Rita Panahi: Why Left-wing privilege rules the day
You can be sure Premier Daniel Andrews’ condescending and often hostile treatment of female journalists would be called out as sexist were it not for his leftist privilege, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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Plenty has been said about male privilege and white privilege but the real privilege in 2020 is left-wing privilege.
Criticise a left-wing woman and you’ll be immediately labelled a misogynist, no matter how well placed and non-sexist your commentary. Tony Abbott can attest to that.
Of course, conservative women are afforded no such protection. The same phenomenon is true for leftist people of colour.
If you don’t like Adam Goodes’ divisive political posturing, then you’re obviously racist. If you don’t like Israel Folau’s divisive political posturing, then you’re not just entitled to your opinion but also entitled to demand Folau lose his livelihood for his point of view.
Meanwhile, black and brown conservatives are regularly subjected to overt racism from the “tolerant left” who seem to believe they own minority groups.
The centre right may be good at winning elections but they have ceded ground to the left in the “culture wars”. The left’s march through the institutions is all but complete and they dominate academia, media and popular culture. They frame the narrative and tell the story on their terms.
Imagine for a second what sort of media coverage you’d see now if the NSW Premier was Labor, while Victoria was led by a Liberal.
Gladys Berejiklian would be elevated to heroine status, above even Saint Jacinda Ardern, and celebrated as an example of why female leadership is innately superior to that offered by mediocre, white males who rise to power despite limited ability.
Queen Gladys memes would flood the internet and there’d be glowing media profiles on the daughter of Armenian migrants who has managed to keep her state safe while reopening the economy and carrying the heaviest burden by taking more overseas arrivals than any other state.
Dan Andrews would be endlessly mocked as a crazed megalomaniac whose arrogance and sense of entitlement is intrinsically linked to his white, male privilege. There’d be no #IstandwithDan hashtags or cringe-worthy love letters in The Age.
Victoria’s “male and pale” Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton would also be compared to his female counterpart in NSW, Kerry Chant, and found wanting.
And you can be sure Andrews’ condescending and often hostile treatment of female journalists would be called out as sexist were it not for his leftist privilege.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist