, is an often quoted and interviewed as a well known feminist professor. McLellan is the principle founder of a Coalition for a Feminist Agenda, and who has herself hosted several quite large feminist conferences of her own over the past 15 years in Australia. Could it be that their views are in line with those quotes above?
While I don’t know the answer to this, I do know that McLellan, Jeffreys and Hawthorne are closely involved with many other feminists and radical feminists throughout Australia, almost all of whom, including these three, have had their academic papers and research publications used 100′s of times by the Australian government, as justification in its bid to enact programs like the one mentioned at the beginning of the article, the ‘National plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’. How is it that people with questionable, if not outright extremist views such as these, are chosen to be referenced and cited in official Australian government business?
There is an actual answer to that question, which we will take up in the part.
[1]http://www.formerministers.fahcsia.gov.au/plibersek/mediareleases/2009/Pages/violence_against_women_29april09.aspx
[2] http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/progserv/violence/nationalplan/Pages/default.aspx
[3] http://www.mfc.org.au/conference.html
[4] http://radicalhub.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/making-revolution-our-radical-feminist-futur/
[5] http://allthatsazz.blogspot.com/2011/05/real-feminist-futures-conference-may-28.html
[6] http://allthatsazz.blogspot.com/2011/05/feminist-futures-conference.html
[7] http://allthatsazz.blogspot.com/2011/05/feminist-futures-conference-continued.html
[8] http://allecto.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/scum-conference-draft-program/
[9] http://johnstompers.com/2011/10/three-days-of-radical-feminist-scum/
[10] http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/the-scum-connection/
[11] http://radicalhub.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/radical-feminism-in-the-21st-century/