Women are great at coercive control

Here we go, folk. The new attack on men has been launched. Coercive control is now a criminal offence in NSW, punishable by seven years in prison.

Now the fun begins, as the NSW government launches its massive campaign to try to ensure that only the right people are punished for this newly concocted form of evil behaviour - a preview of what will happen in other states as similar laws are rolled out across the nation.

Look at this list of people most at risk from coercive control, according to the NSW government website:

• Women
• People with disability
• Aboriginal people
• People from multicultural, migrant or refugee backgrounds
• LGBTQI people
• Older people
• Children and young people

Funny that. We're talking about almost everyone, EXCEPT ordinary, heterosexual blokes. "Cisgender" men, as the government literature calls them, claiming they are overwhelmingly the perpetrators.

No matter that our official Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows men just as likely as women to be victims of emotional abuse – defined using many of the same behaviours now listed as coercive control. See this image from the ABS website a few years ago.

For just one day some years ago the ABS website referred to "coercive control" in describing this equally common male and female behaviour but that data is now suitably massaged to fit the new narrative.

No way you are going to see male victims in any of the new propaganda material pouring out of all our governments, dutifully promoted by the ABC and other compliant media. But this new front in "gendered violence" has hit a bit of a stumbling block. It appears the bureaucrats have discovered the abundant evidence that lesbians are brilliant at emotional abuse, in fact they excel at all types of domestic violence.

Hence, we find one of the new propaganda videos featuring Jade being coerced by her girlfriend. The nasty perpetrator is shown pulling meanly on Jade's pet dog's leash. "They even hurt the ones you love," notes the solemn commentary. Hmm, the lesbian theme rather dismantles the gendered violence narrative, doesn't it?

Of course, most of the new videos feature nasty, coercive men. Like the ethnic version featuring Anjali and her controlling husband, who shuts off her laptop, takes away her mobile phone and won't let her have a job. "They need you all to themselves," comments the narrator.