New Zealand Conservative

According to a new story from the Associated Press , Facebook has bowed to pressure from liberal 'lobby groups' and is updating their service to allow a choice of 50 different "genders" which users can choose from that best suits their sexual identity. MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) -- You don't have to be just male or female on Facebook anymore. The social media giant is adding a customizable option with about 50 different terms people can use to identify their gender as well as three preferred pronoun choices: him, her or them. Facebook said the changes, shared with The Associated Press before the launch on Thursday, initially cover the company's 159 million monthly users in the U.S. and are aimed at giving people more choices in how they describe themselves, such as androgynous, bi-gender, intersex, gender fluid or transsexual. As a spokesman from Focus On The Family points out, there are only two genders; the rest is wishful thinking and imaginary gender s...

Labour Party Leader, David Cunliffe has made huge strides in the Labour Party, pushing for 50-50 gender equality to the amazement and delight of many who see gender equality as essential in a balanced society. Insiders say that gender equality in the Labour Party is still not enough, though. They have hinted that Cunliffe has set his sights on a new target - something radical in this day and age, designed to shake society to its foundations and question why we ever thought it acceptable to support gender imbalance at all: Gender equality in marriage and families. (Satire)

Secular blasphemy: Where the secular world seeks to define what it considers to be articles of faith, and people reject those beliefs. In this case, girls should be able to do anything boys can when it comes to the Catholic Mass. The Story: Altar servers in recent times in Catholic Masses have been allowed to be girls. This has created in many parishes, a reluctance by boys to altar serve as it's seen to be a girly activity. I have sons who altar serve and it's only been since we've moved to a parish Mass that has a tradition of mostly male servers that they wanted to altar serve. Now, when the new Catholic Archbishop in Tasmania, Julian Porteous, is seeking to reverse the trend back to boys only past primary school age, the state government considers that turning away teenage girls from altar service at Catholic Masses might be discriminatory and therefore potentially not allowed. "Altar servers, generally speaking, are primary school age, around that age,...

Quote of the day, also filed under "oh the irony". I'm leading up to a post, so hang in there. Last year the ombudsman ruled that an advertisement featuring a computer generated picture of a man wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts was "offensive to men in general" because it portrayed them as "mere sex objects". Reference to come in due course.

I came across this post where it was suggested that fathers going off to war meant that a child didn't have a right to a father, because his actions trumped that right. [ Full post here ] It lead me to a discussion on the redefinition of marriage. Part of the divide in this debate is that gays define marriage as a "right", whereas traditionalists see it as an ideal, one that excludes gay people. I can see why this causes so much tension. After all, if looking at this as an ideal for heterosexual marriages - how close to that ideal is the reality anyway? How many marriages survive intact nowadays? How many remain a life-long commitment? Unfortunately, not nearly enough, for all sorts of very human reasons. Anyway, I reproduce my comment here because this issue is the current debate, and whatever the outcome, I think it a duty in a democratic society to have the debate - to consider all angles and attempt to see all perspectives.

A fantastic win for the ladies. No more Gender Discrimination in the EU! Apparently a recent EU ruling has banned using gender as a basis for setting insurance costs. So for male drivers under 24, car insurance premiums go down by up to 50%, whilst for females under 24 they go up. Now I thought the reality was that more males get into car accidents that females, and so the premiums reflect some element of risk based on AGE and GENDER. So, with this latest win for those promoting a genderless society, why is it OK to discriminate against age? Well, actually, it isn't if one applies the same reasoning. Today it's car insurance, and does that mean tomorrow it is health insurance? Health insurance premiums for males are usually much higher than a female of the same age, and way higher than younger people. As all forms of discrimination are stamped out, the end result of this will be that the people that should pay higher premiums, will pay lower premiums as others bear ...

Swearing, one of the last frontiers of human degradation, is missing out on the normalisation of a swear word depicting a female body part. Women are being encouraged to rehabilitate this word so that it can become the new "queer", and I presume, the idea is that once women embrace the vulgar world of cussing, then we can all tip toe through the tulips together into nirvana. When it comes down to it however, the wannabe normalised term will still be a vulgar word, as this particular commenter on Whale Oil's site knows full well when he took offence to what he saw as judgement of those who swear. Judge not, lest ye be kicked in the c*nt... Yep, real good argument there. Nothing will change until women demand better from men, and trying to get us to lower our standards even more runs counter to that. Related link: C U Next Tuesday ~ Whale Oil Beef Hooked

Οὐκ ἔσται σκεύη ἀνδρὸς ἐπὶ γυναικί, οὐδὲ μὴ ἐνδύσηται ἀνὴρ στολὴν γυναικείαν, ὅτι βδέλυγμα κυρίῳ τῷ θεῷ σού ἐστιν πᾶς ποιῶν ταῦτα. A man’s armour shall not be on a woman, neither should a man put on a woman’s robe, because everyone doing these things is detestable to the LORD your God. A man’s armour shall not be on a woman, neither should a man put on a woman’s robe, because everyone doing these things is detestable to the LORD your God From the Stars and Stripes The Army is ordering its hardened combat veterans to wear fake breasts and empathy bellies so they can better understand how pregnant soldiers feel during physical training. This week, 14 noncommissioned officers at Camp Zama took turns wearing the “pregnancy simulators” as they stretched, twisted and exercised during a three-day class that teaches them to serve as fitness instructors for pregnant soldiers and new mothers . My friends the most important thing we do as a people, as a culture, is to raise children!...

Lucia Maria did a post a few days ago ( True Grown Ups... ) that certainly upset an author called "John the other" on the blog/website of "A voice for men": Real Men are Disposable, so says Maria . Only problem is, I think his interpretation of her post is a little off, and the subsequent extrapolations made by him and others on that thread about what they think she meant are way off the planet. And I'm not talking Earth or Mars. They could be right out by Pluto or coming out of Uranus. Lucia may be from Venus, but they think she's from Planet Man-eater! (I use "they" in the sense I lump most of the commenters in with John's post. Those comments though do not necessarily represent John's opinion. Just read the whole thread and take what you will from it.) John starts off: Lucia Maria recently explained in her January 13 article that grown-up men should quit trying to have human rights, and go back to dying for her convenience. I do...

A few days ago Crusader Rabbit linked to two articles related to the website A Voice for Men titled Feminazi "journalist" gets her ass kicked. Big time .  One was an attack on the material contained on the site and the other was an attack on the female journalist who dared to attack the site.  They think the Voice for Men author is winning the argument with the female journalist, however it is early days as she has said that she will go through the assertions she's made in her opening article in more detail in the near future, and therefore there is not a lot of substance to what she's said.  Yet.  I'm sure it will come. I've been thinking about the issues that were brought up by both articles over the last several days.  As there is a bit of a cross-over in the material that I've been reading and this subculture of men who feel disadvantaged and discriminated against by just being men, I thought I'd broaden the perspective a little. In a 190...

Two images one of a man, the other of a woman. Question: On looking at them how long did it take you to determine the gender of each photographee? Did you even have to think about it? - would a small child would get it right? I think we all know the answer to that I found the image of the woman via this post on Homepaddock on "gender stereotyping" . It was used to illustrate the post Ele had linked to from hers. The woman's picture is a curious photograph to say the least, the use of the cigarette which recalls the Malboro Man, as well several well known photographs of infantry men after battle (including the one shown here). A masculine femine woman? Hmmmm . There is something really very odd about the picture of the woman which screams at me. Do you see it? And in noticing it are you gender stereotyping?

Lady Gaga got the MTV award for best female video , and she accepted it whilst playing a male character, self-described alter ego Jo Calderone. So she's made some kind of point about genders and all, and now I'm almost convinced the MTV awards could be a lot better by being half as long.  Instead of all this "best male video" and "best female video" gender stereotyping (and how many best male videos don't have females in them anyway?) why don't MTV just have a "best video" and be done with it? And if everyone gets out of the awards twice as fast, we can turn our TV sets off much sooner.  Just think of all the carbon pollution we save the planet from! Parting thought - there has to be some cosmic irony that Lady Gaga wins the best female award, and Justin Bieber picks up best male video, and thanks God and Jesus in his acceptance speech.  And all the girls in the video were dressed!   What's that about?  If this isn't proof o...

A man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple will have his name stripped from their child's birth certificate after a successful legal bid by the birth mother's ex-partner. The woman took the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and biological father, to court in May to have his name replaced with her name in the document. Ok- so this little girl now officially has two (seperated) mommys and no daddy . Wont genealogists of the future have fun.

Click here to see what happened when they encountered each other Humiliation And is it in anyway surprising that it did end up this way? Click on the image to close it

The face of 21 st century masculinity? So the NZX is "considering " mandatory gender diversity reporting " and in a related story the Herald is reporting that Goldman Sachs reckons we should be using females to rebuild Christchurch. Meanwhile it is only a matter of time, apparently, before we have our first penisless member of the SAS . Which is all very modern and wonderful, I'm sure. And in the brave new world we are creating there are two female graduates to every male graduate. And the only people having significant numbers of children are the underclass. And our world is becoming completely feminized. What's wrong with having feminine females and masculine men. And why have we lost sight of the fact that raising children is as an important economic activity as digging for coal - because without a new generation who hold our values to carry on from when we are gone we are nothing. Related Post - Lindsay Mitchell: Men failing

Gender equality remains elusive in Choral Settings Tuesday, 5 July 2011, 11:05am Press Release: Department of Gender Grievance Identification Gender equality remains elusive in Choral Settings Choirs remain places where little progress has been made in acheiving gender equality says Director of Gender Grievance Identification, Dr Elsbeth Wingealot. We were shocked and dismayed to find that women remain excluded from singing the traditional male parts given to tenors and basses in choral settings. In an era when many women have acheived success in traditionally male dominated arenas women still remain restricted to singing parts written for sopranos and altos in all our major choirs. To redress the unfairness this poses towards women we are today releasing draft legislation to address this and are asking for legislators to support the passage of this legislation through Parliament The intent of this bill will be to legislate that whenever a piece of music as written co...