The Right Words
May 14
'If you want to stop men harassing and assaulting women you've got to change their attitudes to women in the first place. You have to get to the bottom of why they think it's OK to treat another human being like dirt. You have to get them to see that all women deserve respect.
A lot of the media commentary on the scandal swirling around rugby league at the moment has focused on community disgust at suggestions that group sex is a routine practice among players.
It's understandable that people are shocked by these allegations.
But if we spend all our time expressing moral outrage about group sex, as justified as that outrage may appear, then we are missing the central issue here.'
Catherine Lumby wrote this article in 2004 but it remains relevant to the current Matthew Johns scandal. As long as the media persists in using the phrase 'group sex' and sexual assault' interchangeably the debate around sports players and the way in which they treat women gets increasingly confused. It is clear the woman who had sex with Johns and five other men in 2002 believes she was assaulted and was left in a state of distress from which she has not recovered - this is why Channel Nine had to ask him to step down. So, Johns crime is assault, not group sex. But group sex cannot automatically be described as sexual assault. I do understand the two are linked - that is a woman may feel coerced in a group situation and feel unable to stand her ground. However I would argue that the combination of moral outrage and evasive language makes people's (including the young men involved) understanding of the situation more confused and simply leads to the assertion that there is nothing wrong with group sex - a position articulated by a senior NRL official.
And I would also ask why the genuinely penitent Johns has been sacked over this matter, but the resolutely unpenitent Sam Newman is earning a milion bucks a year for the next two and a half years. His contract was renewed for three years AFTER the incident in which he publicly mocked and humiliated sports journalist Caroline Wilson on television. Surely that is an incident Channel Nine is obliged to take even more responsibility for given that it occurred on air - that is on their watch.
Update: I almost didn't post this fairly shocking video in which Tracy Grimshaw is attacked for feminist bias. But here it is. Maybe best to know? (Though sometimes one thinks best not to know.)
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Comments
18 May 09 at 19:01
Yes, I can't figure out either why Sam Newman's stubborn chauvinism is condoned by Channel Nine executives - and viewers I suppose, while Matt Johns has been crucified (temporarily?) in the media in the past week.
...19 May 09 at 0:43
I turned this off after several minutes. The creep talking all over it and his level of misogyny was really repulsive. People don't seem to realise that this young woman was intoxicated at the time, and 19, which although over the age of consent, is not adult (that's 21 as I understand it. She may have seen herself as daring and sexually liberated when this incident began and then found herself in the weird position of being aroused and drunk when large numbers of men entered the room uninvited by her. Perhaps she then felt somewhat out of control, or wanted to look really liberated or something. She said she worke up at one time, drunk, with a strange man lying on her. She tried to get him off but couldn't (and look how strong and physically imposing rugby players are). She has said, according to Media Watch tonight (18.05.09), that she boasted about the night the next day as a coping strategy. The incident, being right out of most people's field of experience, then apparently began to sink in, and she began to feel exploited and debased. Clearly co-workers, people around her, were disgusted the next morning, as they have come out to attack her despite her current level of distress. The motel owner of course doens't want to admit to any responsibility in tarnishing the reps of these players he clearly admires. Over the years the effect has obviously magnified, leaving the woman feeling so upset as to be suicidal. Johns at least is being honest, as much as we can tell. His fellow footballers have left him to be their patsy. Whatever your stand on group sex, surely it is extremely short-sighted for this team to have indulged in this behaviour, given that a large section of the community is likely to be appalled. The rugby version of the Footy Show on Nine mysteriously won the most popular football show at the Logies recently although it consistently rates very poorly and was recenty rumoured to be barely surviving the boning process. It's enduring cheapness is probably what keeps it alive, along with the jock culture of Nine. Sam Newman and his wizened, shrunken-headed personification of 'manliness' is a disfigurement of contemporary TV. The fact that the powers that be sacked Trevor Marmalade, the only really funny person on the show and rather gentle in his humour, is an indication of how little they know. The show rates only because it runs on Thursday night before the weekend's games and regularly features star players and coaches talking about the game. What fan wouldn't want to see that? The moronic sexism of the hosts however has made me give up the show completely over the past few months despite my passion for the game.
...10 Jun 09 at 11:21
The latest "Ramsey back and forth" shows Grimshaw is a massive hypocrit who can attack Johns' with no remorse (despite additional evidence coming to light which exonerated Johns) but crys the "you upset my mother" and plays the female victim when someone attacks her.
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