Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Men behaving badly

I was looking at the camera and Apple computer magazines at the newsagent shop in Garden City yesterday while my wife was elsewhere paying some accounts. We'd arranged to meet later.

While I was trying to glean what information I could from a free read I heard a young kid grizzling. It was a girl of about three with shadows under her eyes looking as if she had been kept awake until midnight for several weeks. She was sitting on the hip of a ratish looking bloke who was impatiently rifling through the magazines in the section I'd be loath to examine in public - the section which has magazines containing risque images of women.

He knew what sort of literature he was looking for and pulled it out just as his size 18 wife turned up. He shoved the magazine at her and demandingly said. "Buy this!" then he turned and left the shop with the squawking kid still on his hip. The woman obediently went to the counter and paid for the latest edition of Zoo magazine. On the cover was a headline, "40 hottest cleavages in the world." I confirmed my memory of the headline by looking up the rag on the web.

Now call me old fashioned if you like, but I reckon if a bloke wants to read a magazine like this then he should have the guts to go to the counter and buy it himself. It seemed pretty insulting act to shove such a headline his wife. I suppose there are thousands of Australian families where this sort of thing happens. Zoo, an Australian production has a weekly circulation of more than 122,000 copies a week.

There was some sensational sexist-news yesterday that the Liberal leader of the opposition in the state parliament distinguished himself in front of other members late last year by getting down and sniffing the recently vacated seat of a female staff member. It's true. He offered a teary confession at a televised press conference yesterday. The day before he'd said it was an unsubstantiated rumour. This is the same man who confessed a few months ago that he had "snapped" the bra strap of another female staff member in parliament as a joke.

In response to the latest revelation/confession, his party colleagues have rallied round him and declared he is still the best person to lead the Liberal Party into the next election. What does that say about them? Are they all Zoo devotees too?

Men who indulge in shameful behaviour towards women have a fundamental personality inadequacy. Doing such acts in front of other men is akin to assaulting the woman. It's nothing less than blatent victimisation. Gutlessness fits in somewhere. This sort of behaviour doesn't start overnight, and nor does does it easily conclude. Such men often acquire encouragement through the acquiescence of onlookers. Sometimes the behaviour by reputedly "good blokes" can be much worse.

Both these incidents were apparently widely known in political and local media circles long before they were publicly disclosed. That it took so long is testament to the small town mentality which prevails here.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

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Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!