Not sledging, not joking, not expression, not political point-scoring, plain old violence against women

It's so much part of the landscape that it seems nobody at the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age or anywhere for that matter is calling out about it.

Why is it okay to for Grahame Morris to joke about kicking a woman to death? Why is that funny? Is it funny like the famous Alexander Downer line, 'the things that batter'?

Why do we go along with the idea that it could, possibly, very likely, be just a bit of fun? For those of you who don't understand we are calling you on your misogyny, here's an update by Clementine Ford, just published today, just in time to help you figure out if us feminists really are being wowsers or sour bitches or have gone too far.


I say 'gone too far' is saying the Prime Minister should be kicked to death. Who among us would say Tony Abbott or Joe Hockey should be kicked to death?

The headlines in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald claim that Grahame Morris has apologised, so it looks like the story has had its day and everyone's moving on. A thing that us women are always being told to do, whenever we complain about threats of violence, sexual assaults, etc etc.

The problem is, he hasn't done anything of the sort. The person who apologised is David Speers, on Morris' behalf. I can picture how that conversation went:

"Shit, mate, what did you say that for?"
"What? Well she does deserve a bloody big kicking"
"We know that, mate, but you just can't say things like that"
"OK"

Blokes know it's not a joke

Girls, don't swallow that tripe about it just being a bit of fun. The blokes do actually know and understand the impact of their violence. They know it's not funny. They take it really seriously, when we're not talking about women.

Just have a look at the weekly AFL tribunal commentary if you're in any doubt. For example, yesterday The Age was showing this graph. Note that almost 1,000 people had voted. There was extensive coverage of the minutae of striking charges, how much pressure was applied in the strike, who was standing where when it happened. Exhausting stuff.

The Australian also displayed a similar obsession.

But of course we don't notice anything unusual about this, because it's footy, and it's normal. Just like wanting to kick a female political leader to death is normal.

PS Here is an article in Wendy Harmer's The Hoopla about some of the worst comments about the Prime Minister.