In the Brisbane Sunday Sun last December, columnist David Bentley lamented the loss of the "real man" in the wake of the women's liberation movement. He suggested men needed to take courses in manhood, and use for a motto a quote from an old Humphrey Bogart movie: "I never knew a broad who didn't understand a slap in the face or a slug from a .45."
The Sun went down the gurgler. Unfortunately, it didn't take Bentley's column with it. It surfaced in the Sunday Mail, and in the October 19 issue, Bentley again called for men's rights, suggesting a "Maleness Preservation Centre" and waving the Bogart incitement of violence against women once more under the noses of his potential converts.
What justification is there when major papers incite such hatred against women? To link men's rights and "the right to be manly" with that particular quote, taken from a time when it was widely accepted that men did have the right to beat their wives, is unacceptable, offensive and dangerous. Bentley does not list the rights that men have "lost", but notes that the Sensitive New Age Guys, nappy changing, caring, sharing, quiche eating and wimping about the kitchen, "only confirm womanhood's low esteem of them".
There is no humour, not even satire, in the issue of violence against women. On this point I contacted the paper, Bentley, the Anti-Discrimination Board and the Human Rights Commission, and lobbied women's groups, domestic violence centres, women's health centres, other media, the women's policy unit, the Australian Journalists Association, the Australian Press Council and the police department for action.
I have submitted a group letter with around 100 signatures to the paper; it was not acknowledged. I have been advised by the police department that the commissioner would be sending a letter of objection to the paper. Other groups have taken up the petition, and many women have indicated they will follow up by individually contacting the paper.
Violence against women and girls is not isolated to Queensland; it affects all women everywhere, whether we feel the slap or the slug from the .45 ourselves or not. Society is affected and men are affected. It is not even a "feminist" issue. The targets of physical assault by men haven't been chosen because they are "feminists", just female.
Men have to be told they do not have the right to
assault women. And newspapers do not have the right to encourage them to do so. Under Queensland legislation, I have been told, racial and religious groups are protected from such vilification, but not women.
By Denise Norbury-Reid