Ahhh, Sam de Brito’s “feminism”. Did you read his column on slut shaming in the Sun Herald yesterday? Here’s a bit of it:
One of feminism’s many successes is that a broad cross-section of women are today more sexually confident than ever before. Many have realised it’s far more fun to pick their intimate partners, instead of waiting to be chosen like fruit on a stand.
Despite this, lots of women still live in fear of acting on this impulse too frequently (or publicly) out of the concern they’ll be labelled with slurs or be tut-tutted at by neolithic hypocrites like the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott.
What, is he talking about teenagers?
What I find curious, however, is that the “slut shaming” dynamic is so internalised with some women that their guilt about unattached sex starts before they even leave the bedroom and hit the world of gossip.
Really Sam? And you know this how? I must say, it’s good to see you’ve picked up the term “slut shaming” from the feminist blogs you visit, but it’s a shame the content of those blogs has gone over your head.
Then there’s some rubbish about a fictional friend who uses a hook-up website, and then this:
However, until proud women can laugh off the idiocy of insults like “whore”, “moll”, or “lowie”, these words retain their power to control female behaviour.
Bingo! There it is. According to Sam the Feminist, if women get upset about being called a slut, it’s their own fault. Not a single word about how we shouldn’t call anyone a slut. Not a single word about the role his own gender can play in eliminating this ridiculous double standard.
You know, with Sam de Brito writing about how women are to blame for everything that happens to women, and Samantha Brett writing about how women are to blame for everything that happens to women, is Fairfax trying to tell us something?
the news with nipples 
Ughhh broke my face from cringing too hard. Seriously? All of it is wrong.
It’s so insulting it’s stopped my words from working.
I’m not sure if he actually thinks he’s a feminist – and therefore thinks he’s “doing women a favour” – or if he’s devious.
Yes, beneath the phoney rage over these lingering double standards, there’s an overwhelming smugness to de Brito, who just this week, it seems (sorry, I just couldn’t look beyond the pointer) was imploring his misogynist disciples to list reasons why it’s great to be a man. You can imagine how much that strengthened our will to live.
I can almost pinpoint the time when de Brito was told to give the fairer sex a fairer go, so every now and then we get these “feminist” rants, which are almost invariably followed up by another blog celebrating the patriarchy and all its benefits and glory.
As for the other Sam, you’re right – she’s just another apologist for men. It’s always “another study showed women are to blame for X, or women do X wrong – OUCH! Are we really that bad? Why don’t you tell us how bad we are, all you seething malcontent teenage boys out there that can’t get it with a fistful of 50s”
Thanks for the opportunity for ME to vent. Fairfax are a joke. Good to see them being exposed as such on the first Media Watch of 2010.
Hi Ninums, welcome aboard. You’re spot on with your Sam Brett impression. Sadly, it’s worked very well for her, with book deals and being sent to Hollywood as a “reporter”. Actually, both of them have books out. The two Sams make me uneasy – is this really the level of public discussion about women? That’s pretty sad.
As for Fairfax, I do tend to pick them apart because the SMH is the paper I read. I know the quality is rapidly going downhill, but I can’t bring myself to read the Daily Boobegraph or The Oz. I expect more from Fairfax.
Thanks, happy to be aboard. I suspect Brett’s foray into La La Land has much to do with what TV execs would refer to as her f*@kability but yes, to be marketable as a woman, one should never challenge the patriarchy and be as sweet, smiley, young and blonde as possible. Tick, tick, tick, and tick for our Sam. Last time I checked (a few years back), however, her presentation skills were wanting, but Princess will surely have been training hard to rectify that. I too read Fairfax, and have worked for them, and I assure you there’s as much concern among the general staff at the rise of the Sams as there is among long-time readers. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out that sexy, fun topics like relationships will always attract more eyeballs than world politics or the economy, I just think it has more of a place in Dolly or Ralph magazine than in a broadsheet. I mean, does The Guardian UK resort to that kind of crap? Now that there’s nobody left to keep the bastards honest in this country, any bastards at all, I’m depending on folks like yourself to resume that role. Keep us thinking with your beaut daily nipples of comment and analysis.
Why thank you, that is mighty fine praise indeed. I think the rise of the Sams says a lot about how Fairfax views online versus print. They’d never put the Sams in the “real paper” (Sam de Brito is in the Sun Herald, but that doesn’t count). I suspect that Fairfax still doesn’t take online seriously. Having said that, I do think there’s room for a relationships blogger, but how about using an expert – someone who actually knows what they’re talking about – rather than, well, Sam Brett.
It’s good to know that it’s not just people I know personally who talk about how far Fairfax is slipping (ie, it’s not just in our heads). They dumbed the paper down in order to get more readers, but it didn’t work, so why not make it smart again?
I quite like The Canberra Times for the occasional change of read.
Can’t say I’ve ever checked it out. I used to have to go to Canberra for work and it’s just a little odd.
My sister just sent me “The S Word”. I’d never seen it before. She was talking about tattoos. It was so pathetic I had to blog about it. I’m glad we don’t have anyone like her posting that shit on NZ websites.
Is she worse than Sam de Brito?
Here’s the link to why that tattoo won’t get you a husband: http://boganette.blogspot.com/2010/02/that-tattoo-wont-get-you-husband.html
“One of feminism’s many successes is that a broad cross-section of women are today more sexually confident than ever before.”
You know, this gets up my nose in a big way. It’s such a noxious misrepresentation of Feminist theory, not that he’s ever read any actual theory, but he’s basically twisting what he thinks Feminism is all about into something that appeals to a male perspective.
Women didn’t need to be persuaded by Feminists that sex is fun – women already knew that. But what wasn’t fun was unwanted pregnancies and the oral contraceptive lessened the chances of that happening for some women.
deBrito’s take on this is just so intellectually dishonest, and I’m so tired of reading men who comment on Feminist Theory when they have never actually read Feminist Theory. It’s like it doesn’t count as real social theory because it was only written by silly women.
Linda Radfem, you’re back! I’ve missed you. Of course de Brito is going to reduce feminism to women being “sexually confident” because that’s all it means to him – women to have sex with.
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