Latest news with #Copland
NZ Herald
7 days ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Five years on, Beirut blast victims still await justice and answers
Yesterday NZT, hundreds took to the streets of Beirut to mark the fifth anniversary of the blast and to demand accountability. An investigation led by Judge Tarek Bitar was finally reopened earlier this year after almost four years of delay because of political interference. 'It's just disgusting really that there's been no accountability, no justice, and five years on and it's just not even to the point where we've got proper answers,' said Copland, an Australian who at the time of the blast had been working for the United Nations in Beirut. 'Isaac was just a child, and we got caught up in this web of negligence, corruption, and crimes.' A helicopter drops water on a fire after the explosion in the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020. Photo / Lorenzo Tugnoli For The Washington Post Firefighters responding to the explosion. Photo / Lorenzo Tugnoli, For The Washington Post The longtime head of the Hezbollah militant group, Hasan Nasrallah, had derailed attempts to investigate the explosion after Bitar had called several officials close to the group in for questioning. 'The country will head to ruin if this judge continues on this path,' Nasrallah said in a 2021 speech before sending supporters to the Beirut courthouse to intimidate Bitar, triggering an armed clash. Hezbollah's critics alleged that an investigation could reveal the extent of the group's illicit activities in the port. What followed was a prolonged push by Hezbollah and its allies to have the judge recuse himself after suspects filed complaints accusing Bitar of bias, further delaying the investigation. Copland had then taken matters into her own hands, lobbying the Australian Government to take the lead on a statement at the UN Human Rights Council urging Lebanon to complete the investigation and safeguard its independence. This year's anniversary of the port blast comes after the war that erupted last year between Hezbollah and Israel, and as the group faces a new political reality after the killing of senior leaders, including Nasrallah. The group's new leadership has taken a less combative approach. 'The port investigation right now is not Hezbollah's biggest priority,' said David Wood, a senior Lebanon analyst at the International Crisis Group. He added that the group is in a weaker position and has been forced to adopt a less confrontational stance after the war. Earlier this year, the group acquiesced to the election of Joseph Aoun as President and Nawaf Salam as Prime Minister, paving the way for the probe to resume. Lebanon's new Justice Minister, Adel Nassar, said the Government is committed to ensuring that the judiciary conducts its work independently. 'A state that is not capable of giving answers and accountability after a tragic event or crime this horrific will be a state missing a major element of its proper existence,' he said. The reopening of the probe may eventually provide closure to survivors who have watched justice evade them for years. 'Nothing is okay until the indictment is released. This is what the Lebanese victims' families demand. The pain, the grief and the anger of injustice are even more than before,' said Mireille Khoury, whose 15-year-old son Elias died of injuries sustained in the blast. The commemoration included a minute of silence in front of the partially destroyed port grain silos that stand as a stark reminder of the disaster. Many families hope to see the site turned into a memorial for the victims. People stage a commemoration in memory of those who lost their lives in the 2020 explosion to mark the fifth anniversary of the blast in Beirut. Photo / Getty Images Lebanon's new Transport Minister, Fayez Rasamny, said in an interview that no final decision has been made regarding the demolition or preservation of the silos. 'We at the ministry and across the Lebanese government are approaching this matter with the utmost sensitivity and respect for the victims of the August 4 tragedy,' Rasamny said. Culture Minister Ghassan Salamé has added the silos to a list of historic buildings, meaning they cannot be torn down easily. In the absence of an official memorial, artist Nada Sehnaoui has sought to keep the memory of the victims alive through a mural she made near the blast site that features their photos covered in glass. Sehnaoui took the initiative, she said, because Lebanese governments have proved reluctant to remember tragedies in the past, such as the country's long civil war. 'It's public amnesia. To this day, we do not have a memorial for the civil war,' she said. 'This memorial is for the present and the future.' After consulting with Isaac's parents, the Australian Embassy in Beirut erected a swing in his memory at a Beirut museum, where the boy once loved to run around in the courtyard, Copland said. 'I do think that these memorials make a difference,' she said. Copland added that she will not have closure for her loss, but hopes justice prevails. 'I think we have to work as hard as we can to seek accountability, because that's what Isaac and all of the other victims deserve,' she said.
Daily Maverick
30-07-2025
- Daily Maverick
Don't blame toxic masculinity for online misogyny – the manosphere is hurting men too
The Male Complaint argues it's unhelpful to blame toxic masculinity for digital misogyny. We should try to understand the manosphere – even if we disagree with it. 'Imagine her tenderly pressing her soft lips against yours', writes one incel on Reddit, before concluding, 'you will never get to experience this because your skeleton is too small or the bones in your face are not the right shape'. In his debut book, The Male Complaint, Simon Copland escorts his readers through the manosphere and into the minds of its inhabitants. He illustrates how boys and men who are 'terrifyingly normal' become attracted to the manosphere's grim logic – and the cognitive distortions of anti-feminist influencers like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson. While mainstream debates often cite toxic masculinity as the cause of online misogyny, Copland, a writer and researcher at the Australian National University, shifts the blame to a deeper cultural malaise. It's caused, he argues, by the cruel optimism of the manosphere, the multiple social and economic crises of late-stage capitalism and a collective nihilistic misery in which complaint becomes futile and destruction 'the only way out'. The manosphere is a network of loosely related blogs and forums devoted to 'men's interests' – sites like The Rational Male, Game Global and the subreddits ForeverAlone, TheRedPill and MensRights. These online communities, separate in their specific beliefs, are united by their misogynistic ideas – and anti-women and anti-diversity sentiments. They're also united by the growing tendency of the men in these communities towards nihilistic violence: not only against others, but also against themselves. In The Male Complaint, Copland relays his dismay at discovering 'a constant stream' of suicide notes on Reddit, including a subreddit, IncelGraveyard, which catalogues close to 100 suicide notes and letters posted by self-identified incels. Since I was a kid I was fed up with 'Don't worry, it will get better', 'You will find someone' […] it's not even that I want a SO (significant other) anymore. Women are awful. People are awful. I have no friends. For Copland, the violence incels inflict on themselves is a form of passive nihilism. Incels 'don't just express disgust and despair at the world, but in themselves – their looks, body, lives, personality, intelligence, and more'. Who's in the manosphere? The manosphere includes men's rights activists, pick-up artists and 'Men Going Their Own Way' (male separatists who avoid contact with women altogether). And of course, incels: men who believe they are unable to find a romantic or sexual partner due to their perceived genetic inferiority and oppression. Incels also blame their problems on women's alleged hypergamy: the theory that women seek out partners of higher social or economic status and therefore marry 'up'. Put another way, hypergamy, a concept rooted in evolutionary psychology, is the belief 'women are hard-wired to be gold diggers'. Rollo Tomassi, the so-called 'godfather of the manosphere', complains on his blog that 'women love opportunistically', while 'men believe that love matters for the sake of it'. According to Tomassi, the 'cruel reality' of modern dating is that men are romantics who are 'forced to be realists', while women are realists whose use 'romanticism to effect their imperatives'. Tomassi complains: Our girlfriends, our wives, daughters and even our mothers are all incapable of idealised love […] By order of degrees, hypergamy will define who a woman loves and who she will not, depending upon her own opportunities and capacity to attract it. Ten years ago, these communities were largely regarded as fringe groups. Today, their ideology has infiltrated the mainstream. A 2025 report published by UN Women shows 53% of women have experienced some form of technology-facilitated, gender-based violence. The dark side of digitalisation disproportionately affects young women aged between 18 and 24, LGBTQI+ women, women who are divorced or who live in the city, and women who participate in online gaming. 'Biologically bad'? Copland argues that simplified critiques of toxic masculinity minimise the problem of male violence. They fail to consider the context and history of gendered behaviour, assuming toxic traits are somehow innate and unique to men, rather than the product of social expectations and relations. This, in turn, promotes the idea that male violence derives from something 'biologically bad' in the nature of masculinity itself. As Copland explains, 'this is embedded in the term 'toxic', which makes it sound like men's bodies have become diseased or infected'. Blaming toxic masculinity for digital misogyny also embraces a form of smug politics in which disaffected men are dismissed as degenerates who are fundamentally different to 'us' (meaning the activist left and leftist elites). They are 'cellar dwellers', 'subhuman freaks', or 'virgin losers' who need to be either enlightened or locked up. 'We', on the other hand, are educated, progressive, superior. This kind of rhetoric, as Copland explains, is unhelpful. It does not create the conditions for changing the opinions, narratives and futures of manosphere men because it does not allow people to understand their complaints and where those concerns come from – even if we do not agree with them. Belittling attitudes and demeaning discourses alienate men who already feel socially isolated. This pushes those men further to the fringes – into the hands of 'manfluencers' who claim to understand. 'Not having love becomes everything' The manosphere, Copland observes, is not 'an aberration that is different and distinct from the rest of the world', nor is it a community that exists solely on the 'dark corners of the web'. Rather, the manosphere, as an echo chamber, enables and encourages what Copland calls 'the male complaint': a sense of collective pain or 'injury' so intrinsic to the group's identity, it cannot be redressed. As injured subjects who believe their problems are caused through no fault of their own, manosphere men cannot mend the 'wound' they believe society has inflicted upon them. Their 'marginalisation' and injured status are the lens through which they view themselves and the world. In the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) community, for example, some men talk about the movement as a hospital where 'physicians of the male soul' use different 'methods of healing' to treat the 'illness of gynocentric-induced disease weighing them down'. These methods include 'self-improvement' strategies that are designed to build men's power and wealth: purchasing gym equipment, investing in the stock market, and even abstaining from pornography and sex. Others in the MGTOW community are vocally anti-victim: 'You can live an extraordinary life,' one man says to another, 'but you're wasting your time on complaints and negativity'. Even when they disagree, though, manosphere men frame women and feminism as the enemy. In this way, the machinery of the manosphere capitalises on men's discontent, reflects that messaging back to them and displaces their anger and hurt onto an easy scapegoat. As Copland observes, it is easier for men to blame women for their unhappiness than it is to blame the complex systems of capitalism: 'if love and sex is everything, then not having love becomes everything as well'. Blackpilled incels, lookism and anonymity This preoccupation with intimacy is central to the incel community. It is exemplified by the various artefacts Copland embeds in his book – memes and posts from the manosphere itself. Blackpilled incels are a subgroup of incels who believe their access to romantic and sexual relationships is doomed because of ' lookism ': the belief that women choose sexual partners based solely on their physical features. Blackpilled ideology attributes romantic failure to genetically unalterable aspects of the human body, such as one's height or skull shape. Some blackpilled incels, who call themselves wristcels, even blame their lack of sexual success on the width of their wrists. This logic is countered by research that demonstrates men, in fact, show stronger preferences for physical attractiveness than women, with women tending to prioritise education level and earning potential. The manosphere, however, amplifies this type of thinking and filters out information that challenges these ideas and opinions, increasing group polarisation. Despite its promise of solidarity, the manosphere isolates boys and men, and ultimately distances them from their wider community. This segregation results in a deep sense of alienation – these boys and men become stuck in a perpetual cycle of ideological reinforcement. The manosphere thrives on anonymity, writes Copland, which only reinforces the idea it is not designed to foster deep relationships or connections. No silver bullets The sense of community the manosphere claims to offer is a sham; its alienating structures do not offer boys and men genuine belonging and connection, or real solutions to their problems. 'From one day to the next, the ability to communicate depends on the whims of hidden engineers,' writes media studies professor Mark Andrejevic of online networks more broadly. The manosphere, like other virtual constructs, is subject to manipulation by those who control the infrastructure and the rules of engagement. More than this, the manosphere does not provide an alternative to complaint. When complaint is the only option, writes Copland, nihilism and violence are the inevitable result. When nothing matters, there are no consequences to anything, including violence […] Manosphere men do not look to convince others, but rather seek their destruction. Destruction is the outlet they find to deal with their complaint. That's what makes the manosphere so dangerous. 'Popular boys must be punished' In 2014, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, a British-American college student, embarked on an hours-long stabbing and shooting spree in the university town of Isla Vista, California, killing six and injuring 14. On the morning of May 23 – the 'Day of Retribution' – Rodger emailed a 140-page 'manifesto' to his family, friends and therapists. He also uploaded several YouTube videos in which he lamented his inability to find a girlfriend, the 'hedonistic pleasures' of his peers and his painful existence of 'loneliness, rejection, and unfilled desires'. In his memoir-manifesto, Rodger – the supposed 'patron saint of inceldom' – explains the motive for his violence: I had nothing left to live for but revenge. Women must be punished for their crimes of rejecting such a magnificent gentleman as myself. All of those popular boys must be punished for enjoying heavenly lives and having sex with all the girls while I had to suffer in lonely virginity. Four years later, in April 2018, Alek Minassian, a self-described incel, drove a rented van onto a busy sidewalk in Toronto, killing 11 (nine of them women) and injuring many more. On Facebook, Minassian explained that his actions were part of the 'incel rebellion' led by the 'Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger'. Later, Minassian told police, 'I feel like I accomplished my mission'. Rodger, too, ended his final YouTube video with a similar message: 'If I can't have you girls, I will destroy you'. In his book, Copland even draws a parallel between the Westfield Bondi Junction attack and the explanation for attacker Joel Cauchi's violence, put forward by his father just two days after the attack: 'To you, he is a monster. To me, he was a very sick boy […] he wanted a girlfriend and he's got no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain'. In fact, Cauchi suffered from treatment-resistant schizophrenia and had been unmedicated at the time of the attack: 'after almost two decades of treatment, Cauchi had no regular psychiatrist, was not on any medications to treat his schizophrenia and had no family living nearby'. The multifaceted causes of Cauchi's crime are more complex than misogynistic violence. Indeed, the pieces of the manosphere puzzle, when put together, reveal a sobering image of the male complaint. However, they demonstrate that misogyny is bad for everyone – not just women and girls. As Copland concludes: The manosphere promises men that it can make their lives better […] But it really cannot deliver. The promises it offers are not real, and in many cases make things worse […] This is how cruel optimism works, always offering, but never delivering. 'It's the combinations' Recent evidence suggests there is no single route to radicalisation, and no single cause of violent extremism. Rather, complex interactions between push, pull, and personal factors are the root causes of male violence. The Netflix sensation Adolescence – the harrowing story of a 13-year-old boy who is arrested and charged with murder – is powered by a single question: why did Jamie kill Katie? In attempting to answer this question, critics and fans have offered a range of explanations: bullying, low self-esteem, emotional dysregulation, obsession with love and sex, deprivation of love and sex, the manosphere. The real answer is less obvious and infinitely more complex. It can be found in a simple line of dialogue, spoken at the end of the series by Jamie's sister. 'It's the combinations,' Lisa says. 'Combinations are everything.' In this moment, Lisa is justifying her outfit to her parents as they await Jamie's trial. But subtextually, her statement doubles as the most likely explanation for his actions. And it's the closest explanation for why some boys and men commit extreme acts of violence: the combinations. DM This story first appeared on The Conversation. Kate Cantrell is a senior lecturer – Writing, Editing, and Publishing at the University of Southern Queensland.
1News
21-07-2025
- 1News
Online toxic masculinity is on the rise and it's not just damaging to women
Australian lecturer Kate Cantrell breaks down the contributing factors that make up the growing online ideologies of the manosphere. "Imagine her tenderly pressing her soft lips against yours," writes one incel on Reddit, before concluding, "you will never get to experience this because your skeleton is too small or the bones in your face are not the right shape". In his debut book, The Male Complaint, Simon Copland escorts his readers through the manosphere and into the minds of its inhabitants. He illustrates how boys and men who are "terrifyingly normal" become attracted to the manosphere's grim logic – and the cognitive distortions of anti-feminist influencers like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson. While mainstream debates often cite toxic masculinity as the cause of online misogyny, Copland, a writer and researcher at the Australian National University, shifts the blame to a deeper cultural malaise. It's caused, he argues, by the cruel optimism of the manosphere, the multiple social and economic crises of late-stage capitalism and a collective nihilistic misery in which complaint becomes futile and destruction "the only way out". Andrew Tate gestures, next to his brother Tristan, outside the Bucharest Tribunal in Bucharest, Romania in January, 2025. (Source: Associated Press) ADVERTISEMENT The manosphere is a network of loosely related blogs and forums devoted to "men's interests" – sites like The Rational Male, Game Global and the subreddits ForeverAlone, TheRedPill and MensRights. These online communities, separate in their specific beliefs, are united by their misogynistic ideas – and anti-women and anti-diversity sentiments. They're also united by the growing tendency of the men in these communities towards nihilistic violence: not only against others, but also against themselves. In The Male Complaint, Copland relays his dismay at discovering "a constant stream" of suicide notes on Reddit, including a subreddit, IncelGraveyard, which catalogues close to 100 suicide notes and letters posted by self-identified incels. "Since I was a kid I was fed up with 'Don't worry, it will get better', 'You will find someone' […] it's not even that I want a SO (significant other) anymore. Women are awful. People are awful. I have no friends." For Copland, the violence incels inflict on themselves is a form of passive nihilism. Incels "don't just express disgust and despair at the world, but in themselves – their looks, body, lives, personality, intelligence, and more". The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, Mama Hooch rapists appeal, Ukraine's new message to Russia, and Jason Momoa's plans here. (Source: Breakfast) ADVERTISEMENT Who's in the manosphere? The manosphere includes men's rights activists, pick-up artists and "Men Going Their Own Way" (male separatists who avoid contact with women altogether). And of course, incels: men who believe they are unable to find a romantic or sexual partner due to their perceived genetic inferiority and oppression. Incels also blame their problems on women's alleged hypergamy: the theory women seek out partners of higher social or economic status and therefore marry "up". Put another way, hypergamy, a concept rooted in evolutionary psychology, is the belief "women are hard-wired to be gold diggers". Rollo Tomassi, the so-called "godfather of the manosphere," complains on his blog that "women love opportunistically," while "men believe that love matters for the sake of it". According to Tomassi, the "cruel reality" of modern dating is that men are romantics who are "forced to be realists," while women are realists who use "romanticisms to effect their imperatives". Tomassi complains, "Our girlfriends, our wives, daughters and even our mothers are all incapable of idealised love […] By order of degrees, hypergamy will define who a woman loves and who she will not, depending upon her own opportunities and capacity to attract it". Ten years ago, these communities were largely regarded as fringe groups. Today, their ideology has infiltrated the mainstream. ADVERTISEMENT On Sunday, ABC TV's Compass reported that misogyny is on the rise in Australian classrooms, with female teachers sharing their experiences of sexual assault and harassment on school grounds – ranging from boys writing stories about gang raping their teachers to masturbating "over them" in the bathrooms. One student even pretended to stab his pregnant teacher as a "joke". (Source: A 2025 report published by UN Women shows 53% of women have experienced some form of technology-facilitated, gender-based violence. The dark side of digitalisation disproportionately affects young women aged between 18 and 24, LGBTQI+ women, women who are divorced or who live in the city, and women who participate in online gaming. 'Biologically bad'? Copland argues that simplified critiques of toxic masculinity minimise the problem of male violence. They fail to consider the context and history of gendered behaviour, assuming toxic traits are somehow innate and unique to men, rather than the product of social expectations and relations. This, in turn, promotes the idea that male violence derives from something "biologically bad" in the nature of masculinity itself. As Copland explains, "this is embedded in the term 'toxic', which makes it sound like men's bodies have become diseased or infected". Blaming toxic masculinity for digital misogyny also embraces a form of smug politics in which disaffected men are dismissed as degenerates who are fundamentally different to "us" (meaning the activist left and leftist elites). They are "cellar dwellers," "subhuman freaks," or "virgin losers" who need to be either enlightened or locked up. "We," on the other hand, are educated, progressive, superior. ADVERTISEMENT This kind of rhetoric, as Copland explains, is unhelpful. It does not create the conditions for changing the opinions, narratives and futures of manosphere men because it does not allow people to understand their complaints and where those concerns come from – even if we do not agree with them. Belittling attitudes and demeaning discourses alienate men who already feel socially isolated. This pushes those men further to the fringes – into the hands of "manfluencers" who claim to understand. 'Not having love becomes everything' The manosphere, Copland observes, is not "an aberration that is different and distinct from the rest of the world," nor is it a community that exists solely on the "dark corners of the web". Rather, the manosphere, as an echo chamber, enables and encourages what Copland calls "the male complaint": a sense of collective pain or "injury" so intrinsic to the group's identity, it cannot be redressed. As injured subjects who believe their problems are caused through no fault of their own, manosphere men cannot mend the "wound" they believe society has inflicted upon them. Their "marginalisation" and injured status are the lens through which they view themselves and the world. In the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) community, for example, some men talk about the movement as a hospital where "physicians of the male soul" use different "methods of healing" to treat the "illness of gynocentric-induced disease weighing them down". These methods include "self-improvement" strategies that are designed to build men's power and wealth: purchasing gym equipment, investing in the stock market, even abstaining from pornography and sex. ADVERTISEMENT Others in the MGTOW community are vocally anti-victim, "You can live an extraordinary life," one man says to another, "but you're wasting your time on complaints and negativity". Even when they disagree, though, manosphere men frame women and feminism as the enemy. In this way, the machinery of the manosphere capitalises on men's discontent, reflects that messaging back to them and displaces their anger and hurt onto an easy scapegoat. As Copland observes, it is easier for men to blame women for their unhappiness than it is to blame the complex systems of capitalism, "if love and sex is everything, then not having love becomes everything as well". Blackpilled incels, lookism and anonymity This preoccupation with intimacy is central to the incel community. It is exemplified by the various artefacts Copland embeds in his book – memes and posts from the manosphere itself. Blackpilled incels are a subgroup of incels who believe their access to romantic and sexual relationships is doomed because of "lookism", the belief women choose sexual partners based solely on their physical features. Blackpilled ideology attributes romantic failure to genetically unalterable aspects of the human body, such as one's height or skull shape. Some blackpilled incels, who call themselves wristcels, even blame their lack of sexual success on the width of their wrists. ADVERTISEMENT This logic is countered by research that demonstrates men, in fact, show stronger preferences for physical attractiveness than women, with women tending to prioritise education level and earning potential. (Source: The manosphere, however, amplifies this type of thinking and filters out information that challenges these ideas and opinions, increasing group polarisation. Despite its promise of solidarity, the manosphere isolates boys and men, and ultimately distances them from their wider community. This segregation results in a deep sense of alienation – these boys and men become stuck in a perpetual cycle of ideological reinforcement. The manosphere thrives on anonymity, writes Copland, which only reinforces the idea it is not designed to foster deep relationships or connections. No silver bullets The sense of community the manosphere claims to offer is a sham; its alienating structures do not offer boys and men genuine belonging and connection, or real solutions to their problems. "From one day to the next, the ability to communicate depends on the whims of hidden engineers," writes media studies professor Mark Andrejevic of online networks more broadly. The manosphere, like other virtual constructs, is subject to manipulation by those who control the infrastructure and the rules of engagement. ADVERTISEMENT More than this, the manosphere does not provide an alternative to complaint. When complaint is the only option, writes Copland, nihilism and violence are the inevitable result. "When nothing matters, there are no consequences to anything, including violence […] Manosphere men do not look to convince others, but rather seek their destruction. Destruction is the outlet they find to deal with their complaint." That's what makes the manosphere so dangerous. 'Popular boys must be punished' In 2014, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, a British-American college student, embarked on an hours-long stabbing and shooting spree in the university town of Isla Vista, California, killing six and injuring 14. On the morning of May 23 – the "Day of Retribution" – Rodger emailed a 140-page "manifesto" to his family, friends and therapists. He also uploaded several YouTube videos in which he lamented his inability to find a girlfriend, the "hedonistic pleasures" of his peers and his painful existence of "loneliness, rejection, and unfilled desires". In his memoir-manifesto, Rodger – the supposed "patron saint of inceldom" – explains the motive for his violence. "I had nothing left to live for but revenge. Women must be punished for their crimes of rejecting such a magnificent gentleman as myself. All of those popular boys must be punished for enjoying heavenly lives and having sex with all the girls while I had to suffer in lonely virginity". Four years later, in April 2018, Alek Minassian, a self-described incel, drove a rented van onto a busy sidewalk in Toronto, killing 11 (nine of them women) and injuring many more. On Facebook, Minassian explained that his actions were part of the "incel rebellion" led by the "Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger". Later, Minassian told police, "I feel like I accomplished my mission". ADVERTISEMENT Rodger, too, ended his final YouTube video with a similar message, "If I can't have you girls, I will destroy you". In his book, Copland even draws a parallel between the Westfield Bondi Junction attack and the explanation for attacker Joel Cauchi's violence, put forward by his father just two days after the attack. "To you, he is a monster. To me, he was a very sick boy […] he wanted a girlfriend and he's got no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain". In fact, Cauchi suffered from treatment-resistant schizophrenia and had been unmedicated at the time of the attack, "after almost two decades of treatment, Cauchi had no regular psychiatrist, was not on any medications to treat his schizophrenia and had no family living nearby". The multifaceted causes of Cauchi's crime are more complex than misogynistic violence. Indeed, the pieces of the manosphere puzzle, when put together, reveal a sobering image of the male complaint. However, they demonstrate misogyny is bad for everyone – not just women and girls. As Copland concludes, "The manosphere promises men that it can make their lives better […] But it really cannot deliver. The promises it offers are not real, and in many cases make things worse […] This is how cruel optimism works, always offering, but never delivering". 'It's the combinations' Recent evidence suggests there is no single route to radicalisation, and no single cause of violent extremism. Rather, complex interactions between push, pull, and personal factors are the root causes of male violence. ADVERTISEMENT The Netflix sensation Adolescence – the harrowing story of a 13-year-old boy who is arrested and charged with murder – is powered by a single question: why did Jamie kill Katie? In attempting to answer this question, critics and fans have offered a range of explanations: bullying, low self-esteem, emotional dysregulation, obsession with love and sex, deprivation of love and sex, the manosphere. The real answer is less obvious and infinitely more complex. It can be found in a simple line of dialogue, spoken at the end of the series by Jamie's sister. "It's the combinations," Lisa says. "Combinations are everything." In this moment, Lisa is justifying her outfit to her parents as they await Jamie's trial. But subtextually, her statement doubles as the most likely explanation for his actions. And it's the closest explanation for why some boys and men commit extreme acts of violence: the combinations. Author: Kate Cantrell, Senior Lecturer – Writing, Editing, and Publishing, University of Southern Queensland This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.
Otago Daily Times
24-06-2025
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
NZ keen to regain Wayleggo Cup
Winchmore farmer Mark Copland expects the New Zealand and Australian rivalry will be as strong as ever when the first whistle is blown in the transtasman sheep dog trials at Ashburton. The veteran dog triallist, who has captained New Zealand five of the nine times he has represented the team, has been named to lead the side again for the annual grudge match from the end of October to November 1. Mr Copland and heading dog Guy will be joined by fellow Cantabrian Ben Millar and King, Waikato's Leo Jecentho and Jake and North Otago's Lloyd Smith and Code. Southlander Brian Dickison and Dan are the travelling reserves. The Wayleggo Cup has been to-ing and fro-ing between the countries in the past few years, Australia winning last year. The Ashburton Showgrounds are a winning venue for New Zealand after they convincingly beat the visitors in 2023 when the late Neil Evans led the side. New Zealand triallists will have him in the back of their minds as well as Mr Smith whose wife Linda died earlier this year, when they step on to the course. Mr Copland said the team had a good blend of youthful enthusiasm and real experience. He said a lot was at stake. "That goes without saying that we will be trying to beat the Aussies. We are down parked in our part of the world and we are like-minded people, but like other sports we don't hold back, do we?" He said the team members possessed top dogs, Mr Jecentho's Jake achieving the uncommon feat of being in all four run-offs this year. Mr Smith had faced a tough year and it showed his character that he had so much strength within to perform well in competitions. "We will have Neil in mind and no doubt Lloyd's wife, Linda, of recent times so it's not been easy for people. You try and beat everyone else in normal times, but you also have a quiet thought for them too." Mr Copland said his own black and white heading dog Guy had just turned 5 and was a "hard case" after going though a tough run of problems thrown at him. "He's had a lot of adversity and has had a foot problem with his toenails, a broken tail and only two months ago he had a cut above his pupil in his eyeball. Christchurch vet Kirsten Wylie basically saved it by stitching the eye and grafting something over it to enhance the blood flow and then stitched the eyebrows together. I went back a week later she undid the stitching and said this looks promising and the eye looks very much normal." Mr Copland had a five-year stint from the mid-2000s as captain with a dog called Mary. He said the Australians liked competing in Ashburton because it was near Christchurch airport and they could be shown good dog country in the Rakaia Gorge area. They would also be able to "sink their teeth" if they wanted to enter a Tux yard dog competition also being held at the showgrounds. "We used to go there years ago when the manager was Tony Sheild, from Marlborough. Ironically, our team will be managed by one of his sons, David, who is now the new president of the NZ dog trial association. The acorn hasn't fallen far from the tree because he definitely looks very similar." He and wife Robyn have just moved off the family's Westmere farm in Dromore between Rakaia and Ashburton to make a new home on a 20ha block at upper Winchmore where, as well as running a few sheep and finishing cattle, he has bought a few stags and got his velveting licence. Their son, Hugh, and his wife, Kylie, have taken over the farm and the plan is to spend more time on dog trialling. Mr Copland was runner-up to winner Lindsay Wink from Weber in the national long head competition and also finished runner-up to Mr Jecentho in the South Island long head, at Lochiel Station. He was just outside of the main placegetters with fourth in the national short head and yard won by Mr Jecentho and was seventh overall in the South Island long short. Results NZ sheep dog trial championship results at Lochiel Station near Hanmer Springs: Long head: Lindsay Wink (Weber) Ghost, first round, 93.25 points, second round, 93.50pts, total 186.75pts, 1; Mark Copland (Methven) Don, 92.50pts, 94pts, 186.50pts, 2; Stuart Child (Te Anga) Carl 97.50pts, 88pts, 185.50pts, 3. Short head and yard: Leo Jecentho (Karioi) Jake 97.50pts, 98pts, 195.50pts, 1; Ben Millar (Glenroy) King 94.25pts, 93pts, 187.25pts, 2; Stuart Millar (Glenroy) Laddie 95.75pts, 87pts, 182.75pts, 3; Mark Copland (Methven) Guy 96pts, 84pts, 180pts, 4. Zig zag hunt: Samantha Shaw (Matawai) Rogue 96.75pts, 96pts, 192.75pts, 1; Andy McNab (Mt Nessing) Kahn 97.80pts, 91pts, 188.80pts, 2; Sam Jamieson (Mackenzie) Gary 95.75pts, 82pts, 177.75pts, 3. Straight hunt: Steve Murphy (Whangamomona) Bridge 98pts, 97pts, 19pts, 1 ; Grant Plaisted (Waikari) Coke 97.50pts, 96.50pts, 194pts, 2; Dan Jury (Petane) Ice 97.25pts, 95pts, 192.25pts, 3.
The Courier
06-06-2025
- The Courier
Friday court round-up — Sudocrem chaos and porn obsession
A man smeared Sudocrem on his mother's floor and couch and wrecked doors in her home after an argument. , 27, appeared at Dunfermline Sheriff Court to plead guilty to vandalising property at an address in High Valleyfield on March 28 this year. He damaged doors, overturned furniture and appliances and spilled Sudocrem, which is used to treat nappy rash and other skin conditions. Prosecutor Catherine Stevenson told the court Justice had argued with his mother, who left the house for a few hours and returned to find the damage and her son still there. She contacted police, who attended to find a broken door in the hallway, holes on other doors, and Sudocrem on a wooden floor couch. The fiscal depute said the kitchen was in a 'state of disarray'. When Justice was arrested, he replied: 'I will replace the door'. Ms Stevenson indicated that no value for the damage caused was made available to the court. Defence lawyer Aime Allan said Justice, of Mackie Place, Dunfermline, was struggling with his mental health at the time but is now on treatment and feeling better and has paid to fix the damage. Ms Allan said Justice and his mother are still talking but he is not allowed to enter the property and is staying with another family member. Sheriff Susan Duff deferred sentence for six months for Justice to demonstrate good behaviour, at which point he will be admonished if he has stayed out of trouble. A brazen drug dealer caught pushing street Valium in Dundee city centre has been jailed. Police CCTV captured , 53, exchanging wraps of etizolam and cash on High Street and City Square on multiple occasions. A young man with a pornography 'obsession' was shopped to police by his own parents after they discovered a secret hard drive containing indecent images of children. , 24, appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted possessing illicit files featuring youngsters as young as 10, on May 2 2021. Fiscal Douglas Thompson said: 'At the time of the offence, the accused was living at home with his parents. 'There were difficulties within the family, in regards to his obsession with pornography.' He said Copland was not allowed to connect to the home wi-fi in an effort to stop him downloading X-rated video and images. His mum and dad also routinely searched his electronic devices. On May 2 2021, with Copland out of the house his parents searched his bedroom and found a hard drive of which they had previously been unaware. It contained multiple adult images but also a folder titled 'Young' which contained indecent images of children thought to be between 10 and 13. Police were contacted and several electronic devices were later seized by police for analysis and a total of 64 obscene files were found, including 24 duplicates. Copland, of Perth, was placed on the sex offenders register and will be sentenced next month. A domestic thug has been jailed for breaching a strict court order by bombarding his ex-partner with a series of menacing voicemails. In one of the recordings, told his former partner: 'I will destroy you.' A domestic bully who trapped and attacked his former partner in a flat in Forfar has been jailed for more than two years. previously locked his victim inside her first floor flat, held a knife against her throat and threatened to kill her. Just three weeks earlier, the roadworker appeared in court from custody after biting her chest in an argument. Earlier this year, McKay pled guilty to injuring the woman in a domestic assault on June 17 last year, then again after abducting her on July 6 and sentencing was deferred for McKay to be interviewed by social workers. At Dundee Sheriff Court, he appeared by video link from HMP Perth to be sentenced to 27 months in prison, backdated to the start of his remand. His solicitor John Boyle said there is 'an acceptance that he requires assistance to regulate his temper'. Sheriff Tim Niven-Smith also made a five-year non-harassment order and told him to complete nine months of post-release supervision. A bogus psychiatrist who treated scores of patients while working in Tayside has been ordered to pay back the NHS more than £400,000 or face two-and-a-half more years in prison. , 62, who faked the completion of her qualifications, was jailed in February 2023 for seven years after she committed a string of fraud offences. An annoying pub-goer was caught by police in Cowdenbeath at nearly four times the drink-drive limit. got in his car after being asked to leave the Beath Inn and was spotted driving about half-an-hour later with damage to the front of his vehicle and a burst tyre. The 38-year-old, of Dunfermline Road, Crossgates, appeared at Dunfermline Sheriff Court to plead guilty to driving with excess alcohol (84mics/22) at Station Road, Cowdenbeath, on May 7 this year. Sheriff Susan Duff fined him £300 and disqualified him from driving for a year, though the ban can be cut to nine months if he completes a drink-driving rehabilitation course. Prosecutor Catherine Stevenson told the court that around 11.30pm police received a report from staff at the pub saying Reid was asked to leave after 'causing annoyance' and had done so in a car. After the damaged vehicle was spotted, stopped at a junction, officers approached Reid, who was smelling of alcohol and had glazed eyes. Defence lawyer Pete Robertson said he doubts Reid, who works for RJ Macleod and drives a van for colleagues, would lose his job as a result of the conviction on the basis there are others working in the organisation who do not have a driving licence. A woman from Bridge of Allan who embezzled £49,000 from her own grandmother after being granted power of attorney has been ordered to repay the money within nine months. was spared jail but handed the maximum possible number of hours of unpaid work. A Fife man caught driving while disqualified two days in a row has narrowly avoided a jail sentence. , 37, drove a Vauxhall Astra illegally in Cowdenbeath High Street on May 7 and in Blacklaw Road and Gorrie Street, both Dunfermline, on May 8. He appeared at Dunfermline Sheriff Court for sentencing by video link to prison after earlier pleading guilty to two charges each of driving while disqualified and without insurance. The court heard Scappaticcio, of Brucefield Terrace, Lochgelly, was banned from driving for five years in August last year. Defence lawyer Stephen Morrison said his explanation for one of the incidents is the owner of the car had taken his 'bag of property' and suggested he would not return it unless he moved the vehicle because others were drinking. Mr Morrison said his client had initially refused to do this but 'succumbed to intimidation'. The solicitor said Scappaticcio, who has issues with anxiety and depression, has been on remand since May 9. Sheriff Charles Lugton told him 'you are very close to going to jail' but sentenced him to 200 hours of unpaid work, a nine-month tagging order, two years of offender supervision and a programme requirement to engage with the road traffic offenders group. He also banned him from driving for six years. The sheriff said the sentence is a direct alternative to custody.
