So Clem Ford got fed into the shredders over a tweet. It’s been deleted, but it was a short, dark bit o’ snark in response to an article diving into the massive imbalance between men and women in the hours worked looking after children at home. It’s that thing where most woman have two jobs now. Paid and unpaid. And it’s an imbalance which appears to be getting worse during the ‘ronapocalypse.
But somebody called the Thought Police.
And unusually for Clem Ford, she eventually backed down, a bit, and apologised, a little.
So this one definitely wouldn’t stand up as a Sideboob, although I might’ve given it a run for my old column at Fairfax because I’ve long been interested in the double standards applied to women and enjoyed by men (myself included, natch).
(I had to explain to the SMH editors what it was and why video games are a whole thing now before they’d run it.) Many, if not all the women who commented on this toxic shitshow, paid for it with a barrage of death and rape threats. They were doxxed. Some were SWATTed. Meanwhile I took a few precautions to lock down my online presence before publication, but it proved unnecessary. I got to have my say and send my invoice without consequence.
There may have been – just maybe, mind you – something of a double standard at work. Then and now.
For instance, I don’t recall Lord Mayor Capp stepping into the brawl when Ford was getting so many death and rape threats while book-touring the fair city of Melbourne that her publishers had to hire private security for her appearances. I don’t recall the mayor’s concern for ‘keeping the community together’ during COVID-19 bothering her even a little bit when man-sized intellectual Gumby, Joe Hildebrand tweeted pretty much the same joke.
But of course Joe gets his coin from Rupert, and maybe the Lord Mayor felt a special responsibility to protect the rate payers of Melbourne from Ford’s life threatening tweets.
Hence the slightly threatening tone of:
“I have asked the CEO to review the selection process for these grants.“
Very tough measures implied? Serious ramifications incoming!
According the guy responsible for awarding grants, the decision to award a grant, once finalised is… well final. Even better, Leppert says, “Recouping funds is not even a legally available option.”
He goes on for another nine tweets, including the obvious point that, “It is entirely inappropriate to retrospectively apply special criteria to one applicant,” and the Council (or really just the Mayor) should think through the consequences of regulating the speech of grant recipients.
But of course regulating speech is what most free speech warriors are really all about.
The only thing that I will give Joe Hildebrand is that he is right - to a point. Nothing that the wealthy culture warriors say on twitter matter to ordinary people. Right now the ordinary people are just trying to get by - happy if they have jobs with sick pay in case they cop COVID 19 (but pretty much giving up on any pay rise in the foreseeable future) or worrying if they will get back to work if their employers have been benevolent enough to put them on Jobkeeper (if they qualify) or quaking in the boots getting ready to deal with the rigours of the Centrelink system if they are on Jobseeker.
In the grand scheme of things this is just a sideshow. Clementine Ford has handed back the money - she probably already had done well with 2 books published. It is a sideshow compared to the massive shit storm in Victoria and the developing one in NSW. Oh and who can forget the grand machinations of Clive Palmer aka Coal Finger and the casual free passes dished out to Kerry Stokes and other celebrities when it comes to doing quarantine in the $2600 hotels and jetting about the country.
I can see Clementine Ford's tweet for what it is - an oversimplification. A generalisation. I know in my head that when she tweets about men not dying fast enough, she has in mind a generalised picture of the men she means. Fat, lazy, violent, incredibly sexist, driving a ute, eating a sausage.
Whatever.
The problem with generalisations is that they form the basis of pretty much every single bias held on earth by humankind.
Ripped off by a turban wearing taxi driver? Fucken rag heads are all rip off merchants.
Next door neighbour drunk and a bit yelly? Fucken abos are all alcoholics.
Girlfriend broke your heart and stole your key card after fucking some bloke at the pub? All women are sluts.
Imbalance won't be addressed by doing the same thing in reverse. It just doesn't work like that. Clementine reveals herself for what she is when she engages in the same generalisation that creates racism, sexism or any other 'ism' - an angry person without a fair or immediate target to blame.
Clem has every right to say the things she does however when she says something like that last tweet it's no wonder she rattles some cages. I'm an easy going bloke who sits comfortably on the left and supports a progressive social agenda yet when I see someone calling for my death, well they become just like any hateful fanatic and I view them with guarded hostility.
Tom Lehrer once wisely said "Life is like a sewer, what you get out of it depends upon what you put into it". Clem is no doubt angry and hurt by all the disgusting epithets that have been hurled at her yet it's proven beyond doubt that to beat these dickheads you HAVE to be better than them. By embracing the hateful rhetoric of the enemy you become them.
If Clem wants to keep dribbling shit like that then she can stay in the sewer with the rest of the hatemongers, death cultists and Faux Gnu's talking shitbags and as a consequence I will be like Rorschach in Watchmen for when she cries "save me" I will look down in disgust and say no.
Someone tweeted “imagine if Alan Jones had tweeted that. He’d have been lynched by #theirABC” or words to that effect. Aldi Alan Jones did, actually, tweet more or less the same thing. Fucking crickets. I don’t always agree with Clem, but she’s as much of a right to tweet something regrettable as Murdoch’s syncophantic shoe lickers
Glad for the overview, Ive caught bits and pieces but always great to get a perspective on the story. You know that can pull all the threads together, follow up different sources and people, synthesize a coherent narrative that while not objective (no such thing as an objective narrative) at least highlights were the writer is coming from and gives enough info see the whole piece. You know what journalism in the mainstream media used to be about.
These uppity women will never be allowed to say the same thing as a man and get away with it!! Mordor's minions see to that. Obviously we should all adopt a male non de plume if we wish to avoid a pile on from the thought police! Because we really haven't progressed very far in the last hundred years, when that was the only way a woman could get published.
The only thing that I will give Joe Hildebrand is that he is right - to a point. Nothing that the wealthy culture warriors say on twitter matter to ordinary people. Right now the ordinary people are just trying to get by - happy if they have jobs with sick pay in case they cop COVID 19 (but pretty much giving up on any pay rise in the foreseeable future) or worrying if they will get back to work if their employers have been benevolent enough to put them on Jobkeeper (if they qualify) or quaking in the boots getting ready to deal with the rigours of the Centrelink system if they are on Jobseeker.
In the grand scheme of things this is just a sideshow. Clementine Ford has handed back the money - she probably already had done well with 2 books published. It is a sideshow compared to the massive shit storm in Victoria and the developing one in NSW. Oh and who can forget the grand machinations of Clive Palmer aka Coal Finger and the casual free passes dished out to Kerry Stokes and other celebrities when it comes to doing quarantine in the $2600 hotels and jetting about the country.
I can see Clementine Ford's tweet for what it is - an oversimplification. A generalisation. I know in my head that when she tweets about men not dying fast enough, she has in mind a generalised picture of the men she means. Fat, lazy, violent, incredibly sexist, driving a ute, eating a sausage.
Whatever.
The problem with generalisations is that they form the basis of pretty much every single bias held on earth by humankind.
Ripped off by a turban wearing taxi driver? Fucken rag heads are all rip off merchants.
Next door neighbour drunk and a bit yelly? Fucken abos are all alcoholics.
Girlfriend broke your heart and stole your key card after fucking some bloke at the pub? All women are sluts.
Imbalance won't be addressed by doing the same thing in reverse. It just doesn't work like that. Clementine reveals herself for what she is when she engages in the same generalisation that creates racism, sexism or any other 'ism' - an angry person without a fair or immediate target to blame.
Clem has every right to say the things she does however when she says something like that last tweet it's no wonder she rattles some cages. I'm an easy going bloke who sits comfortably on the left and supports a progressive social agenda yet when I see someone calling for my death, well they become just like any hateful fanatic and I view them with guarded hostility.
Tom Lehrer once wisely said "Life is like a sewer, what you get out of it depends upon what you put into it". Clem is no doubt angry and hurt by all the disgusting epithets that have been hurled at her yet it's proven beyond doubt that to beat these dickheads you HAVE to be better than them. By embracing the hateful rhetoric of the enemy you become them.
If Clem wants to keep dribbling shit like that then she can stay in the sewer with the rest of the hatemongers, death cultists and Faux Gnu's talking shitbags and as a consequence I will be like Rorschach in Watchmen for when she cries "save me" I will look down in disgust and say no.
Someone tweeted “imagine if Alan Jones had tweeted that. He’d have been lynched by #theirABC” or words to that effect. Aldi Alan Jones did, actually, tweet more or less the same thing. Fucking crickets. I don’t always agree with Clem, but she’s as much of a right to tweet something regrettable as Murdoch’s syncophantic shoe lickers
Glad for the overview, Ive caught bits and pieces but always great to get a perspective on the story. You know that can pull all the threads together, follow up different sources and people, synthesize a coherent narrative that while not objective (no such thing as an objective narrative) at least highlights were the writer is coming from and gives enough info see the whole piece. You know what journalism in the mainstream media used to be about.
These uppity women will never be allowed to say the same thing as a man and get away with it!! Mordor's minions see to that. Obviously we should all adopt a male non de plume if we wish to avoid a pile on from the thought police! Because we really haven't progressed very far in the last hundred years, when that was the only way a woman could get published.