What the fuck, Australia?

This post discusses domestic violence.

And contains swearing.

Lots of swearing.

In the last few months, the racism and sexism and misogyny and vileness in our society have all come to the surface like a nasty boil:

Australia, this is you right now. If this grosses you out, imagine what I saw while looking for it. Image: Mental bleach

First it was racism, with a 13-year-old girl calling AFL player Adam Goodes an ape, then Eddie McGuire’s King Kong comments. And all those videos of people being arseholes on public transport. And today, more racist dickheads at an NRL game.

Then there’s the menu at Mal Brough’s fundraiser, and Socceroos coach Holger Osieck saying women should shut up in public. His apology was just a clusterfuck of wrong. Someone should tell him, in small words so his little brain can understand, that telling your wife to shut up, and saying “I’m still pretty happy with my wife so everything is fine”, doesn’t actually indicate “a lot of respect for women”. Sort of the opposite, really.

And there’s the bunch of idiots in the armed forces calling themselves the “Jedi Council” (what, are they 13 years old?). And Howard Sattler’s disgraceful questioning of the Prime Minister, and Piers Akerman repeating it all on ABC tv.

And we have News Ltd reporting that a 15-year-old girl has attempted suicide and the geniuses there put the story in the GLOBAL GOSSIP section (I’m not linking to it). She’s a child, they shouldn’t be reporting it in the first place. For fuck’s sake, what the hell is wrong with people?

Then we have the decision by The Mirror to publish a fucking NINE image photo gallery of Charles Saatchi assaulting Nigella Lawson. In Australia, News Ltd and Fairfax both republished the images, thereby furthering her distress. Hopefully I’m not doing the same by writing about the appalling coverage. Dailytelegraph.com.au and News.com.au even went with a cutesy headline calling him “hubbie”. Didn’t ANYONE in those newsrooms say “hey, we’re just hurting her more if we publish the images”? Are their brains just painted onto the inside of their skulls?

This morning 3AW radio host Dee Dee Dunleavy called for a boycott of Nigella Lawson’s products unless she takes a stand against domestic violence. What. The. Actual. Fuck? By the afternoon she’d issued a clarification, saying she wasn’t calling for a boycott. But what else does “If you want us to buy your books and watch your shows on how to run our kitchens, then we need you to make a stand on domestic violence” mean, other than to say we’re not going to buy your stuff unless you do what we want, aka a boycott. And then issuing a clarification instead of an apology, which should have said “I didn’t realise that’s what I was saying but that’s what those words mean and I should never have put pressure on a domestic violence victim to be a public spokesperson and I am so very very sorry for what I said and I apologise to everyone”.

It never ceases to amaze me that people who use words for a living think so little about those words. Another example is the wording of the link to the images in Dunleavy’s post:

Dunleavy’s warning misses the point.

Trigger warnings are good. Shame there was a complete lack of thought for how distressing it might be to have the photos republished around the world.

Just because she is famous, doesn’t mean she “owes” us to be a spokesperson. In fact, at the moment we owe her. We owe her because we gawked at the photos. We owe her because all of the reporting is about her and not about Saatchi, just like it always is when Australian journalists report violence against women. We owe her because we’re writing opinion pieces and blog posts about her private hurt – this one included, and I don’t know how can I point at the coverage and yell THIS IS SO FUCKING WRONG without being just as bad as everyone else.

So. What do we do now? I don’t have any solutions but I do have a lot of swearing.

On the positive side, it’s a massive YES THE FUCK WE DO to everyone who says “Australia doesn’t have a racism and sexism problem”. It’s kinda hard to pretend it doesn’t exist now.

But on the negative side, I AM SO ANGRY AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

The casual misogyny of QandA

Did you see QandA last night? A bunch of supposedly intelligent people gossiping about the private lives and personal characters of women they don’t know. One woman was called a “tart” because of her job. Another was called a “floozy” because she was an ex-girlfriend. And in another charming moment, Barry Humphries referred to Gina Rinehart’s “neverending hole”. Which was applauded. Hoo hoo hee hee, how funny. This is how our “intelligentsia” discusses women and gee, doesn’t it make you proud?

You can see the episode on the ABC website. The transcript will apparently be up from 2pm today.

A lot of the blame for the stupid should be directed at Tony Jones and the QandA team. Firstly, for choosing questions like this:

Emelia Starbright asked via facebook: Why is Gina Rinehart so greedy?

Rinehart is a businesswoman. Her job is to make money. I don’t hear Andrew Forrest or Frank Lowy or Gerry Harvey or Harry Triguboff or James Packer or Ivan Glasenberg (the second richest in the country) being called greedy for doing their jobs. The lack of a culture of philanthropy in Australia is a serious issue, but that’s not what’s being discussed with this question about greed: Rinehart is rich, and she wants to make more money, how much does one woman need, she’s ambitious so clearly she is unhappy and maybe if she was a better mother then she wouldn’t need so much money.

And secondly, for encouraging the panel, one by one, to discuss Rinehart’s character. Like this, from David Marr:

Well, I think it’s a personal question, isn’t it, really? [And then goes on to be very personal] She’s the richest woman in the world and she’s humiliating herself and her family in the courts in order not to have to pay her children the money that is pouring into the estate so that she can control it and dole it out exactly as she wants. This is amazingly perverse behaviour. But as I understand it, behind it all lies this towering ambition to fund in her own right, to get up this immense iron ore mine, and for that she seems to be willing to appear as greedy as all get out, she’s willing to appear brutally cruel to her own family. And so she goes. There is a funny way in which huge amounts of money in some people don’t actually sate the appetite but make them crave more, it’s something about us human beings… There are ways of behaving when you are one of the richest people in the world, with a little more grace than she behaves, particularly vis a vis her own family, and she appears to display a quite remarkable wish to control every cent that goes through her hands.

I see David Marr is also lacking in grace.

Thing is, how the fuck would he – or any of us – know what goes on in the Rinehart family? There have been a few court stories published, but since it’s an ongoing case they don’t give the full picture. Perhaps Rinehart does want to be in charge of all the money? Perhaps the children are incompetent with money? Perhaps it’s just like any other family argument except that when you can afford lawyers, you say “fuck it, let’s get the lawyers”? The point is that we don’t know and it’s really none of our business what Rinehart does with her own money and this sort of character assassination of someone I’m pretty sure they have never met is pretty disgusting. Good on Jacki Weaver for saying, “I think we are getting a bit unkind about Mrs Rinehart” and trying to change the topic. But then Jones brings it back by asking Miriam Margolyes what she thinks of Rinehart, and she mentions Rinehart’s appearance and apparent lack of generosity. Obviously, being a big lefty, I do not support mining companies digging shit out of the ground without giving money back to the country. I do not support Rinehart trying to get out of paying for the pollution her business creates. And I certainly do not support the casual misogyny that’s encouraged on QandA every time they talk about women.

It’s funny* (*not funny), Marr was happy to say nasty things about Rinehart, but later comments that the “vicious” attacks on Cate Blanchett for “joining political debate” were “unfair”. The word you want here, David, is hypocrite.

And then we get into “no one’s sayin’ it but we’re all thinkin’ it: who’d believe a sex worker?” territory. From Marr: “I don’t really think we need the testimony of the tart”.

Then Humphries refers to Clive James’ ex as “some floozy”, and calls Craig Thomson a heap of names in order to get a cheap laugh. It’s all oh so funny.

And then a video question about how women have too much power and have emasculated men:

Newton Gatoff asked: G’day mate, in a country where women are the richest in business and most powerful in politics, has the Ozzie machismo lost its mojo on the international stage?

Directed at a man who dresses as a woman on the “world stage”. The question was rubbished by the panel, and quite rightly. So why waste our time with it, when I’m sure there were plenty of intelligent questions submitted for the show. I don’t know why I keep expecting QandA to be intelligent, because most of what I see certainly isn’t.

What should have been an interesting show because it wasn’t filled with politicians staying “on message” with their boring talking points (and I’m not the only person bored by that, since last night was the show’s biggest audience of the year), was dominated by misogynist drivel that was encouraged by the show’s host. The one politician on the show, John Hewson, just looked like he was politely tolerating idiots the whole time.

If Dermott Brereton and Ricky Nixon make dickheads of themselves and no journalists report it, will people stop caring about what they have to say?

I don’t know the answer to this question.

On the one hand, I believe we should call out sexism when we see/hear it.

On the other hand, they both clearly love the attention so perhaps we shouldn’t give it to them. After all, can you imagine how pissed off Kyle Sandilands would be if everyone stopped paying attention to him?

I’m writing about this: ‘I don’t do charity like that!’: Brereton under fire over sexist Facebook taunts:

Former AFL star Dermott Brereton insists he has the utmost respect for women despite sexually taunting an Age journalist on a publicly accessible Facebook page.

(I didn’t get a screengrab of it, but it was the main image on theage.com.au until Kevin Rudd quit as Foreign Minister from the safety of the US, in an announcement perfectly timed for the nightly news. Cynical, moi?)

Now, given the reason why most Australians would know the name Ricky Nixon, it was clear before this story that he has a problem with his judgement. And it’s not the first time Brereton has been in trouble for his comments about women. But what do we achieve by making this a Big Story when neither takes it seriously? And when it doesn’t seem to hurt their careers all that much. Sure, Nixon has had his agent accreditation suspended, but since he’s charging $1500 a head to watch a football game with him (and it was Suzanne Carbone’s column mocking him for this that brought on the comments from Nixon and Brereton), it’s pretty likely that people will pay it. He still has some influence.

I’m not suggesting we should ignore pigheaded comments by (vaguely) public figures, but I wonder if there’s a better way of dealing with it that might actually make them understand why comments like this are not cool.

Because the thing that makes me uneasy about the way this story is reported is that there are a lot of words repeating their obnoxious views, but only a few words directly saying their comments are wrong.

After all, if the story really was calling them on their terrible attitude towards women, it would start with the comments from AFL spokesman Patrick Keane that “From our point of view we absolutely don’t condone any such behaviour”, rather than “Brereton insists he has the utmost respect for women”. Keane’s comments are right at the very bottom. Many people wouldn’t have read that far.

So what we end up with – and sure, I’m contributing to this by blogging about it but I don’t know what else to do and besides, I’m not a major news website – is that we reinforce Brereton and Nixon’s world view that what they say is newsworthy and any repercussions will be short-lived.

I don’t have an answer for the question I posed in the heading. Yes, we should call out sexism. But I’m not convinced that reporting the sexist rubbish – verbatim and largely unchallenged – of a couple of idiots who probably thought they were having a private conversation, does anything more than give them a platform for their attitudes.

Older women are ugly, by Sam de Brito

Ah, Sam de Brito. Where would internet mockery be without you?

I haven’t read any of his columns in a while because, you know, I don’t like to read something and feel dumberer. But I saw the pullquote in the Sun Herald today – “One day I will surely be confused for my daughter’s grandfather” – and just knew it would be misogyny dressed up as enlightenment. And oh look, I’m right. The very first sentence:

There sure are a lot of old chicks having babies.

No mucking around eh, de Brito? Just straight in there. I can’t quite put my finger on why I find it so creepy, but it has something to do with viewing women as simply things to fuck. Even when women are carrying babies or pushing prams, he’s probably looking them up and down and working out which ones he’d root. Because that’s what calling women “chicks” is all about, isn’t it? Their fuckability. Or maybe that’s just me making assumptions about someone who tells us every Sunday what he thinks of women. (It’s beyond my understanding why a male writer with a dismissive attitude towards women gets a weekly column in a newspaper liftout aimed at women. It’s also beyond my understanding why newspaper editors think women are only interested in celebrity crap and fashion. They have meetings about how to attract more female readers, yet always think it’s something they have to add, rather than realising that what they’re currently offering is shit.)

In the second sentence he puts in a plug for what a good father he is – what a modern father – and then insults women again:

I know this because I’m an old dude who became a father last year and, when I’m out and about doing things with my baby, I see all these old chicks doing the same with their newborns; women simultaneously battling mastitis and menopause.

Um, Sam? You do know what menopause is, right?

Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with matching liver spots and maternity wear – actually, yes you are – or having crow’s feet and breastfeeding, because I’m no spring chicken and one day will surely be confused for my daughter’s grandfather.

Oh, pot kettle black. If you want to talk about sun-damaged skin and crow’s feet, Sam, I suggest you look in the mirror.

He then goes on to blah blah blah about how every person without children leads a shallow life because his own life was shallow until he became a father. It must be sad to have so little going for you that you only attract equally shallow people as friends. You know, I almost feel sorry for him.

For the first time, I saw my life not as a one-night stand but a continuum, where I owed the generation who followed protection and respect.

I do have to give him some credit. After all, it does take a particular type of skill to use what you see as your own character flaws as an insult to others. Like many other people without kids, I’ve still managed to learn that we have a responsibility towards others, particularly those younger than us. I guess that’s the difference between having empathy and respect for people you don’t know, and being a douchebag.

And then there’s something about how he thinks women “search for meaning in handbags”, which is a recurring theme in his writing and says a lot about what he thinks of women. And that makes me really sad for his daughter. One day, when she’s a teenager, she’s going to call him a sexist pig, and it will be true. Hell, he’s even put it in writing.

Misogyny, Sam de Brito style

Sam de Brito’s All men are liars column gives me the shits. It’s tired, it’s predictable, and it’s very clearly women-hating.

Today’s unsurprising offering in the Sun Herald is called Absolutely fatuous. Not sure if that’s referring to women, or to de Brito.

How’s this for a theory? The more obsessed a woman is with clothes, shoes and handbags, the more utterly barren her interior life.

This is going to be fun.

This is not to suggest all fashionably dressed chicks are completely vacuous – but what he means is, they probably are – or that conspicuous consumers of womens clothing cannot be “‘spiritual” in a yoga-class, lighting-candles-for-their-dead-nana, feng-shui kind of way – which means if you go to yoga, miss your grandmother and believe in ancient Chinese spirituality, then you’re an idiot with no spiritual life.

See, Sam’s read about Avis Cardella, a former fashion editor who wrote Spent, memoirs of a shopping addict, and figured he’d add it to his anti-women armoury. He uses an example of just one woman who shopped to take her mind off her life, to dismiss all women as “absolutely fatuous”.

And while pissing on his column is too easy, I’m going to do it anyway.

But is it possible to have one’s moral compass in working order and spend $2500 on a handbag or own 100 pairs of shoes?

Does this apply to a bloke who owns a $2500 bbq? I doubt it. Because that would be an essential item, right? Rather than buying one from Kmart that does the job.

Can you make a worthwhile contribution to humankind if you waste half your life glomming over “what people are wearing” photo spreads and heeding the utterances of Anna Wintour or Garance Dore?

Bwah har har, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel: Does this mean his All men are liars column is a worthwhile contribution to humankind?

Sam de Brito thinks all women are the same, and that’s what I have a problem with. (At least he seems to have stopped calling himself a feminist.) I know fashion editors who make monthly contributions to Médecins Sans Frontières. I know women who love shoes and also sponsor children through World Vision. I know women who won’t leave the house without a full face of make up, but who volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters. And just as de Brito uses one example to “prove” his point, I can use several to disprove it.

He then shows his elitist mentality by calling men who buy sporting memorabilia “truly sad members of my gender” and writes:

These are men so terrified of the void at their heart they fill it with statistics and arguments over who was the greatest goal kicker of the 1990s.

That’s one way of looking at it. The other way is seeing fans for what they really are: people who are really passionate about something. Is he really saying that having passion in your life makes you a spiritual vacuum? I hate sport, but I’d rather hang out a rugby league fanatic than with someone whose head is so far up his own arse he couldn’t smell a fart in a car.

Yes, there are many gals – gals? Who actually uses that word? – who know their designers and lead fruitful, productive lives, but I’m talking about the type of woman who actually believes owning a pair of hot pants and knee-high socks before anyone else will bring them happiness.

I challenge anyone to find someone who believes that being the first to own these things brings happiness.

He then says women with a “compulsive desire to shop” are simply “self-involved”. So, does this apply to anyone who does something compulsively, like, say, wash their hands, or is it just women who do things that Sam de Brito doesn’t approve of?

He then says something or other about dresses and shoes not being feminine, but I couldn’t be arsed working it out.

Oh, and I think he compulsively Googles himself, because “Sam de Brito” turns up in my search terms almost every freakin’ day. How embarrassing.

I wish I said that #2

The Bitch Who Roared has a Media Misogyny Watch, with some great points about Charlie Pickering and Dave Hughes on Ten’s The 7pm Project. Check it out. (Her blog, not the tv show). It finishes with a comment from iblamethepatriarchy so true that I had to put it here too:

After hearing the “interview,” which was clearly child abuse (she was there against her will), it occurred to me that the fuckwad was demonstrating to the girl exactly what will happen to her if she ever accuses a man of rape: She will be grilled about “other sexual experiences” in order for the defense to claim she really is just a slut who wanted it and therefore the man must be innocent. Her feelings will be of concern to no one.

And you know what? I reckon I’m done blogging about him. He’s so tiresome.