Friday 29th of March 2024

aussie conservative sludge...

sexists

One hundred years after women like Emmeline Pankhurst fought for women's equality, men cannot fully grasp women's inclusion in the professional world, writes Paul Donoughue.

In Australia, at the turn of the new year, you can pop into your local cinema and see Suffragette, a Hollywood-ised telling of the story of the suffragette movement, the sometimes violent struggle in Great Britain a century ago to grant women the vote.

Or, you can try something different: you can type "news" into your nearest search engine and find a few days' worth of conduct that - shockingly, 100 years later - feels eerily close to that period.

What a start to the year we've had, right, Men of Australia?

We enter 2016 minus a Minister for Cities, because he did not understand how to act around a female colleague. We start the first working week of the year with a Minister for Immigration calling a female journalist a "mad f**king witch" - because, presumably, she had the gall to do her job. And we start the year in domestic cricket with a Melbourne Renegades player openly propositioning a female sports reporter by the side of the pitch.

Who were the targets? A female diplomat, just doing her job. A female political reporter, just doing her job. A female sports reporter, just doing her job.

In none of these three instances did the women call for these men to be punished, let alone sacked. The female diplomat - whose privacy, the Prime Minister said on Monday, remains paramount, lest other women in her situation come to fear speaking out - made a formal complaint, quietly, through the appropriate channels. Samantha Maiden, a veteran reporter and clearly adept at the argy-bargy of political journalism, laughed it off on television the next day - and even included "mad witch" (expletive deleted) in her Twitter bio. And Mel McLaughlin, when the social media storm was brewing on Monday night, let Chris Gayle's actions speak for themselves.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-06/donoughue-a-poor-start-to-the-year-for-the-men-of-australia/7070222

 

Deutsch Frauen...

 

Blame the victims...

German and international media are fuming over attacks on around 90 women in the center of Cologne in the early hours of January 1.

They were allegedly robbed, molested and sexually harassed during New Year's celebrations by a group of over 1,000 men who were described as being of "Arab or North African origins."

Public outcry was quick to follow, with people taking to the streets as well as to social media, demanding that more be done to protect women and to make the streets of Germany safe again.

Although there is no indication that the perpetrators were linked to the recent influx of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the incident has inevitably sparked a massive public debate over the refugee crisis the country is facing, with people criticizing Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy, asking if Germany is now "colorful enough for her" or claiming that the attack is the result of a too permissive approach toward immigrants.

But the most astonishing comment of all came from no other than Cologne's mayor herself, Henriette Reker, who urged women to keep an "arm's length" away from strangers, so that "such things do not happen to them."

No, this is not a translation error; yes, it is 2016.

In fact, such a statement is not far off from telling rape victims they shouldn’t wear short skirts. It’s victim blaming in the most demeaning form. The implication is that the women in Cologne are themselves somehow responsible for provoking the assaults. 

read more: http://www.dw.com/en/opinion-go-ahead-blame-the-victims/a-18962917

 

See also: 

impressively collecting the majority of conservative voters in need of a voice...