Sarah Hanson-Young: No man in politics has a right to treat women like this
SENATOR David Leyonhjelm has crossed the line. His comments and behaviour towards me are offensive and unfit for a person who wishes to sit in our Parliament, writes Sarah Hanson-Young.
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LAST night when I said goodnight to my 11-year-old daughter, she asked me if everything was OK.
Kids are incredibly perceptive.
“Yep, it’s fine honey,” I said, “someone’s said some very nasty things to me at work and I’m standing up to them. I’m standing up to the bullies.”
Last week I made the very hard decision to put on the record a sexist and offensive slur said to me in Parliament from NSW Senator David Leyonhjelm.
During a debate over violence against women and whether taser and pepper spray should be allowed to be imported for personal use, he yelled at me “stop shagging men, Sarah”.
I confronted him. I told him he was a “creep.” He told me to “F*ck off.”
Since calling this out and asking for an apology, Senator Leyonhjelm has refused to apologise and has instead doubled-down and continued his sexist taunts now in the media.
He has continued to try to intimidate and bully me by spreading nasty rumours.
The purpose is to hurt, intimidate and bully.
His attacks on me are offensive, they are hurtful and they are an attack on my character.
No man, whether in politics or elsewhere, has a right to treat women like this, just because they are struggling to win a debate. This is not a matter of free speech; this is a matter of decency and respect. No man — no person — has a right to harass women in this way. Not in our streets, not in our workplaces and not in our homes.
This week marks my tenth year in the Parliament, and during this time I have had moments where I have had to hold my breath and clench my hands trying not to let the snide comments from on the floor of the parliament or in the corridors get to me.
Sexist comments started as mutterings and I ignored them. Last Thursday they become slurs shouted across the Senate chamber, by the weekend they are sexual innuendos amplified on breakfast radio and TV.
I’ve had enough. I am not going to ignore them anymore, and I’m not going pretend that they don’t happen. I know they are intended to throw me off my game.
The truth is some men use sexual comments to undermine a woman’s confidence and credibility, and it happens more often than people like to admit.
Senator Leyonhjelm has crossed the line. His comments and behaviour towards me are offensive and unfit for a person who wishes to sit in our national Parliament. He has brought the Parliament into disrepute. And that’s why I have taken him on, called him out and called in the lawyers.
I am standing up, because not everyone working behind the bar, or working on the factory floor, or working as a flight attendant gets the same opportunity to hit back and draw a line.
It’s because I have that opportunity that I also have the responsibility to say something.
Enough is enough.
Senator Leyonhjelm’s attack on me is an attack on all women. It is an attack on the type of decency the majority of men and women in this country wish to see represented in our Parliament and our community. It is 2018, it’s time we rid ourselves of the idea that if a man loses an argument then he gets to call a woman promiscuous or ask how many boyfriends she’s had.
We’re kidding ourselves if we think the problem of sexism in political life will go away when Senator Leyonhjelm finally does.
It won’t go away until we call it out and rule it out, once and for all. That’s what I’m trying to do.
In a few years’ time, when my daughter asks me what all the fuss was about, I want to tell her I stood up for her.
Because young women and girls in this country should know they are free to have opinions and can go to work without intimidation and harassment.
■ Sarah Hanson-Young is a Greens Senator for South Australia.
Originally published as Sarah Hanson-Young: No man in politics has a right to treat women like this