Welcome to 3AW. Skip directly to: Search Box, Section Navigation, Content.

3AW - Fairfax Radio Network

Saturday May 25, 2013

What we're talking about

Neil Mitchell: We must stand up and change attitudes to women

Posted by: Neil Mitchell | 9 October, 2012 - 9:02 AM
Neil Mitchell says the Prime Minister is taking votes from 'two grubs', Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson.

Has anybody stopped to think about this? The Speaker in the Federal Parliament, Peter Slipper, is now revealed as such a sleazy and unpleasant piece of work. A man with such a vulgar and deeply offensive attitude to women.

He can never return to the Speaker’s chair again – he is finished.

And at the same time, we still have sitting on the government back bench, Craig Thomson. A man still accused of using funds to buy prostitutes.

So potentially, we have two people supporting the government, keeping the government in power, who have an offensive attitude to women which belongs in the Dark Ages.

Nicola Roxon and the hand bag hit squad are going after Tony Abbott because of his attitude to women. That is so absurdly hypocritical it’s painful.

Put Craig Thomson aside, we’ve discussed his situation in detail. We know all the him and the credit cards and prostitutes. And one Minister, Bill Shorten, as good as convicted him on air here with me.

Now, the text messages that have come out in Court condemn Peter Slipper.

He may or may not be guilty of sexually harassing a staff member, but his text messages as presented to the Court show a man with appalling attitudes to women. A man who deals with, very strangely with his staff members.

I won’t read all of what he said, but he talks about female genitalia and describes them in an offensive, vulgar and genuinely obscene fashion.

I know blokes can be rugged and vulgar in male company, but this reaches another level.

It shows a man with an attitude to women who should not be holding one of the highest positions in this country.

He has been put there for political expediency, to keep Julia Gillard in power. The government needs his vote, or rather doesn’t want it with the opposition.

Julia Gillard takes Craig Thomson’s vote for the same reason, so she has two men keeping her in power with real problems with women.

Tony Abbott is a complete saint compared to these two, yet he is unpopular with women. Julia Gillard is even more unpopular with men.

There is a gender divide here, but the fact remains: Julia Gillard takes votes from these two grubs and then she sets her dogs on Tony Abbott because she says he has a problem with women.

That is ugly, absurd and hypocritical. It goes to the heart of what is wrong with the government.

It’s a fixer, it does deals, it doesn’t govern. To Hell with morality or standards.

We talk about attitudes to women and changing attitudes.

The death of Jill Meagher focused attention on that. Too many men view women badly, see them as opportunities and not people.

Too many women are harassed at various levels by idiots, who probably agree with Peter Slipper’s description of women.

I know many young women who accept it as normal. They go out and they’ll be hassled by a grub.

It is time to draw a line. There is the sad news in the paper today about Argun Ragi, killed by her husband last week.

She was stabbed and burned despite having taken out an intervention order against him and despite Police being worried for her. She was brutalised before she died.

Intervention orders are pointless, and this proves it. How do we draw a line? How do we say we must stand up and change attitudes to women?

Is it education? The vast majority of men are decent. How do we get the decent ones to stand against those who are not.

Consider this, according to VicHealth figures, the biggest cause of ill health and premature death in women aged between 15 and 44 is violence; The single biggest cause.

And more than half of Australian women, 57 per cent, have suffered some form of sexual or physical violence since the age of 16.

Men wouldn’t cop that – women shouldn’t have to.

It’s up to decent men to make sure they don’t.

Yes, it’s a confronting topic.

The government is planning an announcement at midday on this issue. I hope they really break new ground here.

Share

Blog comments Your Say

  • Rather it should be.. sit down lov, stop your rot and keep your "ms effie syndrome" in check..excuse me/....how dare u... well I do along with plenty of other australians who want to ban the ms effies'who cause violence by arrogantly hiding behind their generational flavour of the decade prominence

    excuze moi Thursday 31 January, 2013 - 1:48 PM

  • right on Ruby... in relation to your reply to Jason - I totally agree!

    star Saturday 24 November, 2012 - 4:01 AM

  • reply for Jason, I am a housewife, and I wouldn't vote for gillard, or any othe so called wealthy business wo=MEN, they do not know what the average Australia WOMAN, even does in their average life, these woMEN are arogant. They have taken our right to be stay at home mothers away from us, they wouldn't know what it is like to be the most rewarding job a WOMAN could be and that is a MOTHER.

    Ruby Thursday 11 October, 2012 - 11:20 AM

  • Well said Neil Mitchell. While PM Julia Gillard has adopted a dishonest and disreputable policy of falsely accusing the Coalition of "sexism" and "misogyny" (and hence implicitly accusing every Coalition female MP and female supporter of being a self-hating woman) she ignores the horrendous physical violence to Australian women. 40% of all Australian women have experienced violence since age 15 (Google the VicHealth Report "Violence against women in Australia") and the "Little Children are Sacred" report (p235) quotes research showing that 34% of Australian women and 16% of men have been sexually abused as children.

    Dr Gideon Polya Thursday 11 October, 2012 - 8:56 AM

  • It actually make me nervous just writing this but that 57% in my opinion is way off. More like 90%. Im in my 30s and have a large circle of female friends and couldn't name a single one who hasn't had their drink spiked in the past. I would also say that of the friends who I am close enough with... they all have stories of rape and molestation, but I don't have a single friend that has ever reported it. It's extremely secretive because everyone is scared. Scared of being called a lyre, scared of the perpetrator getting off n then taking revenge, scared of breaking up families, the list goes on. Please stick up for us females, as we can't do this alone.

    Julie Wednesday 10 October, 2012 - 8:47 PM

  • @Matt-proudly un-Australian, I am female and can't stand female presenters with their shrill high pitched and in many cases childish voices and avoid TV shows which are prominently hosted by females as they are mostly so bloody pretentious (a bit like female pollies). The only woman I like on tele is Jennifer Kyte on 7s News who doesn't have to rely on showing off her boobs and has a most pleasant voice and manner about her.

    GIW Wednesday 10 October, 2012 - 12:56 PM

Post a comment * Mandatory fields