Complaints about Peter Dutton calling a female journalist demeaning names because he was unhappy with the article she’d written about the bad behaviour of his colleague have nothing to do with political correctness (PC).
His verbal abuse is a deliberate tactic used to try and silence women when they dare to speak out.
The PC furphy is continually rolled out by unreconstructed males in an attempt to trivialise the very serious issue of endemic violence against women, which starts with language, then too often, escalates into brutality and murder.
That anyone would try and justify verbal abuse and bad behaviour with the claim that ‘some women actually enjoy an uncomplicated encounter with a famous confident and experienced male’ shows a complete lack of respect and ignorance of appropriate behaviour.
To a modern educated, confident, independent, professional woman, the above translates as ‘I find it highly offensive to be mauled, abused and harassed by repulsive, unreconstructed (usually old) men, and I will not tolerate it’. Women are no longer the chattels of men to do with as they please.
It speaks volumes about Malcolm Turnbull’s credibility that he tolerates Dutton in the ministry. Would he have been so tolerant if the demeaning name calling had been directed at his wife or daughter?
David Leser spells it out very clearly in his article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 11.1.16 (see link below)
David is spot on when he asks ‘is it because… a brutal misogyny actually permeates every culture and society in the world? That burning witches in medieval times and ditching witches (or calling a female journalist a “mad witch”) in modern times, are simply the opposite points on the same spectrum?’
David also quotes Everyman: ‘If you won’t submit to my rule, I will burn, behead, rape and enslave, garrotte or disfigure you. Or I will hurl your children and mine into the abyss so that you will never see them again’. Thank goodness for the intelligent, reconstructed men in our society who understand what is going on and are speaking out.
Too many women and children’s lives continue to be destroyed by misogyny and violence in the 21st century and it has to stop.
We’re supposed to be a civilised society.
Louise Doran, Ocean Shores
