Gillard tells Abbott how it is

[Rorschach]

This week’s appalling act of misogyny. Wasn’t. This.
Lainie Anderson
14 Oct 05:50am

The most appalling act of misogyny took place this week.

It wasn’t in Australia. It most definitely wasn’t against Prime Minister Julia Gillard at Parliament House in Canberra.

No, it was in Pakistan, where a Taliban militant walked onto a school bus and shot 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in the head because of her outspoken support for the education of girls. With this young girl’s fight for life as a backdrop, I’ve watched the putrid goings on in Canberra this week and felt truly disgusted. So say all of us. Well at least us sane people.

How stupid do these politicians think we are? Do they honestly believe we don’t recognise hypocrisy when we hear it, or know when all principle has been lost in the pursuit of power?

Three quick examples:

1. Julia Gillard and her incandescent rant against opposition leader Tony Abbott’s sexism and misogyny – all while she was clinging desperately to disgraced slime-ball Peter Slipper, refusing to cut him loose even when those degrading text messages proved him unworthy of the Speaker’s chair.

2. Tony Abbott maintaining the government should “die of shame” for refusing to denounce Mr Slipper (apparently oblivious to the Alan Jones link) and then within hours declaring that he’d accept the vote of a man “not fit and proper” to remain as Speaker.

3. Mr Slipper himself, tearfully announcing that he had too much respect for parliament to remain in high office, when he’s spent years disrespecting the Australian taxpayer to gorge at the entitlements trough. (Doesn’t it make you feel proud to pay taxes, knowing this man will continue to receive around $112,000 annually upon retirement?)

On Friday, The Australian’s Dennis Shanahan wrote that prime-ministerial advisers were “cock-a-hoop” about Ms Gillard’s anti-sexism rant going viral, with respected international mastheads including The New Yorker painting our PM as a hero for women.

Well, it’s a pity New Yorkers don’t vote for Ms Gillard. Because I reckon there’s one thing Australian women hate more than blatant sexism, and that’s being played for fools.

And Ms Gillard is underestimating half of her electorate if she thinks we’re about to enlist behind her in a gender war against Mr Abbott, or sympathise every time she shouts “sexism” because the opposition leaders dares look at his watch while she’s speaking.

I’m not saying sexism doesn’t exist – in parliament or outside it.

Even when Mr Abbott’s wife Margie came out to defend her husband against sexism slurs (gee whizz, he prefers Downtown Abbey to televised football!) she played the sexism card by uttering the word “ordinary” well over a dozen times.

“Ordinary” compared to what? A childless, unmarried, female Prime Minister, perhaps?

The crucial point that seems to be missed by both Mrs Abbott and Ms Gillard, though, is not that Dear Tony dislikes women. It’s that women don’t like Dear Tony.

He’s too aggressive. He lacks vision. And how can you believe a politician who couches his policies as “aspirations” in case he needs to change his mind?

Ms Gillard is doing the sisterhood no favours by dumbing down these legitimate concerns into a gender war.

Nor is she helping her own cause by painting herself as a victim every time she cops a bit of criticism or banter across the parliamentary chamber. The woman has risen to the role of Prime Minister, for crying out loud. Get over it.

If Ms Gillard really wants to take up the fight for Australian women (and men, actually, Prime Minister) she’ll stop obsessing over Mr Abbott and focus instead on the business of prosecuting good policies to boost the economy and keep people employed.

And if Ms Gillard really wants to take up the fight for feminism, she’ll set herself up to be remembered as a Prime Minister of exemplary political judgment and principle. Well unfortunately that'll never happen.

Sadly, my fellow sheilas, we didn’t see much of either this week.

[Aussie]

NZ Newswire
Society is sexist: Mike Tyson
NZ Newswire October 14, 2012, 10:14 am

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Former boxer and convicted rapist Mike Tyson has entered the sexism debate engulfing Australian politics.'Onya Mikey!!

Impressed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard's fiery speech to parliament in which she branded Opposition Leader Tony Abbott sexist, Tyson says society is sexist.Chea Bro!

"I'm not saying she's (Julia Gillard) right. I'm not saying that I'm on her side, I'm just going by the facts of what history proves, that most males are that way," Tyson told The Sunday Telegraph.You tell 'em Mikey. Go Bro!

"We can't help that, society told us to be that way. We have to within ourselves overcome that thinking, change that thinking, and then everybody might be on equal terms."

Mr Abbott is a product of a sexist society, Tyson says.Well, yeah Mikey....and a University Union back-ground where violence against women happens.

"I can't judge nobody, I have my own history with people and crime and women and everything, so I'm not going to judge him. We have a process of learning.

"That's what we are as people and as time goes on, maybe we'll learn and think differently.

"I'm not saying he's a bad guy ... I'm just saying sometimes we get caught up with our society."I reckon you could 'learn' Tone a thing or two about punches near women, hey Mikey!!

Tyson, 46, thinks it's "wonderful" Australia has a female prime minister.Ratsack thinks so too Mikey. You and he would get on well!

The former champion boxer, who was convicted of rape in the US in 1992, will visit Australia in November for a five-day speaking tour.

He says he's a "changed man" and will be on his "best behaviour" when he arrives in the country.

"You know, you're not going to see me in the strip clubs in Australia, you're not going to see me out in the clubs in Australia. I'm not going to be getting high in Australia.Aaawwww, come on Mikey. We all wanted to see the pics of you chewing at a boob or two!

"I'm just going to be going there and enjoying myself, and then hope the people enjoy themselves as well."
Tyson has been declined a visa to New Zealand.No sense of fun those Kiwis, hey Mikey?

[Rorschach]

Gillard acted like a woman who was losing an argument
James Campbell
14 Oct 05:55am

By now we have heard enough I think about how the ladies felt about Julia Gillard’s savaging of Tony Abbott on Tuesday.

Some have written they loved it, some that they loathed it. Some felt she had finally stood up for women, others that she had let down the cause.

The only word to describe the widespread reaction was “visceral” - in that much over-used word’s true meaning of “relating to inner feeling”. And not just the women. It seems to have stirred something deep in the guts of men too.

How else is one to characterise the hyper-ventilated response of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Paul Sheehan?

Tuesday, Sheehan wrote, was the day when “the mask fell away” and Gillard came out “snarling”, accusing Abbott of having a hatred of women, a man he said - before his paper deleted it - “who unlike the Prime Minister, has raised three daughters’‘.

Compared with that stuff, the response of our own Andrew Bolt, himself an occasional critic of the Prime Minister, was mildness itself.

He only said it showed she would reach for anything “the gender card, the victim card, ... even the death of her father to claw for advantage”.

And my own reaction? My response too was visceral. As I watched on Tuesday night, I found an involuntary and incoherent stream of invective escaping at full volume until my wife told me to pipe down and I had to leave the room.

How long are we going to have put up with this bloody woman, I railed. Her ghastly voice! Her insincerity! Her mendacity, and her cynicism! Thoughts I must admit I have had before.

The question I have been asking myself all week, is why did I take it so hard this time - why that visceral reaction?

The reason, I have decided after several days sober consideration, is because it was a perfect of example of almost everything women do when they are losing arguments that drives men crazy.

She changed the subject. The debate was meant to be about the wretched Peter Slipper and his fitness for office. Instead Gillard - knowing she was on weak ground there - attacked him about the conduct of the Sydney Young Liberals. Something that had nothing to do with the subject at hand!

She brought up stuff he’d done years ago. There was Tony motoring along thinking he had some good lines about shell fish and Gillard pulled out something he’d forgotten he’d said to a guy called Stavros back in the ‘90s. Ancient history!

She feigned outrage. On Tuesday Gillard was incandescent that “nobody walked out of the room - no one walked up to Mr Jones and said that this was not acceptable’’ during his notorious after dinner speech.

But the evidence that Labor outrage is somewhat selective when it comes to the vile things said by after-dinner speakers was not long coming. While Gillard was quick to condemn the CFMEU’s star turn at their dinner on Wednesday night, I must have missed the bit on Thursday where she tore into her deputy Wayne Swan for sticking around to give a speech afterwards.

She pretended to be upset. You don’t believe me? Check out the last two minutes of her timed-to-the-second performance on YouTube - she almost breaks into a smirk with two minutes to go..

She didn’t construct an argument, she just told him how she felt. Sixteen times Gillard started a sentence with “I was offended”. Dropping how you feel about something makes argument impossible. How can you argue against a flat statement of emotion? Tell her to toughen up? Tell her you don’t care? Your answers on a postcard please.

She took his words out of context. Abbott never said her father died of shame. Indeed he spoke warmly of him in parliament after his death.

He said her Government should have died of shame. Not the same thing at all. So saying “My father did not die of shame” was totally irrelevant.

The look on Abbott’s face was a study in male helplessness. Each time the camera cut-away to him he appeared to be experiencing one of the many different emotions that pass through every man’s head with confronted with female unreasonableness.

He looked angry, thought the better of it and tried to look bemused. He stared into space, finally checking to see if he had to put with much more of this.

Big mistake brother, big mistake. He was, Gillard snapped, “looking at his watch because apparently a woman’s spoken too long”.

Abbott would not have been male if his thoughts had not been similar to those of the man in the Kingsley Amis novel who reflects upon women’s “seeming to be better and to be right while getting everything wrong, their automatic assumption of the role of injured party in any clash of wills, their certainty that a view is the more credible and useful for the fact that they hold it, their use of misunderstanding and misrepresentation as weapons of debate, their selective sensitivity to tones of voice, their unawareness of the difference in themselves between sincerity and insincerity, ...their exaggerated estimate of their own plausibility, their never listening and lots of other things like that, all according to him.’‘

Gillard’s female fans should savour their girl’s take down of Abbott because I suspect she will come to regret drawing such a nasty caricature of a man who resembles millions of Australian men.

I'm interested to see how this affects the polls.

[Rorschach]

I read all that stuff from Tyson, Aussie.
I wouldn't be seen dead posting that crap.
You think the ignorant dribble from a rapist ear-munching pugilist is worth taking you are sinking lower than a lizards belly to fins support.
He thinks all men are like him and where he comes from they probably are.
I leave you to try and work that one out yourself.

oh and please don't copy my format, or at least use a different colour so its easy to discriminate.
Seems to me you weren't sure whose side you were on in your last post Aussie but as for this...

Ratsack thinks so too Mikey. You and he would get on well!

I did in fact think Julia would make a good PM. She made a good deputy. But since then she has been a huge disappointment and a disgrace. I think her government is now worse than Rudd's and it stinks from the top down.

Oh and AUSSIE...I don't think that article is a step up from believing satire is real.

[Aussie]

How come nobody told me that Abbott decked Hockey with one punch......and we all know one punch can kill, don't we? Was that just satire, Ratsack? Did Abbott punch Hockey? Did Latham punch a taxi driver? Who knows these satirical days.

[Rorschach]

Laurie Oakes excerpts...

The opposition leader might have put forward socially conservative views and made some controversial statements about women over the years, but to brand him a misogynist was over the top.

Anyone who thought the Gillard-Abbott relationship could not get worse should think again. After this, it will be absolutely toxic

. Made so by Gillard and her hitsquad

There is confidence among Gillard supporters that the toughness of the attack will widen her lead over Abbott as preferred prime minister. We will see.

we certainly will.

What is not in doubt, though, I would suggest, is that the response to the speech strengthens Gillard’s grip on the Labor leadership.

She has erected for herself an extra barrier of protection. If Kevin Rudd moved against her now, in addition to all the other difficulties, he would have to deal with an enraged sisterhood.

One of the PM’s critics within her own party even suggested yesterday that this was the primary reason for the speech.

[Rorschach]

Good grief how outta touch are you... they were at the uni(I think) playing football... the number of black eyes and the exact result varies from telling to telling. Didn't you know? Sorry... of course you didn't. In Abbott's words it was he that was more often than not decked.
Most people I know who play football have at one time or another ended up in a fight.

You wanna try for relevance while you are at it Aussie or are you gonna quit while you are ahead with almost factual for once

Are you trying to say only misogynists play football or it's sexist that women aren't in playing with the men?

[IQS.RLOW]

Aussie the leftard thinks failed govt is good
Aussie the leftard thinks fanta pants is good
Fanta pants know she is failing so does a bender
Aussie thinks Fanta pants bender is good
Leftard journos think Fanta pants bender is bad
Aussie thinks Fanta pants being endorsed by a rapist is good
Aussie thinks using failed leftard moral equivalence is good
Everyone else thinks its bad

That about covers it

[Aussie]

Good grief how outta touch are you... they were at the uni(I think) playing football...

No, they were not. Did you read the link, Ratsack?

[Rorschach]

No, why would I read it when I've already heard it.
So if they weren't at the uni where were they...

don't worry it's not really relevant anyway.
ps. It was the late 1980s and Hockey was at boiling point about not getting picked on Abbott's team. Abbott was nearly 10 years older and the coach of the Sydney University 2nd XV. you sure it didn't happen at the uni? Seems to me you have a habit of not reading stuff, even stuff you post.