Last night in Sydney, the 30th Ernie Awards for Sexist Remarks were celebrated at a glittering ceremony at NSW Parliament House, with guests including former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and former Deputy Premier Jackie Trad; ABC Gruen’s Dee Madigan; social commentator and author Jane Caro; and NSW Labor MP Penny Sharpe.
Each year 300 women come together at a splendid dinner to judge the most sexist remarks by public figures during the previous year.
The nominator of each winning quote carries home a silver Ernie (handsome silver pig on a plinth). The overall winner gets the Gold Ernie (sheep rampant on a golden orb).
The winners of the awards for sexism were allocated to public figures in the traditional way: the loudest boos (in tight contests, a boo-off is required).
The awards came about because of truly sexist remarks made by Ernie Ecob who was the secretary of the AWU, the old Shearers’ Union.
There are six categories, plus the ‘Good’ Ernie, The ‘Elaine’, for the woman who makes the remark least helpful to the sisterhood and the ‘Clinton’ (renamed the ‘Trump’ in 2017) for a repeat offender
The 2022 winners are:
GOLD ERNIE AND MEDIA SILVER ERNIE
Columnist for The Australian Paul Kelly wrote before the election: ‘The women’s movement won’t decide the next election.’
JUDICIAL SILVER ERNIE
Queensland Police: A Queensland police officer giving evidence to the Queensland inquiry into domestic violence recalled hearing colleagues describing rape as ‘surprise sex’ and saying ‘domestic violence is just foreplay’ and ‘she’s too ugly to be raped’.
POLITICAL SILVER ERNIE
Victorian MP Bernie Finn in a speech about abortion said he knew pregnant rape victims who had ‘never been happier’ after having their child.
INDUSTRIAL SILVER ERNIE
Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet for designing a new logo for the women’s network that looked like a large purple cock and balls.
SPORT (THE WARNEY)
Fox Footy reporter Tom Morris commenting on a female sports broadcaster (who he named): ‘Unfortunately she’s a lesbian, lads – hottest girl at Fox by a long way. Unfortunately, she’s got a licker licence. She’s very good at it.’
CLERICAL/CELEBRITY
Hillsong pastor Brian Houston regarding his staff member sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman at a social function: ‘We’re not talking about a sexual predator here… a young married man who did something stupid, got much drunker than he should… and got himself in a bad situation. That’s it.’
THE ELAINE (For the remark least helpful to the sisterhood)
Columnist at the Australian Janet Albrechtsen on the Brittany Higgins allegations: ‘The PM seems to be frightened of women who think they should be free to roam the landscape, pointing the bone at alleged offenders without benefit of trial or other traditional niceties.’
[Boo]
THE GOOD ERNIE (For Boys behaving Better)
Radio personality Kyle Sandilands commenting on NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet: ‘How can someone run a state like New South Wales and be anti-abortion and anti-gay rights?’
THE TRUMP (for repeat offender) Scott Morrison
The Ernie’s day is done
For better or for worse, this was the last Ernie awards.
Ernies founder and organiser Dr Meredith Burgmann said at the ceremony that the 30th edition would see the Ernies out.
‘We decided that 30 years was a good run and, like Ash Barty, we should quit while we’re on top.’
You can see the history of the winners and the ‘dishonour’ board on the Ernies website.
So nothing denigrating Men is sexist? That sound a bit like sexism.
None of those statements are about Men? What about sexist statements directed at Men?
Please define for me what a woman is
Why?
If you are whatever you feel you are at any given moment, then the distinction between man and woman disappears, thus collapsing feminism. Revolutions have a way of coming back around, in your face.
There’s a big assumption (presumption?) here about why I asked but: if “the distinction between man and woman disappears”, there would be no need for a feminist movement.
This is the point we get to, where you have handed me low hanging fruit and when I hit it for six, the moderator censors me. I always reply to you. So I will just ask – Why does Ontology exist?
I sympathise Christian – I often experience the exact same thing. I’m glad your confident you would “hit me for six” but I suspect this is based on more assumptions (presumptions) that may have been avoided if I could be bothered elaborating. I can’t anymore because I’m often censored.
But I prefer the exercise an exchange of ideas rather than winning and losing.
Oh dear 😱 I’ve used here a “your” where there should be a “you’re” and earlier today an “it’s” instead of an “its”. Are you getting to me?
Pretty sure I always get to you. Am still not thinking in English.
‘But I prefer the exercise an exchange of ideas rather than winning and losing.’ Sure you do, and Socrates was just innocently asking questions.
Now, Ontology, why?
I wasn’t thinking in English either it seems when I wrote that sentence – it’s a shocker!
I’m not wussing out honest, but I don’t think that this is the right medium to take the discussion in that direction. We’ll write copious verbose exchanges that will be censored for boring everyone. Such a waste of time.
I’m drawn to contribute for a range of reasons and one of them is the challenge.
Now where did I leave that hemlock?
I checked, we were taught “It’s” in QLD, and my wife always uses “you’re” and never “your”. Go figure. Maybe not teach primary school kids French and Italian while they are still learning English.
Since my pronouns offend you, I’ll stop using them. Oh, and “Rooves” was never a word.
Feeling a little sensitive Christian? Dish it out but not take it?
I scolded myself not you if you look again. You have given a hint here that English is not your first language and I am in awe of anyone who is bi/multi lingual – a feat I have never come close to achieving.
And IT’S not your pronouns that pose a problem. “YOUR” and “ITS” have no apostrophes when used simply as possessive pronouns. It is when you want to tack on the verb “to be” with “IT” and “YOU” that the picky among us require an apostrophe to show that a letter has been omitted. Hence “IT IS” can be shortened to “IT’S” and “YOU ARE” can be shortened to “YOU’RE”.
It’s not a matter of either or but a matter of intended meaning. If this is news I’M (a contraction of “I AM”) sure YOU’RE not the only one.
For anyone interested, next week we can tackle “THERE” “THEIR” and “THEY’RE” 🤣
Languages in primary school? What WE’VE all observed and what research has confirmed, is that if you want to learn another language the best time to do it is before puberty. There is also ample research that points to the huge benefits for cognitive development for small children exposed to another language.
I wasn’t taught French until secondary school so THAT’S probably why I’M not very smart.
Nay, hence informing thee ’twas ‘It’s’ in all verse wence I learnt. ’twas excoriating 80s QLD babysitificational institution’s policies of coerced multilinguality inducing grammatical err in myne glyphic lingua francal execution.
Shall cover thou, thee, thy, thine, and ye, on the morrow.
‘I wasn’t taught French until secondary school’, pray conjuncting the other, to wit, thyne catholic pig Latin?
Dear moderator
Again, can I know what is offensive about this and why are references to Catholicism permitted but I am not permitted to question or call out any related sledging?
I assume this was censored as later contributions have been added.
Liz, your comment was so far off-topic that it hurt my brain.
(you are not the only one to have comments not approved)
Eve
Thanks for the explanation Eve. So the comment before WAS relevant I take it? And acceptable it seems despite references to religion and pigs?
Just to be clear, I think there is a whole lot more to worry about than these niceties which will probably disappear due to common usage – everyone knowing what is meant and most people not giving a stuff.
But who was it who told us: “ A hundred years of dumbing down the school system means average people have no rhetorical skills, grammar, nor spelling ability”?
Charlotte T. Iserbyt, former senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education for the Regan administration. Since her untimely death a few weeks ago, her book ‘The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail (1999). ISBN 978-0966707106’ is available free online.
The words man and woman were made up by the christian right. flat earthers believe in sexism. alex jones started it with his gay frogs
And a Gooday to all. . . re; Paul Kelly. . . plus ScoMo representing
Australia’s version of Trump.
Trump didn’t even replace Obama’s guys with his own people, and then wondered why he couldn’t get anything done. If Trump had made himself the whole government, and had actually been what he was purported to be instead of a puppet, there would be a whole new America, or at the very least, an actual wall.
Remember what happened when Whitlam did exactly what Morrison just did. Whitlam and his buddy just rewrote everything including changing the nature of our sovereignty? Only a matter of time before a Liberal PM used the president Labor set. You can blame comrade Whitlam for this. Whitlam made what Scomo did, legal. In fact any PM can legally do the same thing.
I didn’t read anything about denigrating men, just those people being completely ignorant of their behaviour or comments.
So your implying that when people denigrate men it isn’t ‘being completely ignorant of their behaviour or comments’ which makes you completely ignorant of your behaviour and comments. Virtue signalling doesn’t make you a good person, it just turns you into that thing yourself.
The terms ‘surprise sex’, ‘domestic violence is just foreplay’, ‘she’s too ugly to be raped’ all come from an Australian Female Youtube star/ film director/ documentary presenter called Natalie Tran. It’s sarcasm.
‘She’s too ugly to be raped’ . Sexist cop & cop the lot.
Try growing up for once.
Police are suppose to be skeptical of extraordinary claims. People lie about what they possessed of their own gain all the time. Insurance companies are well aware of this. If someone lacks the attractiveness for it to be reasonably assumed someone would risk going to jail, there is a high probability they are using the police as a weapon, which is a crime. If I claimed you Stef, beat me up, shouldn’t they be very very skeptical of that purely by just looking at us both. Isn’t that them just judging us by our appearances? Would be about as likely as a young buff guy that could get any woman he liked, raping a really ugly one. Anything is possible,but that doesn’t make it probable.
You’re not serious about this – stop stirring the possum.
Women are going to regret this man-hating when the era of bludging off fossil fuels ends
You can’t explain with big concepts such as evolutionary biology and economics of scarcity. They learn through videos, here’s one….Youtube ‘Feminist Changes Mind As WW3 Kicks Off’
The whole article has collapsed into an unwanted half-hearted tit for tat.
ScoMo versus Whitlam? Gogh had a brain – the current supposed leader
of our nation isn’t aware that some of us do have one.
Cross Purpose [S.B.]
‘Dreams incorporated’ is
the longest existing
protection racket . . .
Not only did Whitlam have an excellent brain he also made public what he was doing and set a time limit on it. It was a short interim measure until all the election results were available and he could appoint a complete cabinet. Unlike the decades of conservative inertia the Whitlam Government wanted to get on with the badly overdue reforms that had been promised eg ending conscription.
Any attempt at comparison with ScoMo’s secret multi ministries is sheer desperation.
Short term covid measure until the election results were available
Which election?
Spot on, Liz. Whitlam made sure that university was made available to all of us.
So many have put that to good use.
And others not so much!
I’m interested in your definition of ‘good use’?