Andrew Bolt: Why men don’t play the victim

Many men do it tougher than women, but few complain, feeling that complaints are for the weak. Should feminists reinforce that stereotype?

Long before Leigh Sales’ speech, this victim culture already risked making women look weak.

Even Julia Gillard, a former prime minister, was presented as a victim of sexism, complaining that Tony Abbott checked his watch while she spoke.

Yet Abbott put up with infinitely nastier stuff without complaining. He was vilified as a woman-hating Catholic bigot and headbutted in the street.

So I have one problem with Liberal MP Nicolle Flint quitting politics last week after Leftist thugs hounded her.

Many male politicians suffered far worse and didn’t quit. Or get such sympathy. Just think how the ABC — quoting selectively from a dubious document — has painted Attorney-General Christian Porter as a rapist.

But men don’t get much applause if they play the victim.

Perhaps that’s wrong. Why not name and shame bullies?

Yet while complaints come almost exclusively from women, it risks making them seem weaker, particularly when some now see insult too quickly.

Take Sales, the ABC presenter who last week attacked workplace sexism.

Leigh Sales last week attacked workplace sexism. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

She said “minor little slights … happen all the time” and “constantly make you feel like the world is designed mostly for men”.

Sales reportedly gave examples — wireless microphones with clips designed more for lapels, and reporters sent to “windy filming locations suitable for men with short hair, but not women with long hair”.

Seriously? Sales has also complained of “sexualised social media abuse”, but after her speech, I checked tweets from the past week and the worst said about her was that she was a “sycophantic snake” for mentioning Flint’s persecutors were Leftists.

Then, for contrast, I read tweets about me. Ouch. Such abuse for being a conservative, defending the innocent Cardinal George Pell, and pointing out weaknesses in the ABC’s case against Porter.

Typical of dozens of tweets: “You c--t. You really do need a flogging.” “Dog c--t”. “Piece of f--king s--t”. “Andrew Bolt is trending, please let him be dead.”

There were also petitions to get me sacked for defending Pell, and punished by the Press Council for giving reasons to assume Porter innocent.

Add to that two physical attacks and three death threats over the past decade needing police intervention, and you’ll understand why Sales’ complaints about sexist microphone clips strike me as trivial.

Many men do it much tougher, but few complain, feeling that complaints are for the weak.

Should feminists reinforce that stereotype?

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Why men don’t play the victim