Feminism is a Distinctly Single-Edged Sword
http://video.au.msn.com/watch/video/9raw-the-circle-mocks-war-hero/xk30y8q
In case you missed it: Yumi Stynes, professional dick-head, recently described Victoria Cross winner Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith as ‘brainless’ in relation to a shirtless photograph of him in the pool. George Negus went on to ponder whether or not he was a ‘dud root’.
Here’s my question: what if I assumed this prim, simpering little twit was frigid because she appeared on television dressed like a Victorian school-mistress?
What if Dermott Brereton or the panel on The Footy Show ridiculed some Australian woman scientist on t.v. after she had been awarded a significant prize for finding a cure for cancer, or HIV, or cystic fibrosis? What if they proceeded to make degrading comments about her sexual prowess based on her appearance?
There would be some prim, snotty article published in everyone’s favourite broadsheet, that’s what.
There is a flagrant double-standard at work in Australia. This is our cultural climate.
N.B. In 2011, Stynes made comment about Saddam Hussein invading Baghdad. Brainless, indeed.
Theme Park at its Darkest 
March 3, 2012 at 8:16 am
Where this obvious double standard come from? What has caused the cultural climate against masculinity in men? The comments no doubt would have been quite different if he wasnt caucasian of course. I wonder if having the vast majority of the western female population being on artificial contraceptive hormones could have something to do with the underlying nastyness. In any case the problem exists and has become a cliche.
Heres some funny feminist bookstore skits.
March 3, 2012 at 11:01 pm
I think you are a talented writer, and I have enjoyed trawling through your entries. You are thought provoking and to the point. However, I don’t understand your point in this post. You don’t make it clear. The way I see it, both Dermott and Yumi made dumb comments about members of the opposite sex. Yumi’s was a snobbish remark regarding a war hero’s intelligence (it was George negus who brought up potential problems in the bedroom), and Dermott’s was a sexually offensive remark that was clearly punitive (a common theme in the football world if a woman dares insult their creed). Both ‘offenders’ copped shit from the media. I would say that Yumi copped more shit than Dermott did, particularly in regards to readers’ comments in the online press. Am i right to think that you are implying that women have more leeway than men when it comes to making offensive remarks?
More generally, feminist theory and male/ female interactions seem to feature heavily in your writing. However, from what i have read of your writing, you seem to be hung up on women not living up to the standards you have placed on them, which are the same standards you have placed on men (and I don’t mean that women should be treated with velvet gloves, or should have less expectations placed on them, rather that we are shaped by different forces and you don’t seem to take this into account in your reading of our differing styles of behaviour). And whilst you write about feminism from a male perspective a fair bit, you never write the stuff that women really care about (women, that is, living in a post-industrial context) such as us being far more likely to live below the poverty line then men are, that we make far less money than men, or that we are less likely to have decision making jobs, etc. I will also add that your extreme reaction to a girl pinching your bum is a great example of male privilege (http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/). Whilst you have a right to be annoyed and pissed off that someone crossed the line of your physical boundaries, I have to tell you that bum pinching is the least of many of our worries. It happens a fair bit, but it is not nearly as frustrating, not is it as serious, as many of the other set backs we face.