''TOM-AYTO or tom-ahto, misogynist, misagynist'' - these were the Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce's somewhat baffling musings on the word of the week when he appeared on Graham Richardson's Sky News TV show on Wednesday night.

But, if some Australians had been unsure till now of precisely what ''misogyny'' meant, they were left in no doubt after this week's bitter exchanges in Federal Parliament.

The term, meaning hatred of women according to dictionary definitions, derives from ancient Greek roots - though the mind-set it describes no doubt stretches back to the dawn of human history. (Its opposite, misandry, or hatred of men, is also Greek-derived.)
...
Robert Brooks, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of New South Wales, also says the term should be used with some restraint.

''It is possible for people to abuse words like that and be McCarthyist about it - I don't think all sexism is misogyny, some is pure ignorance.''

Having said that, he feels Ms Gillard's fiery denunciation of Tony Abbott was ''justified'' - she had ''had enough and drew a line in the sand''.

The prominent feminist Anne Summers, who delivered a prophetic lecture several weeks ago titled ''The political persecution of Australia's first female Prime Minister", also believes Ms Gillard was right to push back against sexist denigration.

''We used to have an old expression back in the day that was quite useful - male chauvinism. It mightn't be hatred but it's the point of view that blokes should run the show.'' The term might be ripe for revival, she says.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/misogyny-its-still-all-greek-to-male-chauvinists-20121011-27fv3.html#ixzz292QYP9mZ

Gillard might be cheered and flattered by New Yorker managing editor Amelia Lester writing that ''After his performance last week, supporters of President Obama, watching Gillard cut through the disingenuousness and feigned moral outrage of her opponent to call him out for his own personal prejudice, hypocrisy, and aversion to facts, might be wishing their man would take a lesson from Australia.'' (The article became the most popular on the website.)

But the fact remains that Gillard did the wrong thing in embracing Slipper last year and again in resisting his ditching. She might have made a hero of herself to some feminists by flailing Abbott, but she betrayed feminism in trying to protect Slipper (that she condemned his messages is not enough mitigation). The clarion call that so appealed to those praising her was another confusing message for many who find her hard to read.

As Gillard and Abbott flew off late yesterday to today's Bali commemoration, each must have been unsettled by this week in the political gutter. It's hard for anyone to keep a foothold when walking in so much muck.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/misogyny-war-has-no-winner-20121011-27fm3.html#ixzz292caDIrg
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No. The fact does not remain... This is not a fact but an opinion... No matter how one looks around, Gillard did not do the wrong thing by "embracing" Peter Slipper... She did not try to protect Peter Slipper... There is a court case going on and too many things said are sub judice... And our PM's message was not "confusing"... If her message was confusing to you, you need stronger glasses, Michelle... or a hearing aid or possibly less "objectivity" which is your condemning of all in what I feel is Grattan's secret praise for Abbott...
I would suggest that Michelle Grattan re-watch the Prime Minister's speech IN FULL... Including the history of Tony Abbott associaltion with Peter Slipper and his own words of praise when Slipper became Speaker of the house...

Yes, Abbott would not know what muck and misogyny are, as he walks side to side with sexism everyday, as if he was on the road to Las Vegas... Jericho or Berlin... Unless he is escaping from Sodom in a hurry...

Julia Gillard can hold her head high... She did things on this issue as best as could have been done... On some other issues she is wrong, but let me say this, Tony Abbott is so wrong on ALL ISSUES that Tony can't even understand a simple electricity bill... Is Tony an idiot?

Tony Abbott is an Iddiott...

 

Hi Gus,

 

Misogyny, sexism, racism, chauvinism, ignorance, bullying, thuggery, harassment, abuse, fraud, theft, dishonesty, lies, deceit, betrayal, hypocrisy, high crimes & petty misdemeanors: with politicians all around us, what’s new?

As if this week’s outstanding contributions from Julia Gillard & Tony Abbott weren’t enough, we were treated to the sight of Julie Bishop rewarding ABC journalist, Leigh Sales, with her infamous stunned meerkat or ‘death stare’ routine, at the end of their 7:30 Report encounter.  

It would be easy to think that, in that one brief, shining moment, we had witnessed yet another classic example of the rusted-on misogynist mindset that seems to infect public life at every level, everywhere we look, although, some might argue that what we actually saw was a classic example of resentment, evidenced by someone who is simply not used to things not going their way.

Elsewhere, the bullying shoe was well & truly on the other foot, as well known NSW Labor MP, political thug & neanderthal, Luke Aquinas Foley, kicked his way through budget estimates, taking every opportunity to hector & demean ministers Jillian Skinner & Robyn Parker along the way.

To their credit, neither woman walked out; which is what I would have done.

A disgusting creature? Absolutely: but in the best traditions of Australian politics.

A misogynist? No.

Cheers,

John.

The two best Western economies in the world are run by women:

Germany and Australia....

EVERY time you think Tony Abbott has scaled a new height of hypocrisy he finds another Everest and climbs effortlessly to a still higher peak. Without oxygen.

His motion to dismiss the Speaker on Tuesday was mired in cant. It had nothing to do with Peter Slipper's lewd text messages and everything to do with Abbott's lust for power. This is the man who famously told the independent MP Tony Windsor that he would do anything but "sell my arse" to become prime minister and, ever since, has shown every sign that he meant it.

Abbott was prepared to trash parliamentary convention and the presumption of innocence before the law in his rush to wedge the government if he could. A vote to overthrow a speaker has never happened before. (Jim Cope, Gough Whitlam's first speaker, resigned in 1975 when he knew he had lost the confidence of the government.) But to hell with principle. So ambitious was Abbott, so ruthless, that the friend whose wedding he'd attended, whose counsel he had sought, a man chosen nine times as a Liberal candidate - was now to be collateral damage, so much cat's meat.

The Tories and their media claque howled blue murder when the government backed the Speaker in the vote but, repugnant though it was, it was the proper thing to do. Julia Gillard and her women ministers, especially, were clearly offended by Slipper's adolescent grot. But their support on the floor of the house recognised that the allegations against him remain untested while allowing space for him and his family to cling to some shred of dignity in his resignation.

In this they were helped - and the Parliament and the nation were helped - by Windsor and his fellow crossbencher Rob Oakeshott who, with typical tact and decency, privately convinced Slipper it was time to quit. Then, piling yet more humbug upon hypocrisy, Abbott announced he would be only too pleased to accept the wretched man's vote.

The Prime Minister's speech skewering Abbott for his sexism and misogyny was a ripper, rightly applauded around the world. Nice to see the Real Julia come out fighting.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/oh-for-a-glimpse-of-the-mum-i-knew-20121012-27i0m.html#ixzz297k0qBHt

 

FEDERAL Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop has called on PM Julia Gillard to withdraw her fiery comments made in parliament this week, in which she labelled Tony Abbott a misogynist.

"It is a vile slur, she should apologise to the women in Tony Abbott's life, and she should withdraw it,'' Ms Bishop said in a speech to the Liberal Party's Victorian State Council in Ballarat today.

Ms Bishop opened her speech - in which she accused the Prime Minister of hiding behind her gender - with an address directly to the party's female members and candidates.

"You are here because of your qualities, you are here because you've been judged on your merits, you are not (here) because you're part of a quota system, and the Liberal party is proud of you,'' she said, drawing rapturous applause.

http://www.news.com.au/national/deputy-opposition-leader-julie-bishop-demands-pm-julia-gillard-apologise-for-labelling-tony-abbott-a-misogynist/story-fndo4eg9-1226494914499

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Yes, Julie, Tony does not have to call on you to wash his shirts and iron the creases out of his budgie smugglers... You're doing it here willingly with blindness... Agreed, Tony may not be a full-blown misogynist, though he has said many things that would prove so... But is he an idiot who can even decipher an ordinary electricity bill, just to make a stupid silly point?... This proves 100 per cent Tony Abbott is an iddiott... 

And as for the paper trying to match pictures of Julie Bishop and our Prime Minister Julia Gillard, it's vile... chalk and cheese... And for the record some women love misogynists, the two are not exclusive...

And no, our Prime Minister is not hiding behind her gender... The mob on your side of politics have made oodles of reference to "her" gender in very nasty ways many times, over and over...  Unfortunately for your mob, she's proven to be a far tougher nut than Tony's nuts....

 

Some men have been in too many scrums, too many boxing matches, have beaten their heads against too many walls. Of all the words in the whole wide world, Tony Abbott chose - deliberately, it would seem - to use the word ''shame'' in his speech on the motion to sack Peter Slipper as speaker. Shame, with all the connotations Alan Jones wrapped around it clumsily weeks earlier, when referring to the Prime Minister's dead father. Abbott's use of ''shame'' made Slipper's description of women's private parts look positively eloquent.

When Abbott said this Parliament was covered in shame, he had both feet in his mouth and led with his glass jaw because people who throw punches or stones should not live in glass parliament houses. And the word was snatched from his mouth by Julia Gillard and shoved down his throat on Tuesday, in the most riveting, exhilarating, exhorting speech delivered in the house since Paul Keating hammered Hewson and Howard into submission on a daily basis. Gillard's speech channelled Margaret Thatcher, Germaine Greer and Martin Luther King jnr with the punch of Muhammad Ali.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/gillard-brought-down-the-house-20121013-27jmn.html#ixzz29DedyP7H

The gender gap in voting is especially interesting on two fronts. Gillard is the country's first female PM. And her arrival in power saw the re-emergence, in different form, of a gender divide that had disappeared.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/gillards-man-problem-20121013-27jul.html#ixzz29FAYK85r

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Wow!... That is bit rich... Why had the gender divide "disappeared?"... Good question you may ask...

The gender divide was always there, never "disappeared" but in a world ruled by men, the issue "did not exist" because it was suppressed by traditional gender lines... Clean up your glasses, Grattan and stop making excuses for the stupid behaviour of that rat Abbott...

If you don't know what I mean, go fly a kite... 

to all the defenders of tony abbott out there... including the bespectacled member of the press...:

 

They say the world has taken her out of context. That was not how I saw it. Abbott, speaking before Gillard, had accused Australia's first female Prime Minister of acquiescence in, even nurturing of, sexism and misogyny. By the time Gillard rose to speak, Abbott had changed the terms of the debate. It had a new context.

 

This is the key to Gillard speech... All of you morons accusing Gillard of "launching the sexism debate", YOUR Mr Abbott fired the first salvo without "thinking" (same as he explained his reiterating the "died of shame" comment) with the word "MISOGYNY'... Yes Tony fired the word MISOGYNY first...

He got done for a dinner rightfully buit since you've been trying to salvage his aura that got dented big time as it should have, you are showing you are just two bit dung beetles pen pushers and as someone responded to the dreadfully slanted (by trying to be "balanced" — my foot) article by Barry Cassidy:

"Political commentators are constantly called upon to be instant experts"

No, Barry, youse constantly shove yourselves in our faces. It's always the same tired cast of characters and, within certain parameters allowing for some variation, all of you always say essentially the same thing. It's nothing more than a fashion parade for the unfashionable and it's just as vacuous.

If you think your audience is as fascinated as you are by the minutiae of the Slipper affair, you're seriously, seriously out of touch with your audience.

The most important political story this week, the only political story this week, is our PM morphing into Lara Croft. The fact that you and your 'gallery' colleagues can't see it, is embarrassing. The fact you're still trying to dissemble your profession's deficient coverage with this article is kinda pathetic. 

If you and your opinionista colleagues want to see the red faces you need to look in a mirror.

Perhaps it's time to throw back to someone other than Barry et al.

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"Misogyny" and sexism was used by Abbott first when he accused Julia Gillard of it... So is the ABC asking us what do we think of Abbott's speech: NO!!!! That takes the cake of editorial control AND BIAS!!!