The Sexism Test
I like to read views that I am not familiar with. I work hard to actively seek out articles and pieces of writing that do not agree with my own views. For this reason, I make a point to regularly read articles posted by the Daily Life website.
There are times when the writers at Daily Life draw some very keen insight. I’ve found my views challenged and I’ve shifted my stance on some issues based on what I’ve read there. Unfortunately of late I’ve noticed that regular columnist Clementine Ford seems to be unravelling.
I say unravelling as while I don’t agree with many of Ford’s views in the past I’ve found her writing to be amusing and generally well put together. Of late though, it just seems to have lost focus and at times descended into farce. One of those times is here (1).
To surmise this is yet another article when Ford expresses outrage that a Facebook page about an event which she supports was trolled. The page is no longer up so it’s difficult to sensibly comment about exactly what was said and by whom.
The biggest issue I have with her article is that it fails what I refer to as ‘the sexist test’. This test is simple. If you take a comment, and reverse the gender of the person which the comment is about, would the comment then be considered, or still be considered sexist.
Ford’s piece has so many brilliant examples. Ford says ‘If you've ever wanted to gain a keen insight into the fragility of the male ego, all you need do is cast your eye over the outrage expended on women-only events’. I can only wonder if Ford would apply the same logic to the outrage regularly expressed by feminist authors on male only social groups. An article published on Mamamia entitled Meet Man Business (2) is an example of this.
Ford concluded her piece by noting that zero fucks were spared and that ‘Instead, merriment was had by way of laughter, sunshine, cake and the child-like fun of running joyfully through sprinklers of male tears’.
If a male author spoke of running joyfully through sprinklers of female tears it would quite possibly be the last thing that guy ever published. That’s beside the point. No one should be writing about joyfully running through anyone else’s tears.
It’s not just the gender which can be tweaked to cause some of the content published on many left leaning websites like Daily Life to wander into the absurd. For example, consider some of the commentary around refugee’s or Islam.
It’s not uncommon for those on the conservative side of politics to say something which suggests that people who are Muslim are more likely to engage in terrorist behaviour. Those on the left will then respond with name calling, labelling conservative commenters as bigots or racists. In my view the efforts of both sides in situations such as these are tremendously unhelpful.
Consider this article published on Traveller (3). The author suggests that she would not want her unaccompanied child to sit next to a man on a plane. To give the author some credit here she freely admits that her view is sexist. Even so, the author engages in the same questionable generalisations the right wanders into when discussing Islam. No one is calling her a sexist or a bigot.
Further pushing the authors view into the ridiculous is the widely accepted research which indicates that in the case of child sexual abuse the perpetrator is far more likely to be known to the victim as opposed to being a stranger. Such facts render the authors stance somewhat paranoid.
The widely accepted facts around the perpetrators of child abuse has not stopped many airlines deliberately avoiding seating children next to male passengers. Can you imagine the outcry on the left if an airline decided to refuse to allow Muslim passengers because they were more likely to be a terrorist? You don’t have to be that imaginative. Simply mention profiling.
For the record I don’t believe Tracey Spicer is sexist. I don’t believe most conservative hawks are racist either. They are examples peoples who judgement is compromised because they are afraid. Before we criticise we should ask who hasn’t made that mistake from time to time. If that was my choice would I be any less fearful?
What I can’t stand is hypocrites who are far too often willing to shift the goal posts defining what is reasonable depending upon whatever agenda they are propagating. Unfortunately, Clementine Ford is engaging in this type of behaviour more regularly.
More unfortunately her work is harming efforts to further gender equality as work like the article discussed here are so easy to lampoon. As someone who supports gender equality it’s tremendously disappointing.
If we are serious about effecting meaningful change, we should strive to view others views in the most charitable way. This is most important when examining a viewpoint that we disagree with.
For this reason, I acknowledge that Clementine Ford has recently been subjected to a much higher than normal level of personal abuse delivered via social media. I’d suggest that it has impacted on her judgement. I suspect such treatment would impact on most people’s judgement. I hope that it doesn’t continue to do so in the future.