By Ruth Skilbeck
Women voters worldwide it’s time to give media misogynists the
“boot” and say no way to their symbolic violence against women- a verbal
culture of gendered personal abuse and disrespect that is part of a wider
spectrum of violence against women.
The personal has entered the political in an ugly form of personal
abuse directed against Australia’s first
female PM by radio talkback host Alan Jones, 71, who has built a long career on
controversial broadcast commentary in Australia.
This week in Australia, highly controversial remarks by the 2GB
radio talkback host, Alan Jones, a Liberal supporter, that the Prime Minister Julia
Gillard's father had “died of
shame” caused by “his daughter's lies”, just weeks
after the PM’s father's death and as the PM is grieving, has caused widespread public
condemnation- and also brought to the fore of public debate the urgent need to
counter increasing levels of sexist oppression, and persecution,
of women in politics, and in the public sphere- through channels such as
talkback radio and political organisations, in Australia.
The radio broadcaster, Jones, made the inflammatory statements
at a speech he gave to a Young Liberals function at the Sydney University
Liberal Club, reportedly not knowing a journalist
was present and recording his words.
Jones has, notoriously, also made repeated suggestions to tie
the PM in a "chaff-bag" (sack) and "dump her out to sea".
Auctioned at the Young Liberals $100-per-head function, was a jacket made
of chaff bags and signed by Alan Jones, supplied by Woolworth's community and
government relations manager, and Liberal member, Simon Berger.
Only in September Jones was condemned for misogyny when he
accused "women", not only the PM, of "destroying the joint".
He targeted the Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore and former Victorian Police
Commissioner, Christine Nixon in sweeping statements on a breakfast show at a time, when critics pointed out children and young people may be listening
in cars driven to school with the radio on.
In a sign that equity is entering the political workplace, women
are finally starting to break through a tightly guarded wall of sexist
exclusion, in Australia. Gillard is the nation's first female PM and there is
currently a female Governor General and Attorney General in Australia. These
are signs that political representation is (rather belatedly) changing to more accurately
reflect women’s very high participation in the workforce in Australia. Yet this
is just the latest incident in a discursive political environment and culture that
many are now acknowledging and condemning as increasingly toxic to women who
are working in these roles:
"We can also make the case that the Prime Minister has been
subject to sexual harassment in her employment as set out by sections 28A and
28B of the Sex Discrimination Act," said author Anne Summers AO PhD in her
2012 Human Rights and Social Justice Lecture, on ‘Her Rights at Work: the
Persecution of Australia’s First Prime Minister” at Newcastle University, in
August (31/8/12), an abridged version of which was published by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Summers said: "It is well accepted under the act that the
sending of sexually explicit material via email or text to a person constitutes
sexual harassment. The definition also covers accessing sexually explicit
internet sites. Therefore, creating sexually explicit internet sites or posting
such sexual material to Facebook pages would easily fall within the definition
of sexual harassment".
Summers reported that in the PM's press conference on Thursday,
August 23, the PM said that ''for many, many months now I have been the subject
of a very sexist smear campaign from people for whom I have no respect''. The
PM identified cartoonist Larry Pickering as someone who publishes ''a vile and
sexist website.''
Summers added: "For many months, Pickering has regularly
bombarded not just Gillard but every member of Parliament with emails
containing hate-filled commentary about the Prime Minister. Often these
commentaries have been accompanied by cartoons, many of which depict Gillard
naked and wearing a huge strap-on dildo."
There is a history in Australia of not talking about
"embarrassing" behaviours of bullying and dominance (which is part of
the colonial backdrop) and which allows perpetrators to get away with cruelty
often with only a few people knowing or publicly recognising what is going on.
Last weekend the Australian media and public woke up.
Whereas verbal abuse, and gender-based denigration of women in
politics was one of those things that was not talked about (much) in the media,
and was an embarrassing phenomenon, media research reports - as well as eye
witness reports and incidents such as this speech at the Sydney University
Liberal Club to Young Liberals by an influential media figure, shows that
gender-based verbal attacks on high profile and political women, aimed to be
demeaning and belittling of their authority, have become increasingly prolific,
crude, and personally abusive- and commonplace.
The next day, before the backlash, the Liberal Club tweeted
"brilliant speech by Alan Jones last night. It's no wonder he's the
nation's most influential broadcaster." After the recording became public
the tweet was deleted and apology issued.
The social media backlash was swift, with a campaign, and an
online petition calling for Jones to be sacked, and for a boycott of 2GB,
gathered instant momentum - and 5 days later, over 100,000 signatures and many
advertisers and sponsors have withdrawn support from 2GB. Yet the controversy
continues.
The many political and media figures from across the political
spectrum who have publicly condemned the controversial radio presenter’s
remarks include Malcolm Turnbill (shadow minister for communications and
broadband) who tweeted: "Alan
Jones' comments about the late John Gillard were offensive and cruel. He should
apologise to the PM and her family." (29/9/12).
Kevin Rudd (Labor MP and former Labor party leader) tweeted
"Alan Jones comments are lowest of the low. Abbott must dismiss Jones from
Liberal Party now and ban him from future Liberal events." (30/9/12).
Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott's informal statement on
Sunday was "Alan’s remarks regarding the PM were …out of line” and
welcoming Jones’ apology. Two days later, after the incident had erupted into a
media storm, he said in a press conference they were “wrong, offensive,
unacceptable”.
Sharpening the impact, the reports of Jones’ attack on the PM
came in a weekend when Australian media and social media reverberated with the
news of a horrific rape and murder of a 29 year old ABC radio employee, Irish-born,
Jill Meagher, who was abducted into a laneway whilst walking home alone at
night in busy well lit streets in inner Melbourne after having after-work
drinks with friends and colleagues. After a week’s search and a massive social
media campaign, last Saturday over 30,000 people turned out to march in
solidarity against her murder, and violence against women, for safe cities.
Suspect Adrian Ernest Bayley, 41 of Coburg, was caught by police and is
being held in custody on a rape and murder charge.
Throughout the weekend the two stories ran side by side and it
is impossible not to view, on some level, these two examples of extremes of
symbolic and of physical violence against women as connected in a spectrum of
aggression and oppression of women who work in the political and media sphere.
What is at issue here is the muddying of the personal and political
in the workplace in ways that are deeply offensive, aggressive and should be
illegal, deliberately targeting and attacking women in politics and the public
sphere on gendered ground.
This has gone too far and has to stop.
© Copyright 2012 Ruth Skilbeck
http://annesummers.com.au/speeches/her-rights-at-work-r-rated/.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/conspiracy-of-silence-lets-persecution-of-pm-fester-20120831-255tt.html.
This is a longer uncensored version of an article published yesterday on this blog ' 'Shameful' Attacks by Alan Jones on Grieving PM Spark Public Backlash' by Ruth Skilbeck.
