I’m so sick of them coming at me again, cause if I was a man, then I’d be the man…

 I wish I had the composure to respond to this in an eloquent and measured fashion, but the truth is, I fucking don’t. In the same way that our iconic outgoing Australian of the Year couldn’t be disingenuous and force a smile for a man who has failed his way to the top, I can’t abide the pearl clutching Maude Flanders and indignant Peter van Onselens who want to maintain the patriarchy by policing women’s behaviour. 

To suggest that the criticism of Grace Tame over the past 24 hours is anything other than misogyny is fucking bollocks. She wasn’t rude. She wasn’t disrespectful. The heinous act she committed? Not smiling. Grace Tame showed up. Grace Tame shook his hand. Grace Tame didn’t pretend to be happy about it, and she sure as shit wasn’t going to let the PM for photo ops capitalise on her popularity. I’ve spent a whole lot of time studying leadership over the past 12 months, and I’ve learned that authenticity is a non-negotiable. 


If you still think Grace Tame was “out of line,” I’m really interested in where you stood when Tony Abbott paraded in front of a sign that said “ditch the witch.” When Alan Jones said Julia Gillard’s father died of shame, and when he said, 5 times, that she should be put in a chaff bag and dumped at sea. When he said Scott Morrison should “shove a sock” down Jacinda Ardern’s throat. You definitely weren’t condemning him for not smiling at our PM. Where were you when David Leyonhelm told Sarah Hanson Young, in our senate, to “stop shagging men?” We all know that’s not what you really want… Where were you when Julia Banks gave her final speech to the House of Representatives as her male colleagues walked out? When our PM turned his back on Tanya Plibersek as she addressed him in parliament? When our PM interrupted Anne Ruston when she was asked about being a woman working in Parliament? Conspicuously fucking absent. What about when Emmanuel Macron told our PM, in no uncertain terms, to go fuck himself? Where were you then? Or was that totally cool, because, you know, Macron is man, he’s supposed to show strength to power?


Don’t come at me with this “she was so rude” bullshit. You’re uncomfortable with a woman who doesn’t conform. I’m reminded of Waleed Aly getting behind Adam Goodes when he said “It’s about the fact that Australia is a very tolerant society until its minorities demonstrate that they don’t know their place. And at that moment, the minute someone in a minority position acts as though they’re not a mere supplicant, then we lose out minds.”


The age of women being grateful for, and happy about, the fucking scraps of space that society allows us to tell our stories and share our experiences is over. You don’t get to roll your eyes at feminism any more. You don’t get to dismiss us because “everything is equal now.” It isn’t. 

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