31 Facts About Bettina Arndt

Bettina Arndt's parents were German, and escaped Nazi Germany prior to World War II.

In 1971, after completing a Bachelor of Science degree at the Australian National University, Bettina Arndt moved to Sydney and studied at the University of New South Wales where she completed a Master of Clinical Psychology degree in 1973; her thesis was on orgasm dysfunction.

Bettina Arndt was first married in 1977 to journalist Dennis Minogue who died in 1981.

Bettina Arndt was appointed editor in 1974 and remained in the position until July 1982.

Between 1973 and 1976 the Australian Broadcasting Control Board had ruled that all TV and radio programs in which Bettina Arndt took part in had to be pre-recorded so that they could be approved by station management before being transmitted.

In 1986, Bettina Arndt moved to New York City for five years and, while living in the United States, wrote a weekly newspaper column syndicated through The Age in Melbourne.

Bettina Arndt had two books published featuring collections of her writings, Private Lives and All About Us.

In 1991, Bettina Arndt returned with her family to live in Australia.

Bettina Arndt was a guest reporter on Four Corners on ABC TV and a regular guest on ABC radio in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide.

Bettina Arndt was on the board of the Australian National University and was the president of the board of the Royal Women's Hospital Foundation in 1999.

Bettina Arndt served as an online dating coach from 2001 to 2017, and more recently has assisted men in writing their dating profiles and referring them on to good photographers for their dating profile photos.

Bettina Arndt served on a number of committees advising the Australian Government on policy matters, including the National Advisory Committee on Ageing, the Assisted Reproductive Technologies Review Team and the Child Support Review Reference Group.

Gleeson observed that at this time Bettina Arndt had a "persistent criticism of matters of family law".

Bettina Arndt failed to disclose that her daughter attended the school and Phelps holds Bettina Arndt partly responsible for ending her wife's career there.

From 2020, Bettina Arndt has commonly been termed a men's rights activist.

Bettina Arndt has said, "we need to start calling out feminism which is a really destructive force in our society".

Author Susan Maushart says that Bettina Arndt "seems, for whatever reason, to not like women very much".

Bettina Arndt takes a conservative view on having children outside of marriage, and has questioned the dedication of mothers entering parliament.

Bettina Arndt has been criticised for dismissing genuine academic research when writing about the children of LGBTIQ parents.

Former senator Brian Greig denounced Bettina Arndt for using "the work of 'researchers' with strong links to the American religious right" when discussing same-sex parenting, saying that she should have been "able to distinguish such research from sham, politically motivated studies".

In 1997, Bettina Arndt defended a doctor who had molested a 12-year-old child and other patients including Bettina Arndt herself, arguing that he should not be charged because in another context masturbation would have been "a loving and pleasurable act".

In 2005, in an article in The Courier-Mail, Bettina Arndt discussed convicted paedophile Robert Potter, a scoutmaster who had molested four boys, one of whom subsequently attempted suicide.

Bettina Arndt described Potter as "a good bloke" and argued that "such minor abuse rarely has lasting consequences".

Bettina Arndt is a champion of male victims of domestic violence who have been abused by women and has said that the "real picture" of domestic violence is "where our official evidence shows at least a third of the victims are male".

Bettina Arndt is a critic of domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty, saying that her campaigning "denies women's role in family violence" and that Batty has been "playing the feminist puppet".

Bettina Arndt was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours "for significant service to the community as a social commentator, and to gender equity through advocacy for men".

Rowan Dean on Sky News said he was horrified by the way this had been politicized, pointing out the motion before the Senate misrepresented the fact that Bettina Arndt had quoted the policeman.

In September 2020, it was reported that Bettina Arndt would retain her Australia Day award after the council announced that they were only prepared to strip awards if they were found to be based on false or misleading information or if the awardee had been convicted of a crime and all legal avenues of appeal had been exhausted.

Bettina Arndt is not a registered psychologist, clinical psychologist, or medical doctor, nor does she have a doctoral degree.

The article pointed out that Bettina Arndt herself distributed material containing these misrepresentations without correcting them.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency investigated the allegations but declined to take legal action, instead cautioning Bettina Arndt, strongly urging her to take action when the media and publishers described her qualifications incorrectly and to avoid promoting content where she had been described incorrectly.