Feminist logic

clem rape tweet cleaned up

It was Oscar Wilde who noted that fashion is such an ugly affair its arbiters are obliged to change it every few weeks. About lapels, cuffs, hemlines, peplums and pleats, no doubt about it. But other manifestations of contemporary taste and preference? They can take a little longer to ditch, as is demonstrated in today’s Age, where some very ugly truths about race and culture are glossed over because, well, they don’t mesh with the preferred and promoted narrative of Western white racism and sexist oppression.

The model on this catwalk of approved-but-outdated opinion is guest columnist Amy Gray, for whom some small measure of sympathy must be felt. There she is, a loud and ardent opponent of “Islamophobia” (as per the tweet below), confronted by reports from Germany of New Year’s Eve attacks on scores, perhaps hundreds, of women by men of Arab and North African appearance. Such an event — actually, many such events — might well encourage the view that there is good reason for women to be wary of young men hailing from societies where their sisters are, at best, second-class citizens.

amy ridewith youBut, no, can’t have grim reality ruffling the gospel of kumbaya and cultural relativism. So what is a po-mo white feminist to do? Ms Gray has the solution: omit pesky details and re-cast the incident with a focus on its secondary culprits, Germany’s police, who neglected to make mention of the grope fest. According to the writer the real problem is

“Even as the news broke, the preferred angle wasn’t about sexual assault but refugee intake, given the attackers were described as African or Arab in appearance. Meanwhile, women were told to travel in pairs.”

Were Ms Gray an entrant in the Politically Correct Olympics, the judges would be awarding the full 10 points for that little exercise in twist and omission. Cologne’s women have been told by their lady mayor, an ardent feminist and multiculturalist who also avoids mentioning the attackers’ ethnicity, to spurn attendance at public events and, as a general rule, to keep all men at arm’s length. Next week, perhaps, she will suggest women don the burka to further reduce the threats and perils at the hands of, er, “men”.

In her Age piece, Ms Gray then goes on to mention an alleged case of domestic abuse involving a young and white Australian man and his girlfriend — this, presumably, to spread the guilt around. See, white men do it too! After that, amusingly, she rounds on a taxi driver who made recent headlines when he was filmed by the female passenger he pestered and propositioned.

Once again, a relevant fact goes down the memory hole, as the taxi driver appears to be a representative of a particular culture which regards women as fair game. The video is here for those who cannot guess that the driver might just have come to Australia from somewhere a good deal less civilized.

Journalism — even the pretend journalism that The Age has made its stock in trade — values brevity as a virtue. In this regard Ms Gray’s op-ed missive is a dismal failure. In her rambling effort to re-direct opinion from the glaring shortcomings of multiculturalism, she was trumped by just a few words from Fairfax stablemate Clementine Ford, whose tweet on the topic of Europe’s multicultural molesters is reproduced atop this post: No matter what evils and indignities un-assimilated minorities inflict on their host societies, the genuine villains and worse culprits will always be Western men.

For those who can tolerate industrial-strength idiocy, Ms Gray’s column is available via the link below.

— roger franklin

 

 

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