Confronting, but is it sexist?

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wMFqSjjnte0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Aussie Blokes Changing?

As the Annual Ernies are reported today, sexism is alive and well in Australia. Some of these are classic and represent an era, surely on its way out. The Gold Ernie went to the Mayor of Mt Isa, a mining town in Queensland, who did about as good a job for for inward migration as Lara Bingle did for tourism.

Councillor John Moloney who said, there are a number of quotes here, that "beauty disadvantaged women should proceed to Mt Isa where women are outnumbered five to one."

He said, "It's a compliment. A woman can come here and transfer themselves with love and devotion in marriage from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan. It can have a complete transformation for a woman."

And finally he said that "women who protested about these comments were blaming him for their looks."

That said there is a change of behaviour and it seems that quiche and white wine rather than dead animal and slabs of beer are showing up at the Aussie Barbie. What will the bogan blokes do while the ladies are making the salad? Survey says. Not quite yet.

Are real Aussie blokes metrosexuals or bogans?

Metrosexual
9% (96 votes)
Bogan
46% (460 votes)
In between
43% (427 votes)
Total votes
Total of 983 votes

For the record I would say that I am in between.

Tables Turning on Men in Adland?

I showed this article on politically incorrect portrayals of women in advertising, to my wife and I was interested by her response, which was that the tables had turned and that it was more often that men are portrayed negatively in the medja and in commercial advertising now. Not being one to watch too much commercial television I cannot say that I had noticed it too much other than portrayals of lazy,slovenly, beer drinking, football watching, do nothing men that are often the standard fare of beer commercials. That got me thinking and asked Uncle Google to enlighten me. Jim McNamara writing in an Online Opinion Article Dissing Men: The New Gender War addresses this very point.

Feminism has drawn attention to and fought against stereotypical and sexist portrayals of women in mass media, but new research shows that media portrayals of gender have largely done an about face in the past decade or so. There is a new “gender war” and the main target of discrimination is no longer women, according to research - it is men.

He continues.

To the extent that the negative views of men and masculinity in mass media reflect social attitudes, these findings have alarming implications for men and boys and for societies generally. Just as women have struggled against misogyny, men today face an increasingly misandric world that devalues and demonises them and gives them little basis for self-esteem.

In our kids school they have had programmes in place to support learning for girls and they are starting to see a big improvement and there is now concern that boys are falling behind. Programmes are now being designed to emphasise learning for boys. Seems like it is very similar to the issues discussed in the paper.

Pathetic Old Warties Bag Gillard

Julia Gillard, the Labor Deputy Leader, is getting some not very complementary advice from some of the the more broad minded members of the Liberal Party. Quite astonishing. This is 2007, not 1907. These are the guys that have been running this country for the last 10 years. Get rid of them.

Gary Sauer Thomson tells the story.