To the perpetually offended: Get over it

It saddens me that my country has become populated by people whose chief occupation is whining and seeking to find offence at every turn, writes Mike O’Connor.

Have we now become so terrified of causing offence that humour is being wiped out? (Pic: iStock)

If you’re a male and married then the chances are you’ve been described by your wife as a pest.

Due to my continued failure to attain the lofty standards of tidiness set by my wife I am, however, more frequently described by her as a “pig”.

Pig, pest — I can live with it but were I to be of a more sensitive nature and find the term “pest’’ offensive, I would have the support of the Advertising Standards Board.

The board, rallying to the defence of downtrodden males across the nation, has just banned a television advertisement in which husbands were described as pests.

In the ad, a woman rings a pest control company and asks if it can rid her of cockroaches and a variety of household pests.

She then asks if it does husbands. “No ma’am,” the pest company employee replies. “We don’t do husbands.”

Following a complaint, the board found that “the voice over and the male employee’s mention of ‘we don’t do husbands’ meant that the implication was all husbands are pests, not just the husband mentioned by the woman in the ad.

“The board considered that this statement singles out husbands as a group of people and implies that they are pests and need to be gotten rid of.

“The majority of the Board felt that this advertisement did discriminate against and vilify husbands on the basis of gender.”

It also found that community standards had changed and that this style of humour was no longer acceptable.

We are now being told what we are allowed to find funny and what we are not.

Does anyone seriously believe that the ad in question was encouraging women to get rid of their husbands? Have we now become so terrified of causing offence to anyone that humour is being banned?

The Advertising Standards Board, it seems, has been infected with the risk-averse virus that has spread across the nation. To look sideways at someone is now to cause offence so ban anything that is critical of anyone in any way lest you be tagged.

Don’t say anything about anyone lest you offend someone’s delicate sensibilities. (Pic: iStock)

Anyone who feels slighted in any way immediately dons the mantle of the victim and bemoans their fate on social media where they are doused in the sympathy they so desperately crave.

The tags, ever ready at hand, are then attached to those whose views diverge from theirs — misogynist, racist, homophobe, Muslim-hater — there is no shortage of tags.

It saddens me that my country has become increasingly populated by people whose chief occupation is whining and seeking to find offence at every turn.

Taking offence has become a career while freedom of expression counts for little as the Brisbane man who organised a screening of a men’s rights documentary has discovered.

The screening will be held in secret after an online campaign by feminists and threats of violence including one tweet which expressed the hope that “someone shoots up that event Batman movie premiere style”.

Twelve people died in the United States in 2012 when a gunman opened fire at a premiere of the movie The Dark Knight Rises.

My New Year’s message? Do something positive to improve your miserable lives and stop your moaning.

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