Ugh

Feminism, right? Sometimes, I think, we can get sick of talking about feminism, and hearing about feminism. Sometimes it's just exhausting, isn't it? Boring. We wish sexism and misogyny and patriarchy didn't keep getting raised. We'd like a break.

I feel this, I really do. I bet a lot of the people who spend a lot of time talking about feminism get sick of it sometimes too. Unfortunately, as much as we'd all like a break, it is difficult for feminists to take a break when every day some idiot goes and illustrates perfectly why they have to keep hammering away, because there is just so many more concrete-thick skulls to penetrate.

I was watching Q&A last night, and this really hit me with monstrous force, as I watched Kate Ellis MP attempt to answer questions and address issues in the face of some truly mind-boggling rudeness and disrespect from a sniggering bipartisan triumvirate of Lindsay Tanner, Christopher Pyne and Piers Akerman.

Now, in my opinion, in the area of feminism and gender relations, there are very many areas on which room for disagreement exists. I think reasonable people can differ on many issues without anyone being assumed to be stupid or bigoted. And you can disagree on all sorts of things. You can disagree with me, or anyone else, on women's portrayal in the media, or on women's dress, on affirmative action, on pornography or sexual freedom or sexism in the workplace. I would not necessarily think you a fool for taking a different position to mine on any of these issues.

But if you try to tell me that feminism's job is done here, that we are not still living in a society that is positively drenched in sexism, then I will laugh you right out of that cosy little cocoon you're snuggling up inside. Because if you're living in this world, and you think everything is cool, men-and-women-wise, you're pushing a line so obviously and directly at odds with the evidence in front of your face that you might as well be telling me that you just rode into town on a flying sheep.

Q&A seems such a minor, petty thing to focus on - and it is. It's a tiny drop in the sexism ocean, and there are sure bigger problems out there. But last night's episode crystallised so exquisitely for anyone watching the heart of the matter - the disrespect, the sneering condescension, and the hostility towards women from which so much inequality and injustice springs.

This wasn't a rowdy debate where everyone was talking over one another. This wasn't someone feeling so passionately about a subject he just had to break in to be heard. And this was not a case of one or two interruptions. This was interrupting, cutting off, and shouting down Kate Ellis pretty much every time she dared open her mouth, in a manner that couldn't have been more efficient and systematic if Tanner, Pyne and Akerman had got together beforehand and plotted the course of the evening out on a spreadsheet. This was Akerman preventing Ellis getting her point out simply by repeating the word "shadecloths" four or five times, as if that was a counter-argument that would shoot her down; or later on, breaking in to an answer she was giving on education in order to kindly tell her to go and talk to Margie Abbott. This was Ellis attempting to answer an audience member's question but being drowned out by Pyne and Tanner starting up a conversation about Downton Abbey as if she wasn't even there. And this was Pyne in particular (and this is pretty much his lifelong form line) talking over the top of the minister every single time she looked like getting near speaking her piece. It was a horrible display by three men who, according to all reports, claim to be grown adults of fully-functioning intellectual faculties. But in the presence of a federal minister whose views on a range of issues are actually quite important to the country, but who happened to be a woman, they could not find it within themselves to grow the hell up and act like decent human beings. And, what's more, host Tony Jones seemed quite happy to let them stomp all over the discussion like a pack of St Bernards tracking mud over a carpet.

Of course the other guest, US playwright Nilaja Sun, barely got to talk at all, although some of that could be put down to  most of the discussion being very Aus-centric: but when you have five guests, two of whom are women, of which one is barely allowed to talk, and the other has every statement swamped by the bellows of the swaggering Ox Chorus surrounding her, it paints a stark picture of how women are treated 'round these parts.

Bear in mind, again, this is a minister. Not just a woman who wandered in off the streets, but an accomplished, elected representative, in a position of considerable responsibility with significant influence on our government. Patronised and shut down like a schoolgirl answering back to the principal. It was, to put quite mildly, revolting.

And why did they do this? Because they knew they could. They knew that if you shout down a woman, you get away with it. Let's not pretend they would have acted that way if Bill Shorten had been in that seat - nobody's default setting is "disrupt" when a man is talking. What's more, they knew that Shorten would have fired back, and they knew that Kate Ellis couldn't without being painted as shrill and hysterical. Ellis knew that too - she knew the minute she rose to the bait, told someone to shut up, demanded to be given due respect, she'd be tagged a harridan, which is why she put in a performance of superhuman restraint and class, and emerged looking a more worthy person than those three men put together.

And this is not a Labor vs Liberal thing - Akerman and Pyne were repellent, but Tanner joined in the shut-up-girlie game with gusto. The Liberal Party seems to be captive at the moment to a particularly nauseating cabal of misogynists, but this cuts across the left-right divide. It's not even man vs woman - rest assured there are women who would have watched that show urging the men on to shut the mouthy bitch up.

I've said it before: the battle is between pricks and non-pricks. You're sick of hearing about feminism? Fine: let's not mention feminism. Let's drop the battle of the sexes schtick. How about we just talk about human decency? How about we talk about the ability to treat another person like a person, that ability that is sorely lacking in men like Akerman, Tanner, Pyne, Alan Jones, Tony Abbott...and on, and on, and on. How about we talk about looking at someone and not deciding, based on what they've got in their pants, that you're perfectly justified in treating them like a cross between an irritating insect and a disobedient toddler? How about we talk about, if this isn't too much of a stretch, a public discussion where how seriously you get taken doesn't depend on whether you're packing a penis?

Last night, we saw that the men who believe they have a right to power over all of us have zero tolerance for any woman trying to muscle in on their turf. We saw the clear, shining face of sexism. And those of us with a scrap of decency should be under no illusions: we're in a war here.

It's Time

In fact, it's past time, don't you think?

My friend gnomeangel has started the campaign, perhaps you should get on this bandwagon before it's too late!

C'mon!

Official Minutes

Did you miss the return of Q&A; last night? I bet you're kicking yourself and thinking you'll feel really left out in conversations for the next week and nobody will be your friend and probably you will die.

No need! I was taking notes the whole time, and here present my official Q&A; Recap/Cheat Sheet For People Who Are Too Lazy and Ignorant to Watch the Show.




It went like this:

The show began with host Tony Jones, as usual, in the central panel position, a mooted move to a hovering cage above the set having been scrapped in pre-production. On his right sat Catherine Deveny, in between Graham Richardson and Gerard Henderson, or what political scientists call "the Corned-Beef Sandwich Formation". On Jones's left sat David Williamson and Amanda Vanstone, an estranged couple from Mount Gambier looking to rekindle the spark in their marriage.

The show began briskly enough, as Jones went around the panel asking each member in turn whether they were a climate scientist. Having established that, in fact, none of them were climate scientists, a hearty sigh of relief was emitted by all and the contestants shook hands politely in preparation for the coming hostilities.

The first question was asked by a thickset man in traditional Burmese dress, and was addressed to Graham "Graho" Richardson: "How often do you buy new underpants?" Richardson responded with a baleful glare and some graphic hand gestures, and the show was genuinely afoot!

The applause having died down, another audience member now stood to address a question to Amanda Vanstone. "Who is looking after your dog?" the young lady asked pointedly. Vanstone responded that Tim Fischer had promised to look in from time to time, which drew audible gasps from the rest of the panel. Vanstone immediately winced, as if realising her tactical blunder too late.

At this point Deveny leapt onto the ceiling and demonstrated her spider-walk, which was warmly appreciated by all.

Tony Jones himself asked the next question, in his guise as "Ol' Mother Standish". "How do you sleep at night?" he asked the panel at large, forcing each member to climb onto the desk and demonstrate their bedtime poses.

Following this came another question from the audience, this time posed by a small fawn in the front row, who asked whether anyone on the panel had considered the possibility that our main problem was that Australia was too wide in the middle? Vanstone responded that she had always wanted to cut some bits of the country off, whereupon Deveny leapt upon her and bit off her lips.

At this point Williamson thumped on the desk and announced he had written a play that everybody had to perform. Titled "Betrayal: A Farce", the play followed the adventures of Stanley, an inept yet loveable fieldmouse, who travels to the big city to visit his cousin Yvette, but on the way falls in with a gang of disreputable roughnecks who dub him "Prince Otto" and force him to perform peculiar favours for them. When he gets to the city, Stanley discovers Yvette murdered by pirates and his childhood home converted to a bikini carwash, where he gains employment and quickly dies.

Gerard Henderson is to play Stanley. The play only lasted five minutes, but still surprised with the frequency and volume of the obscenities uttered.

Following the play, the entire cast took their bows, and Henderson returned to his seat, where he sighed heavily and gazed mournfully at Deveny for the remainder of the programme.

The next question came from a super-intelligent hivemind who had come to the show as part of a group of Young Liberals. "Why not crack down on the Spaniards?" it suggested jauntily. To this, Vanstone responded with a vague shrug, Williamson with a lengthy dry retch, Richardson with a clever balloon animal trick, Deveny with an explanation of how a Van Der Graaf Generator works, and Henderson with a poignant declaration that he was "the saddest little bear in all the forest". At this point Jones broke in to admit that he, too, had often thought of cracking down on the Spaniards, but feared reprisals from the shadowy cabal of industrialists and master-criminals to whom he owed his broadcasting career. Seemingly in a candid mood, Jones then lit up a spliff and waxed eloquent on the question of "just what is it all about, y'know?" After several minutes Jones fell down behind the desk, never to emerge for the duration of the show.

Seeing her chance, Deveny then declared herself moderator, and demanded that Vanstone "shake what her mama gave her", to which suggestion Richardson reacted with a loud whooping sound and a sinister brandishing of electric clippers, the purpose of which he refused to divulge.

A brief, violent struggle between the opposite sides of the panel then ensued, before the heaving mass of punditry collided with the camera, causing the show to be replaced by a blank screen for several minutes. When transmission resumed, Henderson was alone in the studio, rubbing linseed oil into his abdomen and crying softly to himself.

Then there the credits.