Sunday, October 14, 2012

Sexism, Misogyny and the Gillard Woman



We all know the speech. 15 minutes of lucid, clear and well-argued excoriation of a Leader of the Opposition who has been deliberately trying to undermine Prime Minister Julia Gillard's confidence and emotional self-control in the Australian Parliament's House of Representatives. Women around the world have listened to and watched the inspiring YouTube video of the speech. It is all the more powerful in that there are clearly strong emotions under tight control in Julia Gillard's landmark performance.

And there has been the inevitable backlash, a global backlash from conservative and mysogynist pundits, columnists and unlicensed public loud-mouths, male and female, decrying and seeking to minimize the importance of this landmark political event. For it is a landmark event. The 21st century's first major public statement that women have arrived in politics (again) and the ways of the past won't wash. Feminism is back, and it has teeth. 

Most of the anti-Gillard backlash has been focussed on two elements. The first is the hoary old chestnut that by playing the gender card, by crying foul when foul behaviour is evident is weakness. It's the feminine inability to stand up to rough politics and take it like a man. It's evidence that, by nature, women can't take it. That they really are weak, emotional and unfit for high office. That their opinions and actions do not matter. Abbott's Opposition has already labelled criticism of his sexist attitudes by female Government Ministers as the attacks of a "handbag hit-squad" in an attempt to trivialize and belittle their comments.

The second element is that 'playing the gender card' is a diversion from the real business of politics, that it's a sign of 'political' weakness, a sign that the issue of entrenched misogyny and sexist behaviour isn't a mainstream issue, it's trivial and irrelevant. Nothing could be further than the truth.

There is a direct and inextricable link between the politics of right-wing authoritarianism and male-dominated politics and political practice. Misogyny, an underlying contempt for women, is no different, in process and practice, than an underlying contempt for any group outside of traditional patriarchal politics. Gays and lesbians, immigrants, the unemployed, the elderly, any of Mitt Romney's 47% fit the paradigm. Which is where this all started in the first place.

When right wing shock-jock Allan Jones claimed that Julia Gillard's father had "died of shame" because of her "lies" he did more than cause offense. He handed Tony Abbott a nasty little meme to add to his already extensive bag of snide and vicious asides he has been whispering across the despatch box in an ongoing campaign to undermine Julia Gillard's confidence and self-control. The nation was rightly appalled at the original spiteful comment from Jones. That Abbot would pick up the cudgel and use several times to suggest the Government should "die of shame" was a low act by any standards. 

More importantly it was a behaviour that betrayed an underlying attitude.  A crude, sexist behaviour that would never have been tried with a male Prime Minister. It betrayed an underlying contempt for Julia Gillard as a woman, as any woman, who could be emotionally attacked and bullied. Not any politician who stands between him and the office of Prime Minister. Contempt for a woman because she is a woman.

Just by the way, how's that working out for you, Tony?

When Julia Gillard called out Abbott on this she was not playing the gender card, she was calling a spade a spade. When she denounced Abbott's vile, emotionally based tactics she made it clear that Abbott's sexist behaviour is evidence for his underlying attitude of contempt and mysogyny. It could not be more clear. 

No-one who saw the speech or who replays it on YouTube can deny it's accuracy and power and it's direct assault on misogyny as contempt. This wasn't a woman whining or complaining that he was "being mean" or "hurtful". It wasn't a woman complaining that it wasn't fair. This was a strong, determined and powerful woman making it perfectly clear that his comments were offensive, would not slow her down, and were utterly contemptible.

Jones and Abbott have done us a positive service. This what misogyny looks like. This is what misogyny sounds like. This is what we will not stand for, or put up with without calling out those who think they can bully women for the sexist, misogynistic scumbags that they are.

Tony Abbott may well love the women in his life, may well think of them with genuine respect, admiration and affection. That doesn't mean he isn't a misogynist scumbag in his dealings with the world, and particularly in his very public role in politics and in parliament. He had his first lesson this week that his behaviour betrays his attitudes and that he needs to change his ways, man up, and grow a pair.



Wednesday, October 10, 2012

How Free Is Your Free Speech?




Angry of Mayfair is currently in the USA and has been watching the Alan Jones "died of shame" melodrama from somewhere with a guaranteed right to free speech. 

The ugly exposure of Jones' cruel remarks at a Young Liberals smug-fest led to a horrified reaction and public backlash, an internet campaign and self-pitying claims of cyber-bullying by the offender. Now Jones and his defenders are 'outraged' by a satirical TV show and it's lampoons. It's a sad, but predictable, attempt at muddying the waters, because there are some facts about free speech that Jones and his ilk don't want you to think about (and they apply to every right-wing shock jock).

The first is this: When Alan Jones talks it isn't for free.

Alan Jones isn't employing free speech. He gets PAID to pour his divisive, misogynist, xenophobic, fear-mongering, dog-whistle politics into the ether. This isn't happening by chance, there's a great deal of profit to be had, both by his radio station and the companies who line up to advertise on it. This is about money. This is hate-speech for money, and lots of it. So let's be clear about how this works. 

Jones' appeal is simple. He's the lazy-thinking, public bar loudmouth who reduces every problem to one of them b@stards versus us good blokes. There are no problems that can't be reduced to a coin-toss of us decent, hard-working, struggle-street Aussies and our trickle-down millionaire exemplars of greed versus them. 

'Them' of course can be anyone different from us: Queue-jumping illegal-immigrant boat-scum, gangs of teenage ethnic dole bludgers who refuse to fit in; scary, angry Muslims who might be terrorists; castrating bitches who never shut up about equal pay and rape and abortion; socialist politicians who want to steal your money and raise your taxes; tree-hugging greenies who want to raise your taxes and steal your money, the list goes on.

The list goes on, but they all have one thing in common. They all demand that you think beyond your own short-term interest, that you show some consideration for another point of view, that you spare a thought for others. They threaten your right to be petty, greedy, self-absorbed and mentally lazy. Far better to just react viscerally and emotionally, to be one of us. Nice safe comfortable us.

The drunker you get the more sense he makes.

The point of this is that when you react with the knee-jerk greed-fear-hatred of the hind-brain you are easily suggestible. When your fear buttons are pushed you are far more likely to (a) lash out at the nearest, weakest target put in front of you, and (b) grab hungrily at what your greed response is presented with before the scary thing steals it from you.

When your emotions rule thinking goes by the board, and you"ll buy the next comforting lie and the next, and, of course, you'll buy the product that's put in front of you. Not immediately, of course, but soon, and the more you listen the more you believe, the better it feels to be one of us, to want the Mercedes Benz that shows us just how strong, brave and successful we are.

The profits from this fear-mongering, hate-mongering, greed-mongering retardathon are in the millions. That's not free speech under any rational definition. 

Real free speech is when 100,000 people use their laptops and iPads to say that they won't be part of the system that pays this pig a fortune to peddle his ignorant, right-wing, hatred and fear designed to keep people dumb, ill-informed, and reacting with emotion, buying with emotion.

Jones calls it cyber-bullying. It's not. 
It's free speech in action. 
Free, unpaid, private citizens speaking out. 

Free speech is the right of the unpaid, non-professional, private citizen to say NO to the paid propaganda of corporate greed, nationalist war-mongering and ugly, hate-spewing demagogues. 

We choose, as a society, to extend that right to journalists and news organizations so that we can guarantee that the truth gets told. That the public record is based on facts, not the spin of misogynist bully-boys.

That's the democracy of the 21st century. For the first time we have the technology to make immediate personal democratic opinion a player in the world. That frightens some people. "Mob rule" they cry as they cling to their comforting prophets of profit and complacency. The only rational response is to get involved, to think, to consider, to see another's point of view. Who knows, it may make the world a better place.