Don Burke is just the first scalp in Australia’s entertainment industry
This week’s harassment allegations against TV presenter Don Burke are just the tip of the iceberg, predicts the University of Melbourne’s Lauren Rosewarne in this crossposting from The Conversation.
A couple of years ago while writing about autism and Asperger’s in film and TV, I came across a quote from a psychologist. I’m paraphrasing, but the gist was that there isn’t a woman alive who hasn’t – at one time or another – suspected her male partner of being on The Spectrum.
The point – hyperbolic of course – was that most women have tales of men not listening, not picking up on cues and devoting excess energies to solitary pursuits like computer games.
Men and selective spectruminess is plaguing me at the moment.
I’ve been doing a bit of media about sexual harassment recently (i.e., here) and, depending on the program, there’ll be calls or text messages fielded – or emails sent privately afterwards – from men expressing scarcely smothered frustration about just how “complicated” all this stuff is: that sexual harassment is notoriously subjective; that women are too sensitive/looking for opportunities to get outraged; that we need to spend more time thinking about men’s “innocent” intentions.
Reading this I couldn’t help but wonder, when did Mumbrella journos get so smart? Great read nonetheless, great crosspost.
Yes, a cleverly worded article written in a solid journalistic way.
The article is also loaded with sexual politics, catch phrases and assumed moral opinions. It occasionally smacks of the old Derryn Hinch technique of “shame shame,” and of smoke screened and leading questions such as, shouldn’t everybody be safe to walk the streets at night? Who is going to answer NO.
the argument that people in power are mostly men, and that men are sexual predators (as if only men can be sexual predators) is a powerful one, but it is also a convenient tool in sexual politics and for any one of the many faces of feminism, which is variously defined and manipulated by whoever is arguing one or more of any number of points.
There are many problems associated with the so called natural order of things, with the way we must all spend our woefully short time on earth. Human sexuality, (just look at the hotchpotch regarding the yes/no vote) and human coexistence generally, is fraught with danger and problems, the unexpected and the unexplained. We all must try to live in a kind of harmony, whilst negotiating rampant disharmony and confusion.
I believe that one of the biggest social problems we have made for ourselves is the cult of celebrity, the glorifying and idolizing of individuals, simply by the so called virtue of their individual celebrity.
This one can kick a football, this one can turn heads, this one can sing or make music like Orpheus, this one is a movie star etc. The truth is more likely in the fact that he/she can make loads of money for someone or some organisation, and so he/she is aloud to behave badly. I say he/she, but of course men are expected to behave badly, women are not; here lies a compounded social problem.
Perhaps rather than say “No means No” we should be saying “Only Yes means Yes”?