Misogynists and Male Maligners

I honestly don't know where to begin with the outrage. Perhaps this should be in Bursting a Ventricle instead. In fact it will be. As well.

Just this week, Howard Sattler from a Perth radio station (now thankfully and justifiably sacked) asked the Prime Minister of Australia if her life partner was gay. He later justified his question by saying she had been aware that the interview promised to be 'candid'. 

Really? 

Next he'll be saying, "she made me do it."

Lee D'Angelo Fisher said it best in the Financial Review, "Where does one begin to address this outrage? What does it say about today’s Australia that the Prime Minister of the nation can be treated with such cavalier disrespect?"... 

Sattler’s “Tim” interview was not about holding a prime minister to account. It was not about the public’s right to know. It was plainly and simply about disrespect."

I don't care what you think about Julia Gillard. I don't particularly like her much, but I'm afraid I do hold her office in some sort of regard. The Aussie idea that we are larrikins and mischievous disrespecters of authority has to stop. This is the new millennium and the whole Lawson/Patterson fight over Australian identity linked to some heroic, free travelling, free talking joker is antiquated tosh. Just stop. Grow up. 

The majority of Australians live in cities and hold blue and white collar jobs. We are not "great Aussie battlers on the land" or the romantic notion of roaming itinerant workers such as jackaroos and shearers who put in a good days' work and sweat for an honest day's pay and a beer all the while lambasting 'her indoors'. Have Australian men become mere stereotypes?

Sexist Horribilis (self caricaturing species): often short in stature and despite the attachment of a beer bottle at all times remains thin and weedy. Wanders aimlessly on manly pursuits involving cars, meat, beer, football and strangely, fish.  Main course of communication are grunts or trite phrases such as:

"Read? Waste of time that."

"That's a woman driver for ya. Always crashing. Only good for one thing, women."

"I was only fucking joking love. What's the matter? Got ya period?" 

This species tend to remain hidden behind its own fabricated stereotype  and are oddly prolific considering they have not been able to make the transition as mature 21st century members of a modern global society that demands equality for all; gays, children and women. Often with a ‘chip on the shoulder’, this species has a low self esteem however, instead of eating chocolate like the rest of us, resorts to the profligate use of the "tall poppy syndrome". Failing to get the chosen victim down to its own level, this species sadly often resorts to ridicule and if the victim responds in kind, resorts to violence (either physical or verbal).

Sexist Horribilis is sometimes mistaken for Sexist Odiosas actually a separate genus. These tend to be stocky and broad figures which turn to obesity during middle age. This species believes itself far superior and often congregate in small groups called the Boys' Club (which derives from the old English public school system of  Boys in the Club House or BITCH). These ‘BITCH’s tend to hail from well-to-do families, are well educated in schools that perpetuate the belief in omnipotent, omnipresent beings: men. This belief in their own deification results in a Bully-Boy attitude towards all non-men. This species is generally playful and jovial with its own kind but is considered extremely aggressive to other species and non-males and should not be approached.

Ben Pobjie made a cracking  reply to the sexism in the media this week in his article in the Guardian on Friday: Australia let's talk about manners; Are we satisfied with a sexist political debate that revolves around sniggering at women's body parts and hairdressers?

"You don’t talk to them the way Sattler talked to Gillard, unless you want to be quite explicit about the fact that you are a rude, ill-mannered, nasty little boor. And that’s the sexism, right there: the belief that the opposite sex is so far beneath you that you don’t even have to worry about whether you’re rude to them or not."

Gillard herself attacked Abbott last October and called him a misogynist for which she was applauded by the media, but John Pilger thinks she's an hypocrite and betrayer of women. Pilger goes on to say that the debate on sexism lacks the presence of men and I agree. Men will hear other men, not women, on the topic of their behaviour towards women.

Sadly it goes on; this week has been a disgraceful and shameful episode in Australian politics and political reporting. It began with the furor over the 'menu scandal' for the Liberal fundraiser in April which Caroline Overington scathingly discusses,

"All very undergraduate, but you'll notice the really nasty stuff — the deeply personal, savage attacks — were kept for Gillard...

...Joe Hockey needed to take one look at the menu, and walk out the room. Mal Brough needed to take every copy off every place-setting, and stick them in the bin, and then make it clear that such rubbish isn't acceptable to the modern Liberal Party. "

And the week ends unhappily with Don Randall (a Federal Liberal MP no less) accusing the mining industry of "being pussy whipped by Julia Gillard". Is there no end to the shame and embarrassment we must endure as the Australian public who voted these misogynistic and puerile politicians into office? And all played out on the international stage. 

How tragic that so many of the male Liberal Party are still at the Neanderthal stage of their gender development. If there was any justice in this world, it would be the end of the Liberal's chance at leadership in this country at the next election because frankly, whatever your politics, can you really want a group of twelve year old boys at the helm of our great nation? 

Sadly sexism is still rampant. When Jane Martinson started the Everyday Sexism Project a year ago, she never imagined that it would have attracted 25,000 entries and have spread to 15 countries. The complaints from women vary enormously in scope of injury but all speak of sexism happening all day, every day in every country. 

Frank Bruni in the New York Times in his article Sexism's Puzzling Stamina  wonders why, 22 years after the Tailhook Incident (over 100 Naval aviators were accused of sexually assaulting scores of women) shocked America, nothing has changed when it comes to rampant sexism. Surely such atrocious and public trials bring sexist behaviour into the public spotlight and so surely general behaviour changes due to the debate that follows. But it hasn't. Megyn Kelly's treatment at the hands of two hoary (aha) male commentators, for example, was simply breathtakingly patronising.

 "It’s gender — and all the recent reminders of how often women are still victimized, how potently they’re still resented and how tenaciously a musty male chauvinism endures. "

(See also his piece on the treatment of Amanda Knox by the media in her murder trial, Sexism and the Single Murderess.) 

Even professional women are fair game for the serial sexists. Scientists, who are inarguably intelligent, are the victims of sexism too, according to an article by Jane Lee in National Geographic published in May.  Lee convincingly outlines several cases where research and discoveries made by female scientists were instead attributed to male colleagues when taken to print.

Virginia Hausegger had to take Geoffrey Barker to task in the Age last month with this piece:

" An ex-hack's fascination with ''pert'' breasts and ''post-pubescent babes'' would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. But Geoffrey Barker's now infamous tirade  against young women television journalists is also a little creepy. Most importantly - it's a stinging example of an increasing backlash against women."

But I think that certainly, a major contributing factor to the perpetuation of sexism is the influential power brokers. As Leo D'Angelo Fisher said,

"Societies are in many respects self-regulating, but they are also responsive to example. Whether it’s the media, company chief executives, political leaders, sporting administrators – and everyone in between – community and opinion leaders in all walks of life have a vital role to play in ensuring a return to values and norms of decency that were nowhere to be seen in Howard Sattler’s studio on Thursday afternoon."

And there lies the rub. The way we hear from the company chief executives, political leaders, sporting administrators, community and opinion leaders is through the media. And who and what we hear through the media is dependent, chosen solely, by the media hierarchy and what they want us to hear. 

But ultimately we are ourselves, responsible for what comes out of our mouths and how we treat each other.  Before speaking you need to ask yourself "if I said this to a bloke would he smash me in the face?"  If the answer is yes, then don't say it to a woman either.