Rita Panahi: Sisterhood ignores sexism and vile abuse aimed at conservatives

UNLIKE Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard, it appears conservative women are immune to sexism and their failures aren’t conveniently attributed to misogyny, writes Rita Panahi.

IF you’re a sadomasochist, easily amused or have some other reason for frequenting feminist news sites, then you would’ve noticed a lack of outraged pieces blaming sexism for the British election result.

Unlike Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard, it appears conservative women are immune to sexism and their failures aren’t conveniently attributed to misogyny.

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The sisters of perpetual outrage, who see sexism in every facet of life, haven’t flooded websites and newspapers with feminist feelpieces decrying unconscious discrimination, gender bias, entrenched misogyny and other associated societal ills for a female candidate’s misjudgements and mediocre performance.

Strange given British Prime Minister Theresa May has copped far worse abuse and sexually suggestive scrutiny from the media than Clinton or Gillard.

The Daily Mail critiqued her legs on the front page while struggling Leftist publication The Guardian published a cartoon of May being rogered or sodomised by US President Donald Trump.

This is Tuesday's @DailyMailUK front page. Stand by for Twitter meltdown pic.twitter.com/4NOo0ujt2O

— Stuart Hughes (@stuartdhughes) March 27, 2017

Crass cartoons are one thing but like other conservative women, May has copped a deluge of sexist abuse on social media and elsewhere.

May is infinitely more qualified and experienced than Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and yet she won fewer seats for the Tories than predecessor David Cameron and will now govern in a coalition with the ultraconservative Democratic Unionist Party.

FEMINISTS BLINDED TO ROOTS OF MISOGYNY

If May was from the Left, you can be sure that the cries of misogyny would be ringing loud and clear.

How can a woman with May’s credentials lose seats to the clownish Corbyn, an economically illiterate Marxist with a sordid history of cosying up to terrorists and failing to combat anti-Semitism in Labour ranks?

Corbyn is a radical ideologue and yet he managed to make May look like a fool for rushing to an early election and losing her majority.

A man reads The Daily Mirror newspaper the day after the UK’s election resulted in a hung parliament. Picture: AFP Photo / Justin Tallis

There is now serious conjecture that May will be forced to step down, with Trump-lookalike Boris Johnson among the top contenders for her job.

What a contrast to mid-April when May called the snap election and polls predicted she’d win with a 90 to 100-seat majority.

Though no one is blaming misogyny for May’s plight, it is notable that one famous progressive came forward to defend the PM against sexist abuse.

Author J.K. Rowling caused a massive stir at the weekend by calling out “liberal” men who indulge in sexist language to criticise May and other high-profile women.

In the 14-tweet storm, the Harry Potter creator said: “Just unfollowed a man whom I thought was smart and funny, because he called Theresa May a whore. If you can’t disagree with a woman without reaching for all those filthy old insults, screw you and your politics.

“I’m sick of ‘liberal’ men whose mask slips every time a woman displeases them, who reach immediately for crude and humiliating words associated with femaleness, act like old-school misogynists and then preen themselves as though they’ve been brave.

Where are the howls of sexism from progressives when UK Prime Minister Theresa May is the victim of misogyny? Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

“When you do this, Mr Liberal Cool Guy, you ally yourself, wittingly or not, with the men who send women violent pornographic images and rape threats, who try by every means possible to intimidate women out of politics and public spaces, both real and digital.

“C---’, ‘whore’ and, naturally, rape. We’re too ugly to rape, or we need raping, or we need raping and killing. Every woman I know who has dared express an opinion publicly has endured this kind of abuse at least once, rooted in an apparent determination to humiliate or intimidate her on the basis that she is female ...”

Rowling’s Twitter manifesto was both principled and naive.

Her belief that guys “hiding behind a cartoon frog” are more likely to be sexist pigs than “liberal” men is simplistic but she should nevertheless be applauded for condemning the hypocrisy of those who supposedly champion women’s rights using misogynistic language to attack women who don’t subscribe to their views.

Just unfollowed a man whom I thought was smart and funny, because he called Theresa May a whore. 1/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

It shouldn’t be remarkable for a staunch feminist like Rowling to call out blatantly chauvinistic abuse and yet it was, for it happens so rarely. In Australia, we have seen women who are normally hypersensitive to gendered language turn a blind eye to sexist abuse and bullying of female conservatives. The reality is that many progressives, in politics, the media and academia, consider conservative women fair game for abuse.

There were no howls of protest when Labor’s Doug Cameron called Minister for Employment and Women Michaelia Cash a “silly schoolgirl” who needed a male colleague to “chaperone her”.

There was no frenzy from feminists when another Labor senator, Glenn Sterle, made jokes about Cash’s appearance when she rose to speak to the Senate on White Ribbon Day about the importance of respect for women.

Conservative women are loath to play the victim but that doesn’t given their political opponents the right to subject them to vile abuse.

It’s time for progressives to take a page out of Rowling’s book and stand up against misogyny whenever and wherever they see it.

RITA PANAHI IS A HERALD SUN COLUMNIST

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@RitaPanahi