Professor Janice Fiamengo’s latest video exposes in her part of the world what we have frequently exposed in our part of the world: the devaluation of men and the favourable treatment of women including in the justice system. Evidence abounds, and on the very day Prof Fiamengo’s video was published there was an article in the NZ Herald (written in Australia) demonstrating the issue.

The article’s title was ‘New Zealander Cherry Taingahue faces deportation from Australia after dropping female victim head-first on concrete‘. This violent woman caused brain damage to another woman who she (mistakenly) believed had uttered a racial slur. The victim suffered bleeding and bruising on the brain, ongoing hearing loss and frequent headaches and had to give up training towards her career. For her horrible, deliberate violence Ms Taingahue was sentenced to 18 months in prison but will serve much less than that with parole, plus 40 hours community service (what?). This sentence amounted to the usual lenient treatment of female offenders, which we down here call the ‘pussy pass’. A man who committed any similar offence especially against a female could expect much more prison time. A man who even gently touches a female without consent can expect more punishment than that.

Then check out the news article’s treatment of the case. The first sentence begins “A New Zealand mother is facing deportation…”. The parenting role of male offenders is rarely mentioned but for female offenders it serves to promote human compassion from the outset. The article later refers again to the offender’s children and even specifies their age range! It goes on to give voice to the defence barrister’s excuses for this violent offender’s crime. Apparently she was under stress due to cracks in her marriage (i.e. some male was really to blame…), she was diagnosed with stress, anxiety and depression (which is not unusual when a person is facing charges for serious violence, though being a female she needn’t have worried too much…), and, oh by the way, she went to a program (presumably while on bail for this offending) to help control her drinking.

The article does refer to something of the victim’s suffering, but if that victim had been a male it was unlikely we would have been told anything of this. Then again, if the victim had been a male the offence would probably have been blamed on him and the violent female not even prosecuted.

Nearly all violent male offenders are being deported from Australia but few female offenders seem to suffer this fate. Given the attitude shown in this article, Ms Taingahue will probably get yet another pussy pass when it comes to deportation.