The controversy surrounding the alleged sexual assault and other alleged misconduct by Manly Rugby League player Brett Stewart has taken another turn with the National Rugby League Board intervening to suspend Stewart from playing for four weeks, and fining the Manly club, although it is not completely clear from the linked report whether this was in response to Manly’s decision to continue to select Stewart, or because of its inadequate management of player conduct at the function at which the alleged incidents occurred.
A substantial part of the debate over this issue has been whether a player who is under police investigation over a sexual assault complaint, or who has been charged with an offence, should stand down (or be stood down) from playing until the matter has been resolved, or whether they should continue to be able to play unless and until a conviction is recorded. The NRL Players’ Association and the Manly club are of the latter view. Commentators including Peter Fitzsimons and Jacqueline Magnay take the former view.
Fitzsimons states clearly, for me, why the NRL has done the right thing by suspending Stewart, and why Manly should have done so:
Brett Stewart, the Manly fullback charged last night with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl, is innocent until proved guilty in a court of law beyond reasonable doubt and it will be for the courts to decide on his fate.
The standard of proof required to prove that a player has brought the game into disrepute, however, is not nearly so high, and the true wonder of the whole sorry episode to this point is that, at the time of writing, Manly still intended to have him play in their side this Saturday night. It points to a troublesome antediluvian culture within the game that the code must eradicate if it is to continue to prosper in the 21st century.
The point here is that whatever the legal aspects of the allegations against Stewart, the NRL and Manly have ethical responsibilities to manage the behaviour of their players and to sanction them when they fall short of the desired standard.
It is also necessary to be clear about some other issues.
Firstly, it would appear from the reports that the NRL’s decision to suspend Stewart was not based on its having formed a view about the sexual assault complaint, but on other aspects of Stewart’s behaviour on the night in question which, whilst not necessarily constituting criminal conduct, apparently constitute conduct bringing the game of rugby league into disrepute. There is no reason why such a determination by the NRL should stand or fall with the success or otherwise of the criminal investigation/prosecution or be delayed because of it – and no reason why Manly could not or should not have acted to discipline Stewart over this behaviour.
Secondly – and this is an issue relevant not only to this case but of all the recent incidents of alleged sexual assault involving players in national football competitions – just because an allegation of sexual assault (or any other criminal action) must be proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court before the accused can be found guilty, it does not follow that the failure to sustain a guilty verdict in a criminal trial should be considered the end of the matter in terms of the ethical responsibilities of sporting clubs and leagues to manage and sanction the behaviour of players. Jessica Halloran wrote in Tuesday’s Sydney Morning Herald that:
In the past 29 years, not one professional footballer from any major Australian football code has been convicted of sexual assault.
Sexual assault allegations have now become as annual as the NRL footy season itself, and yet not a single man has been proved guilty despite the cries of women to the contrary.
This is bad enough, but not surprising to those who know how poorly the legal system serves rape survivors. What is worse is that in virtually all those cases, the clunky legal system’s inability to deliver verdicts beyond reasonable doubt has been regarded by the players’ clubs (and their sponsors, and the media outlets who employ them, etc.) as vindication of their good character, and they have been allowed to carry on as before with no further questions being asked. All else being equal, what should occur in such situations is that a robust internal disciplinary process should be set in train to establish whether, on the balance of probabilities, the players’ behaviour towards the complainants amounted to misconduct, and a suitably severe penalty imposed if this is found to be the case. I say “all else being equal” because we must respect the right of survivors of an assault to decide whether or not they want to go through the additional stress of being interviewed by the disciplinary panel, and also because if a matter is the subject of a police investigation or criminal trial, a parallel process of inquiry may be prejudicial to the criminal investigation. Nonetheless, it’s way past time we put an end to a situation in which elite male athletes can seriously misbehave towards women and escape any kind of reckoning whatsoever.
Of course he should’ve been stood down once he was charged. These apes are looked up to by kids and young men. To have not stood him down would have sent a message that his alleged behaviour wasn’t that bad, which would have been disgraceful. I’m not over-fond of cops but they don’t usually bother laying charges unless they have a brief of evidence that has a good chance of getting a conviction.
Hmmm.
I have concerns with the notion that it is the appropriate role of employers to police what their employees get up to when they are not working.
Paul,
Total crap. You give yourself away by using words like ‘ape’ to describe footballers. Yes, some are out of control at times…but would you call Hasim el Masri an ‘ape’…? Shane Webcke?
To have not stood him down would have been to send a message that he was guilty until proven innocent. What other workplace would suspend its employee after the mere allegation of a criminal offence?
By all means, if the suspension had been for excessive drunkeness or some such, that would be fair enough. Stewart does not dispute that he was drunk to the point of insensitivity. But not as a result of the sexual assault charges.
Would you apply the same standard to Lindy Chamberlain? Take away her kids until she was proven innocent?
You’re letting a prejudice against footballers colour your view.
PS – would you have deported Mohammed Haneef until he was proven innocent? By your logic, there must have been good evidence to arrest him on…
Robert,
That holds for normal people. Most of these football players are very young guys suddenly come into lots of money, in a culture that glorifies drinking, the objectification of women, male to male and male to female violence, and a game which is not much more than institutionalised violence itself.. In this instance I think the NRL has a duty of care towards its young charges and its good to see them taking it seriously.
What the league should do when a player is charged and how the league should treat a player who is acquitted are two separate things.
I absolutely agree with you on the first. In all but very unlikely circumstances (eg clear evidence of vexatious prosecution) no-one with a charge of this seriousness hanging over their head should be allowed to represent the game.
But I dunno about the second. Rape acquittals usually revolve around the inability to prove non-consensuality beyond reasonable doubt. Proving a negative (“I didn’t say yes”) is inherently very hard, but abandoning that principle would certainly result in some cases of false conviction (a minority of women are just as capable of vindictive lying, blackmail, or guilt-driven self-delusion as a minority of men are). The low conviction rate is not just a matter of sexism but a reflection of how hard it can be to establish past facts, let alone past states of mind, beyond reasonable doubt.
And if the court is unable to prove it wasn’t consensual, I can’t see what gives the league the right to overrule them. Unless the case brings out evidence of behaviour that brings the game into serious disrepute but is not criminally actionable – being publicly blind drunk and then having inappropriate sex, consensual or not, might count.
Luke, I’ve just pasted my post into MS-Word, done a search for the word “ape” and found no occurrence of the word.
But the league wouldn’t be overruling the court if it acted as I proposed. It would be operating to a less exacting, but still robust, standard of proof in determining whether or not an ethical (not a criminal) breach had occurred. For example, it might find, on a strong balance of probabilities, that the player’s behaviour had amounted to sexual harassment, which would constitute misconduct and attract a sanction.
Paul,
Are you seriously arguing that the high wage of footballers justfies a differing standard?
By your logic, check-out chicks at Target and burger-flippers at your local McCholesterol’s can behave however they like.
Interesting point at #2. However have a look at your employment contracts. I’m pretty sure that despite being non client facing if I was up on criminal charges I would under my contract
1. Have to inform my employer as soon as possible
2. Would most probably for charges like this find myself suspended without pay (for the safety of other employees) until the charges were cleared.
3. Would find a conviction would result in immediate termination.
Obviously the employer’s action would depend on the charges, a speeding conviction might be one thing, assualt another as the employer has to think about the safety of their staff.
“This is bad enough, but not surprising to those who know how poorly the legal system serves rape survivors.”
I wasn’t aware that the criminal justice system had any obligation to serve rape survivors at all. That’s what the medical, etc. systems are for. The legal system’s role is to determine guilt of the accused and take correctional actions, not provide vengeance for the victims.
Stewart does not dispute that he was drunk to the point of insensitivity.
So you have some special knowledge of Stewart’s statement to police, Luke? Because AFAIK he has made no public comment on the matter. The Manly club made a statement denying the allegations on his behalf (and both can’t be true — if he was “drunk to the point of insensitivity” he can hardly then deny doing it.) I know the papers published “Stewart told friends he was rotten” hearsay but if you’re so set on adhering to the strict rule of law you can’t invoke that in his defense either.
I am in two minds about the question of how players/NRL relates to a normal employment relationship but as a paying customer I’ll tell you I am looking forward to the start of the season with less of a sick feeling after the NRL showed some spine.
Paul,
Don’t be disingenous. From your post;
“…These apes are looked up to by kids and young men…?
Good people, I’m going off-line for the evening and I authorise those of my blogmates who are online to interpret and, if need be, enforce the comments policy on my behalf. So please keep it civil.
Sorry – should have looked closer. I was replying to Paul Burns, not Norton.
Luke,
Cross-posted so I missed your comments.I have a prejudice against violent men. I have a prejudice against men who objectify women.Such men,be they footballers or non-footballers, deserve the description of apes. I have a prejudice against any culture which suggests such behaviour is okay. (And I have a prejudice against pornography for similar reasons.) I find football so boring I never watch it. I rarely comment on it out of respect for people who do like football, I find most footballers boring, and I acknowledge at the same time that some of them are decent men. But the majority do not appear to behave that way off-field.. I am appalled that these blokes are role-models to children.
Paul Norton,
Wasn’t Luke referring to Paul Burns’s post?
Paul B later wrote: “and a game which is not much more than institutionalised violence itself.. In this instance I think the NRL has a duty of care towards its young charges”
Well, does the NRL’s duty of care extend to altering the game to make it less violent on the field of play? Serious injuries occur, I’m told. Is that acceptable?
Groundsman,
Sydney Coliseum
I’ve often thought it a bit of a square-peg/round-hole thing to try and hold up elite athletes of a violent sport as idols for kids. Then try and curtail the very attributes that would have led them to success in the first place because we don’t like those attributes.
I am appalled at such behavior too. But you shouldn’t assume all footballers fit that profile.
@ Paul Burns,
But the majority do NOT behave that way off-field. Yes, the incidents are disgusting but most NRL players (and there are about 300 of them in the NRL not counting lower grade players) do the right thing. Many are involved in community work etc
There is a troubling pattern to the incidents that does merit consideration. But efforts have been made and are being made to combat players attitude towards women (Catharine Lumby for example) and inform the community in general.
And while I have no means to canvas every fan of rugby league, the public opinion is that most fans are critical of players behaviour when they do stray.
I do think it’s the players right to play on until a conviction is judged.
However, sport is not life, it’s money and marketing and this player was/is the face of League. It was a very bad look.
On that score Manly judged the situation poorly and the league has made the right decision.
Oh, an as much as I don’t like the often boorish behaviour by players of the football codes, Shaun is right, the majority are good enuff citizens.
As for the legal system the only way I can see the current legal system being made fair to rape victims is to reduce or eliminate the burden of proof and accept that a small number of innocent men might be jailed and/or branded for life.
(Or could we change the mode of the cases for that sort of crime from an adversarial legal system to more of an investigative one.)
There are no easy answers here.
Which is why we need to make the ‘hard choice’ and realise that our legal system is more important than the rape survivors.
Surely though the system needs to serve the people.
At the moment we hopefully avoid some innocent men jailed at the expense of a lot of guilty men going free.
The NRL hasn’t suspended Stewart for 4 weeks over sexual assault – they’ll wait for due process before penalising that. They can however penalise him for being drunk in public and making a fool of himself. I don’t think that’s in doubt.
The problem is that, as shown in the Ben Cousins debacle is that official evidence isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, and many a knee is jerked before facts are truly known. In Cousins’ case, he was dragged from his car by WA police supposedly in possession of drugs (amongst a cocktail of lurid allegations) – with high-profile media presence arranged by said police.
Well, the drugs were a valid prescription and it was eventually proven that he had done nothing untoward (well, in that particular instance). However, by then The Eagles had “sacked” him over the incident.
I’m inclined to let the justice system run its course before others start imposing their own penalties.
Yes, tsssk, lets go locking up innocent blokes so that rape victims can feel better.
What a fine idea that is.
It’s true that he’s been suspended because of his drunkenness, not because of his sexual assault charges.
As for whether his club has the right to curtail his employment in such a way – I’ll bet there’s some sort of ‘moral’ clause in his contract that allows the club to suspend him. Professional sport is branded entertainment. He’s harmed the brand, so he’ll pay for it regardless of anything else.
As for the sexual assault charges – there’ll be heaps of people crawling out of the wood work blaming the woman, minimising the alleged crime and trying to put a sympathetic spin on the charges. I find that nauseating.
Out of the woodwork is right, Fine. But it will happen.
Luke @ 3
I think this would be the case in many workplaces where the employees are public figures and thus the reputation of the workplace rests with the employees, e.g. politicians.
For better or worse, many young boys look up to NRL players because they have dreams of playing in the NRL. The code has the players interact with juniors to help grow and sustain the game. It is for this reason that the players off-field behavior is the subject of attention and high standards. It seems to me that almost all of the time when we hear about the private escapades of football players it is when they have done something incredibly stupid and/or possible illegal.
If the players don’t like having their behavior curtailed then they should consider not putting themselves in situations where they are likely to do stupid things.
It does. And the service it does provide is more important than a service that facilitates rape victim vengeance.
It’s not so much the guilty to innocent ratio itself that would bother me, but rather what else a system that can be easily manipulated to imprison innocent men could be (ab)used to achieve.
Who’s talking about vengeance except for you Desipis? I think Paul Norton might be talking about justice and the long and ignoble history of misogyny that is one factor that makes it so difficult to get a rape conviction.
My kids look up to some of these types as heroes. I’m desperately attempting to steer them away from ANY sport that produces these “heroes”. Lately the NRL has produced too many. If the police think there’s enough evidence to charge this guy, I really don’t care to wait around and see which “legal loopholes” will be used to get him off.
Well done to the NRL to suspend him. As for Manly… this is a good way to get rid of the ‘excess supporters’ you obviously have. I’m sure I’m one of many.
Fine @ 31
I believe the answers you seek can be found by reading from tssk @ 22 onwards.
All professional sportspeople in Australia sign contracts which stipulate behaviour codes and penalties arising from any breach. Stewart was stood down by the NRL for being intoxicated at a club or NRL official function, a clear breach of his contract. Manly’s decision to name him in the squad for next weekend’s game was also in breach of the game’s rules. They have been fined for both that action and Stewart’s behaviour.
Numerous media outlets ran accounts of Stewart’s ‘alleged’ actions within hours of it occurring on Friday night, and the nature of his assault offers little room for either excuse or for it to be buried. As so many other allegations against professional sportspeople have been. He has not been stood down as a result of the charges; but Manly’s handling of this, even their simple failure to act on his becoming intoxicated at an official function, sends an appalling message – if there’s money involved, we’ll look the other way.
It’s not about young men, lots of money, temptation – it’s about a society that condones violence, physical and sexual, against women. The actions of Manly speak louder than all the fine words that the NRL and every other professional sports code have pumped out. When push comes to shove, women and now obviously children first.
Good post. Something you may have missed, Paul, which I think also speaks to the dangerous pathological misogyny to be found in the NRL: earlier – at the same Manly function and before Stewart’s alleged infraction – Stewart’s team-mate Anthony Watmough got into a booze-fuelled brawl with club sponsor Paul Durazza after telling Durazza he should be “embarrassed” for allowing his 21 year-old daughter to attend the Sea Eagles function wearing a short white skirt. Presumably she was asking for trouble doing so. (Picture of the fracas – and daughter – here). Understandably, Durazza wanted to punch troglodyte Watmough’s lights out.
So Fine and tssk, presumably you’d take the same attitude to other crimes capable of causing lifelong harm to the victims – say, armed robbery, or GBH, or (of course) murder.
If not, why not? What’s so different about rape compared with other crimes that blight people’s lives?
If yes, I wouldn’t like to live in your world. Just imagine, for a start, how easy it would be to have a bent or annoyed cop fit you up. Or to have an embittered ex-partner say you went at him with a knife. Or to just be unlucky and have a series of pretty unremarkable coincidences lead to a dodgy circumstantial case against you. Or any of a dozen other relatively common scenarios that can bring innocent people under suspicion.
And despite Fine’s protestations, I really don’t think you are distinguishing revenge from justice.
Speaking of “apes” and bogans, which we wasn’t….
You know the problem with the working classes?
As soon as they get some money, they either ape the bourgeoisie, or boojwah the apes.
For a completely different slant on the case, this is yet another instance showing what a foul drug alcohol is. Ban it and legalise weed instead, I say.
DD, first you would need to tell me what attitude I’m taking, because I have no idea what your spluttering about. I also have no idea why you think I’m confusing revenge and justice.
The function at which Stewart misbehaved was a work function, and the sums paid to footballers includes a significant You Will Be A Good Boy Allowance.
Can I also say that the NRL is streets ahead of the AFL, where on-field performance is all and, as long as Stewart performed on the field, at least 10% of the city would rally behind him (and the other 90% would wait for one of theirs to slip up). In Melbourne a successful prosecution against a high-profile AFL player would be unheard of, the victim would face an almost tectonic pressure to withdraw the complaint.
Drunkenness is not a defence – it is not like mental illness, it is an abrogation of responsibility which, I suspect, requires legislative change. Fat chance getting that past politicians whose campaigns are funded by pubs, clubs and grog companies.
Pfft. I can’t believe thuggish behaviour by sportsmen is still considered to be news. Now this would be news:
Thank you Bernice and Andrew E for some real disussion and facts.
Really, the outpouring of angst about these people is really nauseating. Footballer culture has damaged lives for years and it’s because of a culture which treats callow young men as god-kings and cushions them from the consequences of their actions. The difficulty of proof in rape cases makes it more likely than not that perps who have done it will get off and yet this thread has already degenerated into vengeful women, lying women, women with short skirts. This is about the men and how the mantle of responsibility has to be taken by men.
The Barassis complained about young people being violent and uncontrolled without holding a mirror up to themselves and the culture from which they come.
It’s going to take a long time. Sam Newman’s still out there doing his ugly schtick and the crowds are still cheering.
Virile young men should play more vigorous tennis…like Michael Kroger and Peter Costello used to do at Neil Browns place. They never got into trouble like this.
That’s true ‘manly’ mateship for you. Get a grip.
That’s some great news photography linked to @ 35. A couple of shots from the function followed by a series of shots of the model, all presented by the company that owns half of the NRL. The best irony is always unintended.
The culture of Rugby League does not appear to be sufficiently toxic to deter very lucrative corporate sponsorships.
Evidently, association with RL culture is not perceived to be bad for business.
How toxic must RL culture become before sponsors snap shut their cheque books?
Or is this toxicity perceived to be good for business?
Yes, thewetmale, well spotted. Interesting juxtaposition which says just about all you need to know about the rampant hypocrisy that pervades this issue.
According to the CEO of Cronulla, the sponsors drew the line at Greg Bird’s alleged behaviour.
Bringing rugby league “into disrepute”? Into disrepute????
That’s the football code, right?
Does anyone else find this terminology a little odd?
No? I’ve overstepped the mark? So what will it be? Villawood, Baxter or Port Hedland?
Thewetmale said “If the players don’t like having their behavior curtailed then they should consider not putting themselves in situations where they are likely to do stupid things.”
It’s not surprising given the LP culture that not one of the predominantly male commentators here said anything about the 17 year old victim being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong sort of people where this sort of thing might happen to her.
On Life Matters today there was discussion about a change in the culture of sport
in the attitude towards this sort of thing, from clubs protecting their players to fans nowadays feeling frustration about players bringing their game into disrepute. No one mentioned the issue of the hard drinking associated with these occasions.
The excess of alcohol and the general atmosphere of these sort of functions, together with the fairly natural if foolish adulation of sporting heroes by young women makes this sort of incident almost inevitable from time to time.
How hard would it be to make sporting functions as alcohol free as we now expect supporter crowds to be at sporting fixtures? Surely that would be easier than placing the full onus for mature and gender equitable courtesy on the shoulders of testosterone pumped late-adolescents with very little experience in managing alcohol, much less their sexual drive and relations with the opposite sex.
I don’t think gate takings would suffer. It’s the game that matters, after all.
On Life Matters today there was discussion about a change in the culture of sport
in the attitude towards this sort of thing, from clubs protecting their players to fans nowadays feeling frustration about players bringing their game into disrepute. No one mentioned the issue of the hard drinking associated with these occasions. I think your first sentence sums it up, Patricia. Yes hard drinking is a problem, but what many of us would like to see is a real reevaluation of the cultureby the men themselves.
I agree Helen, but I am wary of talking about this too much as “footballing culture” — although I’m sure there are issues there — because it is a convenient out for self-idetifying “snaggy”, tertiary educated, privilege stuffed, culturally liberal men to put it on the Neanderthal Other and avoid examining themselves.
Good work, thewetmale.
It is of course vital that we see photos of the Lady in Lingerie. But not of politicians, OK?
Jenny: when did this happen? I’m as shocked as the next lad. What a wimp that player must be – I hesitate to call him a BLOKE.
Patricia WA, I believe the 17 year old victim was outside her apartment having a smoke. She was not at the Sea Eagles function nor any other venue where the players where drinking.
And props to Laurie Daley on NRL on Fox last night consistently mentioning that there is a 17 year old girl affected by all of this. Something the media in general has tended to forget.
Shaun @ 53,
I beg to differ. What the media was doing in the early news coverage was demonising the girl’s father for allegedly having criminal convictions for various types of fraud. They knew they couldn’t get away with attacking the girl so they targeted her father, who, incidentally, heard the girl’s cries for help and caught this Neanderthal at it. Some neighbours also have video evidence apparently.
If I’m accidently in contempt of court by making the above comment, please delete it.
Paul, yes the media pass on the smears regarding her father but since then the focus has been on Stewart, whether he should play or not and the damage to the NRL. How this issue affects the young girl has largely been forgotten and Daley was right to point this out last night.
The other option to avoid victims being further traumatised and opting for counselling and not pressing charges. Interestingly enough I kown of a couple of rape victims who went down this path who wanted to ‘just put it behind them.’
Possibly better for the victim but that would essentially decriminalise rape.
As I said no easy answers.
Interesting how some of the media have been reporting this. Approaching the father of the alleged victim on TV trying to get comment. Seeking the truth or giving the defense a handy ‘no fair trial due to blanket media coverage’ arguement.
(I did look up my old contract recently, and yes, being convicted of a criminal offence would require my workplace to be informed. Not being charged as I previously thought. Which makes sense as they really don’t need to hear about employees being booked for traffic infringements.)
To be fair i believe Channel 9 ran with this story but i heard a channel 7 news producer on the ABC explaining that they had heard elements of the story but chose not to run it. Not sure about any other outlets but I think the use of ‘the media’ is a bit too broad here. Not that i would want to be a defender of the MSM.
Sure we should not forget about the 17yo girl but surely she and her family should be left alone by the media who should focus on the player, the club and the NRL. If there is a need to balance this with telling of the side of the victim then it should be done in more general terms.
@ 48 and 49
I think it is clear there are two issues for those in the football community, football players’ problems with drinking and problems with dealing with females. Surely we should aim to improve the attitude to both.
Interesting as well that there was a line coming from the football club earlier this week of “we are recognized as one of the best in the league in dealing with these issues,” Part of this spin was the statement from the prominent female Manly supporters (of the top of my head i think Wendy Harmer was one.) I can’t help but think that was more a fluke than anything else.
@ 50
Hey that’s me! But seriously a lot of us well-to-do chaps enjoy League, although i think there is a point to be made in that Rugby League does have an affinity with the traditional working class/Daily Telegraph/Public School crowd and it’s probably all to easy for, say, a Rugby Union/SMH/Private School type to decry the riffraff.
Just as it’s convenient out for self-identifying “snaggy”, tertiary educated, privilege stuffed, culturally liberal women to put it on the Neanderthal Other and avoid examining themselves. But saying that isn’t nearly as much fun as inferring guilt by genitalia.
“…because it is a convenient out for self-idetifying “snaggy”, tertiary educated, privilege stuffed, culturally liberal men to put it on the Neanderthal Other and avoid examining themselves.”
Wait… WTF?
I don’t punch or rape people. Why is it assumed that my self needs examining? Cos I’ve got a cock?
Okay, it’s a fair cop. You got me bang to rights guvnor. If only I’d seen the error of my ways earlier, the march to a beautiful tolerant progressive future would be much progressed.
Guilt by genitalia? The man in question is under investigation for sexual assault. It’s not the dreadful ‘feminazis’ who are investigating him, but the NSW Police. Really, Desipis you’re making all sorts of weird inferences without any argument at all. As I said previously, it’s really unclear what you’re actually talking about, unless you’re trying to say that women just make all this stuff about sexual assault up, or women cause it to happen, or I dont know what really.
Thanks, Shaun, that was careless of me – rushing to comment without the full facts.
I still think that in a society where alcohol is so widely used and approved of and where sporting heroes who are too young to handle it appropriately together with the ridiculous adulation they get from the media and those around them these incidents will continue to occur.
Reading the LP blog brought up for me the issue of “rape” – “date rape” – “rape within marriage” and all the moral, sexual, legal and personal aspects I’ve struggled with over a lifetime.
Having fought the long and ongoing fight as a feminist wanting women to have a fair go in rape trials I still have a strong sense that women have a responsibility to protect themselves. Being aware of situations and individuals which present a threat is a reasonably healthy attitude to have. The blokes having tertiary education is hardly a guarantee of safety and avoiding them in crowds after rugby matches seemed a pretty sensible thing to do in my youth.
I have no time for the way Manly have handled this,they stuffed it up big time,thank Christ The NRL swatted them over it.
I played Rugby League and never sexually assaulted anyone,and there are 100s of NRL League players and clubs who do good work in the community without getting any kudos at all.
It is a Class thing with a lot of people Fitzgerald in the SMH,any Rugby Union website,you cant get away from that one,people who say Class is dead in OZ are sadly mistaken.
Read your local paper look at the binge drinking,unreported sexual assaults, general madness caused by grog among the young aged from 13 up,I not far from a taven,and had cars hooning in car parks usual stupidity,I also lived near and AFL ground in Perth and watched to sober crowd go and the drunks come back,so its not just RL its the culture of the time it always has been just has not been reported on as much as it is now.
There seems to be a double standard here. If Stewart wasn’t a footballer he would be stood down by his employers until the matter was sorted out.
The rule in all codes should be you get arrested or are involved in an incident you are out of team until it is cleared up. All legal fees paid for by the player A club has a duty to other players.
They don’t need distractions.
Stewart’s defence was he was too pissed to remember what happened. He was barred from a number of hotels before incident because he was so pissed. That is bringing the game into disrepute never mind anything else.
He is a diabetic who should know by now how to manage it.
The club does have a duty to ensure its players don’t behave like drunken idiots at functions. Manly is clearly culpable
These are blokes whose only skill is being able to play football. For this they are paid a lot. The club should insist they have other jobs or are studying something so they don’t have so much time on their hands.
Sport needs to grow up and set an example.
And it would be nice if Manly asked its neanderthal supporters to get off the fan web sites and stop belittling the victim. It really is sickening.
What FDB said.
Also, let’s stop blaming:
1. Alcohol – If these guys can’t control their alcohol consumption they need to either give it up or find another job. It’s their responsibility, not some drug that miraculously changes their character.
2. Rugby League – We’ve got all the other codes trying to distance themselves from RL and the current problems. Don’t kid yourselves guys (and gals), this is an all pervasive cultural problem that nobody is immune from.
3. Men in general – As FDB kindly pointed out, just because one comes into the world equipped with a cock, doesn’t make one a rapist, or even mysoginist.
OK, we have a pervasive problem with society’s attitude to women, but it doesn’t mean that every male, whether privileged or not, shares that attitude.
It’s not “manly” to rape or molest, Manly.
It’s not a good look to regularly get as-pissed-as-a-parrot.
Ask Brendan Fevola. Ask Wayne Carey.
cheerio
Fine, my “guilt by genitalia” comment was in regards to 50, where an statement was made that all men, regardless of who they are, have some sort of extra self-examining to do over women, solely because they are men.
My “vengeance” comments are in regard to comments such as @61:
The sole role a rape victim has in a rape trial is to serve as a witness. The only “fair go” they deserve is the same “fair go” a witness in any other trial deserves. The way I read such comments as this and like the one I quoted @11 is that the court has some obligation to punish the accused because it will somehow help the victim. I read that as vengeance.
But, there’s two points to be made about this, Desipis. The first is that there is a long history of women not getting a ‘fair go’ in rape trials, due to misogyny. The second is that one of the purposes of punishing a perpetrator is to offer some form of comfort to the victim. That’s why victim impact statements are read – so that the jury knows what the impact has been. That’s not revenge, it’s an acknowledgement of the damage done.
Fine
A comprehensive review of family violence laws in Victoria
http://www.lawreform.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/Law+Reform/Home/Completed+Projects/Family+Violence/LAWREFORM+-+Review+of+Family+Violence+Laws+-+Report
Overview
http://www.lawreform.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/Law+Reform/Home/Completed+Projects/Family+Violence/
Many of the recommendations have been implemented in new laws, 2008
Thanks for that, Ambi. I realise the laws have changed for the better. Hull has been a very progressive Attorney General. But, this offence happened in NSW and misogyny still does exist all oveer the place.
Isn’t there the larger issue of what sort of role model do sporting heroes provide for young children who aped their every move.
Is it a long bow to draw to mention the reporting of a schoolyard tragedy in Hastings, Vic on Sunday night which led the ABC News as “5 mates in tragedy while celebrating cricket team’s final win” [by jumping in the shade cloth in the locked local primary school] This was followed by a glowing obituary of the sporting achievements of the dead 13 year old and stating his pedigree as the son of an obscure ex-football player.
What made these boys think they could break into a school, climb up 12 feet and then jump on sail cloth as a celebration? Isn’t it the same immunity thing as the older players think they are God’s gift to women and are to drunk to discern when “No” really does mean “No”. These players need a job. Pity the girl’s father has a prior fraud conviction
Fine:
I disagree with that one.
Ambigulous, I find it interesting that according to the recommendations in that report, reducing a child’s allowance for misbehavior would be classified as family violence.
billie @ 70
Teenage hormones. Nothing about that incident to me seems to be unique to kids that play sport.
OMG!!!!! I do not believe what I have been reading here. From a human beings point of view this is the most disgusting thing ever.
We are talking about a 17 year old girl that accuses somebody of sexual assault. You people are all talking up and down the facts like the life of this young girl means nothing.
If anybody that I know had been accused of sexual assault on a 17 year old girl, I guarantee you that they would have been arrested THAT EXACT SAME NIGHT!!!! The thing that needs to be addressed here is not whether Stewart is innocent or guilty, that is for a court to decide, but whether special treatment is being given to these footballers. How many have been accused? How many have been convicted? How much pressure do these clubs put on police and media in order to hush these allegations?? What makes them so special?? Also their lives must be pretty pathetic if all they do is play football & get blind rotten drunk, so they can’t even remember what they have done…. but they can guarantee that they didnt do that???
Do we really believe this nonsense? In regards to the board, they had every right to ban him, his behaviour at the launch was despicable and he needs to be punished for damaging the name of not only himself, his club, but the whole NRL!
Libbeme, I think some commentors have been busy erasing the young woman from the story, but not all.
I know fine, thanks. I must be strange… I just flinch when I think of the poor girls terror, late at night, in a stairwell, screaming for her Dad to help her!!
No worries, Fine.
I think one of the aims of the Victorian reforms was to counter misogyny – amongs husbands, police, the magistracy, etc. A huge task: in every State. In every nation, probably. And to attempt to introduce court procedures (and investigation procedures) to be fairer to the assaulted and their children. Not just physical violence, BTW [financial abuse, etc.]
A highly-publicised “case” such as this can assist in getting issues discussed and prompt us to re-examine our attitudes. But what a price a 17-year old is paying for the education of the (“adult”) community.
Sorry, “family violence” is a bit OT, regarding alleged sexual assaults in public places (rather than concealed in a family home).
Amigulous @ 76, I don’t think family violence is off topic. I’ve made this point earlier but Catharine Lumby’s op-ed earlier in the week argues that we need to confront any sexual violence against women and children.
It’s a good article, Shaun and one that agrees with Bernice at #34.
“It’s not about young men, lots of money, temptation – it’s about a society that condones violence, physical and sexual, against women.”
I think it’s too easy to concentrate on the culture of the NRL or AFL, as toxic as it maybe. And no, I’m not saying all men are rapists. I’m saying there’s rapists amongst all classes of men.
I agree totally Fine.
Any copper who doesn’t do his job and investigate these football morons when they commit sex crimes should be hauled before the Poliice Integrity Commssion, fully investigated, and if found not to have been doing his job properly because the sex offender is a footballer should be sacked and charged with perverting the course of justice and gaoled if convicted.
Football officials and media people who pressure police not to charge these sex offenders should be charged with attempting to support the course of justice and gaoled if convicted.
Who exactly has condoned the (alleged) assault on the girl?
Shaun, you’re right again, as is Catharine Lumby, that we need to confront all violence against women and children wherever it occurs. My own personal and professional experience has taught me that empowering women and girls, not just physically, but psychologically and economically too, works better than legal process and retribution. However,some of the worst bullying I dealt with as a school principal was of boys against boys. Usually when the father came into the act as complainant (the victim rarely came forward independently) one saw very clearly how powerless the child was to fight back and why. Family dynamics is the determining factor and how we emerge more or less armoured to defend ourselves depends on our early years. Surely we can do a better job within our social structures and education system to help families treat each other with affectionate respect so that boys and girls grow up with the sturdy self reliance which deflects bullying of any kind. Prosecution and retribution after the event helps no one except to keep lawyers and social workers occupied. Without being an abolitionist or teetotaller, though, I still think the almost universal acceptance of alcohol use and abuse is a major factor in family and social violence.
Libbeme (and some others.) I don’t think it’s about erasing the alleged victim from the story. It’s that some of us are being careful not to contaminate the court case. Best to err on the side of caution this side of the case.
I’d also think that the victim’s privacy might be worth considering, unless there’s been an explicit statement from the victim saying otherwise.
Sure we should not forget about the 17yo girl but surely she and her family should be left alone by the media who should focus on the player, the club and the NRL.
Well frankly I’m a bit sick of the media focus that the players, the clubs and the NRL get. period.
I wouldn’t like to see this girl any more damaged, but it worries me that without anybody saying as much, she is being, or will be treated as though she has something to be deeply ashamed about. Perhaps if we were all confronted by this girl’s personal recounting of Brett Stewart’s violent attack, it would help to make it more real. But of course we would never do that because of the humiliation it would cause her. Which for me begs the question. Why should she feel humiliated? She hasn’t actually done anything wrong herself.
Humiliation isn’t always associated with fault, nor is it a simple cause and effect.
There are many reasons why she may feel humiliated, violated or betrayed, irrespective of the fact that she has done ‘nothing wrong’.
However what she doesn’t need I would imagine is any form of media or public attention. Hopefully she is receiving wise counsel in private.
Why is that these days every detail about every incident, no matter how degrading or must be revealed and poured over by a salacious public?
Drinking gone wrong. Girl too young to be keeping company with older chaps, and she smokes. Gives the impression she is forward. Where were her parents in all this. Stewart was too drunk to remember and what a dreadful situation abounds all round.
Camille – inform yourself before commenting.
Stewart was kicked out of the function, and assaulted a girl who’d gone outside her residence for a ciggie.
Camille, I think you are getting the girl who was harrassed at the function by another footy player who later punched her father who was there with her, with Brett Stewart who was kicked out of the function and assaulted a different girl outside her own home.
Anyway, it shouldn’t matter what age the girl was or where her parents were, no matter who they are the footballers should treat her with respect regardless.
cammille’s comment is the perfect example of … wait a minute…greenslime?
Dammit, and I rose to the bait like a well-berleyed kingfish.
Oh well, I suppose he needs his kicks somehow.
Paul Burns at #80, I think you’ll find it’s not the coppers who are the problem. Apart from anything else, cops don’t have as much power as you seem to be implying. It’s a far more common scenario that they’ll work their arses off and then see it all wasted once the matter gets to court. If it gets to court.
Why so defensive, FBD? You and, in particular, your cock personally could not have been further from mind when I made that comment. Believe it or not, they are rarely anywhere but very far from my mind. So sorry to disappoint.
Violence, abuse of power, subtle and not, aided by alcohol or not whatever all the dozens overlapping issues we are discussing here are not the sole vice of people who play football or any other sport for a living, and I think excessive focus on “footballing culture” just obscures the broader issues, and the broader effect of the problems. In fact I was thinking of several people I know, wonderful people, who are quite happy for it to be “oh another footballer, OF COURSE” as if the courts aren’t full of non-footballers (gosh, people with resumes like them) everyday on similar charges. Naturally, as human beings we like to move unpleasant things as far away from us and people like us as possible. I think this is non-realistic and unhelpful. Cognitive dissonance keeps us all warm at night but doesn’t help in long term, frank discussions of entrenched problems. If it allows you to lift yourself from the fainting couch for a moment, I am happy to concede that women are also human beings and I try to apply the same standards to myself. This is not I think terribly controversial and merely a variation on the observation many other people have made. In fact it is pretty banal.
I was watching the rugby league panel show on NITV today, an Indigenous focused station, and there was a great panel discussion with NSW Community Services Min Linda Burney on this top about the Tackling Domestic Violence programme the NSW GOvt, NRL and ARL launched last week, sadly on the day the Stewart story broke with relegated the launch to an ironic few seconds tagged on the end. It sounds like an excellent practical approach to improving life or everyone involved. (but I can’t find a website for it)
#81 – “Who exactly has condoned the (alleged) assault on the girl?” in reply to my earlier remark:
“It’s not about young men, lots of money, temptation – it’s about a society that condones violence, physical and sexual, against women.”
It was neither stated nor inferred that an individual act is being condoned by society, but that violence, physical & sexual is condoned by society. From popular culture, to our legal system, women are portrayed as deserving of abuse, complicit in that abuse, and unable to achieve redress when it occurs.
Successful convictions are the lowest among offences involving violence, in any form, carried out against women. Remember the sexual assault, sorry alleged sexual assault that involved the fine young men of Canterbury Bulldogs some years ago in Coffs Harbour? One of the investigating officers described the injuries suffered by the victim, sorry alleged victim, as appalling. No charges were laid. It was not for want of physical evidence – so the failure of that complaint to proceed came about because? A team’s season is more important than another battered, raped woman presumably.
But while this incident is making front page news, how many other women were assaulted on Friday evening – in their homes, on their streets, while out in public? Ordinary women assaulted by ordinary assailants who overwhelmingly will be ordinary men. Few of those incidents will ever be reported, investigated or brought to trial. Australia is ranked as having the third highest incident of sexual offences in the world – let us bear in mind that PNG is ranked 11th
These are raw stats – perhaps we have better standards of reportage. But the way in which clubs respond, people respond to actions such as Stewart’s seems to suggest that the impact upon Stewart, upon the team, upon the sponsors, are more important than the consequence for a victim. As if it doesn’t really matter. As if she doesn’t really matter. What if Stewart had sexually assaulted a 17 year old boy? What would the papers say?
Great comment Mungo.
Why is that these days every detail about every incident, no matter how degrading or must be revealed and poured over by a salacious public?
Why is it that these days every time a strapping young famous sportsman tries to take his birthright, ie. young women, the details must be degradingly revealed and pored over by a salacious public, as if he’d, like, done something wrong? In the olden days, this never would have happened. It’d be quite rightly hushed up because the girl would have been blamed and she’d be too embarassed to press charges. Oh for the olden days.
I’ll certainly agree that physical violence towards men is condoned by society, but I’ve yet to see any indication that any sort of violence is condoned towards women.
That’s a combination of the nature of the incidents resulting in a lack of evidence and a higher pressure to pursue conviction even in low odds cases. (And possibly other factors.)
And you know about this excess of unreported incidence because your spidey sense told you so?
I’ll certainly agree that physical violence towards men is condoned by society, but I’ve yet to see any indication that any sort of violence is condoned towards women.
If you really think that, you really need to look again with the blinkers off.
And you know about this excess of unreported incidence because your spidey sense told you so?
That’s a symptom. May be poorly expressed due to hurry, but I don’t mean it flippantly. Please go off and have a think before posting another brilliant and crushing riposte, D.
Desipis, please read ABS 4128.0 – Women’s Safety Australia, 1996
Is 82% excessive enough for you? That’s 343,920 unreported cases of men assaulting women per year. Or, approximately 942 on the Friday in question.
I’ve noticed a few people on this thread advocating a strict liability regime in sexual offence matters, and also a suggestion that alcohol consumption constitutes a ‘defence’ in criminal matters. I’ve deal with both issues here in a fair bit of detail. The first part of the post deals with steretyping, and that’s what people have spent fifty-odd comments discussing, but the criminal law aspects are interesting in their own right.
Unsurprisingly, I find strict liability regimes for even fairly minor offences deeply disturbing, as they are largely mechanisms for social control. Many anti-terrorism laws are strict liability in nature, often reversing the onus of proof (the accused must prove his innocence).
With respect to alcohol, it doesn’t provide a defence, but in sufficiently large quantities it can vitiate intent (the mens rea) at law.
Report across the bottom of a very boring Sunrise this morning thsat Stewart’s DNA test was negative.
I heard that too Paul, seemed a bit quick to get results for me? Anyone with some experience in the field?
Umm, yeah, real cute Amanda.
Unfortunately for you, your actual original comment is still here for all to see, viz:
“I agree Helen, but I am wary of talking about this too much as “footballing culture” — although I’m sure there are issues there — because it is a convenient out for self-idetifying “snaggy”, tertiary educated, privilege stuffed, culturally liberal men to put it on the Neanderthal Other and avoid examining themselves”
Again, (and if it makes you feel better I’ll do it completely humourlessly this time) for what reason do I need a ‘convenient out’ from the task of ‘examining’ myself? What is wrong with putting the spotlight on those who actually act violently towards women?
Perhaps you’re saying my belief that I respect women and don’t hit or rape them is just false consciousness, and by truly ‘examining’ myself I’ll realise I’m just a guilty as any fucking thug out there. Well, that’s a charming thought.
Anyway, personal indignation aside…
Y’know, to observe patterns of a statistical nature in the commission of crimes is pretty fucking central to understanding pervasive social problems like sexual violence towards women. To observe the bald fact that footballers do it a lot and seem to expect to get away with it is certainly NOT to suggest the problem is contained within football culture. Is this difficult for you to understand?
Or perhaps it is generalisations per se that are problematic for you. Why then do you tar my entire gender with the same clumsy and offensive brush?
By yr lgc, chck-t chcks t Trgt nd brgr-flpprs t yr lcl McChlstrl’s cn bhv hwvr thy lk.
Whch s prcsly wht w d. nd f w gt lcky, w d s wth sm pssd ftbll ld, hffng nd pffng ll vr s, r t lst w’ll gv hm blw.
If you don’t need to do anything, then don’t do anything. If you’re not one of the people I’m referring to, then you’re not one of the people I’m referring to. You attached your own name to my comment, not me. If my comment has no relevance for you then it has no relevance for you and don’t disturb yourself over it.
Ewww, Greenslime.
get if off get it off get it off!!!
Yes FDB, the slime’s multiple disguises are about as useful as his feeling of cognitive dissonance as he gets out of bed every morning.
If the details of this story are correct, then the authorities are attempting to match a sample of Stewart’s DNA with another sample, presumably taken from the complainant.
If the results of this match are inconclusive then this non-result has been divulged very quickly.
One cannot help wondering whether, if these results had been conclusively positive, the results of the test would still have been divulged.
Police have said all along that they were going to expedite the DNA testing.
I READ WITH INTEREST THE MANY POSTINGS REFERRING TO RAPE.BRETT STEWART WAS ARRESTED FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT & RELEASED.HE WAS LATER CHARGED WITH SEXUAL ASSAULT.DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT EXACTLY HE IS ACCUSED OF DOING APART FROM HEARSAY & PRESS REPORTS?
THIS MAN IS INNOCENT UNTIL HE IS PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW.HE BROUGHT THE GAME OF RUGBY LEAGUE INTO DISREPUTE FOR DRUNKEDNESS PRIOR TO THIS EVENT & HAS BEEN PUNISHED ACCORDINGLY.DOES THIS NOW SET A PRECEDENT FOR ALL DRUNK LEAGUE PLAYERS TO BE SUSPENDED IF CAUGHT?
I DON’T KNOW STEVE BUT COULD YOU KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN I’M TRYING TO READ!
We can only hope Steve.
What’s spidey sense? Does it come in different flavours?
Bernice @ 112,
Mainly liquorice, I’d guess.
Stoush notwithstanding, this “self-identifying “snaggy”, tertiary educated, privilege stuffed, culturally liberal men” is a seriously impressive social sub-set designation.
SITEPSCLM may no get a lot of traction as an acronym of choice, but I suspect I am a member of that sub-set.
No, definitely lime.
“SITEPSCLM may no get a lot of traction as an acronym of choice, but I suspect I am a member of that sub-set.”
Well examine yourself pronto before someone gets raped!
SITEPSCLM don’t get much action down on the Corso or Panthers, either! We want the ball-scratchers, burpers, farters, and chunderers!
In employment law, contract, most areas outside criminal law it’s balance of probabilities, not beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore if he has obligations to Manly, or the NRL, or either of those bodies has obligations under statute or via contracts with sponsors, these are most probably BofP.
In other words if the evidence (which none of us have seen, I concede) suggests he probably did something nasty but there is some lingering forensic doubt, he won’t and shouldn’t be found guilty of a crime, but that doesn’t mean his civil obligations shouldn’t be resolved separately.
Separately, if you want both evidence of the shortfalls in the legal system in respect of rape victims, and some solutions that don’t involve reducing the burden of proof, look to materials prepared by the Victorian Dept of Justice.
From memory some of the changes include making the giving of evidence less intimidating (without removing the right to cross examine), and putting restraints on the ability of the defence to use victim character assassination to win over the jury.
As for revenge, or the desire of a victim to see justice, I don’t think this is either irrelevant nor something that has been deleted from the social contract by the consent of the voting public. The purposes of ‘denunciation’ and appropriate punishment, set out distinctly from other key purposes like deterrance and rehabilitation in places like the Sentencing Act Vic, amply include this, indeed otherwise there would be little value in victim impact statements.
Perhaps the original comment should have read something like
“put it on the Neanderthal Other and avoid examining themselves for prostate cancer” or some such.
Hey i think i just discovered where Mungo comes from.
What if Stewart had sexually assaulted a 17 year old boy? What would the papers say? – Bernice
Never mind what the papers would say, if this had been the case his team mates would have ostracised, if not bashed, him out of homophobia.
But then if it had been a boy we’d have seen a different attitude from the sisterhood too. They would have issued stern warnings about not letting our anger at the alleged perpetrator flow over into homophobia, letting the law take its course, etc.
Unfortunately selective outrage is not the sole preserve of the reactionary Right.
Katz of course if the DNA results were conclusive, one way or another, they would have been divulged. Where’s the payoff to the cops in hiding it? If they were proof of guilt, in particular, they would certainly have been spruiked about to pressure Stewart into a guilty plea for a quick conviction to boost the clearup rate.
Don’t get me wrong – if Stewart did this crime he deserves everything he gets, and more. And there is no way the victim should wear a single skerrick of blame or shame. But folks, this really is turning into a feeding frenzy.
Armagny at #118:
Exactly right. Thanks for a succinct rendering of what I was trying to say in the second half of my post.
‘forensic doubt’? Are you referring to results of physical (“forensic”) tests? or general doubts raised in the investigation?
If there were independent eyewitnesses, then the prosecution case would not rely solely on the statement of the complainant and physical swabs.
I think you’re right, Ambi, which is doubtless why the police are proceeding irrespective of the DNA test outcome.
I should add just to be a pain in the butt, that there is something called the Brigginshaw (Sp?) test, a principle of jurisprudence that in the simple and transparent ways of lawyers means “there’s balance and then there’s balance”.
Basically this is a caution for judges applying a balance of probabilities test in cases where the allegation or finding is of particularly grave nature, for example civil fraud (this is where some contract lawyer swoops and corrects me. Swooping L.Eagle?). It would be fair to suggest it apply here too. Effectively requires a ‘strongly proven’ element before the finding is made.
Personally I’m all for conflating sexual and other serious violent offences. There’s no need to separate: in my view all are horrendous, and once proven guilty after an appropriate and fair trial, they should either go behind bars for a solid generation or more, or else if there’s proof they have serious psychiatric problems that inhibited their free will, then be taken out of circulation and comprehensively treated until certified as safe.
Want stoush?
“because it is a convenient out for self-idetifying “snaggy”, tertiary educated, privilege stuffed, culturally liberal men to put it on the Neanderthal Other and avoid examining themselves”
Personally, I cant believe all the OUTRAGE this comment caused. What is the problem fellas? If men have held all the privilege and all the power for 2000 years or so, if that power is inhered in cultural and social structures and is so enmeshed that that it becomes almost invisible to everyone including even at times women, if there is an accretion of that power and privilege in the personality organisation and development of a male child to his manhood, from the cradle to the grave, then what, for the love of God, what, I ask, is the problem with considering that there are behaviours, beliefs and practices which remain invisible to men because to them its the norm. Go take a pill. But not ours.
If, by the way, every woman on this site came out and laid out for you their experience with violence – physical, emotional and psychological – then everyone might shutup for a second and acknowledge that this is not a shocking story for women cause we have heard it from each other for YEARS. Look at the stats. Statistically speaking, when women speak on this subject, it is reasonable to presume that at least some of us are speaking from experience. Not just you FDB ok? Im sorry you happen to be a part of a gender which, statistically, does the most violence upon the earth, but your protestations that you are not like that are not enough to exempt you from what seems to me, to be a reasonable suggestion from Mungo Amanda. This has nothing to do with that and everything to do with how easy you get it as a white bloke in this world. Whether you are working class, bogan, rich or scientologist and god knows how they have suffered with Xenu and all that.
Asking men to examine themselves for hidden beliefs and privileges which result from the acculturation processes of a patriarchal structure into which they are born is the same as asking white people to look at their own privilege and stop regarding it as the norm.
That is all.
“Asking men to examine themselves for hidden beliefs and privileges which result from the acculturation processes of a patriarchal structure into which they are born is the same as asking white people to look at their own privilege and stop regarding it as the norm.”
Sure, and that’s quite reasonable. But that’s not what Amanda said, is it?
But thanks for your two cents!
And I say: yes means yes.
Amanda’s comment was as Casey said entirely unobjectionable. Further to Amanda’s original point, it’s not just “football” culture, it’s any workplace where hyper-blokiness, minimal inter-gender interaction and all-day drinking sessions are the norm. ie. the Law.
FWIW, FDB, I read the keyword in Amanda’s comment @50 to be ‘themselves’.
Not each man should individually examine himself, but men (plural) shouldn’t avoid examining themselves (plural), simply because they and their family/friends/colleagues/etc don’t consider themselves part of ‘footballing culture’.
“Amanda’s comment was as Casey said entirely unobjectionable”
My objection proves you wrong.
Nothing. As long as you don’t go making extreme assumptions such as:
to try and claim that men have any more obligation than women to examine themselves.
It seems like you might be getting a bit emotional; are you sure you’re not PMSing? I’m sorry you happen to be a part of a gender which, statistically, suffers from periodic hormonal changes, but your protestations that you are not like that are not enough to exempt you from what seems to me, to be a reasonable question.
Nick – interesting interpretation, but not Amanda’s:
“If you don’t need to do anything, then don’t do anything. If you’re not one of the people I’m referring to, then you’re not one of the people I’m referring to. You attached your own name to my comment, not me. If my comment has no relevance for you then it has no relevance for you and don’t disturb yourself over it.”
I got stoush!
But your objection has no basis, Frack Attack. As Amandachka’s said, she wasn’t talking about you.
Desipsis, that schtick has been done before and better. Well, actually what I mean is, worse.
It seems like you might be getting a bit emotional; are you sure you’re not PMSing? I’m sorry you happen to be a part of a gender which, statistically, suffers from periodic hormonal changes, but your protestations that you are not like that are not enough to exempt you from what seems to me, to be a reasonable question.
Oh Despisis, how old are you?
I’m not sure how what I said is linked with “blaming the victim”. I was merely illustrating that questioning peoples integrity on the basis of a gender stereotype is rude and sexist.
Oh God. At last.
Let the blood run free. Feeeeeel my ovaries bulge as I lean into the screen.
Its the only way I can talk. Through tears and tampons.
I am the monsoon at your window.
Quiet now, I speak, I spurt:
Through all the red I see…
All the statistics in the world cant make little Dispit believe that men are more violent than women and that women get it from men more than ment get it from women. Little Desprit makes like patriarchy has not existed since the birth of Christ. Makes me think little dipstick has a wheelbarrow to push in all this. Out with it Dimples, what is your game?
Oh fie, my mind it shifts, it sways, my back breaks:
Wait! I speak again,
Through the red I ask you Dyspet:
Do you think the Skaf brothers got a fair sentance? 32 years reduced on appeal? Do you think the survivor who went on to become the public face of what it means to survive rape was treated fairly in the process? Why was she treated fairly? Why did the media portray her with such kindness? Do you think, that race may have had something to do with the sentance? With the media portrayal? Lebanese men rape our white girls?
Not that I mind, mind, it would be fair and reflective of the damage done to a human being who is raped if such lengthy sentances were handed out as a matter of course and if the media reflected the reality of a survivor’s life after the event fairly and accurately. But not for one’s race – but for the heinous crime of rape itself. The sentances handed out in this country, when they are successful, do not generally reflect the damage done to women (and men) as a result of rape. And for those that seem to want to dispute everything about everything, please read up, I wont do it for you, on the stats on rape and suicide rates.
If you can take your mind of victim vengeance for a sec, just think:
Gender, like race, plays a part in court cases concerning rape. How can it not? In the minds of judges, juries and prosecutors who are still mostly (white) men when they are asked to consider sending a young man to jail over it. Its it tedious to have to point out that until recently, rape was not considered rape within marriage – that what a rape survivor wore influenced what juries thought etc etc ad nauseum. Therefore, its bleedingly obvious gender plays a role in unsuccessful prosecutions where rape is concerned, and in the condoning of violent behaviour generally across society. It especially plays a role when the golden boy in question was the shiny face of rugby league, and it was, after all, the demon drink that made him do it. The media have generally spent their time on this ruminating on the fraud conviction of the father of the girl in question, on the evils of drink, on the short white skirt of the other girl whose short white skirt caused a confrontation between a Manly club sponsor and another player (which is highly entertaining given their outrage over the Al Hilaly comment in the Skaf case). I dont see them going to town on the Manly player who made the comment. Today they have been frothing over, joy joy, dna tests supposedly proving inconclusive. In short the media,(with a few notable exceptions) focus on anything but how this behaviour is intolerable no matter where it is found.
Ah I fade, I falter, I swallow the ponstan.
I am spent. all red. all dead.
I was going to say something concilliatory and shit, right about now, but I don’t wanna forestall the onslaught of filthy limericks and youtube.
OK FDB, darlin, you aksed for it…
A highly entertaining rant Casey.
Even through the fog of my brutish manhood, yet I raise my weapon of oppression to salute your mysterious cleft and give thanks for its manifold glorious outpourings.
Seriously.
Look, all that stuff I said before. Well, y’know… I’m in a very strange mood. Lost a friend this week*, took too many drugs on the weekend. It’s just that as a sports lover I think that it is imperitive that we shine a harsh light on sporting culture. I want to be able to respect my sporting heroes, not constantly suspect them of being viscious predators. I want the culture reformed for my own selfish reasons.
The bigger problem of society-wide attitudes to violence against women is of course the main game. Of course. And it should involve everyone examining their role – not just men, and certainly not just men who mistreat women. Sure, I don’t bash or rape anyone, but does that mean I’m doing as much as I could be to help address it? No.
*how careless! Why’d you go and leave him hanging in the yard like that?!
Okay, now I’m offended. Tar, brush, etc.
Casey/Woman at #137: HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaha ha ha ha … heh … *wipes eyes*
Sorry about your friend FDB. Thats terrible.
Did the Chef’s Period Song cheer you up?
I love that song.
Paul Norton’s so gonna boot me for derailing….oooh baby yeah baby now baby
Nice straw man. I’ll point out thought, that men are much more likely to be the target of violence than women. Thus I believe that peoples attitudes on ‘violence towards men’ should be considered more pressing than their attitudes on ‘violence towards women’.
This “witch-hunt” attitude some people display towards rape accusations disturbs me.
Duh. Rape is sexual, and therefore gendered crime. Of course gender will play a role in the trial. Through the jury, societies views on gender will play a role too; something which is an important part of the process. I’d be surprised if anyone with a “she deserved it attitude” would get onto a jury in this day and age.
Ah Pav, thats all we do, wipe our eyes, change our pads.
Yeah, cheers Casey.
Reckon that ones a close second to the Kathy Lee Gifford number in my favourite Chef moments.
Fuck, I’m all over the place.
Anyone in Adelaide this weekend? Check out the Spiegeltent Sunday night – there might be a really good band playing. The dude on drums is way cute.
“I’d be surprised if anyone with a “she deserved it attitude” would get onto a jury in this day and age.”
You are annhilatingly hilarious. And you are only 12, you say?
Ouch my pelvis is killing me.
Yeah, I guess I let that one slip through. I must have been distract with resisting all this social pressure to rape women and all.
Maybe I only think this is relevant because I had an operation on my uterus today and consequently am like, all hormonal and all, but yesterday morning at teh campus coffee shop I overrheard two men in their fifties, prsumably academics, waxing indignant at how insulting, degrading, ridiculous and over the top it is that a wider range of volunteers helping out with kids’ sport in Vic are now required to have a policeWorking with children check done.
Rubbish. I don’t have stats to hand, but juries these days would be at least 50% female, on average. Jury service is regarded as an unpleasant chore by most people, but those in full-time employment — particularly small-business owners and contractors — can usually get out of it. That exemption tends to benefit men more than women, leaving more women on juries.
Rubbish also about prosecutors. DPPs take lots of female law grads, and give them the same opportunities the male ones get, all the way to the top. There may still be considerable sexism in private firms and at the bar, but not in public-sector law these days.
Regarding judges, we aren’t at the stage of equality yet, but the number of female judges is increasing every year (as it should). And judges of both genders often put great thought and effort into protecting the victim’s rights in court, within the framework of the law as it stands (while also juggling with the accused’s right to a fair trial). Every so often, you still get some troglodyte judge who says something appalling, but they are a dying breed these days.
Laura best of luck with your recovery
Laura – sorry to hear you’ve had to have surgery and hope you feel better soon!
Laura, I hope you feel better soon.
FDB, I know what you’re feeling. One of my best friends died last night and I’ve just spent the day with his partner reminscing and planning the funeral. Life’s fucked.
FDB and Fine, I am very sorry. Alcohol is good.
Laura, probably no alcohol for you. Maybe some long restful spells on the fainting couch with the cats bringing you pretty snacks at sensitive intervals.
Indeed: leaking from every orifice comme toujours. Where is Julia Kristeva when you need her? And have you read Elsewhere’s towards a feminist poetics of catblogging? You seem particularly well placed to appreciate it.
FDB, I may check out this cute drummer of whom you speak (goodness, whoever could he be?) but I have to make sure I go and see Thirdcat in Titters, too. Everywhere I turn at the moment there’s another blogger whooping it up onstage at the Fringe.
Hugs to you Laura.
Gender and race ARE complex issues with juries. Back in darwin when I was a law student 4 guys went out bashing aborigines and derelicts, until one of them followed an aboriginal man into a public toilet (at about 2am) and stabbed him, killing him.
He put up the least credible self defence tale you could imagine, and just to completely demonstrate utter lack of shock or remorse at what they’d done, they then wandered on to nearby shops and threw a bin at a female who used to be called “heidi” who wandered around in a daze with some psychiatric problem or another.
They were young white males. They scored a nearly-all woman all white jury, from memory. I think the challenges by the defence were aimed at this result. I believe, based on the incredible verdicts, that they couldn’t escape privileging their empathy for the kids as white kids who might look like their cousins or sons.
They did time, I think the lead one got manslaughter and the others were accomplices, but this was a travesty of justice. Out in a couple of years.
The aborigines’ relatives flew in from the remote community they were from. They cried hysterically when the verdict came down and the cheap lives of their loved ones were cast into the musty court records. They went home. They probably never expected anything better.
Men cause most violence, any idiot can see that. But when it comes to juries, women can be incomprehensible idiots too.
I would like to comment, but I’m totally PMSing right now.
Well, I for one don’t need a Neanderthal Other to avoid examining myself!
Just to completely jiggle the thread around here, you don’t hear of many tennis, golf, polo or even croquet players embroiled in such stuff. And they’re all sports full of highly competitive macho alpha males going up against eachother wielding stylished clubs.
The solution seems obvious. Just give NRL and AFL players large and well balanced whacking sticks.
Now I think about it seriously, you could take it a lot further. Any NRL or AFL player caught acting like a complete animal should yanked from his code and sent to the Thunderdome. A bunch of dopey macho pricks go in, ratings come out. Australian Sports Wanker Survivor.
Let’s give ‘em all what we really want and what they really deserve.
Badminton. That’s the answer. If, say, one of Collingwood’s finest has a night out on the turps and does something to embarrass the club, then take him off the footy field and assign him to Collingwood’s badminton squad for the next 12 months.
(And possibly make him wear the pink shorts, although that might be subject to legal challenge on the grounds of cruel and unusual punishment.)
Paulus, I know you’re joking, but in all seriousness, employing clothing coded as female (or feminine) as punishment is just not helping. I know this is just a throwaway comment and I dont have time to go into a dissertation here, but think this through. If you employ something coded as the group you are supposedly trying to help as a humiliation, what does that say about your real attitude to that group? Is this doing anything to solve the narrow version of masculinism that is one of the main factors causing the problems here?
Yes Armagny, I wasnt just talking about no’s of men or women but how a white patriarchal mindset will blinker even women, as well as men – which is what I said at the start.
Armagny your posts here have been very informative in revealing the difficulties women face when they come before the court to obtain any kind of justice.
Oh Pav. What a find…
“They were joined by a late arrival, Otto von ffurenburger, badboy of political cat-blogging, who hosts a collaborative blog by the name of lavalamps pawsduo, a mangulated Latin motto so obscure that no one else knows what the hell it means and no one really cares.
von ffurenburger appears to be slightly pissed; his chest-fur is dishevelled and shows the beginning of dreads.
von ffurenburger: The problem with most of these pussies who keep whinging on about how no one ever nominates their blog for anything is that they just don’t have the numbers. They’ve got to get where the strength is, into collaborative blogging. At the end of the day, it’s all political: it’s all a numbers game.
Irigarati: But the cat-bloggeur… she has been in exile. For centuries, she has foundered on the shores of Western phallocatry. She needs her own feline-to-feline interspace. As well as the possibility of moving, within the interstices of hyper-reality, from space to space.
von ffurenburger: Man, we gave those pussies space but all they want to do is talk about their twats. And how veterinary surgeons keep on pressuring them to have reconstructive surgery after every litter.”
Lavalamp pawsduo? hahahahhahah . Oh jeez, oh well done.
Laura, all the best.
Hope you recover soon, Laura.
My sympathies, Fine. Its a bummer when that happens and it really knocks you for six.
Those are Elsewhere’s actual cats of course…
Armagny: you’re thinking of Briginshaw v Briginshaw, a civil standard that hovers between the criminal and cival standards of proof, conceived by Dixon J in the named case.
And I will reiterate my lawyerly point that the matters raised here represent some of the most awkward and unresolved in the criminal law, and that it’s likely no-one is wholly right. Or wholly wrong, either.
The somewhat nervous nuzzling herein around the topics of clefts, flows and Neanderthals* disguises the overriding truth that all men are potential rapists.
If men choose not to rape it is because of fear of consequences or a relatively powerful sense of empathy or a combination of these factors.
Football clubs, as hosts of particularly aggressive and predatory versions of masculinity, are locations where poorly socialised and dim-witted young men (a minority of footballers) are accorded temporary riches and status.
Football club culture erodes inhibitions against committing sexual assault against strangers. More frequently, therefore, the potential rapist is transformed by football club culture into the actual rapist.
One caveat. It is quite possible that footballers assault strangers more frequently than non-footballers. However, most sexual assault is not committed upon strangers. But such incidents do not generate headlines, else the newspapers would carry no other stories.
*Neanderthals were probably more pacific and less predatory than our own forebears who wiped out the Neanderthal.
Some of that is just Casey’s brilliant parody of a certain kind of feminist theory.
Interesting. Could this be something to do with the fact that within the bubble of football culture most top-league footballers think everyone knows who they are and so technically they are ‘strangers’ to no one?
For some reason this case keeps reminding me of the infamous Wayne Carey traffic-lights grope in Melbourne after a whole night out drinking — remember, the grabbing of the total stranger’s breast as he was passing her on the street and telling her to get herself a bigger pair of tits quote unquote? Someone — his lawyer? His manager Ricky Nixon (memo to Ricky Nixon: dude, you’re not managing)? — said in the aftermath of the victim, and again I quote: ‘Most young women would be grateful to be fondled by Wayne Carey.’ That is at least almost verbatim, and the word ‘fondled’ definitely is.
I think this is symptomatic. If sexual assault becomes ‘fondling’ in the minds of footballers and their supporters, then the offence simply goes away. It’s no accident that the knot at the centre of most sexual assault cases is not disagreement about what physically happened but is, rather, disagreement about what to call it.
Meanwhile, it’s being reported that the family of the victim in the Brett Stewart case is being bombarded by constant phone calls, harassment, menaces and threats. Yes, the victim.
I agree with that comment Katz.
I’ve taught AFL footballers who were nice individuals and capable of responding thoughtfully to humanist novels. But footballer culture obtruded itself into the university setting in ways that didn’t serve these boys at all well.
I got a steady stream of interfering emails from people at the club and designated liaison people within the university, all telling me what kinds of special allowances I was required to make for the football players. These demanded concessions far exceeded anything I’ve ever been asked to do for students with profound disabilities.
If a boy needed an extension on an assignment, one of these other people would contact me about it, not he himself.
I got the impression that however the boys might be if left to their own devices, it didn’t matter much because the club steamrolled them into abdicating personal responsibility anyway.
Pav, yes, it is reminiscent of Wayne Carey (who now has put himself forward as a campaigner against attacking women.)
*&%$#@*&!
I once taught an inmate of Geelong Prison, where I had to go in order to run hysterically Oxbridgean one-to-one ‘tutorials’ in a sort of broom cupboard with a warder peering in from time to time to make sure I wasn’t getting raped and murdered. Nobody ever instructed me to make special allowances for him; quite the reverse.
I think it’s a shame that David Williamson is now regarded as uncool. If you watch the movie of The Club you can see not only what a good play it is (as actor John Woods, currently in a production of it, was saying somewhere the other day), what a loss Graham Kennedy was to the acting world and what an incredibly beautiful young man John Howard (the actor not the rodent) was when young, but also the degree to which the sheltered-workshop phenomenon Laura describes here was alive and kicking (sorry) in the 1970s.
But on the other hand, they do seem to need to be babysat whenever they go out drinking, and the clubs rightly get into trouble if they don’t do that effectively.
My great grandfather was a professional sportsman, and for most of his career, he managed a shoe shop during the week.
PC,
heard/saw on TV the other day the girl and her family had to move out of their flat to get away from the harassment. Don’t know how accurate the report was.
… the overriding truth [is] that all men are potential rapists.
If men choose not to rape it is because of fear of consequences or a relatively powerful sense of empathy or a combination of these factors. – Katz @166
.
Are you trolling Katz? Because that really is very offensive. What awful lives you must lead, Katz and Laura, thinking that 50% of the people around you are only prevented from being violent criminals by the deterrence of the law (the same law, BTW, that you bemoan for excessive scrupulosity towards the accused, and hence low conviction rates – how does that work for deterrence?)
.
Perhaps we should try this instead:
.
… the overriding truth [is] that all mothers are potential infanticides.
If mothers choose not to murder it is because of fear of consequences or a relatively powerful sense of empathy or a combination of these factors.
.
I prefer to think that the overwhelming majority of people, male or female, have a sufficiently powerful sense of empathy that they would not commit such acts even without “consequences”.
But the position of babies and of women is not comparable, dd. When mistreatment and abuse of babies is tolerated or explained away as the baby’s fault, you might have an argument.
For now, all you’ve got is a high horse.
But it’s not as much fun as picking on men and pointing out that without the attributes that separate them from wild animals, they’d well, act like wild animals! Of course without a strong sense of empathy and fear of consequences sex with women acting like wild animals might not be worth it.
Laura, sorry to hear you had an op.
FDB and Fine: sympathies to you both.
PC and Laura, I’ve heard of special allowances made for elite athletes (e.g. those training at the AIS). What I heard was that SOME of the students gave lecturers plenty of advance notice, e.g. of going to compete or train in Europe for a few weeks during semester, or competing in Olympics. Others “used” their status to try it on. For example, a phone call by the student the day before the exam, demanding a different exam date (standard procedure required the student to give much more notice and could have been accomodated……). The presumptuous, inconsiderate ones were both female as it happened. The sample size was half a dozen: 2 male, 4 female.
The lecturers were pleased to see medals won. OTOH, very unhappy about the pressure, which was swatted away by a lecturer or admin staff. Neither of the male athletes were AFL “starlets”.
OTOH these lecturers NEVER had to visit a prisoner, though several enrolled over the years. Some of the prisoners lacked social skills (euphemism). One sent a lecturer a Christmas card and enclosed photocopied newspaper accounts of his [gruesome] crimes. The lecturer wondered if this was a kind of threat, or simply infantile boasting.
PC: if the prison authorities envisaged a risk, why didn’t the warder sit in on the whole tutorial, for the love of Safety??
I am Woman, watch me pour:
Thank you, and congratulations. A superlative outpouring.
“Ah I fade, I falter, I swallow the ponstan.” was just the icing on the cake
Me too, FDB.
What I actually said:
When DD achieves an ability to read for meaning, s/he may achieve relevance.
Csy
Mn hv hld pwr fr 2,000 yrs, h? vr hrd f bs?
And to extend the thought, all adult humans are potential liars, thieves or murderers.
All of us lie.
Many of us steal.
Few of us murder.
If human beings were simply brutish you’d expect many more thefts and murders. Yet patently this is not the case.
Most of us have built-in moral compasses that limit the level of damage that we are willing to do to another human being.
These moral compasses are deeply influenced by culture, a point well made in Goldhagen’s “Hitler’s Willing Accomplices”, the story of Germans’ involvement in the Final Solution.
Football club culture is one location where respect for women is undermined with predictable epidemilogical consequences among young men of doubtful moral autonomy.
Are all or even a sizeable minority of footballers actual rapists? Of course not.
Outed by the Pav. When two lips meet. They shall never shut up again. That’s the fun of gynocentric feministas Ambi.
Real you say Laura? For a minute I thought, perhaps, but somehow, reminiscent of …..something. I cant quite put my finger on it….its like lavalamp could be somewhere Ive been.
Coonardoo/Dipstick;
You have used an offensive and racist term for Indigenous people. You should continue warning everyone about the dangers of vagina dentatas and leave the rest alone.
What I was doing was speaking of white western masculine culture in a parodic voice, but the line was rhetorical – rhetorical see? in a parodic voice. Its true that phallocentric power stuctures go back further in western culture. But there were also cultures which worshipped the feminine in nature. These disappeared with the spread of Christianity. I did not refer to Indigenous culture because I wasnt talking about it.
“… the overriding truth that all men are potential rapists.”
*
That comment is disgusting and offensive. I assume you are a woman. Your comment is equivalent to saying that all women are potential prostitutes.
“….. what a loss Graham Kennedy was to the acting world….. ”
*
Off topic, I know, but if you watch his performance as a knockabout army corporal in “The Odd Angry Shot”, filmed around the same period, you will observe further testament to his ability.
Oh he’s not a girl. Relax. He’s one of you, except with a red pill or a blue one. Its up to you what you choose.
But rather than prostitutes, potential praying mantises would be a better analogy. Which completely is true. I am a potential praying mantis. If I met little Desperaux, for instance, I would fry him up with some eggs and tomatoes for breakfast. Little Dyspepsis, I will have you sooner or later.
Did you see the Buffy ep when it all came true? Well you are Xander and Im your teacher. Sooner or later.
That comment is disgusting and offensive. He’s not.
And if you think prostitution is some kind of equivalent of rape then your thought processes are probably beyond help.
Ambi, my comment about the warder was a bit tongue-in-cheek; I have no real idea why warders kept checking in but I assume it was to, you know, monitor a bit, and until I got to know the student I was reasonably grateful for the occasional once-over. But he’d made it to third year effortlessly and without incident so I guess the university was okay with him. There was no pressure on me in particular to go to the prison for tutes; I could have said no, although somebody would have had to do it (the male tutors used to teach the Pentridge chap who was in for murdering a woman), and a 19th century prison just isn’t architecturally set up to accommodate any protracted private conversation with a prisoner comfortably, especially not one involving a woman.
I don’t know how much communication there was between the university and the prison but I suspect not much; this was decades ago and things in general were a hell of a lot more laissez-faire than they are now. I got on well with my student, who was very bright and exactly my age, and who taught me a few useful things about how to look after myself.
I am not suggesting that prostitution is an equivalent to rape at all. The statement that all men are potential rapists suggests that the mere possession of a penis carries with it the potential that its owner may commit sexual assault. If I assumed Katz was a woman, it was because my rational thought process did not allow for the possibility that any decent man would see himself as a potential rapist, merely by virtue of his possession of male genitalia and his level of testosterone. My statement may have been absurd, and potentially offensive, but I do not resile from my position. I am a man, and I am most certainly not a potential rapist merely because of that fact, any more than a woman, by virtue of her possession of a vagina, has the automatic potential that she may offer it for hire and reward. I have read that ridiculous statement before, (i.e. that all men are potential rapists), and it was ridiculous, disgusting and offensive the first time, and has not beccome any less so with time. If Katz is a man, and he thinks that all men are potential rapists, then perhaps he has issues.
You do know the difference between “potential” and “actual”, don’t you?
This thread is getting to the point where it will soon merit its very own diorama in the Museum of Stupid.
I’d advise you all to take a step or two back, and take a few deep breaths. Maybe do a few yoga asanas or something.
There are several commenters here who I know from experience are not idiots, who nonetheless are traipsing down the garden path — presumably out of passion or an ill wind or something. It’s not surprising, it happens to everyone, and oh yes, myself very much included.
But as that great sage Brendan Behan once said, “I am a reasonable man, but there’s limits.”
It’s time for some of you to take that pill, that rhymes with drill. Me, I just bought some bad-but-interesting Gary Snyder poetry and a Lester Bangs anthology. Dude could write a sentence. I’d advise certain usual suspects here to maybe attend to their own personal comfort zones for a spell. Not forever, mind you; just for a leetle while.
(strolls away, humming “Whisky Bottle” by Uncle Tupelo)
Jack Ryder your great-grandad Laura? I’m impressed! Not everyone is related to former Australian test captains. Cool!
t’s time for some of you to take that pill, that rhymes with drill. Me, I just bought some bad-but-interesting Gary Snyder poetry and a Lester Bangs anthology. Dude could write a sentence. I’d advise certain usual suspects here to maybe attend to their own personal comfort zones for a spell.
Ladies, you’re talking too much. Time to listen to the men. Just for a change! And Japers says you’re not being sensible. Yes, I’m looking at some of you!
Learn your place!
:You do know the difference between “potential” and “actual”, don’t you?”
*
I am assuming the question is directed at me, but I have re-read what I posted and I can find nothing that would give rise to this question.
*
As a cop, I was involved in the investigation of a few sexual assaults over the years, one being on a five year old girl. For what it’s worth, at the time, my own eldest daughter was the same age. For those reasons, I have perspectives on the subject that may differ from many visitors to this site.
*
Helen, despite being of at least average inteligence, I cannot understand why you asked that question.
Helen — you know, it’s really quite amazing how narcissists always know that you’re talking explicitly to them.
You should write a book about it some time. But just be sure that your name is prominently featured, otherwise folks might not know it’s you. And that would be a catastrophe.
Phillip, just the fact that body parts can be used for various purposes doesn’t actually reflect poorly on everyone who has those parts.
For once I agree with japes, elements of this thread are becoming notably boneheaded.
Sorry people, I have this, um, superego problem. Working on it, though.
This is potentially a sensible thread.
Folk who judge contributions by the assumed gender of the contributor undermine that potential.
Japerz, I was actually referring to somebody else. But you know, feel free to jump to any conclusion you want. Most of us are too polite to ask you to take a pill occasionally. Motes, beams, etc.
#197: “I was actually referring to somebody else”
Yes. Right after a lengthy quotation from… somebody who was NOT the person being, I dunno, referenced.
Hey, it’s OK, that’s cool, I can dig it. (whistles Grieg’s “In the hall of the Mountain King,” or anything else that’ll do)
Me? Take a pill?!
Man, you should see my medicine cabinet!
They don’t call it the Cabinet of Doctor Calamari for nothing, you know!
Come on over for brunch some time, it’ll be a hoot, I daresay. Actually I’m a pretty good cook, believe it or not, and blog-tirades notwithstanding, I bet it would be a pleasure to join you for a pleasant afternoon’s tea. It’s surprising how people can work out their differences in person, once they realize they aren’t actually each other’s storybook dragons, and both enjoy good mozzarella…
I’m assuming of course that you DO like a good mozzarella… heck, I’ve got to begin *some*place…
tongue-in-cheek again PC? OK, I accept my admonition. Must read more carefully. Subtlety evades me once again.
Jeepers japerz japes. As ever.
Helen,
Regarding my silly little attempt at humour involving Collingwood players and pink shorts. Firstly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an adult woman in pink shorts! I was actually visualising gays in Mardi Gras regalia. So colour me homophobic rather than sexist!
But more seriously: I don’t think there’s much to be gained by reproaching people for mildly sexist or gendered humour. For one thing, there’s a lot of it about. I remember my time working in a call centre, and the amount of sexist jokes that people circulated was staggering. You won’t change that culture in a hurry.
And the thing is, if one did try to clamp down on it, this would actually alienate a lot of people who would otherwise be sympathetic with regard to rape and domestic violence issues.
In my view, the key is essentially to tell guys: you are not really a man if you hit women or abuse women or sexually coerce women. You are not a gentleman. You are not a decent bloke. Your mates will have zero respect for you.
We can try to get that message across while still tolerating — and even, dare I say, enjoying — gendered humour. Just as we still have race-based humour (eg Sacha Baron Cohen taking the mickey out of East Europeans in Borat). And gay-based humour (as Baron Cohen’s about to thrust upon us, nyuk nyuk, with his new film Bruno).
I can see by reading the amount of replies that Brett is well known, I believe rape is rape no matter old or yound the recipient is. I hope the law carries the full term for Brett. 17 is child status and he has to understand his actions.
Jude: that’s assuming he’s guilty, I suppose?
Can somebody please tell me what date Brett Stewart is due to attend court to face these charges of sexual assault. Because he is only a matter of a week or two before he is fit enough to continue playing and I would think the NRL would prefer the charges be clarified or dismissed one way or the other before he laces up a boot again.
I haven’t got an opinion one way or the other we will let the courts handle that.
The one thing that has dissapointed me is the way the Manly supporters have dismissed all there morals because he is a star player. I ask them this question; would they feel the same way if it was there daughter and this player was from Penrith or if this person was just a local carpenter how would they feel then.
Cheers for the court date in advance.
the defense counsel issued 11 subpeonas for documents, including her school reports, doctors reports, a copy of her facebook page even, according to fairfax media, these paid miserable legal professionals will stop at nothing to show she was “loose” or “perverted” or a “social misfit”! ~ desperate actions- stewart- you are going to have to admit you simply screwed up- your “blood got hot” as they say in africa, and you wouldn’t take no for an answer- as you were patheticaly intoxicated with what? you are still very immature. wasted is what you were! the conduct of certain legal “professionals” is questionable as to whether such a large amount of money should be spent trying to make a golden purse out of this sows ear is soundly justified! just say sorry stweart, you’d be seen as abetter man! i’m glad Jane Culver,M, sent you for trial if for nothing else- being a goose! and she is a hardball judge- but remeber this young lady was only 17 at the time! and quite unable to fight off an intoxicated lump of grisle called brett stewart- and an embarassment to the eagles! your stupidity ripped theheart out of ther team at the beginning of the season – it all went so well- glad i wasn’t in Des Hasler’s shoes! but hey- I’ll be in the back of the courtroom listening to the arguments, and will comment here at the sentencing conclusion- Elion