Predictably, the blogosphere has been full of exhortations to feminists to loudly condemn Rudd for visiting a “gentlemen’s” club. From the type of person who usually condemns feminists for being too shrill and condemnatory, naturally, but one has to admire the cleverness of the tactic – how will we get out of this one, ladies?
Of course, my answer to that (which is mine and mine alone, by the way – check with other members of TEH HIVEMIND before general attribution) will no doubt incur further condemnation from my brilliant nemeses, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
I’m disappointed in Rudd, but I will still gladly campaign and vote for him. It wasn’t our side who tried to run with the whole “Saint Kevin” thing, so shockingly, I’m not actually surprised that he didn’t live up to the dodgy pedestal he was placed on by his detractors for precisely this reason. Newsflash: Ambitious politician not actually squeaky clean. I wasn’t planning on voting for a saint. They’re annoying.
But loudly condemning Rudd for accompanying his colleagues to their regular haunt is kinda like condemning a feminist for taking her husband’s name. The personal may be political and all that, but we make choices in the real world, not in our ideal one. Rudd went where his networking and socialising opportunities were.
So it is valid to criticise the environment that the decision was made in. Which is what the dreaded feminists do. All the time. It’s part of the reason why we have blunt instruments like affirmative action â?? this is the kind of thing “blokes” do, another way in which women can be intentionally or unintentionally excluded. Had one of their female colleagues decided to go out drinking with them, it’s likely they may have changed their plans. But that’s the point – they would have had to change their plans. They would perhaps have felt like an inconvenience. It’s a problem with political culture that is much bigger than Rudd.
All of this being an involved way of saying that there are plenty of reasons to criticise Rudd that have nothing to do with why the story ran.
But while this is an important debate to have, there’s another important point. The implication is that this should make us all re-think our intention to vote for Rudd. Why? Because he doesn’t “respect women” I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing that strip clubs didn’t exist, but at the same time, I donâ??t accept the argument that stripping is always completely and irreparably damaging. There are worse things. Like trying to strip away abortion rights. Or the right not to be sacked for being pregnant, or having a sick child operational reasons.
Like it or not, at this moment in time we have two choices for Prime Minister. I’d rather base my decision on things like public policy and vision for the country, than on how someone behaves on their own time*, before they even become a candidate for Prime Minister. Furthermore, if I was going to use attendance at a strip club as a criterion, then I want a full roll-call of all candidates so that I can make an informed decision.
This party hack has seen plenty worse behaviour from elected, and potential, members of parliaments. Some of it dumb, some of it offensive, a lot of it none of my business. I’m not married to Rudd, and the woman who is has known about it for four years. But while as a member of the ALP I’m all for changing the culture, I’m also all for electing a Labor Government, for reasons that have nothing to do with how someone behaves in private, and within the law.
If we want to talk about character, I’m much more offended by the fact that Milne thinks it’s OK to use his position as journalist for a national news(?)paper to smear somebody without providing evidence. As Overington points out, the previously-circulated story didn’t include any implications that he did anything more than attend a strip club. What else did he do, Glenn? Try to punch someone on stage?
*and it was his own time. If he’d gone home to bed, there wouldn’t be a column by the Poison Dwarf about how Rudd had slept on the taxpayers’ dime.
I agree. And it is interesting that any mileage Downer thought the government might get from Rudd’s Bill Clinton moment appears to have already run its course in voterland. Australians don’t buy this type of sleazy politicking, as they do in America. We are another country.
How can he claim he takes full responsibility, and in the next breath blame Downer?
Does he understand what ‘full responsibility’ means?
I think people will take a while to digest this before we see if it affects their votes. I can understand how someone who was with a local New Yorker guide could end up in an unsavoury place pretty easily. From personal experience, I don’t believe the Rudd “can’t remember” line. I would also like to know who was buying the drinks – hopefully for Kevin it was his own money being used because if it was one of the the two alternatives (ie taxpayers or News Ltd), it won’t help him.
Perhaps because Rudd is capable of sequential thought, which is conspicuously more than you (Stephen Lloyd) appear to be capable of?
Spelling it out (where’s that Humphrey B Bear costume gone?):
Rudd takes full responsibility for choosing to go on to further drinking after already being full as a boot four years ago.
Rudd blames Downer for releasing this not-news smear effort now.
In other great moments in sequential thought, the socks go on before the shoes. Hope this helps.
I note with a wry smile that the Coalition pollies are “staying out of this issue”.
There may be one or two skeletons in their gentlemen’s closets methinks.
Grace, the vast majority of Americans didn’t buy into Clinton’s ‘Clinton Moment’ either. That’s the very reason why there’s now a several-hundred-million-dollar grassroots-funded political pressure group in the US known as MoveOn, which kicks Repuglican ass from NY to LA.
1. Rudd blames himself for allowing himself to be taken to the “gentlemen’s club”.
2. Rudd blames Downer for the gutter politics of leaking a smear irrelevant to Rudd’s qualities as a potential head of Government.
This distinction would appear to be rather easy for a person of normal intelligence to grasp.
Weez, what I do recall is that the vast majority of American women did not buy into the Bill Clinton moment, according to the polling, despite the Republicans claiming that farce as a “family values” issue and gaining a torrent of negative press coverage over a period of years designed to destroy his “character”.
Clinton did face impeachment and only narrowly escaped in the Senate.
My point is that Australian voters, and our parliamentary representatives, will not let this nonsense get anywhere near that far here, despite the best efforts of our sleazy “foreign affairs” minister and his lap-dog Milne.
More support for Overington’s contention that the alleged “inappropriate behaviour” is a totally new beat-up originating in Milne’s story only, from the SMH’s Phillip Coorey:
Of course Rudd could more validly be criticised for:
(a) preferring to take up an invitation from a sleazy Murdoch press editor to visit a titty bar than an invitation from Bob Brown to visit the Tasmanian forests;
(b) applying a stricter standard of conduct and related sanctions to trade unionists who use vernacular working class language than to himself.
But neither of these criticisms can be expected from the Coalition or, FFS, the Murdoch press. And in any case they don’t detract in the slightest from the good sense in Anna’s post.
When Rove Mcmanus declares the episode a poll boon for ALP, I think we can chalk up another own goal for the incompetent losers at coalition strategy HQ.
Downer looks like a sneaky twat, sleazily running a US playbook – Rudd just looks human.
I think “US style sleaze politics” is the angle to play back at them. Nobody wants it, and it reinforces other coalition weaknessess on Iraq, uranium to India. Apeing the US mindlessly etc
Frankly, with these post-Sino drongos at the strategy helm of Lib HQ, the ALP should hang its head in shame if they dont knock Rodent over this time.
I’d be careful, Tigtog, a Humphrey Bear costume means you’re wearing no pants and jumping around in front of kids on TV.
Just saying.
I hadn’t thought of that. You’ve hit a nail there. A fucking big one, as it were.
God, I’ve heard some stories come out of my (male and female) trade unionist friends that’d make Milne’s tongue hang out—for another pot of Crown Lager, I suppose.
I can’t believe how much time is being wasted discussing this non-story. Isn’t there some idiotic ALP policy that we can examine? Well, yes, quite a few actually.
And demands by the RWDBs for a complete condemnation of the ALP alternative PM by LPers (and other parts of the hard-left blogosphere) are also way off the mark – don’t you lot vote for the Greens?
Cheers
BBB
Oh no, I’m not condemning Rudd for his soiree at Club Jiggle, but I do condemn him for his weaseling after the fact. I was drunk, I blacked out, I can’t remember anything, I was a “goose”
d a girl, it’s all Alexander Downer’s fault…He’s a worse dissembler than Gareth Evans, which might be useful in a foreign minister, but it’s repulsive in a leader.
Well said Anna. Obviously the feminists of convenience are riled but that simply reflects on their inadequacies and a level of sophisticated argument that amounts a pathetic cry of “gotcha.”
I’m with Steve D that the coalition’s lack of comment indicates they do not want their own dirt being dug up and thrown around. This will soon die and have little impact on Rudd.
As for Milne’s justification that it is a “question of character” what a load of rubbish. A test of character should consist of more than one isolated incident a couple of years ago. It reveals nothing about Rudd’s suitability for PM.
All this does seem like a bit of a half arsed attempt to create a clinton scandal, but while the implication of the ‘scandal’ was that we should not vote for Rudd the implication of your analysis seems to be why vote at all.
Obviously the realities that you are speaking about are not akin to something like the need to eat. So the question arises – How far do certain ‘realities’ extend?
If these ‘realities’ are the rules of the game that must be followed if you are to play, does playing the game exclude you from changing the rules? Following the analysis above – yes.
So if the answer to the first question is quite broad – if the commodification of women is one such rule, why not workplace reform being a similar status. One could easily say that in the case of workplace reform neither Rudd nor Howard make an ioate of difference to the issue, they can’t change the rules of the game – the inexorable push towards the intensification of work (perhaps best identified as a reality through the need for economic growth to maintain economic stability). The only thing that they can is change the who of the doing.
If things are tied to the logic of ‘reality’ as the position outlined in the analysis above seems to suggest – or at least that politicians are unable to affect these situations because of ‘realities’, the qustion must be asked why vote (or campaign) if you are interested in certain social issues – it would probably be much more productive to try and understand these ‘realities’ that are governing the decisions of politicians.
The analysis implies a structural tweedle-dee/tweedle-dee situation in the case of patriarchal practices. If there is no differentiation between these
practices and say workplace reform, or anything else, why vote?
What a load of rot, Craig Mc. He didn’t say I was drunk and don’t remember, he said he was pretty certain he left within an hour and didn’t get up to anything, but he was also drunk, so people should also check with the people who were with him if they doubted that he was on his best behaviour.
What? Can’t smear him for the story itself, so try and smear him by reinterpreting his response and hoping no-one notices?
And agree with Paul and Liam re: unions. Hopefully this may make him a little more tolerant and less panicky about bad words from unionists.
Craig Mc – what you’ve said about dissembling, and never quite taking full responsibility for anything… I can’t quite shake this feeling… reminds me of someone else… someone whose record you’re always defending…
Little help?
Just how desperate is this Govt an it online supporters getting,Craig Mc i think you should read further up this thread,Rudd accepted responsibility,said he was dumb for doing it and thought Lord Dower of Bagdad had something to do with it the leaking of it to Milne.
I read something alluding to a big bucket they were going to dump on Rudd some time ago in Crikey,if this is the best they can come up with the Govt are dead.
As for Glen Milne what a joke this man is
Oh yes, and pointless snark aside, good post.
It concerns me though that the moral panic message is more easily communicated. Also it’s the only one that’s going to get a decent run in the GG and other News pubs. A lot of sanctimonious types who are headed the ALP’s way after years of dishonesty and unnacountability from the Libs might find this “story” jars too much with what they thought Rudd was.
Yeah but those kind of people are hardly going to go back to the Libs, FDB. The Greens must love this stuff.
Cheers
BBB
Well YMMV, but for me Gareth Evans is the benchmark. Ruddock is perhaps even better at it because he’s so boring that journalists avoid interviewing him in the first place. Rudd is fast approaching Evans levels of weasel-speak. Howard ain’t got a thing on those guys.
Now being a two-faced weasel is a job requirement for politicians forced to juggle mutually exclusive interests according to shifting priorities all while being hounded by the media for whatever choice they make. But that’s about policy, not personal behavior.
If we found JWH in some kind of lap-dancing club except with Australian cricketers instead of strippers (“Steve, you’ve got such big averages!”), I don’t think he’d be attempting to blame the shadow foreign minister for his actions.
He’s not. He’s blaming Downer for purveying the smear. As has been pointed out repeatedly on this thread.
It’s not like he hired a lap dance or anything.
Go out on the town with the Murdoch press, and this is where you’ll end up.
O.k., maybe with any press.
Touching that after a good twenty years or so of fighting feminism and the supposed ‘excesses’ of political correctness tooth and nail the RWDBs have suddenly discovered their ‘inner-Greer’…and at such a convenient time too…
Chav, you simply do not understand, do you? The RWDBs are not that interested with hypocrisy on the part of Rudd. They are interested with hypocrisy on the part of the lefty blogosphere. This is an argument between political commentators, not political actors.
Cheers
BBB
That’s true enough, BBB. They’re actually not very focused on politics as such – just the adolescent politics of point scoring in the blogosphere. Also on these big ideological constructs of “the left” and “the feminists” and their favourite game of x needs to loudly condemn y.
Largely a complete waste of time, but if they get their jollies from it, I suppose….
Albrechtsen runs the same line in her “blog” at the GG, incidentally.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sisterhood_silence
To the degree that this mob engage with politics in any real sense, it’s a highly moralised version which has a lot more to do with “culture wars” than elections per se.
Only narrowly? One might be able to make that spin at the START of the Senate trial, when Robert Byrd was openly musing about voting to convict him, but I don’t think the final 50-50 and 45-55 votes (when a 67-33 vote was needed to convict him) were that narrow.
NB: the Republicans held 55 Senate seats at the time (from memory).
Of course I disagree with Rudd’s stance on the latter issue, but to be fair to him there’s an important difference insofar as the latter matter refers to officials conduct in their public duties whereas Rudd’s incident occurred in his own time.
If Rudd had taken an official delegation to a strip club as official business, for example, it would be an entirely different matter.
Yeah, I hate that.
Oh, I see, hypocrisy in the blogosphere…do you mean like the RWDB ‘outrage’ at the misogyny of some Islamic fundamentalists? Or would that be envy..?
Trouble is, Dolly doesn’t watch Rove.
Instead Dolly remembers the frightful stew he got in at Dismal Grammer back in the early ’60s when a prefect found Dolly’s stash of Health and Fitness magazines hidden among Dolly’s winter underwear.
Dolly had to muck out the tack room for a month.
Why shouldn’t Rudd be punished too?
Oh, the unfairness of it all!
A letter writer in the Courier Mail today had a point, I think, when he said that Howard and his ministers are stone cold sober when they can’t remember anything.
He then went on to say that the last time he was in a strip club he
Not sure I believe him, but it could have happened.
The notion of diminished responsibility under the influence of alcohol doesn’t travel too well in terms of Australian norms. But what of Glen Milne’s exercise of reponsibility as a journalist when he is sober?
I think he should lose his ticket and never work again.
Don’t bother to attempt to point out (once again) to CraigMc the two distinct issues – He’s not interested in admitting errors, only in pushing a line.
As for Rudd – Another idiot I don’t really want to vote for anyway. Like most politicians he should know what to stay away from, not because ‘he done wrong’ so much as because inevitably during an election such activities will come under scrutiny.
JWH’s sins are of a much more grevious nature and he has betrayed the liberal ideal on which the party was founded. If the lies weren’t bad enough, his smarmy arrogance is just sickening. The sooner he’s gone the happier I’ll be.
Also worth noting that most of the bloviators who are huffing and puffing about Rudd, THE LEFT, TEH FEMINISTS, etc., were weighing in with Helen Garner (and even without Helen Garner) in defence of the Master of Ormond College back in that debate in 1995 which we discussed here.
I was thinking about that last night. I’m pretty sure he couldn’t have anticipated that there would have been stuff written about this – it really does stray a long way from the usual conventions about what’s public and what’s private. Though he might have done well to remember the concerted dirt campaign about Latham’s private life (not just the mythical bucks’ night video, but also the stuff about his first marriage and the insinuations that his health problems were the result of alchololism).
In other words, the Government and media dirtsters are using the same tactics they used against Latham – personal smear and innuendo.
One of the most frustrating things about the loud condemners and their wedgies is that in their habitual ‘How are you going to get out of it this time, girls?’ sneers they seem quite incapable of distinguishing between condemnation and analysis.
The feminist analysis, in words of one syllable, is that strip clubs are a function of a patriarchally organised society with double standards about the sexual behaviour of men and women; in a non-patriarchally organised society there would doubtless be some sort of strip-club equivalent but at least it would not package up one gender as some sort of combined pr0n mag and commercial meat product designed for the conspicuous consumption of the other.
The condemnation is OMG HE WAS PISSED AND HE MIGHT HAVE HAD A LAP DANCE!!!11! I LOUDLY CONDEMN HIM!!11!
See the difference, boyz?
As one of the ‘feminazis’ (you can always pick a misogynist by the inanity of his wordplay) named in the comment that I’m sure was one of the irritants that produced this post of Anna’s, let me put it on record here that I personally do not give a rat’s who goes to strip clubs nor yet who performs in them. Knock yourselves out. (So to speak.) All that I am prepared to loudly condemn in this instance is the hypocrisy, the stupidity and the opportunism of the Gotcha brigade.
The Scoresgate scandal adds a new dimension to Kevin Rudd. He was obviously making a bid for the youth vote – the nightclubbers. Shame! Shame! How would Harold Holt, John Gorton or Bob Hawke have ever been elected if they had stayed out late at questionable locales (or is it locals). Mind you Gorton’s famous episode was as Prime Minister at the American embassy in Canberra. At least Malcolm Fraser didn’t lose his trousers until he had lost government.
Kevin Rennie
Labor View from Broome
http://laborview.blogspot.com/
Nicely said, Dr Cat.
I don’t think so, Kevin. Strip clubs are middle aged bloke territory. If Rudd had been getting into a bit of trance, maybe. Though I assume your comment is flippant anyway.
Here’s a comment i put on The Poll Bludger last night.
Glen, Steve & Co think the Rudd issue wonâ??t go down to well with the Womenâ??s Electoral Lobby and other Womenâ??s groups.
Looks as though they;re wrong.
Womenâ??s groups unwilling to criticise
{Womenâ??s organisations and church groups remained particularly silent on Mr Ruddâ??s night out.
â??If we hanged every bloke who was stupid, there wouldnâ??t be many left,â?? National Foundation for Australian Women spokeswoman Marie Coleman said.
Womenâ??s Electoral Lobby spokeswoman and prominent feminist Eva Cox said Mr Rudd had a generally good attitude towards women.
â??Itâ??s not something that represents his usual behaviour,â?? she said. }
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22271737-2,00.html
Love the second paragraph here.
Which is merely an attempt to shift blame for his actions.
I don’t think, Scorpio, as I’m arguing in another post, they’re aiming at Eva Cox’ vote but at the vote of suburban women who didn’t like Latham because of his aggression and boofy persona:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/08/20/the-latham-effect/
Another good one from the PB. We could see more of these admissions in coming days.
Things could get very interesting. I bet his Lib mates would like to brain Downer.
I suspect they have been trying to hold him back from releasing it but the Rodent in his desperation probably g ave Downer the nod.
Well there you go. For me, Rudd’s smarmy arrogance is too much. Or perhaps I’m just more comfortable with Howard’s brand of it.
Latham…?????
Don’t get me started.
“Predictably, the blogosphere has been full of exhortations to feminists to loudly condemn Rudd for visiting a â??gentlemenâ??sâ?? club. From the type of person who usually condemns feminists for being too shrill and condemnatory, naturally, but one has to admire the cleverness of the tactic – how will we get out of this one, ladies?”
I generally make a point of not reading blogs on the weekend so I’m not aware of this. Since feminists can’t win with these “boys” who cares what they think.
Couldn’t care less that Rudd went to a strip club.
How many members of Howard’s mob haven’t been to one? How many adult Australians haven’t been to one?
This will help Rudd (Ruddies human after all and like’s a bit of perve like all other blokes – and women for that matter).
Perhaps Bronnie Bishop has been to see Manpower. Now there’s a visual image.
Oh and feminist (as we’ve established previously) is not a hegemonic term. Milne’s a stooge. I’ll take it we’ll see some of the lads who are so concerned about the rights of the gals at the next International Women’s Day march or pro-choice rally or….etc etc
Chav,
You’ve managed to both miss my point and provide an example of Mark’s point in the one comment. Well done, sir.
Cheers
BBB
Mark, I understand where you are coming from with that other post, but I don’t think that the Libs will gain any traction with this with those suburban female voters.
It is different to the issue they ran with Latham. ie that he didn’t respect women, the thuggish element, similar to what they are trying on with the Unions.
I don’t think it will get any traction at all with suburban females or “Doctors Wives” either. They are well aware of “blokey’ type activities their male partners etc get up to and they often don’t mind the odd girls night out themselves.
Bob Brown just now on the radio:
I think one reason that many of us feminists seem so unconcerned about this is simply because we are aware that we live in a culture that encourages men to objectify women, and any of us who have ever voted for a man know that there’s a good chance that he’s participated in that process of objectification before, regardless of whether or not it made front page news four years later.
Speaking for myself, I see this sort of objectification– whether it be in a strip club, or on the side of a bus– as a cultural problem that cannot be reduced to one man going to a strip club when drunk, and leaving after forty minutes. If Rudd was going around bleating about all of the hot T&A he saw at that club, and how great it was, then there would definitely be a question of him using his political clout to reinforce the sexual objectification of women. As it is, he’s clearly not proud of what happened, and he’s not attempted to deny it. In many ways, the people who are saying that this makes him seem more like a red-blooded Aussie male are reinforcing this culture of objectification (“Rudd’s more of a man because he spent 40 minutes ogling some women!”), but Rudd himself is not attempting to do that.
In many ways, I think that this could be good, if approched in the right way, in terms of putting those cultural issues of objectification on the table. I do not believe in legislating against things like strip clubs, so long as the workers are treated and paid fairly, and that they are all protected from assault and harrassment (of course, that sort of regulation WOULD shut down a lot of clubs), but I do think that cultural shifts come about when we begin to talk about things like “What makes a ‘real’ Aussie bloke?” and “Why might a man who has visited a strip club seem more appealing to voters than one who never has?” Again, the focus should not be on Rudd’s single visit to a “gentleman’s club”, but on our entire culture that constructs masculinity in this way.
“Strip clubs are middle aged bloke territory.”
Or young woman territory as the case may be. I haven’t been in one yet, but I know plenty of young ladies who’ve paid visits to these establishments – admittedly with irony well intact in many cases. This attempt at a smear won’t play with the suburban crowd. If my friends an acquaintances are representative, some are too busy taking pole-dancing lessons themselves to get worked up over Rudd getting taken to a strip club.
The feministas, greenies and lefties all love this from Rudd becasue it demonstrates his hypocrisy – he fits right in!!
As for his line about being so drunk he can’t remember – I don’t believe him.
Beattie must be loving this – it has taken the focus off his back-flip with pike on the plebicite issue.
And you’re assuming that Chav is a man because …?
I agree, Adam. This stuff about strip clubs being exclusively about the objectification of women by middle-aged men is too ridiculous for words. The fact is that men and women are routinely objectified by the opposite sex in strip clubs across Australia. Now that may be undesirable for a number of reasons, but the reinforcement of a ‘patriarchal social structure’ is not chief among those reasons, and hasn’t been for some time. Can we please stop with the infantalisation that proceeds from an assumption that sexual objectification is merely an expression or construction of exclusionary ‘masculinity’?
Cheers
BBB
It is amazing how many young women are learning pole dancing, Adam. And a very popular “hen’s night” outing in Sydney is the four hour male nude painting lesson led by one of Kings Cross’s well-known Toulouse-Lautrec-type portrait painters, finished off by a visit to a nearby strip joint. My friend tells me the group’s hilarity about being in the presence of the beautiful young male model soon morphs into serious and deeply enjoyed first-time attempts at life drawing.
“And you’re assuming that Chav is a man because …?”
It’s a fair cop, PC. I assumed ‘Chav’ was a derogatory term used for men only. Here is part of the Wikipedia entry, though: “Chav is used for both sexes, where a male chav is sometimes referred to as a chavster and a female as a chavette.” Apologies to Chav if my assumption caused offence.
Cheers
BBB
Who said anything about a reinforcement?
If you seriously believe we are not still living in a patriarchal social structure, BBB, you have only to look at your own assumption up-thread there that all human beings are men unless otherwise specified. Then have a look at the gender (im)balance in both major and all minor parties, and in the distribution elsewhere of money, power, working hours, childcare hours, housework hours, etc etc etc ad nauseam.
This bullshit from antifeminists about how we’re all equal now is what’s ‘too ridiculous for words’.
Nelson: I’ve been to a strip club too
Defence Minister Brendan Nelson says he has been to a strip club and he believes many other Australians have as well.
Hehehe…of course he has…
I’m not sure if that’s in response to my reply or not, but since it’s relevant to what I said, I’ll take it up. Yes, women can objectify men too. There are strip clubs where women go to ogle men. However, there are VASTLY more strip clubs aimed at men than there are aimed at women. We’re talking about cultural trends here rather than absolutes.
One key thing to remember is that while objectification occurs regardless of whether a stripper is male or female, and regardless of whether the viewer is male or female, the cultural significance of that objectification is vastly different depending on the respective genders of the stripper and the viewer. That’s why I was making the point earlier that the culture of objectification is far more significant than one individual’s visit to a strip club. This culture of objectification does include things like a man being seen as more “manly” if he goes to a strip club, but it also extends to thinks like the way that female politicians have their appearance analysed, how their status with the public depends on their ability to walk the line between sexual attractiveness and sexlessness (see media attention given to Hillary Clinton). It’s seen in the way that little girls are taught to place far more emphasis on their appearance than little boys– because they are taught that their value is tied up in their appearance to a far greater extent than boys.
And all this, of course, takes us back to my main point, that this issue is far bigger than one man visiting one strip club. That Rudd himself went to a strip club is pretty much insignificant, in light of the cultural trends that mean that a woman’s value is tied to her appearance more strongly than a man’s value is. That’s not to say that men are never judged on appearance, or that men don’t suffer from body image issues– we all know that these things affect everyone– it’s just that women are judged far more and suffer from those expectations more. Strip clubs are just the tip of the iceberg.
PC, your attempt to expand this discussion from strip clubs and a particular kind of sexual objectification to broader issues of money, power, etc, and the relative position of the genders in all facets of life (incidentally, to construct one of the clumsier strawmen I’ve seen in a while) is pathetic. Come down from your soapbox and have a real discussion, please.
And as I have explained, my assumption about Chav’s gender arose because of his/her name, not because of his/her mere existence as a human being. Please read my responses to your questions before drawing conclusions. If you’re not going to extend to me that courtesy then I’d prefer it if you didn’t waste my time by asking the question in the first place.
Cheers
BBB
BBB, did you actually read the post this thread is attached to? Because I also looked at the broader issues of power and gender in politics. Am I off-topic also?
If you can’t think of a good response to Dr. Cat’s points then that isn’t her fault.
Just to lighten the discussion up a little.
Rudd has been a naughty boy. Julia Bishop thinks he should go to the “naughty corner”.
You first, BBB. Everything you have said there could equally be applied to your own style of argument, probably with more justice.
I was not attempting to ‘expand the discussion’, only to point out that to disregard the notion of pervasive patriarchal values is to ignore what’s in front of your nose.
The ‘Chav’ explanation is a nice try, and if I’d read it before I posted my own comment, I might have given you the benefit of the doubt. As it is, our comments crossed, as you’ll see if you look at the time stamps. That is also the reason I hadn’t read your comment: it wasn’t there yet.
And it’s goodnight from me.
Beppie,
Thank you
thank you
thank you.
Memo Razor: That’s what intelligent discussion looks like.
BBB: If you think men and women are equally objectified in strip clubs in general, just because there’s a market now for beefcake shows mainly for the hen’s night market, you really have the blinkers on.
Brian
Unfortunately this just proves, yet again, how uncritical you are of sources who might be able to promote your ideological agenda du jour. For you see, Howard has not imposed any fees that restrict university attendance. In this instance, I would say the liar is your letter-writer rather than than Madam Lash.
There is little doubt that this is true.
Of more practical concern, however, is the question of to what extent this is:
a. A problem to be solved.
or
b. A condition to be endured.
or
c. Viva le difference!
As I predicted the feminazis have kicked many own-goals once more a la Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Getting in first was a wise decision. Heading them off at the pass has sent them into even more paroxysms of incoherence. Nothing more to see here folks.
When I first heard the Downer-as-next-Liberal-leader thing I dismissed it out of hand, but now all the indicators point directly to it …
Downer will campaign for the post-Howard leadership on the basis that he puts the wind up Rudd …
Beppie
That is because men are more visually-oriented than women.
Women do much more than ogle the men, and the ‘no touching rule’ doesn’t apply in practice. There are quite double standards, and it’s quite okay for male strippers to be mobbed by the women.
There are way more *strip clubs* for men, but I think you will find that the bulk of male for female stripping doesn’t occur in a club atmosphere, but that it is contracted for a particular event. Presumably this lacks as many protections as clubs. Also, some women visit women strippers. I’m not trying to infer any big gender thing from this, just putting it out there.
Anyway, for Rudd, I seriously doubt the issue will have positive consequences. Sure a lot of people have also visited strip clubs, but that is irrelevent. The reality is that people hold politicians to much stricker standards about this kind of thing to themselves. I don’t think it will have much negative traction with younger voters or most suburbanites, men or women. I think several issues of this nature would damage the vote from Christians and older people.
I am not an animal, I am a human being...!
I think this is a positive for Rudd, he can speak Chinese, and is obviously intelligent, I think he had a real image problem, now he is just another average block ( bet he is glad he told his wife). I am surprised the Liberals gave him the free kick. Even if they wanted a “Clinton moment” there is a big difference between visiting a night club and playing with a cigar ( there really should be shorthand phrase for that, we have the “French kiss”, perhaps “American cigar”). And even if he had played with cigars this is Australia not America, can’t remember too many of us getting upset that Hawk could down a beer better than most or that he was a bit of a womanizer.
b. A condition to be endured.
or
c. Viva le difference!
Logically identical.
I am not an animal, I am a union being!
Beppie: objectification
Could you please tell my why women wear makeup and low cut dresses. I’m not trying to be a smart ass; I am actually curious as to how you believe women should behave, on my reading of your post I think your saying men should not look.
Australia and our expectations of politicians have changed a lot since then…
Well the polls didn’t think he had a real image problem. The reality of Australian politics now is that we like our leaders bland and goody. At the last NSW state election, a Liberal guy running for a seat was sacked by his party because he forwarded on some adolescent toilet humour involving sex with a goat. ‘Average blokes’ would have sent thousands of these in their lifetime. But this didn’t help the politician – and he wasn’t a federal leader, but a minor candidate in a state election.
Seriously, I don’t ‘average blokes’ will be more likely to vote for Rudd because of this. I don’t think they will think about it all that much. This is the thing: although it might vaguely endear him to some people, I don’t think it would be a vote shifter. But for Christians and moral conservatives, it might be.
John, you’re a nong.
I couldn’t agree with this more:
And it’s been pointed out many times why the “hypocrisy” involved is only on the side of those too dumb and too focused on trivial and stupid point scoring gotcha games to understand elementary logic.
“One key thing to remember is that while objectification occurs regardless of whether a stripper is male or female, and regardless of whether the viewer is male or female, the cultural significance of that objectification is vastly different depending on the respective genders of the stripper and the viewer.”
Totally agreed. I wouldn’t be trying to deny that we live in a patriarchal culture, or that this is a very important part of understanding the operation of strip clubs. But there has been a popularisation, for better or for worse (personally, I think some of each), of stripping and pole-dancing, and in that context it simply can’t and won’t resonate as a scandal. It may even resonate as a point of identification with Rudd, for many women, as well as many men.
In my earlier comment I was talking about women going to see female strippers in venues that were ‘targeted at men’. I do think the proliferation of contexts in which men strip for women is an important parallel development as well. Once again, it doesn’t signify an ‘emergence’ from patriarchy, so much as a change in the way that it operates.
Do you realise you are engaging in the same style of discourse that marked (and marred) the recent FGM debate? Is the proper course to preface all comments on sex, gender, etc. with something along the lines of ‘Look obviously it must be conceded that we live in a patriarchal society, and of course men objectify women more than do women me, so please don’t go hard on me, but…’, as Teh Left were demanded to preface everything with ‘I loudly denounce blah blah blah’ And you have the cheek to lecture Razor on intelligent debate…
Shorter PC: it’s ok for me to jump to conclusions about the answer to my question, so long as the question hasn’t actually been answered yet. Are you serious? Here’s how normal discussion goes, PC: ask question, receive answer, consider answer and form conclusion, ask further question or make further comment. It wasn’t that big a deal – I acknowledged my mistake more or less immediately and apologised. When are you going to do the same?
PC was responding to me, not your original post. This is why she started with a quote from my comment. She proceeded to construct a clumsy strawman, basically putting words in my mouth, and then jumped to an inaccurate conclusion about why I thought Chav was a man. She is at fault for that. None of those things are ‘points’, by the way.
Cheers
BBB
*waits for other shoe to drop*
*First post*
This is slightly off topic, but I think it’s relevant. I’m worried about politicians vote-grabbing by jumping on the ‘we are really worried about the sexualisation of girls and related issues etc’ bandwagon – not to discredit real concern about all of this, but it strikes me as a particularly fruitful one for politicians to gravitate to – you can blame Advertising/ the media, throw some money at porn filters and so on, and not get to any of the causes of the symptoms. Forget child care and maternity leave and more money for teenage health etc – instead you can publicly condemn porn and worry about the future generations.
The night before Strippergate, I went along to an event at Melbourne Town Hall, run by umbrella women’s organisation called The Women’s Forum, called GET REAL. It was the launch of a report called FAKING IT, a critique of the insidious influence of advertising/ the media etc on pre-teen and teenage girls. The organisers began the night (which was interesting, patchy, overlong, sincere) calling for a new wave of feminism to address the horrors of objectification and its effects (eating disorders, self harm, depression etc). The host then effusively read out messages of support for this campaign from Howard and Abbott, and later a female Labor MP read out a message of support from Rudd. Steve Fielding from Family First was in the audience and shared his concerns. It took me a while to get my jaw off the floor – a new feminist wave that even Abbott likes! I’m sure the organisers have plenty of good reasons for being excited about govt support, bi-partisan too, but this is a feminism I’m worried about. I’m now waiting for Melinda Tankard-Riest (who does share some concerns with Abbott, re: abortion), who ran the event and is director of Women’s Forum, to come out and condemn Rudd – the timing was beautiful/ tragic, vis a vis her own event.
BBB, you can repeat ‘clumsy strawman’ as often as you think it will take for people to believe you. Go wild. If anyone is interested, which I doubt, they can have a look at what I actually said and judge for themselves.
Ok ok, PC. Yours can be the last word on that. Let’s end our off-topic side-discussion…
Cheers
BBB
That’s because Hawke wasn’t a weasel about it. Well, not as much anyway. Further, we all knew his history before he presented himself for duty.
We’ll forgive a lot if someone is bald about it. Pretending you didn’t see any naked women in a strip club doesn’t constitute honesty, it’s just a moral comb-over.
But don’t you see the problematic reasoning of this. The argument has always been that patriarchy exists because men disproportionately engage in bad stuff against women and have the power to do so – but now as women are increasingly doing the same thing, people say something like ‘see patriarchy is so strong now even the women are doing it too’. This is perilously close to a tautology, and “patriarchy” risks becoming a hazy, lumpish abstraction roughly synonymous with ‘bad stuff’. Certainly the males have a lot more power in society on average then females, but I think the “patriarchy” I think is clumsy and tends towards over-generalisation.
This thread is starting to remind me, in all its tiresome cliched monotony, of the FGM debate, particularly the pointless bleatings of BBB, and (as usual) John Greenfield.
Greenfield really is a tool of the highest order, and the less said about him the better, but BBB has really outdone himself, becoming increasingly incoherent with each post.
I don’t know why any topic that involves gender issues causes some people such angst, but this is really such a simple issue that only those with another agenda would seek to complicate it.
Rudd visited a high class strip joint for half an hour at the request of others. He got drunk. He did nothing offensive while at the club.
If some people want to condemn him for that and others don’t, well so what.
There’s certainly nothing to get into a lather of indignation about, even if your invented and imaginary opponents refuse to respond as you would wish.
Keep trying Craig Mc some one might might believe you some where some day,just not sure which century.
Please its getting boring,report to Liberal Central and tell them you tried,but nobodys listening
From Kim we have – “And itâ??s been pointed out many times why the â??hypocrisyâ?? involved is only on the side of those too dumb and too focused on trivial and stupid point scoring gotcha games to understand elementary logic.”
Since when has hypocrisy been an acceptable charachter trait of those who want to be given the responsibility to lead this great land?
The hypocrisy points to deep charachter flaws which are prevalent in most of the “Do as I say not as I do” born to Nanny envirofemileftists.
“Nanny envirofemileftists”
Congratulations. A new low.
I sometimes don’t really know why I bother writing anything, when there are so many people eager to ignore the bits they can’t address, and make up shit when it suits them.
From now on, anyone not actually contributing to the discussion can go to Tim Blair’s place. There’s plenty to discuss, even plenty to criticise, without turning this into yet another pointless slanging match.
Since people started voting hypocrites into office.
Democracy is the damnedest thing.
Some examples of the kind of crap I’m no longer interested in tolerating:
Craig Mc – not even Glenn Milne has said that Rudd denied seeing strippers. Making things up will get you deleted.
Razor – Kim said in the actual piece that you quoted that Rudd is not a hypocrite. Quoting her, then arguing that she said that hypocrisy from Rudd is acceptable is – again – making shit up, and no longer acceptable on this thread.
If people want to make an argument then feel free to make it. But just as Milne was wrong to make untrue accusations, so are all of you. It distracts the discussion and I’m not putting up with it anymore.
It’s not the facts of the matter that I have a problem with, it’s blah blather blah blather blah blah…
I said he was pretending he didn’t, and I didn’t make up this exchange:
Craig Mc wrote:
He isn’t denying he saw nakedness and boobies (which you *can* see in any pub across australia when the travelling strip show comes to town). He is denying it was weird, strange, that he felt up anybody or that something terrible happened and there is a cover up.
All we need now is allegations that Rudd shipped weed from the boondocks to town in the spare tyre of his 1972 Kingswood to pay for his education. This would get the conservatives to collectively faint from moralistic apoplexy. Now that is something I would like to see. Remember folks, you read the weed rumour right here first.
adrian,
I take it that your allusion to ‘invented and imaginary opponents’ was made without the slightest intention of irony? Here’s what I said in the first place: “I can’t believe how much time is being wasted discussing this non-story.”
Did it ever occur to you that gender issues get people worked up, not because they simple, but because they are intensely personal while at the same time complex and open to myriad interpretations, views and perspectives. I can’t say that I sympathise with your one-dimensional view of the world, which at the same time apparently contains all manner of hidden, complicating, agendas. Viva la paranoid monoculture, adrian.
Now Rudd’s actions are hardly at the ‘very unacceptable’ end of the sexual exploitation spectrum, but even his most ardent followers must accept that it was a misjudgment from a person who appeared quite happy to compromise, however briefly, his moral position (as a committed Christian) to maximise, as Anna put them, “his networking and socialising opportunities”. The moral/ethical implications of Rudd’s weakness are not the least bit newsworthy, being essentially private matters with little bearing on policy. Accordingly, the real action, such that it is, is occuring between the respective commentariats of the right and left. Having said that, it should be noted that a propensity to indulge in ‘gotcha’ politics is not a character flaw that afflicts only right-wingers. Witness, for example, the spectacle of Teh American Left salivating over card-carrying Republicans caught up in the ‘DC Madame’ scandal. That indulgence at least has the virtue of being somewhat related to policy, in that private conduct can be said to be inconsistent with a particularly relevant and public political position (like opposition to the legalisation of prostitution on the basis of phony ‘family values’). Still, there is more than a little ‘adolescent point-scoring’ in it.
Cheers
BBB
Unneeded insults aside, full responsibility means full responsibility, not “…And I woulda got away with it too, if it hadn’t been for them damn kids”, (borrowing from Scooby-Doo).
If so many people (eg the vox pops on radio including women!?!) think that it is acceptable for blokes to go to a strip joint, why not a brothel? What’s the difference?
What does it indicate about the relationships these blokes have with the women in the daily lives?
That’s just nonsense, Stephen. Rudd’s behaviour in going to the strip club (which as I argued on the other thread is arguably far more significant for what it says about his desire to suck up to senior News Ltd figures than any “moral” issue) is one thing. Downer’s alleged complicity in using it as part of the politics of smear four years later is entirely separate.
Are the RWDB talking points written by ethical pygmies?
Got away with what for f***s sake?? Oh I see, going to a strip joint.
But seriously, why should he take responsibility for a smear perpetuated by someone else?
That’s an interesting definition of full responsibility, taking responsibility for the actions of others.
“Certainly the males have a lot more power in society on average then females, but I think the â??patriarchyâ?? I think is clumsy and tends towards over-generalisation.”
Sure, it could come off as monolithic, it’s a risk associated with the concept perhaps. I prefer ‘a patriarchal culture’, than ‘the patriarchy’. For me it relates to not only actions but representations. I don’t see a fundamental shift in either regarding sex or gender, but there have been a whole lot of changes with arguably positive and negative effects for men and women.
In the case of women watching men strip: the idea that this signifies a substantial change would also relate to the extent to which it parallels changes in everyday practices of objectification. There is a certain suspension of norms in these performances – a carnivalesque atmosphere accompanying an event, a (still heteronormative etc) ‘space for women’s desire’ created temporarily. These suspensions may suggest small-scale inversions that don’t challenge the everyday. Or maybe they do have potential? I wouldn’t deny the possibility, but I think they exist as much because they allow certain things to remain unchallenged.
I was just thinking about this morning. All the major players in the Government have their impramaturs to cover up their moral failings – Abbot has his Catholicism, Ruddock his Amnesty badge, Costello his ambition, Howard his Aussie tracksuit and digger photo shoots. But Downer’s, bless him, is that he’s Alexander Downer.
You could also look at the increased sexualisation of men’s bodies in advertising and the rise of the metrosexual and even things like “manscaping” (ie removal of male body hair, Brazilians, etc) in this context. As Adam says, it’s a different inflection of objectification as late modern capitalism discovers new markets and cultural trends morph. I agree that “patriarchal culture” is a somewhat better choice of terms, because it goes to the structural nature of inequality and patterned behaviour rather than implying a conspiracy of old men ruling the world. (Though the world is run by men!)… It’s a bit similar to some of the debates in Marxist state theory a fair while back.
I also think you make some good points in your third para, Adam.
It’s all a lot more complex than “it’s the patriarchy, stupid” but “but women like strippers too” doesn’t disprove contentions about the nature of gender based objectification.
Amphibious:
What a strange question. Perhaps you should ask his wife whether there’s any difference? In case you don’t have her number, here’s the lowdown:
At a strip joint, Kevin sat with some other men and watched a lady take off her underthings, then decided he felt uncomfortable about the whole thing and left to go to bed.
At a brothel, Kevin would have gone alone into a small room with a lady and paid money to put his penis inside her.
I hope that helps.
I haven’t read all the posts here, but the ones I did read have been either to:
- excuse Rudd for ‘being human’
- insist that the Libs’ muckraking is only damaging themselves
- maintain that the Australian electorate is above that sort of thing.
I don’t agree with any of these.
I don’t believe that the degradation of women – the commercial lifeblood of strip clubs, pornography and ‘adult’ publishing – is a ‘human’ attribute. On the contrary, it’s a symptom of the kind of highly dysfunctional society that long-term patriarchal systems generate. I am disgusted with Rudd for being party to the public degradation of women and supporting it commercially (pissed or not).
The Libs’ muckraking will probably not damage them, as the outing of Rudd is being done on puritanical grounds, not any defence of women’s equality. The Libs will, of course, gain lots of kudos among those who respond to puritanical point-scoring and anti-political correctness.
Nor is the Australian electorate any more enlightened than other societies – past and present – in projecting our social morals onto the women in a male politician’s life – wife, mother, daughter, whore – and they will vote according … but, unlike Americans, won’t admit to it.
As a society, we desperately need politicians who will settle for nothing less than a woman’s right to full and uncompromising equality with men. Of course, we won’t get it – at least, not in my lifetime – but the need refuses to go away.
Rudd sold women out. This makes him no different from many men, who have been subliminally trained since childhood to objectify women sexually. However, as a politician who seeks to lead a liberal Western nation in a post-feminist age, Rudd’s behaviour is unacceptable.
I guess you’re referring to the comments. Did you read the post?
Anna Winter says “Kim said in the actual piece that you quoted that Rudd is not a hypocrite.”
No – Kim said “And itâ??s been pointed out many times why the â??hypocrisyâ?? involved is only on the side of those too dumb and too focused on trivial and stupid point scoring gotcha games to understand elementary logic.”
Kim is saying that it is only trivial and therefore not worthy of bothering with. I disagree strongly. When we read a defintion of a hypocrit from doctionary.com:
1. a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
2. a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.
And hence I give you Kevin Rudd – the social democrat christian hypocrit.
Fact – Kruddie holds himself out publicly to be strong Christian with strong family values.
Fact – Kruddie wrote himself off, went to a strip club, claims memory loss due to being smashed.
He even spins it as attending a “Night Club” rather than a strip club.
Add this to the hypocrisy of being the head of the Workers Party and being a multi-millionaire. Being “environementally aware about global warming, oh and by the way I just sold the SUV. His wife’s business employing people of individual contracts (becasue that is best practice) rather than enterprise or industry agreements. etc etc etc.
He and Al Gore must get on really well – hypocrits in heaven.
There are two profound takeawys from Strippergate:
1. The luvvie-left has proven once again what an ethical vacuum it is. It does not have principles, it only knows who its enemies are. It defines it principles and “ethics” by whatever their enemy is doing. here, the ALP is involved, so all issues of men whooping it up in skanky strip clubs is condoned.
2. Kevin Rudd’s scary apology. Why would a grown man in 2007 apologise for an extremely normal night out? And did you all get how many times he said he was “inappropriate?” WTF? Is the Presbyterean Feminazi Common Room writing his scripts, now?
Please read more carefully, Razor. Kim was obviously referring to the hypocrisy of those using this incident as a “gotcha” moment for their unending (and terminally repetitive and boring) war on lefties and feminists in the blogosphere.
Don’t kid yourself Greenfield. There is nothing profound or even remotely insightful about your trite and predictable observations. Indeed, I think that you are actually projecting your own tendencies to pontficitate deviod of principle onto a mythical ‘left’ entirely of your own imaginings.
Why you would bother to infest a site for which you have such obvious contempt is perhaps a question only someone qualifed in psychiatry could adequately answer.
Certainly I’d rather listen to endless replays of the PM’s speeches than repeatedy visit Blair’s site for example, let alone comment on it.
FDB the return of the terrified tarzan – No difference in essence, if he watched he partook.
Adrian, John’s comment has gone back to where it came from so there’s no need to waste your time responding to his tedious trolling.
I’ll be looking carefully for a spike in the unemployment figures tomorrow for satirists.
This is very true. And I would add: to a great extent these issues are inexplicable for most people. Which is all the more reason for delving deeper. As people are wont to do. As evidenced here.
For example, despite Mark and Adam’s heroic attempts, the question of the differences between women and men’s sexual interests, or desires, how the market caters for this or attempts to shape it, and what all this tells us about women’s oppression, is a very important and interesting question which won’t go away, is raised by this incident and not very well served by dismissal.
jinmaro, the post in part is about the way in which people are blind to the nuances of these debates and project positions on opponents/interlocutors.
Adam can speak for himself, but I’m confident that neither I nor he are trying to dismiss these questions. I just don’t agree with a perspective that is premissed on essential differences. But I think it’s reasonably clear to anyone who reads my and his comments that we’re very far from claiming to have the last word or wanting to close debate.
jinmarro
Women are just not as interested in that stuff as men are. Simple really.
sorry, Mark, my comments were badly worded. I meant to say that you and Adam were trying to address these questions, and that was good, but unfortunately others weren’t, or at least only vaguely, and in passing. Anna’s post was largely concerned with defending Rudd and repudiating the hypocritical attacks. Transparently and even gratingly so, may I say. As a feminist, I would not have elevated his defence so highly vis a vis the other important questions raised here.
For as many people commenting here have shown (and they are not all stereotypically people merely with a pro-Liberal agenda) there are big unanswered, unexplained questions about what the hell is going on today sexually and I don’t think that is being given the attention it deserves. At not surprisingly, many people look to those who profess to be pro-feminist satisfactorily to explain these things.
It would be a shame if we always have to just “move on”, as the incurious are unattractively wont to say.
No probs, jinmaro.
Jinmaro, I didn’t defend Rudd. I raised what I thought were two other overlooked but important issues.
Firstly, that this is the sort of behaviour that is the reason we have affirmative action, for a start, and the reason that groups like EMILY’s List criticise a “blokey” culture in politics. Because this sort of networking excludes women from the process needed to gain and hold political office, which is a major problem. It highlights what feminists are talking about when they say that the idea that anyone gets ahead in politics purely “on merit” is utter crap.
Secondly, I argued that personal character issues should take a back seat to the kind of policies a politician supports and pursues. I shared my view that there are many unpleasant people in parliaments who none the less are the kind of person I’ll vote for because they support the things I support. I care less about how an MP behaves in private, and more about how they do their job. I’m not sure which part of this displays a defence of Rudd, when I am linking it to my experience of other MPs I’ve met who behave badly.
You may think that these things are less important than your view of the issue; that’s your right. But I chose to focus on different angles, one of them another oft-overlooked feminist issue. You don’t have to have a view on them, but I would appreciate an attempt to understand what I actually wrote before dismissing it.
“Any” pub, eh? So the front bar at The Windsor has a travelling strip show then.
When Rudd uses the words “I saw nakedness and boobies”, I’ll believe your version. Hey, if he says “I saw nakedness and boobies, and I LIKE IT!”, I’ll vote for him myself.
Memo to Teh Collective: Could Evil Pundit and C.L. be invited back?
I miss them.
I think Darlene provides the best response to that:
<img src="http://thespinzine.squarespace.com/storage/darcy.jpg"
I don’t have a problem with Rudd going to a strip joint, I just think blaming Downer for bringing it up (without offering evidence it was him who leaked it, only casting aspersions of such) is a bit naff, and little more than an attempted diversion. Even if it was Downer, to fein indignation like its only conservatives who muckrake and smear is just stupid.
I don’t have any problem with strip joints, or brothels for that matter (referring to what Amphibious posted).
I am actually of the opinion that feminists don’t give these women credit for being perfectly capable of assessing the choices they make. I have read a few articles, interviews and surveys of women who strip or are sex workers in legal brothels, and they consistently appear to be absolutely confident in who they are and the choice of occupation they have made.
A consistent pattern among them is that they are happy with their choice because the pay is good and because they only need to work a few days a week, they can spend more time with their children. I think feminists who find it demeaning are not giving these women enough credit for being capable of making their own choices. Most of these women could bring even the most arrogant man down to size with a single comment.
As for Rudd, like I said, I really don’t care that he went to a strip joint, to me its a bit like the kid who was always head of the class one day dares to take a draw from a cigarette. Ultimately it’s more humourous than shocking.
Quote me a recent example of any other party in Australia playing this sort of politics of personal smear, please.
Howard & Co. still haven’t taken on board the fact that many people will not be voting FOR the ALP, Greens or Democrats, they will actually be voting AGAINST John Howard.
So let the Coalition smear campaign roll – it won’t change my voting intentions.
I’ll vote for a drover’s dog if it will see the end of this prejudiced, repressive, centralist, far-right, Coalition cabal.
Fantastic!
I’m starting a group on Facebook!!
Can I join Helen? I don’t have a tye-died shirt but I’m sure I can find one…
Trolls don’t behave like that.
Strippergate is over.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/21/2010489.htm
I think you’re making a big assumption there by lumping all feminists into one category. These sorts of questions are actually hotly contested in feminist circles.
It’s certainly easy to find testimonials from women in various kinds of sex work (prostitution, stripping, etc) who say they enjoy the work, that they do it out of choice, etc. However, it’s also not hard to find testimonials from women who’ve been horribly exploited in this industry, forced to act like they enjoyed it because that was the only way they could keep their jobs, forced to do things they didn’t want to do– harrowing stuff, basically. And the scary thing is the joints in which these women were working are indistinguishable from the workplaces of the women who say they are doing it out of choice. So, feminists who are opposed to sex work are simply concerned with giving credit the the women who have been exploited, and critiquing the industry in which exploitation is so rampant. It’s not a matter of dismissing those who enjoy the work, it’s a matter of NOT dismissing women who have been hurt by that industry. Furthermore, many feminists criticise the industry because it contributes to the objectification of women in general– the industry constructs femininity in a way that affects all women, to greater and lesser extents: it does not exist in a vacuum. It’s not an issue that can be reduced to “I read a couple of articles in which women said they liked stripping and prostitution, so therefore anyone who is concerned about women in that industry is trying to say that these women can’t make choices for themselves.”
The Courier-Mail reports that Rudd’s sister-in-law is a former stripper:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22279471-3102,00.html
Mark, to answer your challenge re: personal smears, what about the Shelley Hancock p*rn campaign? I’m not sure how that turned out, but it seemed at the time that the ALP was behind it.
From memory there were also concerted ALP campaigns against Ted B (in Victoria) and Malcolm T (at the Federal level) about their personal wealth, playing on the low-rent politics of envy rather than tackling any of their policy positions or commitments.
And aren’t ALP and Green operatives endlessly smearing each other on personal issues? It certainly seems so down here in Victoria.
Cheers
BBB
BBB, I don’t know who Shelley Hancock is.
Baillieu, yep, but I’m not particularly aware of any attacks on Turnbull for his wealth from the ALP. But suggesting someone is out of touch because of personal wealth is significantly different from smearing someone for alleged “moral” and “character” failings, is it not?
“FDB the return of the terrified tarzan – No difference in essence, if he watched he partook.”
Look Amphibious, you’ve obviously got it in for me after our little Inuit stoush the other day, but I reckon the key is to stop saying ludicrous things. What is this “in essence” you refer to? Define this essence.
Is watching a porno the same in essence as having sex with a prostitute? How about watching a movie with a sex scene and getting turned on? Having a wet dream?
In essence my sweet arse.
Mark,
She was a Liberal candidate (not sure how she did). The ALP were apparently hawking an old “film” which featured her husband (now in his sixties).
It is different but not relevantly so. The primary objection to smear campaigns, of any kind, ought to be that they lower the political debate and place the focus on personal, private matters not policy. Are you saying it is OK to suggest a candidate is out of touch because of money, but not OK to suggst a candidate is out of touch, or otherwise unfit for office, because of moral/ethical failings (ignoring, for the moment, that wealth is itself considered a moral failing by some)? If so, forgive me but I suspect that reflects your own political perspectives and prejudices, rather than any firm philosophical commitment to the fair asssesment of candidates on policy grounds.
Cheers
BBB
What are the odds of a club owner (not a bouncer, or barman mind) recalling a non-descript guy who didn’t stay long enough to finish his beer and left without incident almost four years ago?
I suspect that’s some apologetic back-filling from sheepish mate Col (does Lefty E really believe that’s Col’s only time in the club?). Now if Rudd himself said “I didn’t touch any dancers, I urged the others to leave, and didn’t stay long enough to finish my beer” I would absolutely believe him. The cost of being caught out in a lie is a lot higher for Rudd than it is for Mr Bada Bing.
I expect he remembers it more as the one time that the editor of the NY Post (y’know, the second biggest newspaper in NYC) calling up before coming into his club, CraigMc.
Not if David Spears from Sky News has anything to do with it. He was busy spruiking the ‘I know it’s trivial but these are the things that people remember’ line, on ABC this morning and Jennifer Byrne is too much of a twit to challenge it. Indeed she was earlier repeating the smear that Rudd was thrown out of the club.
He of course had to get in a mention of Latham, just so that people may begin to join the ever so tenuous dots.
Anyway, I reckon the story has now moved onto the “trickiness” of Rudd’s response, rather than the rights and wrongs of the original incident. Everyone can see he is trying to have it both ways with his memory, in a manner rather reminiscent of Carmen Lawrence I must say. Why on earth did he think it a good idea to keep speaking about it into last night?
I am also awaiting convincing evidence that this isn’t all media generated, as was the Rudd family eviction story, yet everyone at LP treats both as if they are “obviously” Liberal party inspired.
Presenter:…but what about Kevin? One man who met him was Luigi Vercotti.
Vercotti: I had been running a successful escort agency — high class, no really, high class girls — we didn’t have any of *that* — that was right out. And I decided (phone rings) Excuse me (he answers phone) Hello……no, not now……shtoom…shtoom….right……yes, we’ll have the watch ready for you at midnight…….the watch…..the Chinese watch….yes, right-oh, bye-bye…..mother (he hangs up phone) Anyway I decided to open a high class night club for the gentry in New York with International cuisine and cooking and top line acts, and not a cheap clip joint for picking up tarts — that was right out, I deny that completely –, and one evening in walks Kevin with a couple of big lads, one of whom was editing a large metropolitan daily…
Tigtog, Craig Mc, I can tell you:
The chances of the nightclub operator remembering someone who was in the club briefly, once, 4 years ago, are exactly the same as the chance that,
Either of you remember if my grandfather walked past your house, once, 4 years ago.
Sure, if your grandfather was the editor of a popular newspaper who rang beforehand to ask if he could come by.
Ok too much talk about strippers.
I think this whole thread can be simply summarised:
1. Stripping institutions can be dodgy, but we shouldn’t assume it.
2. Kevin Rudd made a silly mistake, but worse things happen in the world.
3. His explanation is unfortunate because it’s obviously not completely frank (I can’t remember anything, except that I didn’t do anything bad!)… but get over it.
Wow, this strip club owner’s word sounds so trustworthy we should elect him.
A stripper in every lap!
Apparently more and more young women are taking to jobs like these because of the escalating cost of university (and supporting yourself while doing it). It has a kind of symmetry to it: Krudd is accused of frequenting a house of ill-fame while JH and his education minister helps to keep them stocked.
Anna Winter, to curtail my laughter at your naivete, please state here credentials as to running a strip club. And do it NOW.
Please, as your comment has me guffawing so heavily I may prolapse.
FDB –
The inadequates who watch strippers, go to brothels and, see below -
YES
YES, the inability to relate flickering lights to reality
Highly unlikely.
In all you write, you prove over & over the same point, a terrified little boy who thought he was gonna be tarzan and finds he’s… not.
I’m sorry if I’m missing some irony here, amphibious, but you’d really make no distinctions? I also don’t know that characterising people as “inadequates” helps the feminist cause any. The whole point of gender relations being structural social relations is that most people in enacting them don’t do so with much consciousness or reflection.
Indeed Amphibious, I am with Kim, I haven’t a clue what you are banging on about?
blockquote>Either of you remember if my grandfather walked past your house, once, 4 years ago.
I’d certainly remember if your granddad walked into my house accompanied by the first and only visit of someone who introduced himself as the editor of one of the most widely read newspapers in my town that carries my ads and reports on my more dubious associates.
And what are your credentials for running a strip club, Fern Bar Steve?
It is fun though to watch yet another shock! horror! scandal! dissipate into petty “gotcha” nitpicking.
The original narrative was Kruddy on the taxpayer’s dime went to a strip joint and behaved so badly he was warned/thrown out/asked to leave.
The consensus narrative now emerging from those who were there (including Kev when he can remember) is that, after a hard day’s junketing in the Big Apple, two Australian MPs went out on the town with a legendarily rambunctious Australian newspaper editor ( and I cannot say I would not have done the same in their position) and got shitfaced.
At one point during the night, theyâ??re taken in a possible spirit of sly shitstirring to a gentlemanâ??s club/uppermarket titty joint. Which they enter drunk and full of loudmouthed beans. It dawns on Kruddy through his boozy stupor that itâ??s not his kind of place, either personally or careerwise and they leave.
Then when asked about a drunken boys night out in NYC four years ago, Kruddyâ??s not really clear on the details but determined to spin it every which way as just a control freak goose would.
The meta narrative is:
- Whoo ho! Kruddy went to a gentlemanâ??s club overseas! Nailed yer little sanctimonious arse havenâ??t we?
- Um, wait a minute, this just makes us look like the kinda PC wowsers we love to slag off.
- And the publicâ??s just shrugging â??so whatâ??, â??goodonya Kev, did your get your end too?â??, etc.
- OK, how about this? he went to a strip joint and was “allegedly” warned to keep his hands off the talent (like EVERYONE who goes to such places – It’s a standard announcement like â??Operating your equipment may interfere with the flightâ??);
- Nah, thatâ??s not working either. Hey! itâ??s the cover-up that always gets â??em, right? â??Why canâ??t you accurately recall the exact details of a boozy night out four years ago?
- â??Look heâ??s ducking the mud! Is he worried it will stick?â??.
- Hmmm, thatâ??s not working either. Letâ??s re-examine every iota of everything anyone involved in this ever said in the hope we can come with a discrepancy, any discrepancy to muddy things further.
- Jeez, I hope interest rates donâ??t go up again.
- Oh look, Paul Keating said a bad word again!
Personally, I reckon that regardless what actually happened, or did not happen, the idea of Khristian Kev in a NYC flesh palace, whether witting or unwitting, drunk or sober, should be a naturally well-formed target of mockery, as should any pollie’s actions anywhere regardless of their political affiliations.
They all get far too much uncritical feedback within their own bubbles and the whole point of a free democratic society is that we all get to not whisper but shout â??Remember youâ??re mortal tooâ?? while paying for their bloody laurel wreaths.
Except for Glenn Milne – who should be in the arena frantically explaining to the lions itâ??s actually other peopleâ??s wet and sweet-smelling blood on his loincloth.
Youâ??ll notice that not even the Rudd Derangement Syndrome/Death to the ALP contingents are praising this media Gollum for his contribution to what currently passes for politicial debate in Oz. Even they can recognise why you need to keep your distance between not the collectors but the distributors of night soil.
Nabakov, sometimes it is better to remail silent & be merely thought a twit than to type a post & prove yourself one.
Got it?
Geez Louise. Must be a pretty slow news week, eh lads (& lasses)?
Well, since you ask Fern Bar Steve, no I’m not sure you’ve got it.
Give you a clue Nabakov, since you are reality challenged.
Unless you have an unending stream of the general public into your house, there is no comparison between your place and the sort of thing which goes on in a strip club.
Or is there?
Kim -
Errr.. yes, and this isn’t a, THE, problem?
No irony intended earlier – those activities are only possible because the johns are inadequate,in and of themselves.
SATP – wotta surprise
Yes it is jpz. Just a fun bagatelle in the earthy cut and thrust of Australian politics. The overwhelming majority opinion for this current hoha is “so fuckin’ what?” It’s not like we get into a national knicker twist and institute impeachment proceedings over our pollies sex lives.
We’ve had serving PMs admitting to adultery and appearing drunk in Parliament (not the same ones though) and cabinent ministers recognising kids born out of wedlock (I do admire Abbott for how gracefully he handled that) and leaving their bonkee’s underpants in the out tray on the desk – and you know what, no one really gives a shit.
You really should visit Australia sometime jpz. Even though we’re ostensibly an Anglo-Saxon country, there’s a very hedonistic Mediterranean yet pragmatic Nordic attitude, leavened by an increasing Asian do what you have to do vibe here.
It’s like an arse, biting its own arse, for all eternity
I bow to what seems to be your personal experience here.
What time is the wife on?
anthony, when your teeth get off your buttocks, how about sharing your point with us?
amphibious, but I disagree with the judgemental tone.
Your wife isn’t booked tonight Nabakov.
But yes you are right for a change, my personal experience in the hospitality trade is not in question. In my own trade I bow to nobody, for I am yet to meet a superior operator, and if I have a master, I doubt that I’ll meet him on this site.
As a person with a disability myself, I always think of those others whose experience of sex is often facilitated by or only with sex workers.
Oh, and can the rest of you mob stop abusing each other? In most instances, it’s not even particularly witty.
I’ll buy that for a dollar. Kitchen, blog. It’s all the same to you wielding a carbon steel knife in one hand and some high Scoville Scale ingredients in the other, isn’t it?
Bored now.
Steve, steve. steve – ‘I know you are but what am I’ is the best you can do?
Is it like a house or not like a house? Make up your mind son.
Nabs, it’s not big and it’s not cleaver.
OK, Kim, I will now refrain from pointing out Fern Bar Steve’s mother wears army boots. On his head.
On a lighter note, every current Republican candidate for the job of POTUS except Mitt has been divorced at least once unlike any of the Democratic candidates. You note here jpz how family values is such a moveable feast in the US compared to Australia’s hearty-farty attitude towards our pollies private lives.
You gotta meet my brother Ants. He’s a professional chef, got his wings in Switzerland, that will talk kitchen knife tech and handling all night while absently-mindedly yet immaculately dicing the mull like parsley.
Get. A. Lap. Dancing. Room. Boys!
Has anyone considered the possibility that Mr. Rudd might have left the jernt early and in annoyed disappointment upon finding out that they don’t have Nando’s in American strip clubs?
Or was it Nando’s gum, can’t remember. Too… many… signifiers… halp, halp, me brains is flyin’ out o’ me head…
Best Blog Name EVAH.
Amphibious, you ridiculous fool:
“In all you write, you prove over & over the same point, a terrified little boy who thought he was gonna be tarzan and finds he’s… not.”
Okay, I’ll play your little pantomime part. I’m a little boy with a small penis and frustrated desires to be a tree-swinging he-man carnivore. What would you prefer me to do next time I can’t find some defenceless lass to defile?
a) Watch a porno
2) Go to a strip club and have a wank in the dunnies
iii) Go to a prostitute
They’re all the same in essence, right?
As usual the RWDBs obstinately cling to a small part of their argument, struggling to maintain its credibility. However when the argument is looked at in its entirety, any remaining credbility vanishes.
We are to believe:
Kev was to drunk to remember
Warren Snowdon and Col Allan are lying
Elliot Osher can’t be trusted.
On the other hand, the completely anonymous source is presumed to remember, and be trusted to tell the truth, and their completely non-specific claims are to be construed as widely as possible.
Only if we can keep the spelling error.
Heckyeah. Fauxlk etymology speculation is strongly encouraged.
Who brought up Kevin Rudd’s attendance at the club. Why wasn’t it brought up before this time. Of all the places in New York, why go to a strip place. No happy about this.
Sorry Kim!
You know what it’s like- guy pulls out a non sequitur, then someone else goes for a knife and then the next thing you know, all hell breaks out. Will gladly pay for any breakages.
FDB – Yes
No Martin, it’s the one source we should trust being slippery about his recollections that’s got our liedar pinging.
If Rudd had come out on Sunday afternoon and said flat out that he behaved himself, saw lots of naked women, but didn’t buy a dance much less touch a girl, and walked out before even finishing his beer then that would have been good enough for me. I’m confident that any top politician will not make a flat lie that might easily be proven false (but then I honestly thought the same about Clinton, didn’t I?).
Mind, finally Rudd has come out and said that he “did nothing inappropriate” which is as close to a bald statement of fact as we’ll get from Kev. Taking him at face value I believe him, and I’ll drop it. If only he’d been more forthcoming earlier.