Kids are funny, because they lack the impulse control that governs most adults engaging in polite society. It means they won’t sugar-coat anything, and they’ll behave in ways adults never would – or should.
And childish bullying works best when it’s performative, dramatic and eye-catching, drawing attention to the loud humiliation of a peer and trying to force a response. And because most kids also lack a sense of humility, once a worked-up child gets going, they’re not quite sure how to pack it in.
So it is for David Leyonhjelm, federal parliament’s grubbiest and most accidental senator, who is doing the media rounds this week in a reprehensible slur spiral that would be funny if it wasn’t as compellingly depressing to watch as a Bert Newton speech at the Logies.
It began as most biffo in parliament does: a slight hurled across the Senate floor. During a round of debate about violence against women, the Liberal Democrat senator called out to his Greens opponent Sarah Hanson-Young: “Why don’t you stop shagging men, Sarah?” Classic schoolyard slur – the slut-shame. And Leyonhjelm picked a particularly telling moment to inappropriately bring up his colleague’s private dating life at work, of course, during a debate (and a broader national moment) on gendered violence.
The rape and murder of comedian Eurydice Dixon in Australia has amplified a national conversation on victim-blaming and violence against women pic.twitter.com/mIhrRedDHf
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 19, 2018
Despite Hanson-Young’s admirable biting back at Leyonhjelm’s despicable remarks Leyonhjelm remains bizarrely dug-in. He’s playing Chinese whispers on Sky News about Hanson-Young’s personal life (again), and telling just about anyone who’ll listen that the Greens senator is a “misandrist” who “thinks all men are rapists”.
Then, last night, after Prime Minister Turnbull (eventually) called on Leyonhjelm to apologise for his “clearly offensive” remarks, Leyonhjelm gave incredibly off-the-rails interviews to SBS News and The Australian where he called Turnbull a “pussy” and a “soft c**k” for siding with Hanson-Young on the matter.
“Malcolm should stop being such a pussy,” Leyonhjelm told The Australian.
“The broader issue is that misandry is just as serious as misogyny. I have heard Turnbull and Shorten criticising misogyny I think they should think about why they aren’t also calling out misandry.”
First off, I think the schoolyard rules, as I have it, dictate that because David called Malc a “pussy”, Malc gets to make a joke about having sex with David’s mum? Either that, or tomorrow morning Malc will dack David at assembly. (Can’t wait.)
Seriously, though, what we have here is a natural extension of Lewis’ Law, which dictates that any comment on feminism justifies feminism. By calling Malcolm a “pussy” and a “soft c**k”, Leyonhjelm is proving the very thing he’s trying desperately to disprove: how prevalent and dangerous misogyny is.
Not only has Leyonhjelm sexually harassed a female colleague in the workplace, he is now using blokey slurs to bully a man he believes does not fall in line with the masculine ideal. Calling a man a “pussy” or a “soft c**k” implies they lack an inherent masculinity, and are therefore weak or bad (or feminine, which to a misogynist is inherently interchangeable).
A note on Leyonhjelm's use of the words "soft cock" and "pussy" to describe the PM. These words are interchangeable because both indicate a lack of masculinity. A clear example of how misogyny is used against men who don't fall into line with patriarchal bullies.
— Jenny Noyes (@jennynoise) July 3, 2018
This foul, toxic masculine postulating hurts men too, and men’s subsequent desperation to assert this masculine ideal is exactly what stirs up the violence that maims and kills so many women – and non-binary people, and other men.
In fact, it’s exactly the kind of behaviour senators like Hanson-Young are trying to combat by bringing forth arguments about widespread male violence to the national discourse on gender.
Recently misandry has been revived as a kind of tiresome reactive power wielded by Men’s Rights trolls to smash back against any perceived power or advantage gained by feminists (and women in general). When we discuss the epidemic – and statistically inarguable – problem of male violence against women, men cry “misandry” because they are uncomfortable with how they are being sub-categorised as a specific group, instead of being thought of as neutral, default, the norm.
But here’s the thing: sure, misandry is dictionary-definition real. But it’s just not a *thing* like misogyny is a thing. The stakes are not as high; the problems are not anywhere near epidemic. There is no systemic violence or oppression that results from women’s hatred of men, because women are not collectively powerful enough to enact any kind of epidemic violence or oppression of men.
Yes, women might be (justifiably) pretty angry at and terrified of men right now. But 1 in 5 women in Australia have been sexually assaulted since they were 15, versus 1 in 20 men; and 72,000 women have sought homelessness services in 2016/17 due to domestic violence, versus 9,000 men.
And regarding those male statistics: according to the ABS, 89% of the perpetrators of violence against men are also male, and almost all female violence against men is defensive.
Male violence and misogyny are a primary issue for Senator Hanson Young and Bill Shorten and Prime Minister Turnbull because they are epidemic issues in Australian society that deserve serious scrutiny. Misandry is not a topic of national concern because, well, it’s just not a problem. Sorry, David.
So Leyonhjelm can carry on his playground politics and his schoolyard tantrums, because at the end of the day, he’s showing exactly what intellectual and rhetorical level the people who think “misandry” is a real issue are working at. This is an adult world and these are adult problems. If Leyonhjelm wants to play with the big kids, he’s going to have to grow up.