How YOU Doin'?

Brace yourselves: I want to talk about women.

Now, I love women. My wife is a woman. My mother is a woman. I have three sisters. I have two daughters. Some of my best friends -

Oh, sorry, I was accidentally reading from Being A Patronising Knobend For Dummies. I'll start again.

I want to talk about women. But maybe even more I want to talk about men. The reason is the discussion that I've seen swirling about due to this video:




Now I've seen a bit of debate about the value of the video itself, issues around the making of it and the purpose of it - I'm not going into that right here, right now. I mainly just want to talk about the subject that it raises, which is not a new subject or unique to the video.

I've written about the subject before, but it remains as relevant a subject as ever, and it remains as baffling to me as ever.

What I want to talk about is these dudes harassing women on the street. And by that I mean overt, aggressive harassment, catcalling, whistling, yelling of "compliments", insistently demanding attention from women who are just trying to go about their business...basically I'm talking about men who won't leave women the hell alone.

Now, my experience of this phenomenon is limited to things like that video, and stories told to me by lady friends. Because I don't see it happen. It certainly doesn't happen to me when I'm walking on the street - occasionally someone asks me for directions, and once an old man sat next to me at a bus stop and told me a story about the day he found his mother's corpse - but because I am a dude, and in particular I'm a real big scary-looking dude, I'm lucky enough that I just don't get exposed to it.

So I hear about it secondhand, and I find it unbelievable.

I don't mean that literally - of course it's believable. Just about every woman I know has direct experience of it - it happens a lot. But it's unbelievable because this behaviour is so absurd you'd really like to believe grown adult human beings would not have it in their repertoire.

I'm not saying it's the worst thing a man can do: obviously there are atrocities men are capable of far beyond what you see in the video above. But there aren't many actions a man can take that are more inexplicable than catcalling and street harassment. And if it's not the biggest issue facing us in the world today, it surely should be one of the easiest to fix.

So what I want to do is reach out to the men who do this and say: Why?

Why on earth would you do this? What the hell are you getting out of it? What does it profit you? Wherein lieth the enjoyment of this bizarre practice?

Imagine a drop-down menu of options. In each situation we encounter in life, we see such a menu, from which we may select what we want to do. When we're driving and we see a red light, our options are "Stop" and "Run the red". When we wake up in the morning, we a menu containing such items as "Get up and go to work", "Go back to sleep", "Call in sick and go play laser tag".

We'll get just such a menu when we see a woman on the street. But I am not asking here, "Why would a man choose 'Yell at her' or 'Tell her to smile' from the menu?"

I am asking, "How can these things even appear on the menu at all?"

How does it happen that acting this way is even an option for a man? Perhaps it is my crippling shyness and hatred of human interaction in general talking, but catcalling at a woman is as like to appear on my drop-down menu as "ram-raid the pet shop" is when I see a red light.

So how does it occur? How does a man reach a stage in life where harassing total strangers is one of the actions he's taken under consideration? I often see woman on the street. Often they are women who I find quite attractive. Quietly appreciating their aesthetic qualities is always an option. Attempting to inform them of my appreciation, demanding they engage me in conversation, or passing judgment on their facial expressions never is. Never has been. I would be mortified to even think of doing any of these.

So am I the weirdo, or are they?

A lot of men will say they're just giving women compliments, just saying hi, just trying to be friendly. Furthermore, they will say, it's no big deal anyway, is it? It's harmless. And if women don't like it, they can tell the men involved to faff off.

OK, cool. Indeed it is likely that in most cases these men are not violent psychopaths. It is likely that in most cases there will be no harm done. And if a woman does feel moved to tell a man to faff off, I'll be the first to applaud that lady's actions.

But when a total stranger is accosting you in the street, how the hell are you to know what their intentions are? How are you to know what their reasons for "just saying hi" or telling you you're beautiful are?

Say you're at a party. You walk up to a woman by the punch bowl and strike up a conversation. Unlikely to cause too much consternation. Because it's a party, Striking up conversations is what people do at parties.

It's not what people do on the street. A person trying to strike up a conversation with you while you're just walking along minding your own business is, and I can't stress this enough, WEIRD. There's no context here to make this approach understandable. There's no party, no workplace, no speed-dating night. When a stranger comes up to you on the street and demands your attention, no matter how "friendly" they seem, the question that must come to mind is why are they doing this? And having to ask that question is likely to creep you out. And when you're creeped out you are more likely to want to double your speed and get to safety than you are to want to make small talk with the oddball.

And that's not even getting into the question of the times when it's pure, blatant, unashamed aggression from the man. Which it clearly often is. What I'm saying is, a man interrupting the day of a woman he has never met for no apparent reason is liable to look pretty aggressive no matter what he thinks he's saying.

So why would you do it? Are you just plumb out of ideas about how to meet women? Has your eHarmony membership lapsed? Do you have the world's lowest threshold for entertainment? Did your mum tell you as a child that you were so special that every woman in the world owed you a chat? Do you have an oddly situation-specific strain of Tourette's Syndrome?

Please note what I am asking. I am asking WHY? This is important, because a lot of men are defending this behaviour by saying it doesn't hurt anybody, and so on and so forth. No big deal, no harm done, no need to smear decent men by suggesting nefarious motives behind it, etc etc.

But let's say that's all true: it still doesn't explain why you'd do it. I can see no rational explanation for calling out to strangers in public at all, be it compliments, obscene suggestions, or weather reports. I simply do not know why anyone would want to.

But my confusion grows exponentially when you take into account the fact that women all over the place have clearly stated they don't like it. Women subjected to it react in a way clearly indicative of the fact they don't like it. Whether it is causing serious harm, whether every woman thinks the same way, it's inarguable that many, many women are made at the very least uncomfortable by men doing this.

When you add this to the fact that there is no rational reason for doing it, it surely adds up to behaviour that is perverse to the point of derangement.

So I just ask men, what are you getting out of it? Please tell me. I need to know, what's the pay-off here? Because right now, it seems as if you are bothering people, interfering with their lives, annoying, harassing and intimidating them, in defiance of the obvious fact that they want you not to, for no reason at all. Right now it seems as if there is no pay-off at all, beyond the opportunity to upset a fellow human being.

And if that's the case...

I can only assume that you are doing it because you don't consider these people fellow human beings.

I can only assume that the urge to harass women on the street - an urge which strangely deserts you when it's a man you see walking by - is the same urge that causes people to tease animals.

I can only assume the pleasure you're deriving from your catcalls and your "hey beautiful" and your "give us a smile love" is the vicious pleasure of laughing at the discomfort of a lesser life-form.

I can only assume that you've divided the world into "people" and "women", and one of those groups is here to share the world with and one of those groups is here for your amusement.

In the end, I can only assume that you need to grow the fuck up.

Girlie-Man or Corr-Man? You Decide

If there is one thing that makes me angry, it is a good man's words being twisted and used against him. Luckily, there is actually more than one thing that makes me angry, or my conversation would be extremely monotonous. Nevertheless, this issue is a burning one that sticks in my craw like a collar in an uncoordinated cat's mouth.

Let's look at Senator Matthias Cormann.

Now let's stop looking at him.

Instead, let's THINK about Senator Matthias Cormann, about what he represents, what place he occupies in the modern Australian dialectical discourse. Let's not get bogged down in semiotics, but rather let's examine Matthias Cormann from all sides and make up our own minds about what he symbolises for a culture in crisis.

To put it another way, he has a pretty funny accent.

But forget about the accent for a moment: making fun of people's accents is a big part of being a progressive, but it's not the only part. It's what they SAY with those accents that is the important part, and what Matthias Cormann has said with that hilarious accent is this:

"Bill Shorten is an economic girlie-man,"

This has caused a furore in some circles, as it as been seen as an attack on women, an attack on equality, an attack on our children's futures, and by some even as an attack on Bill Shorten.

But is it really such a terrible thing to call someone "an economic girlie-man"? Let's unpack this, shall we?

First of all, the derivation of girlie-man: etymologically, the term originates in the two separate words "girlie", meaning resembling or bearing characteristics of a girl; and "man", meaning a person who is a man. So we can assume that Cormann was saying that Shorten is a man who in some way resembles a girl.

Our starting point must be to determine the truth value of this assertion. So let's look at Bill Shorten:

How much does he resemble a girl? "Not very much," you might say. BUT what if you look at him from this perspective?

Well. Doesn't THAT put a different complexion on things? Can anyone who has seen the above photo truly say that there is nothing in Cormann's assertion?

But what of the broader implications? Is it true that, in using "girlie-man" as an insult, Cormann is demeaning women by suggesting they are weaker and less capable than men?

I say, not at all. Because let us be clear, Cormann did not actually call Shorten a "girl", That would, indeed, have been reprehensible - to suggest that being a girl precludes one from being an effective leader is disgusting. To suggest that any girl is as bad at her job as Bill Shorten even more so. I have personally known many girls, and watching them burgeon into womanhood is a very different experience than watching Bill Shorten burgeon into Shortenhood.

Also, Cormann did not call Shorten a "man", which would obviously have been slanderous.

What he called him was a "girlie-man", and that is a horse of a different flavour.

Think of it this way: a dog can be a very useful thing, and a tractor can be a very useful thing, but a dog shaped like a tractor? That is entirely different. 

What Cormann was saying was that Shorten is a kind of tractor-dog, a hybrid of two things that are excellent in isolation, but when combined lack a certain something. You might like girls, and you might like men, but is a girlie-man something you'd like? Probably - it sounds like a lot of fun - but is it someone you want in charge of the economy?

After all, remember the old song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". Maybe a girlie-man doesn't just wanna have fun - maybe they do have other interests - but there can be little doubt that they will probably be a little bit more frivolous than what you'd ideally like in a person whose duties will necessarily include stamping repeatedly on unemployed people's faces. 

Is Matthias Cormann sexist? Well, if it's sexist to suggest that an economic girlie-man is not the sort of tractor we want ploughing our kennels, then sure, he's sexist. But if it's sexist to not suggest that women can do anything they want without fearing that they won't be criticised for not being men if they're genuinely not as good at their jobs as another woman might be if she wasn't not a man, then I'd say that the answer is clear for all to see.

To sum up:

Girls are good. Men are good. But girlie-men are girlier than is ideal, and manlier than a girl should be. And saying so isn't as bad as you think even in a weird accent. Not that having a weird accent should ever be acceptable.

Thank you.

ABORTION! Now that I've got your attention: abortion

OK. Fine. Right. Abortion, yeah?

I don't really like writing or talking about abortion, because...well, who does? Anytime you express an opinion on abortion you're likely to get someone calling you a monster or a Nazi or demanding to know how YOU would feel if you'd been aborted, and then you have to give them a lesson about logic and it goes on and on forever.

But look I've been thinking about abortion, and much like a mushroom sprouting from soil, an opinion has burst out on top of my head, so feel free to pick it.

The reason I'm thinking about it is because it's in the news a bit lately. Tasmania has introduced a bill to finally decriminalise abortion, and there is a bit of speculation swirling regarding the fact that in Victoria, the Liberals rely on the vote of rabid pro-lifer and perks-enjoyer Geoff Shaw, and that if Tony Abbott becomes prime minister he may have to rely in the Senate on the DLP's pro-life, pro-insanity Senator John Madigan.

So it's a bit topical. And really, it's always topical, because there are always people who won't let go, and keep trying to wind the clock back.

But here is the thing: I feel like a lot of the arguments go in the wrong direction, and they tend to go in the wrong direction because the anti-abortion lobby knows just which buttons to push. I think there is a line of thought which is not used often enough, and this is important because to me the real battle to defend abortion rights isn't in trying to convince pro-lifers to change their stance, but in the big middle ground of "don't-knows", the people who maybe haven't put much thought into it, but are ripe for the convincing by a pious-looking politician with a sincere-sounding speech.

First, we have to recognise that "pro-lifers" fall into two broad categories: real pro-lifers and fake pro-lifers.

The real pro-lifers are a minority - most "pro-lifers" are faking it. Real pro-lifers are the people who genuinely believe conception is the beginning of, not just life, but personhood. They sincerely believe that a foetus is a person with all the concomitant human rights that you or I have, and that aborting a foetus is the same as killing an actual child. They really believe the rubbish they spout about "the rights of the unborn child", and they won't listen at all when you point out that this is an oxymoron and there is actually no such thing as an "unborn child", given a "child" is someone who has been born. They also won't listen if you tell them that abortion can't be "murder" because murder is by definition illegal. Basically they won't listen to anything, so it's pointless to even try with these people.

And that pointlessness is, in fact, the point. The REAL pro-lifers are batshit insane. These are the ones who end up bombing abortion clinics and shooting doctors, and why wouldn't they? If you heard that down the road there was a government-sanctioned facility where doctors were shooting five-year-olds in the head, wouldn't you say some pretty extreme measures were needed to stop this? Wouldn't you, even if you lacked the courage to directly attack the child-killers yourself, heartily applaud those who did? How could you look negatively upon someone who stepped in to prevent children being slaughtered?

Well, that's how real pro-lifers see it. They are insane, and therefore their insane actions seem perfectly reasonable. And so naturally, there's no point trying to reason with them. They're fringe lunatics: we don't need to argue with them, we need to ignore them.

But then there are the fake pro-lifers. These are the ones who claim to be concerned about "the rights of the unborn child", but when faced with what is purportedly a nightmarish holocaust of kid-slaughter, say things like "safe, legal and rare", or demand that Medicare funding be removed.

I mean, imagine! Imagine believing that children are being murdered, but wanting it to be "safe, legal and rare"! Imagine saying, "Child murder is OK, but don't use taxpayer's money on it"! Come on.

Look at the debate that flares sometimes over instances of rape or incest. If you genuinely believed that foetuses were people, how could you make exceptions for rape or incest victims? "I don't think we should kill children except when their father's a rapist - babies need to be punished for that!" Please.

But a rape-incest exception, in fact, betrays a fake pro-lifer for what they are: a woman-punisher. The reason many "pro-lifers" are willing to entertain exceptions is because those exceptions deal with women whose pregnancy is not their fault.

And there is the key. The vast majority of "pro-lifers" are frauds who are simply out to punish women for having sex. They don't care about the "unborn children", or else they'd be marching with burning torches in the streets, storming abortion clinics daily. They will say their concern is for the poor dead babies, but then they'll go ahead and push for measures that allow abortion, but make it more expensive and difficult for a woman to access. Or they'll push to make it illegal, but exempt those women who came by their condition through "no fault of their own".

It is quite clear what these people are about. They are about ensuring that women don't "get away with it". They are about ensuring that if a woman DOES have the irrepressible audacity to have sex, she damn well better suffer for it. Either through a pregnancy or making abortions so difficult, expensive or dangerous that it turns her life upside down. The important thing is that women are made aware that their sin will not go unpunished. The important thing is that women NEVER feel free to enjoy sex without the threat of dire consequences.

And so what I say is, let's call these fake pro-lifers out. Every time a politician or a commentator or an activist claims they want to stop the killing of unborn babies, let's point out just how hypocritical they're being. Let's point out that if all they're willing to do is talk about it, call for cuts to funding or reductions in the numbers, they surely cannot be serious about considering these to be actual children.

And let's make sure those in-betweeners who haven't made their minds up and are just now looking curiously at the issue realise that the "pro-lifers" they see in the papers and on TV are full of disingenuous and malicious cant, and that if you want to be a pro-lifer, you can either join the lunatics or the liars.

Call 'em out, guys. The only way to make sure women retain control over their own bodies, is to make sure the other side doesn't get away with pretending that's not the field we're fighting on.

Let's Have It All

Remember when Freddie Mercury sang "I want it all"? It wasn't very good, was it? Killer Queen was a much better song. Luckily, though, Freddie Mercury wasn't a woman, or else he might have been "tying himself in knots" over the question of having it all, apparently, according to the Daily Telegraph which opened its interview piece with Julie Bishop with the assertion that this is what women do when considering the matter of all, re: having it.

OK, so first of all I am going to question the truth of this knot-tying claim. I know quite a few woman - in fact some of my best sisters are women - and I've never seen them tie themselves in knots. In fact I've never seen them tie anything in knots: is that weird? I wonder if they know how to tie knots. But I digress.

First of all, I want to see some cold hard figures on how much time women spend worrying about whether they can "have it all". In my experience, if there's one area in which women are a lot like men, it's in the area of not spending vast swathes of their lives fretting over what percentage of all they can have, instead choosing to get the fuck on with life. And if there's another area in which women are a lot like men, it's in almost every other area there is, so maybe we, as a species, can ease back the throttle on this wacky battle-of-the-sexes bullshit we've been punching ourselves in the face with for the last ten thousand years.

Secondly, tell me what "it all" means. Some have told me it means having a great career and a nice family and a good place to live and a bunch of nice stuff; in other words, "it all" just means "being happy". In which case, yeah I guess women CAN have it all. I think there are happy women out there.

But no, I don't think that's what it DOES mean, when someone in the so-called media refers to "having it all". Let's not spend too much time interrogating ourselves over the exact meaning of our idiom when we all have a basic shared understanding of what we're talking about.

Essentially, when we talk about women having it all, we're asking whether the mum who's waiting after school every day with a tray of cookies can be Julia Gillard, and whether Julia Gillard can be the cookie-mum. We're asking whether Gail Kelly can run a multi-billion dollar financial behemoth and still never miss her kids' soccer games. We're asking whether Nicole Kidman can win Oscars and be back from the ceremony in time for school drop-off.

We are asking, in essence, can a woman scale professional peaks without giving up their natural, Jesus-assigned roles as primary caregiver and lactating nurture-queen?

Or to put it perhaps more cynically, can a woman avoid our disapproval for abandoning her traditional role, while simultaneously absolving us of any blame for stopping us from living the life she wants to?

Can, in the end, a woman, so to speak, have, when you get right down to it, it all?

No.

Look I don't want to make you pull out your hair and throw yourselves into bonfires, but Julie Bishop is right. Women can't have it all.

Know why?

Because nobody can.

You know men? You've probably met some. They're those women who sweat more than usual, and for some reason never ask whether they can have it all. People often think men don't ask that because they already know they CAN have it all.

No.

Men don't ask whether they can have it all, because they already know they can't. Or at least they should. They probably don't because they're morons, but if they thought for a second they'd know I'm right. So, guys - think, OK?

Nicola Roxon recently announced she was quitting politics, because she didn't want to sacrifice time with her children for the sake of her career. She found it impossible to "have it all", so she had to make a choice: miss out on some of the benefits of parenting, or miss out on some of the benefits of politicking.

She didn't have to make that choice because she's a woman, she had to make that choice because she's a human being. Every man in politics makes that choice too. Yes, indeed - when a man decides to head to Canberra, he's deciding to absent himself from his family for big chunks of time, just as a woman is.

When a man decides to put in 16-hour working days to make his business grow, he's slicing those hours off the time he has to be with his kids, or off the time he has to HAVE kids, or a decent relationship, or any other trappings of domesticity he might want.

When I decide to write article after article and book after book, and go out to tell jokes to strangers, I'm choosing to pursue my career instead of play with my kids. And when I decide to turn down those opportunities because I want to play with my kids, I'm handicapping my career for the sake of my family. And when I decide to work three or more jobs at once, I'm desperately trying to strike the right balance so I can have a little bit of both worlds, instead of throwing in the towel on one front and storming full-bore at the other.

What I'm NOT doing is committing myself 100% to my career AND committing myself 100% to my family, because that would involve a denial of basic mathematics, and I would consider that a gesture of unforgivable rudeness towards the numerical community.

I can't have it all. You can't have it all. None of us can have it all. Our lives are about chasing happiness, not some insane regretless Shangri-La of personal fulfilment.

And that's why "can women have it all?" is a dumb question, based on a moronic premise and infused with the half-witted artificial gender divisions that have been making us miserable throughout history. And I object strongly to the question's existence in our public discourse, let alone the myriad attempts, both by those propping up their own vested interest in keeping the question current, and by those gullible enough to be fooled into believing it's in their own interests to keep trying to answer it. And here's why.

Firstly, as I briefly alluded to above, it's a question with an ulterior motive. The question is asked in order to position "having it all" as a desirable goal for a woman, and it positions it thusly to achieve the twin goals of making women feel ashamed if they don't behave the way a nice girl should, and to make society feel better about standing in the way of women with ambition. We're talling you that you SHOULD be trying to have it all, and so if you're a less-than-perfect mother, you've let us all down, lady; and at the same time if you're finding you can't make your way up the greasy pole, it was nothing to with us - we WANTED you to have it all.

So Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop are unnatural for not having kids, and Nicola Roxon just couldn't hack the pressure.

But here's the other side of that: as I said, nobody is asking whether men can have it all. It's assumed that a failure to achieve total contentment in every facet of life is a uniquely female problem. But as I also said, that is patently not true. Yet every time the subject comes up, it's only women who are apparently struggling with this.

And why is that? It's because it's assumed that it's easy for men to have it all, because it's assumed that men don't care about the things they have to give up. It's assumed there's no tension between family and career for a man, because family is something men don't care about. You're working non-stop and your kids are in bed by the time you get home every night? You're always away from home on business and only see your family a few days every month? Your wife is practically a single parent because you just can't afford to stop? As a MAN, that must be exactly what you want!

And so, we are told, men breezily go about having it all to their heart's content, because whatever bit of "all" they don't have won't matter to them. They'll leave the domestic guff to the ladies, because that's what "having it all" is to a man. The ladies, of course, won't be able to have it all, and shame on them.

If this situation is reversed, of course, the woman jetsetting off to a high-flying career while the man keeps the home fires burning, nobody's having it all. The woman was supposed to be able to do both, because of her magic vagina, and the man might as well have a vagina of his own if he's going to go about acting like a woman.

And there you have it. Women can't have it all because they're not good enough: men can have it all because they don't give a shit about their families.

And so know this, social commentators and cultural pundits, armchair philosophers and tabloid sexperts: every time you push the question "Can women have it all" out into the public consciousness, you're being sexist in two directions at once and letting us all, men and women, know that our hunch was right: we should all be hating ourselves as hard as possible all the time.

So for fuck's sake, you guys, stop doing it.

A True Larrykin

If there is one thing I love, it's a larrikin. Know what I mean? A good old-fashioned, mischievous, good-humoured, larrikinish larrikin, the kind of larrikin that made Australia what it is today: i.e. a country full of larrikins.

The trouble, of course, is that although this country is full of larrikins, we are ruled over by a bunch of decided non-larrikins. Our politicians are all so soft and wishy-washy and feminised they wouldn't know larrikinism if it jumped up and shoved a sugar glider down their pants.

Our media is decidedly non-larrikinish too. Michelle Grattan is a poor excuse for a larrikin. And with the best will in the world, I think you'd have to concede that Ross Gittins is very far from being the intellectual heir of famed SCG wag "Yabba" Gascoigne. In fact, the entire press gallery is not the intellectual heir of famed SCG wag "Yabba" Gascoigne, and it seems a bit of a shame that the media watchdog is so obsessed with so-called "cash for comment", and never gives the slightest thought to redressing the lack of "Yabba"-resemblers in our media landscape.

However, we need not immerse ourselves entirely in gloom, because there is one man willing to stand up for tradition and patriotism and not-climate change left in our great nation, and that man is Larry Pickering.

Pickering has been one of our greatest larrikins for decades, of course, his larrikinish cartoons bringing joy to millions and keeping alive the larrikin flame that has been burning bright since Gallipoli, when the Anzacs staved off the horrors of war with cheeky japes and drawings of Billy Hughes's cock.

It is in that tradition that Pickering continues to hold the "stuffed shirts" to account on his website, and in particular in brave, truthful-yet-larrikiny pieces like this one, in which he exposes the monstrous threat to our democracy that is Anne Summers and her radical femo-socialist agenda, finally pricking that balloon of man-hating, excessive body hair and mandatory lesbianism that has been hovering over the great southern land ever since Paul Keating rammed through legislation that allowed women to exit buildings.

In the best larrikin tradition, of course, Pickering is not a vindictive man. He is slow to anger, but sharp as a tack and full of boisterous and wittily logical argumentation when roused, and this was no exception. As he writes:

I had never heard of a person called Ann Summers (not sure Ann is with or without an "e" and I couldn't care less really) until she said somewhere that my scribblings were responsible for Jill Meagher's murder.

See how he first demonstrates how he is the bigger man - he had not even heard of Summers, because he has better things to do, like defending our democracy. He emphasises how far above the pettiness of the world by indicating that he doesn't even care how Summers's name is spelt. This is a good sign of a lofty mind.

But then we get to the nub: the reason why any man of good conscience would speak up at this point: Summers accused Larry Pickering of being responsible for Jill Meagher's death.

What's worse, she did it "somewhere": if there is anything worse than a woman who calls an innocent man a murderer, it is a woman who calls an innocent man a murderer in an indeterminate and ill-defined location. Luckily, I've sleuthed a tad and found out exactly what Summers said in this disgraceful smear. Her words are as follows (be warned it is fairly strong stuff):

I just saw television footage of thousands of people walking in a peace march along Sydney Road past Hope Street to honour the memory of Jill Meagher. It was a beautiful sight and a powerful reminder that for all the Alan Joneses of this world, most Australians are decent honourable people who are disgusted by this culture of vilification and violence.

I'm sorry I had to put that on the blog, but you had to know how depraved "radical womanhood" (god Pickering has a way with words) can get. Look at that paragraph. "It was a beautiful sight" she writes. "Most Australians are decent honourable people". "I just saw television footage".

VOMIT.

We know what you're saying. You can couch in separatist anarchist neo-Greerist psychobabble all you like, Ann(e), but when you write "disgusted", we can read between the lines: you are saying that Larry Pickering murdered Jill Meagher. We're onto you. What a revolting accusation.

But all good larrikins know how to make freedom-lemonade out of feminazi lemons, and Pickering does so by taking the opportunity to expose the misandry and harridanism at the heart of public life. Having gone to notorious communo-hotbed "The Drum", a website run by the ABC Politburo, Pickering found more of Summers's "work". Like any red-blooded larrikin, Pickering "couldn't bring myself to read it closely", and who could blame him? But reading things is unnecessary to identify radical agendas - indeed it can be counterproductive. The important thing is that in his article he draws, with uncanny plausibility, a direct line between Summers, her big fans Christine Milne and Lee "Uncle Joe" Rhiannon, the plummeting value of Whitehaven Coal shares, Tanya Plibersek's husband-fronted drug operation, child sex, drink-driving, fraud, and prunes. It's a vast conspiracy and it takes a journalistic mind of remarkable acuity to pull it all together so neatly, but that's what Pickering has done, and it's a relief to us all I'm sure that he's manning the parapets as Castle Australia is assaulted by this army of green red pink warmenist homosexual vagina-owning orcs.

And it's those aforementioned prunes, the ones clogging up Summers's reproductive tract, that as Pickering notes, are the whole problem, as they have led to this she-beast breathing fire all over our constitutional rights and causing us to not only have to stand an "elected" prime minister with ill-fitting jackets, but also enabled the violent, financial and sexual crimes of the modern Australian Labor Party. Thanks a lot Anne, you armpit-hair-encouraging, child-molester-enabling, economy-destroying, lipstick-flaunting "writer". You have wrecked Australia and now we may as well live in Afghanistan, if it's not already infested by all the feminists which Larry Pickering's blog commenters wish to send there.

So all power to you, Larry Pickering. You are not only a savvy journalist and a masterful artist, you are a patriot, a freedom fighter, and most improtantly, a larrikin of rare note. Don't listen to those who wish to silence you, who wish to repress the truth. Don't listen when they tag you "sexist" or "misogynist" or "racist" or "insane" or "a bankrupt serial conman" or "a sad old derelict sniggering at his own dick-pictures" or "a rambling maniac who can't even concentrate on one thing for the five minutes it would take to compose a coherent blog post".

Don't listen to any of them, Larry. We TRUE Aussies know what you are, and we salute you for it. As your loyal reader "gungit" notes:

"Why is it all the ugly woman are so prejudiced?"

Exactly. EXACTLY.

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.

Alan Jones - A Male Life

Alan Jones was born a male man in Queensland sometime in the early twentieth century, and enjoyed an idyllic childhood in the sunny Australian outback, where he learnt all about life from observing animals on the Jones family farm. In particular, he noticed that there were some differences between male chickens, horses and pigs and female ones, in that the female ones tended to be incompetent, lazy, and funny-smelling. It was these early, formative agricultural experiences - along with the time a shelf full of feminine hygiene products collapsed onto his head at the chemist - that forged within him a steely desire to change the world for the better by standing up against injustice/womanhood wherever he might find it.

Alan rescuing a friend from feminist dog-eaters

It was this zeal that led him first to a career teaching things to young men. A student of his from this period remembers:

Alan was always teaching us things, as young men. He instilled in us the values of youth, and of manliness, and of being youthful and manly. "Never be an old woman," he used to say every day, and it frankly got a bit repetitive. But there's no doubt he taught us things, and without him those things may have gone un-taught. I never observed an inappropriate behaviour on his part, unless you consider wandering the school grounds at night in his pyjamas, firing a shotgun into the air and daring the feminists to "stop hiding like rats and come out and fight him face to face" to be inappropriate.

However, school life became stale and uninspiring for Alan, and a traumatic experience at an Easter Parade, when he was run over by a clitoris-shaped float, sealed his decision to enter the world of sport and become a rugby coach, where he could thrive in an especially manly environment.

Alan being attacked by a vagina

It was in rugby where he really thrived, leading the Wallabies to a Grand Slam on the 1984 tour of Britain, a success which more than one player attributed to Jones's revolutionary "don't talk to girls" strategy. A 1986 Bledisloe Cup victory, built on the back of manly bonding and hissing loudly at women in the street, was further vindication, but Jones cruelly lost the job after the 1987 World Cup, which was lost following a disastrous dip in morale which was later traced to several members of the tight five having disobeyed team rules and kissed ladies while in camp. Although Jones knew the debilitating effect that girl germs have on sportsmen, he nobly took the fall, refusing to let his handsome players get blamed even though they actually were to blame, and instead hurled himself into his media career.

Alan fighting misandry

On radio, television and print media, Alan has for the best part of three decades been fighting the good fight against the growing womanisation of our society. His scholarly background has provided him with the research muscle to back up his arguments with cold hard facts:

Every society that has ever collapsed has contained women. That's not polemic, that's simple historical reality. I don't make history, I report it, and I'm telling you that where you find civilisations in ruins, there are breasts just around the corner. Make of that what you will, I'm just the messenger.

                                                                         -Alan Jones, 1997

Many of course have tried to destroy him with feminine tricks, but Jones has always stood fast for his principles. Firmly believing that we do not own this world, we merely borrow it from our penises, he is determined to leave Australia a better place than he found it, by breaking down the walls of matriarchy that keep us enslaved to feminist ideology. "Australia has been swallowed by a cervix of shame," he famously declared at 2003's Convoy Of No Oestrogen, at which thousands of Cosmopolitan magazines and lipsticks were burnt to symbolise the casting off of the distaff shackles that bind Australians.

Whence comes his enormous inner strength, the stamina and drive to keep going in the face of insults and smears and those gross curves that women have? Partly it is simple patriotism: he knows that Australia was a great country before women arrived in it, and can be again as long as they are kept quiet or given regular electric shocks. Part of it is personal integrity: Alan's father always told him never to give in to bullies, and ever since a ringleted young girl savagely beat Alan to a pulp in the early 90s, he has been steadfast in his defiance of the elites and vested interests who wish to impose perfumed servitude on decent hard-working testicular Aussies. He stands up for "Struggle St" and makes no apologies, or at least not very convincing ones.

But part of it is just good ol' Queensland country scrappiness. Like all good men, Alan relishes a fight, and if it's a fight for right, all the better. That's why the so-called "women" of Australia will never beat him down, because he's got enough fight in him to last a lifetime, and it doesn't matter how many bears your periods attract, ladies, this is one testosterone milkshake you'll have a hard time drinking.

Alan casting a paralysis spell on Emily's List

"Are Women Funny?" and other questions to ask if you are somewhat slow

OK so it seems like every year around Comedy Festival time, someone brings up the subject of whether women are funny, because if there's one thing that unites all human beings no matter what their sex, it is a total inability to have an original thought.

So I saw this brought up YET AGAIN, in TWO THOUSAND AND TWELVE, and unfortunately I was driven to think about it.

The usual response for those of on the side of "yes (sigh), women are funny, next question, please", is to roll out a list of women who we think are funny to demonstrate the fact that those who claim women aren't funny actually seem to be alleging some kind of worldwide conspiracy in which the millions of people paying money to see women comedians, and watching TV and movie comedy featuring women, are engaged in a particularly deranged form of affirmative action.

But I'm not going to do that, because it's been done a million times and everyone's heard it before and everyone knows all the names that would be on that list. We are not unaware of these women's existence.

No, what I want to do is just ask a question of those who claim women aren't funny:

What do you mean?

Like, what stops women from being funny? What is the mechanism that prevents funniness in women? What quirk of biology has kept humour from developing in the female human? What genetic defect blocks the emission of comedy from a woman?

I mean, if you're going to claim "women aren't funny", there must be a reason, right?

Is it that women are allergic to jokes? Do breasts repel humour, causing funny things to reflect off the boobs and back into a woman's face so they never make to the wider world? Does oestrogen prevent the activation of the comedy gene? Is funniness secreted from a small gland which men have but women lack? Do vaginas just suck the fun out of everything?

I'm just asking, because on the face of it, given that I'm fairly sure it's been well-established for some time now that women are human beings, "women aren't funny" seems to be a patently ludicrous assertion, akin to saying "Finnish people can't brush their hair" or "redheads don't own singlets". As things stand, claiming women aren't funny appears to be not so much a talking point as a meaningless string of words randomly patched together by a gibbering ape. So I'd love it to be clarified that I may understand.

So please, if you could supply some kind of hypothesis, or research, or blood test, that might explain the "women aren't funny" phenomenon, that'd be great. I ask only for information.

To My Daughters

My Darling Daughters,

I am writing this on International Women's Day, 2012. You don't know what that means yet, but one day, you'll grow up - as much as I wish you wouldn't - and you'll understand what IWD is and what it means. It would be wonderful if by that time, there was no need for it, but sadly the world is rarely as wonderful as it should be - you'll find that out too; although maybe you already know, from how we make you go to bed every night.

And maybe when you grow up you'll read this - but even if you don't, writing this down will help your dad remember what he wants you to know.

The world is difficult. For everyone. And it's going to be difficult for you. In particular, you're almost certain to meet people who are going to try to make you feel bad, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think your opinions are less important, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think they can speak rudely to you, because you're girls.

There will be people who will talk to you as if you're stupid, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think they can hurt you, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you that you shouldn't try to be funny, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you there are things you shouldn't even try to achieve, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think they can judge your value as a person based on how you look, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you to never be loud, or troublesome, or angry, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you to lighten up, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you to just accept things the way they are, because you're girls.

There will be people who will try to stop you from ever thinking you can be as good as the boys, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think they can do or say anything they like to you, and you shouldn't complain if you don't like it, because you're girls.



And when you meet any of those people, you will not take a backward step. You will get in their faces, you will stick your finger in their chests, and you will tell them to get the hell out of your way. Because there is no way you're going to let anyone make you feel inferior, or worthless, or stupid, or ugly, because you're girls. When you meet those people, you are going to stop them dead in their tracks, and roll over them like a steamroller.

And when you do , my darlings, I'll know that I must have been a pretty OK dad.

Swearing

So today, it would seem, is White Ribbon Day. Which I think is probably a good thing to get behind. But doesn't it seem strange?

This is the White Ribbon oath that we're asked to swear:

I swear never to commit, excuse or remain silent about violence to women.

And I do. My life is filled with marvellous, beautiful women - my wife, my sisters, my friends, and the tiny women-in-waiting who I helped to create - and it makes me sick, brings me to tears, to think of hurting them.

So I swear. But it feels so weird, to think that it is even necessary. Just saying those words in my head, it feels surreal. Because if we have to actually affirm that in an oath, it means that there are people out there who wouldn't swear it. There are people out there who are quite happy to commit, excuse and remain silent about violence to women.

Isn't that weird?

Of course I know it's true - there are hundreds, thousands, millions, of men - and women - who think violence against women is fine - you know, under the right circumstances. When she's really asking for it. When it's well-deserved. Everyone knows that this horror is really rather common.

But still, isn't it weird? Isn't it weird that people do this? Isn't it weird that people condone it? Isn't it weird, especially, that it's not just a matter of people losing their heads and lashing out, that there are actual human beings out there who do this systematically, who can justify it to themselves and consider a normal part of life?

Isn't it weird that White Ribbon Day needed to be created?

Let's not look on women as a protected species here, as delicate flowers that need defending by the big strong men. Let's not split our species in two, positioning the male half as the burly warriors nobly striving to keep the women folk safe, and the female half as fragile doe-eyed innocents, helpless if not for the efforts of their guardians. Let's not throw around silly lines like "Imagine if it was your mother, or your sister".

Let's look on men and women as people, sharing their world, sharing their lives. Let's look on the experience of being human as a duty for us all, to look out for each other, for men and women collectively to be each other's protectors. Let's imagine not that it was a woman you know - let's imagine it was you. Or even better, let's imagine it was a complete stranger suffering, and you stood up anyway, because that's what people do for other people.

I know we all get angry, and frustrated, and we want to strike out sometimes at the people who frustrate us, even when those people are smaller or weaker or less able to defend themselves. Even when those people are women. It's pretty human to want to punch someone in the face.

But we don't. Why don't we? Because we don't want to be that sort of person.

I am a bad person to lecture others on morality. I have done bad things in my life. I have treated other people, even people I love, poorly. I have failed so often to live up to my own standards. But no, I don't hit women. Because I don't want to look in the mirror and see a bully staring back at me. I don't want to lie in bed at night, gazing into the dark, and have to keep company with my own cowardice and cruelty. I don't want my beautiful children to have to look up to a brute, and be set to follow the example of a man who let violence overwhelm his humanity. I don't want the legacy I leave the world to be fear and hatred. I don't want to join the ranks of those who have so abandoned compassion, who have so detached themselves from empathy, who have been so hollowed out by anger and crushed by frustration, and who have found themselves so devoid of hope and imagination, that they can only deal with their own demons by inflicting pain on another human being.

I don't want to be that person. Nobody has to be that person. I hope that I, and you, and all of us, can make the effort to be better. I hope that violence against women can become as bizarre and alien a concept as it deserves to be. Let's all join this human race, shall we?

How Not To Rape People Part 2: How Not To Be Raped

Hello there. Many of you in the me-reading community may remember this post, in which I enumerated a few simple, easy-to-follow tips on how to avoid raping people, for the benefit of those many millions of young men who were finding it difficult to not rape anyone for any significant length of time. It was a great success: many readers wrote to me to let me know that they had greatly reduced their raping-people rate, and in some cases, incredibly, stopped raping altogether.

This was very gratifying, of course, but I have recently come to the realisation that my job was only half-finished. I had addressed one side of the equation - men - but what of the other side? What of women? I guess it was the commonsense, firm-yet-fair, down-to-earth, nitty-gritty, wise advice provided to young women by NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione that brought this home to me. His sage council to young women to tell their friends if they plan to have sex, so their friends can stop them having sex if they don't want to, or help them have sex if they do want to, or join in if a passing video producer pays them to, really drove home to me how neglectful I've been.

Sure, I thought to myself, I've provided useful advice to men on how to stop being rapists, but what about women? Don't they need useful advice too? After all, as Paul Mercurio tells us, it takes two to tango, and likewise doesn't it also take two to rape? I'm pretty sure it does - you never see the headline "Man rapes nobody" in the papers - and so I feel I should apologise for my oversight. But nobody can ever accuse me of being a man who doesn't correct his oversights, and so I hereby present:

HOW NOT TO BE RAPED: A HANDY GUIDE FOR MODERN WOMEN AND ALSO THEIR FRIENDS

1. When you meet a rapist, try to stay away from him.

2. Learn to idenfity rapists. You can do this through some canny questioning. Like for example you could ask, "Are you a rapist?" If the rapist is clever he'll see through that though, so you might have to ask more subtle questions, like, "Would you like me to have some Milo?" or "Are you a professional football team?"

3. Avoid men in general. Most women are raped by men, so it's important that a woman who doesn't want to be raped stays well away from men. It's a bit like cats and meat: if a piece of meat walked into a cat's mouth, would you blame the cat for eating it? Like in The Empire Strikes Back, when they fly into that alien thing's mouth. Do you blame the alien for swallowing the Millennium Falcon? No, it is Princess Leia's fault for wearing that bikini. That's an important lesson to remember. If you, as a woman, choose to conduct your activites in the same location as men, you must accept the consequences. If you're going to hang around penises, don't be surprised when penises do what penises do. Men in general have poor impulse control and will under most circumstances have sex three or four times a day whether they want to or not. If you HAVE to associate with a man, for business reasons or because he is your father, wear a wetsuit.

4. Don't be unconscious.

5. Keep an eye on your drink. Research shows a lot of women are raped after leaving their drink unguarded, or as this is known in legal terms, "consenting to sexual intercourse". If YOU don't want to be raped, make sure you have an eye on your drink at ALL times, and avoid flirtatiously allowing strangers to drop pills in it. Even better, drink from a bottle. Or don't drink at all - koalas gain all their hydration from eucalyptus leaves, and koalas are rarely considered slutty. Except that one who died of chlamydia. Point is, if you avoid drinking fluids of any kind, you can avoid that awkward situation where a reasonable person might interpret your unknowingly ingesting a foreign substance which renders you incapable of resistance to violent sexual acts as something of a "come-on".

6. Dress appropriately. Studies show that over 90% of rape victims were raped when wearing some kind of "clothing", which strongly suggests that clothing plays a massive part in rapists' selection of their victims, or "partners", as they are called when wearing midriff tops. It is important that any woman who doesn't want to be raped avoids wearing any type of clothing that sends the message that she is "up for it". This is difficult, obviously, because as noted above, if a woman wasn't up for it why would she be hanging around near men anyway, knowing full well that men like to have sex? But as long as a woman avoids wearing low-cut tops, short skirts, short shorts, tight jeans, figure-hugging sweaters, loose sweaters, long skirts, skivvies, baggy pants, neck-to-knee swimming costumes, policewoman uniforms, or any item of clothing that provides any clue as to the woman's general shape, she can be fairly certain that her behaviour will be considered only conditional consent by the legal system. Which ties nicely into the next point.

7. Do not draw attention to your femininity. Most people who raped women admit that before raping the woman, they wanted to rape a woman. It is therefore vital when out in public that women don't make a big deal about being a woman. Try not to act too much like a woman - don't go around washing dishes or shopping. It can be a good idea to strap your breasts down and cut your hair short in an attempt to pass as a petite teenage boy. But some people consider that extreme - it's more important just to direct conversation away from the fact you are a woman. If you see a man lurking nearby, try to ward him off by casually remarking, "Goodness, I'm having a nice time out today - it's probably my lack of oestrogen making me feel so good"; or, "I wonder what having a vagina is like, because I certainly don't know!" In fact it is always VITAL to prevent people's focus being directed toward your vagina - reputable opinion polls indicate over 60% of people consider a rape victim was "asking for it" if she was found to be in deliberate possession of a vagina.

8. Don't go out alone. I mean this is pretty self-evident unless you're a prostitute, but I thought I'd throw it in.

9. Don't be a prostitute.

10. Make your intentions clear. If you don't want a man to have sex with you, say, "I would not like to have sex with you, thank you." If he still wants to have sex with you, say, "No, really, I do not want to." If he persists, shout "NO!" and knee him in the testicles. If he doesn't get the message, scream for help and try to run away. If, after all, this, he still ends up having sex with you - well you obviously weren't clear enough, try harder next time.



If young women take these tips on board and follow them closely, then I feel confident that with a little bit of commonsense and community spirit, we can move towards a future where young women don't feel unsafe when they leave the house, young men don't feel guilty for their perfectly normal biological urges/crimes, and the heinous act of rape is eliminated from our society except for those times when really what else would you expect?

Happy not being raped!

Sluts and the Men Who Love Them

This weekend in Melbourne, SlutWalk will be parading through the streets. What's it all about? Here's a good article by one of the organisers, my pal Clem Bastow. And another one by fellow organiser/pal, Karen Pickering.

And of course there is my contribution, which is irresponsible, offensive, and adds nothing of value whatsoever. But maybe you'll get a chuckle from the article about which critics rave "you sound like a a right tosser, a throw back to some grunting heaving past which most have moved on from … read a book!"

Anyway look I thought I'd just weigh in an say why, as a man who, with some sense of trepidation, calls himself a feminist, I'm quite in favour of SlutWalk and think it's a good idea.

I like the idea of SlutWalk because I quite want to see a bunch of ladies in their undies.

No, Wait! Let me start again...

Firstly, I think the talk of "reclaiming" the word slut is a bit of a red herring. It doesn't really matter whether you think of it as reclaiming or not. Everyone knows it's a nasty word that's usually used in a nasty way. A negative way.

But the point of SlutWalk (to ME, I stress; and if others have a different take, please please please let a thousand frigging flowers bloom, it's all good) is that it's NOT negative. It's positive. It's happy. It's even lighthearted. It's not an angry thing, it's not a hateful thing or an anti-male thing.

And I don't think it's trying to make women call themselves sluts, or dress as sluts. It's not trying to make women do anything except stand up and say, "we will not be attacked and mistreated no matter what we wear, no matter who we have sex with, and no matter how well or badly we fit into someone else's ideas about femininity.

It's not a battle between men and women here, it's a battle between decent people and indecent people, between arseholes and non-arseholes, between people who would say that even if a woman walks down the street stark naked, even if a woman is a prostitute, a stripper, or, yes, a SLUT, there is no excuse for assaulting her, abusing her or treating her as less than human.

Is SlutWalk "giving men what they want"? Maybe - but then since when was the main aim of feminism to deny men what they want? I am sure plenty of guys will miss the point, I'm sure plenty of guys will turn out just to leer. But hey, you know what? Fuck 'em. For me the point of SlutWalk is that it doesn't matter a damn what sexists want or don't want. That's why it's happening - because there are women who want to say, we do what we like regardless of what you want us to do. Women who say, when I decide what to wear, how to talk, how to act, how many people I want to have sex with, I'm basing my decision on what I want. Not on the fact you want to ogle me, not on the fact you DON'T want to ogle me, not on the fact you wish I was more demure, or more promiscuous, or more ladylike, or less girly. Women who say, in essence, we are going to live our lives on the terms that men tend to just because. Screw your expectations.

This is why I like SlutWalk: because I want to send the message that when the bastards of the world, the paternalists, the misogynists, the rape apologists and the straight up-and-down arseholes, snarl the word "slut" at a woman because she's not conforming with the way he wants femininity to manifest itself, the decent, well-adjusted people of the world will LAUGH IN THEIR FACES.

You want to call them sluts? Well that is just fine, guys. We will throw it back in your faces, laugh our heads off, and go on living our lives. Not just the sluts, but the men who love them, the children they raise, and everyone else who doesn't accept the right of the pricks to shape the world.

Not everyone is comfortable with SlutWalk, which is fine. It's an emotive word, and I'm not going to tell anyone that because they don't like the idea, they're not proper feminists or unconcerned with women's rights. There's room for all opinions. But I DO know that the Slutwalk has been organised by proud, gutsy females who will fight for the cause of decency all their lives, and who are making this statement this way because it resonates with them and so many others.

The SlutWalk, for me, is about we comrades standing up like Sarah in Labyrinth, and crying, "You Have No Power Over Us!" Call us sluts, call us whores, call us fags, call us dykes, call us pussies, call us anything you want, but you have no power over us. Your abuse isn't going to give you control. We're going to win, and you're going to lose, dying with the word SLUT on your sad little lips. Get used to the new world, dickheads.

March on, siblings.

Intemperate Overblown Rant No. 2

In which Miss Josephine Asher expresses her wish for a simpler time.

I am going to come right out and say it: Josephine Asher is RIGHT.

Yes, the pursuit for gender equality IS sucking the life out of relationships.

Just the other day, I was about to go out hunting, when my wife said, "Don't forget to vacuum", and I was reduced to a blubbering wreck. "Stop sucking the life out of our relationship!" I screamed, putting down my crossbow and going for a good lie-down.

It seems these days that all I ever do is wear aprons, push trolleys, do my own ironing. It's so humiliating for a man like me, who has such masculine potential if only he were allowed to express it instead of being constantly forced to do the washing up and arrange flowers attractively in vases. Like Josephine's friend "Dave", I feel like I have surrendered my balls. Surrendered them to a vast and evil army, made up of feminism allied with housework and armed with sharp, pointy equality-spears that are stabbing me right in the balls, except they're not because I surrendered them, so they are stabbing me right in my smooth, sexless groin.

Are you happy, feminism? Happy you have reduced me to a Ken Doll with an open wound? Me and "Dave" both?

To be blunt, feminisn:



Thanks to feminism I have failed to master basic masculine skills, which has caused a catastrophic decline in my self-esteem. Thank God I found out. For years I felt bad because I couldn't change a tyre or put up a shelf or kill a jaguar with my bare hands. I thought it was a failing in myself. Only now do I see: it was FEMINISM all along. Those accursed harpies insisting on equal status just drove the usefulness right out of me, and now I am good for nothing save baking scones and braiding hair.

Why, Feminism? Why do you insist on making me less of a man? Why can't it be like it was in the old days, when men were men and women were women and everyone was happy with that, and if they weren't they took powerful anti-depressants and repressed their feelings in a healthy and socially lubricative way, and there were never any arguments over who was going to go out and earn a living at the steelworks or merchant bank and who was going to stay home tending to the children and honey-glazing a ham? Don't we all yearn for those days? I know I do.

Just think of how it makes us feel, when we see a woman, say, build a house, or fire a gun, or drive a car or wear long pants. It makes us feel small. It makes us feel insignificant. It make us feel weak and effeminate. Let's not beat around the bush here: every time a woman picks up a briefcase, a man's penis turns to dust.

I yearn for a time when I wasn't surrounded by independent women. When the females in my circle were not constantly giving me migraines with their carping insistences on having "lives". When relationships were based, as David Deida points out, on "sexual polarity" and we weren't all mixed up and confused by all this sexual equality. Why can't I have a "ravishee", dammit? It's been so long since I felt like a ravisher, like a powerful, confident man making love to a reluctant woman who wasn't really into it. And isn't that what every man wants, in the end?

I'm so grateful to Miss Asher for saying what we were all thinking: independent women abandon their femininity. And what we want are truly feminine women. There is no greater turn-off than a woman who, instead of making herself pretty for you, spends all her time having opinions. What's feminine about that? What's the point of a woman who you can have an intelligent conversation with, if her demented pursuit of equality has caused her to get all mannish on you? What's sexy about a woman who challenges you, who engages you, whose company you enjoy? Why would any man want a woman whose personality delights him? Why would any man want a woman with a personality at all? When did "personality" become so important?

And yet feminism has conned us into thinking we could be happy with this arrangement; that we could be happy with women gadding about the place "independently".

Today it seems the only way you can form a relationship with a woman is by treating her as an actual human being, and frankly, we're not wired for that, ladies. Men are not designed for equal partnerships. We are not predisposed towards mutual respect. We are not genetically structured so as to be capable of acting in a remotely decent manner towards fellow human beings of the opposite sex. When you try to force us to do it, society breaks down, as it is doing right now. Men are reduced to poor, ghostly imitations, hollowly doing household chores and contributing towards the maintenance of the home and family until eventually, they grow vaginas. And all because feminism objected to the ways of life that had served us for so many years, where the man earned the money and protected the family, and the woman took care of home life and didn't get too lippy unless she wanted a black eye.

Not that I advocating violence towards women, obviously. It's just that back in humanity's halcyon days, women were much happier because they didn't have all the pressure of careers and thinking and stuff, and so they were able to take the occasional backhander in good humour. After all, we want men to be manly, don't we? I mean, hitting people is part of what makes a man a man. When did we lose sight of this? Thanks to feminism, I hardly ever get to hit people these days. It's no wonder I've started lactating.

The point is this: we had a good thing going, men and women. Men made the money, fought the wars, ran the governments, owned the businesses, wrote the books, participated in the sporting events, taught the university courses, cured the diseases, built the buildings, explored the world, planned the cities, and massacred the natives; and women baked cakes and provided sexual release. And that worked VERY well. Look at the pyramids. Could they have been built in a world with maternity leave? Don't make me laugh.

So please, let's all take a leaf out of Josephine Asher's book. Men, reassert your dominance. Women, reassert your submissiveness. If we all work together in a spirit of togetherness I am sure we can build a world where nobody will ever have to work together in a spirit of togetherness again.

Then, maybe, we can get that uppity bint Asher to stop writing and get back in the goddamn kitchen where she belongs.

Dispensable Musings

The story of Mr Stephen Fry, who said some silly things and was upset.

It is a shame. You will be unsurprised to know that I am an enormous admirer of Stephen Fry. His writing, his acting, his comedy, his QI-hosting, his documentaries, and even his Twitter feed. I yield to no one in my admiration for the man. And it is very easy in such circumstances to forgive your role model the sins you condemn in others. And it's almost as easy to overcompensate and savage your role model for sins you would shrug off in others. So it's important to note, just at the start, that I am hopelessly morally compromised and my opinions on this matter, as in all others, are worthless. However, here goes.

The fact is that, on face value, these comments are fairly stupid. They are fairly ridiculous generalisations that are untrue and no doubt offend a lot of women, and gay men. And to say, "oh but there's a grain of truth there" is of course what is said about all ridiculous generalisations; maybe there IS a grain of truth, but a good rule of thumb is, if there's a grain of truth you wish to express, then express a grain of truth, not a wheatfield of wild exaggeration.

But Fry says he was misquoted, having given a "humorous interview". OK. I am willing to hear him out here. Maybe with others I wouldn't be so forgiving, and maybe that's the bias referred to above. But Fry has, I think, earned a certain level of esteem from me, so I'm willing to listen to any explanation and accept it if it's, well, acceptable. Some will not grant him the same indulgence - such as Germaine Greer, who replied to his stupid generalisations with some of her own; but that's Germaine for you, lovably ballistic as always. I don't blame them at all, for we each must make up our own minds as to what we accept and what we rail against. But I'll hear him out. Hell, I'll hear anyone out, really. It's only fair.

Because after all, I think I'm right in saying that Stephen Fry has not, in the past, established himself as an inveterate misogynist. Of course, he has established himself as a comedian, so if it was humour, it wouldn't be out of character. Even if you might not think it was very funny.

(as an aside, here is a video from some time ago, in which he speaks along the same themes, and does seem to be having a bit of fun more than anything; the old "differences between men and women" schtick, with a bit of "aren't men ridiculous creatures" thrown in. So if the interview he gave was a reprise of that routine...he would seem to have a case for grievance here. In my own, as we have established, worthless opinion.

But maybe it wasn't really a joke. If not, it did come across as the musing of a man who is somewhat baffled by matters sexual, which is pretty much the way Stephen Fry has come across for many years now. So maybe he needs some education.

And maybe, humorous or not, he was, as he says, seriously misquoted. But if so, I would like to know what he really said. I hope I get to find out. Unfortunately, everyone who says something idiotic always cries "misquote" or "out of context", so one craves something more if one is to have one's fears assuaged. This is terribly unfair for the genuinely misquoted, of course - to have done nothing wrong, and then have people demand you justify yourself for a non-existent act or sommen, is extremely frustrating. But still, these are disturbing comments, and it would benefit us all, including Mr Fry, to know his response in full.

So I hope he doesn't stay quiet. I hope he comes out and engages. I hope this even if he just puts this affair behind him and never mentions it again. Because even idiotic comments, while they may tarnish someone's sheen, don't destroy it. Stephen Fry, even with a blemish or two, will remain Stephen Fry. Much worse has been said by people who carried on blithely and without a care in the world. Basically, one stupid opinion does not a monster make. Even Spida Everitt has his good points. Even Kyle Sandilands...well, no, not really.

I think Fry is fragile and easily wounded, and retreats quickly in the face of attack. And to be fair, when you have 2 million Twitter followers, it must be somewhat overwhelming when the world comes down on you.

But I hope he comes back. And I hope, if he is able to set the record straight. And if the record we have is already straight, I hope he does learn the error of his ways.

And those are my thoughts, presented for your disposal.

How Not To Rape People: A Handy Guide For Modern Men And Footballers

In my perusings of the modern media landscape, a worrying trend has come to my attention: young men who apparently just can't stop having non-consensual sex with others. It's a tricky problem, and one to which there are, clearly, no easy solutions. I mean, it's all very well to say "No means no", but as popular ex-footballer/arachnid Peter "Spida" Everitt says, when a girl goes home with a guy at 3am, it's not for a cup of Milo. So we can see there are two sides to every story: on the one hand, a young lady might feel violated, but on the other hand, why do these women keep going round to strangers' houses in the hopes of having some Milo? Why don't they buy their OWN Milo? Young people today, I ask you.

The point is, as a man myself, I know how hard it can sometimes be to not be a rapist. Masculine identity is so ill-defined these days, what with the sexual revolution, feminism, meggings and so on: it's so difficult to know what women want: do they want us to hold the door open and pay for dinner, or do they want us to wait until they're blind drunk and have sex with them against their will? How can we tell? After all, as ABC The Drum commenter "James" says in response to an article by Lauren Rosewarne, "Why are young women so strange?"

Indeed, why? When young women are free to go around being strange all over the place, how can men be expected to know how to behave? This is why we see so many comments around the internet along the lines of "Why do these women put themselves in this situation what do they expect they are just after bragging rights they can't change their minds after the fact I agree with Kerri-Anne Kennerly"?

When people start agreeing with Kerri-Anne Kennerly, society has gone too far, and this is why I have prepared, for the benefit of my fellow man and also people who play football, a Handy Guide To Not Raping People. Feel free to print it out and keep it in your shirt pocket, men, so next time you find yourself in an awkward situation where it seems you have no choice but to rape someone, you can check the guide and gracefully extricate yourself from the sticky predicament.

THE HANDY GUIDE TO NOT RAPING PEOPLE IN SEVEN EASY STEPS

1. When you meet a girl who doesn't want to have sex with you, don't have sex with her.

2. When you meet a girl who wants to have sex with one of your friends, remember the golden rule: You Are A Different Person To Your Friends. Maybe this handy mnemonic can help: Yentl Acted As Ducks Probed Three Yucky Frenchmen. This will help you remember that a girl who wants to have sex with one person does not necessarily want to have sex with every person she meets. Confusing, I know; what can I say - political correctness, etc.

3. If you meet a girl who DOES want to have sex with you, but then a bit later she says she'd rather not, don't have sex with her. Again, pretty confusing, I know, but it's due to a special Scientific Fact: sometimes girls change their minds. Like, remember the time you wanted a kebab, but then you thought no, I'll have a hamburger instead? It's a bit like that, only with sex.

4. When you meet a girl who is unconscious, don't have sex with her. This is true even if she was drinking before. I may be delving into some fairly arcane theory here, but scientists have discovered there is actually technically a difference between "drinking a lot of alcohol" and "saying yes I want to have sex with you". I realise this difference is probably hard to spot for a lot of you guys; you might have to squint a bit.

5. When you go home with a girl, try not to have sex with her until after she says she'd like to.

6. Practise not having sex with people. I know it's hard - sometimes you just look down and it's like, whoops, I'm having sex with this girl, how did that happen? But I bet with a bit of concentration and discipline, you can actually manage to avoid having sex with someone, even when they're in the same room as you. It's true! Anyone can do it! Why, last week I met at least five women who I actually didn't have sex with, without causing myself any particularly severe internal injuries.

7. When you meet a girl who doesn't want to have sex with you, don't have sex with her. I realise I already said this one, but that was five steps ago, and I have a feeling some of you guys might have slightly short attention spans.

So there you go: seven easy steps to becoming a non-rapist. I bet you didn't think it was that simple, did you? You probably thought you'd need electrodes attached to something. But no, you can do it in your own living room! It's just a matter of staying "on the ball" and learning the difference between a girl who wants to have sex with you, and a girl who doesn't. One way is by listening to what she says: a girl who says "Let's have sex" probably wants to have sex; a girl who says "let's not have sex" probably doesn't. I realise listening to what women say will be a new experience for a lot of you, but I'm confident you can manage it. Practise at home first if you like, with a mirror and a wig.

Anyway, good luck with it all, guys! I know you probably think you could never not rape people, but I believe in you, guys! With a little bit of hard work and determination, anyone can not have sex, any time they want! Amazing but true!

Happy Not-raping!

Hitting the Big Time

Readers with long memories and dogged senses of commitment may remember a little article I wrote a while back called "Just Done It".

This was an article about Bettina Arndt and her book "The Sex Diaries". It was, to be perfectly honest (sorry to shatter any illusions here), an article that, to a certain extent, made fun of her. That is, it sort of mocked her, her book, her theories, her genitalia. Well, not her genitalia. The editors cut those fifteen paragraphs out. But anyway, it was a somewhat mocking article with a bit of a "hahahaha Bettina you brainless twat" tone to it.

And I had thought that was the end of that.

But if life has taught me anything it is this: that is NEVER the end of that, particularly in Wagga Wagga.

For that august town's Daily Advertiser on the 10th March published an interesting piece about Mrs Arndt and her recent trip to Boorowa (not far from Young, fortunately!) to celebrate International Women's Day and tell women to get jiggy with it more often.

And you will NOT BELIEVE THIS, readers, but the Wagga Wagga Daily Advertiser actually MENTIONED ME!

Little me!

And this is what it said:

"Bettina Arndt has been dubbed `man's
best friend'," Ben Pobjie author of Just Done
It comments. "Every writer knows that sex
sells. In deed when my own articles are
erotically charged each week the better they
are received and when the average person
hears the word sex they think of Bettina
Arndt. She helps people who are having
problems in their sex lives but never before
has she made such a contribution to mass
sexual satisfaction as in her latest book in
which she argues that the greatest cause of
unhappy relationships is the discrepancy
between the male and female libido.

I was very chuffed to see I was big in Wagga Wagga, but I couldn't help noticing...well...I mean...tell me if somehow that excerpt there sort of suggests somehow that I am...kind of...

a big fan of Bettina Arndt? I mean, I can't help feeling that the Daily Advertiser has actually quoted me as a sort of pro-Arndt blurb-writer, taking the quote slightly out of context and ignoring other parts of my article, such as this:

Believe me, I know whereof I speak. Like most men, I have for many years been enjoying sex that I didn’t actually want to have. On several occasions I have enjoyed sex that I didn’t even realise I was having until about halfway through. Because men are troopers. Even when they really don’t want to have sex, they are willing to roll up their sleeves and pitch in for the greater good.

Or this?

There’s no point in keeping your sex-canoe in dry dock your whole life. If you ever want to experience the joys of the river of intercourse, you have to get your canoe off the shores of abstinence, negotiate the rapids of foreplay, and tip yourself over the penetration waterfall. The American Indians knew this, but somewhere along the line we have lost the eternal truth of canoes.

Of course, it is possible that once the canoe is out, the woman might discover that she’s not actually enjoying it. Well, that’s canoes for you. Watersports are not for everyone. But would she rather not have a canoe? Would she rather her husband left her for a woman with bigger oars? In summary, the message is this: boating metaphors are less sexy than you might think.

I just feel slightly misrepresented here. Am I wrong?

Mind you, my feeling of misrepresentation is less profound than my feeling of confusion when I read these words penned by Narelle Ross of the Advertiser:

The story of the sex-starved husband has
struck a chord. For many men - not all by
any means - sexual performance is an issue
of deep insecurity. It starts in the
playground when they overhear older kids
recounting their `so-called sexual exploits'
most of which turn out to be `flights of the
fantasy'.
"We know in our hearts that any woman
lucky enough to experience the awesome
pleasure of our attention should just thank
her lucky stars as she swoons and hopes that
one day she might be allowed some more."
But it doesn't happen like this - very often
most men agree.

Dear Narelle Morse:

What?