Eddie McGuire Caroline Wilson bullying: Spat is just scoring cheap points

VIOLENCE against women is too important to be trivialised in a spat between media and football personalities, writes Rita Panahi.

• OPPOSING VIEW: McGuire should be part of solution, not problem
• Robbo: Response from Eddie, AFL not nearly good enough
• Jeff Kennett: This is not a time to be outraged
• Eddie McGuire under fire for bullying Caroline Wilson
• Why we should be angry about Eddie’s jokes: Wendy Tuohy
• Pies board rebuke Eddie for radio attack

VIOLENCE against women is too important an issue to be misused to score cheap points against media and football personalities. Football’s ugly underbelly and frequently backward attitude towards women is an issue I’ve written about extensively, which is why I find the current outrage absurd.

If you were to believe the Twitter-inspired lynch mob, AFL club presidents Eddie McGuire and James Brayshaw, and their accomplices across two radio stations, were plotting to drown journalist Caroline Wilson because she’s female. A less hysterical assessment is that a bunch of footy heavyweights maliciously joked about violence against women, but even that is, at best, a warped interpretation of what occurred.

Do those who are calling for sanctions, resignations and re-education programs really think that Wilson was targeted because she is female? There’s good reason why this particular maelstrom took six days to reach its zenith: it warrants a shake of the head, not a press conference starring AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan.

Gillon McLachlan addresses the media during a press conference at AFL House, criticising Collingwood president Eddie McGuire for his comments surrounding journalist Caroline Wilson. Picture: AAP Image/Mal Fairclough

If you want to see abhorrent treatment of a victim of violence by the football media, then look no further than the nausea-inducing article The Age published on the day Nick Stevens was sentenced to prison for repeatedly beating his former partner. The piece was full of unnamed former teammates and officials singing Stevens’s praises and making excuses for his “tragic” downfall, with not one word of concern for the woman he terrorised.

The AFL proved that brand protection is a far greater priority than the treatment of women when it victimised a young woman who dared come forward after being verbally abused and threatened by a drunken footballer.

The Dustin Martin affair was twisted by the AFL to make the victim look like the malefactor.

Dustin Martin’s affair was twisted by the AFL to make the victim look like the malefactor.

Wilson herself played a not insignificant role in further traumatising “Tracy”. Not long after Martin called Tracy and offered an apology, Wilson all but identified the victim, which led to her receiving vile online abuse, including death threats. Today, an understandably upset Tracy called out the hypocrisy of those within the football world who failed her.

“I find it laughable that Caroline Wilson is so outraged by Eddie’s clearly tongue-in-cheek remark and claims that ‘a line needs to be drawn in the sand against violent comments against women’. This is the same woman who had no problem with identifying me as a victim on radio after one of her beloved Richmond players slammed a fist in to the wall next to my head,” she said.

“I can only wish the AFL showed me the same support publicly they have afforded to her.

“If the AFL are truly serious about curbing violence against women, why am I still yet to have been contacted by Kate Jenkins who is supposedly conducting a review of the AFL’s respect and responsibility to women policy?

“Wasn’t that review going to be concluded within weeks of the appalling behaviour I was subjected to by Dustin Martin, Richmond Football Club and the AFL?

“I think the public are absolutely sick of tripe they seem to trot out when it suits their cause.”

McGuire and co’s admittedly unfunny jokes weren’t at the expense of a victim of violence or a woman with no voice. Wilson is a powerful figure within the game and has been for decades; she is not a victim in any sense of the word.

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire takes part in the Big Freeze Ice Slide challenge fundraising event for Motor Neurone Disease. Picture: AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy

One of the reasons Wilson is a compelling commentator is that she doesn’t hold back; whether she’s excoriating targets in print, radio or TV, Caro, as she is known, is a fearsome operator. She has succeeded in a male-dominated field not because of tokenism but because she’s great at her job.

If the jokes aimed at Wilson were in any way connected to her gender then I’d be the first to call out the sexism, but the same banter about “staying under” was aimed at other participants and prospective participants of the Big Freeze.

Is Wilson immune from criticism and mockery because she is female? That would be akin to me declaring anyone who doesn’t agree with every word I write is a sexist or racist.

It’s disappointing to see empowered Western women so keen to wrap themselves in the warm cloak of victimhood.

McLachlan claimed today that comments like McGuire’s were linked to a culture that encouraged violence against women.

The spurious links between jokes, language and violence are worthy of a column for another day. But, suffice to say, serious issues like domestic violence should not be conflated with trivial nonsense nor should we accept questionable research as fact.

Nor should we blithely allow totalitarian censors to dictate what can or can’t be joked about.

Comedian Ricky Gervais who jokes about everything from the holocaust to incest said it best: “Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right.”

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist

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