On the beach: I don't condone Tracey Spicer. And I have never experienced insults to men as bonding between women.

Phanto: 'It was never meant to be funny - it was meant to hurt.' Thank you for stating the truth.

'Well if it is just repetitive and boring then it is not a big problem really is it? Lots of things in life are repetitive and boring.'

My apologies for being repetitive and boring myself, by stating for the third time, that I was trying to explain why women don't seem to have a sense of humour about such 'jokes'/'insults'. Regardless of the size of the problem, the nature of the joke, or insult, and even if it is actually funny, WE HAVE HEARD IT BEFORE. It has to be a really great joke to be funny on multiple repetition, and yes there are some of those. Perhaps we could have a theme on really good jokes!

In my posts, I did not attack anyone or use any insults - I even tried to be a bit humorous (thousands of times). I really was trying to explain why we don't find these jokes/insults funny (in reaction to comments like 579: women with no humor): because we've heard it before, and because there's always that subconscious nervousness in women. I have been taken aback by your responses.

No more tonight, I'm getting close to the limit of posts.

Cossomby,

Thank you for your civil reply. I don't condone Spicer either. There are many hypocrites like her.

My concern is freedom of speech and I hope we might agree on that.

Not that I care in the least about what Eddie Maguire thinks or says but I heard no reference to "women" specifically or generally in what he said.

To me it was a careless comment about a certain Fairfax journalist - not a woman or women in general.

However Alan Jones' remark about throwing Julia Gillard into the sea in a chaff bag was more reprehensible because it was part of a personal campaign against an individual amid other allegations specifically directed at her gender.

Maguire's comment seems different to me and not worth all the fuss.

It seems that some people have just got to hate and many love to be outraged.

Cossomby:

You are being deliberately evasive. My point simply put is that you have as much chance of being hit by a bus as being hit by a man but you want to exaggerate and dramatise the level of violence that any one woman is likely to experience at the hands of a man. It is in fact about the same level of violence that a man would expect to be a victim of so I am not sure why you are talking about only the violence experienced by women. What does it matter that Wilson is a woman? She is a person. She was not attacked by Maguire because she was a woman but because she was a journalist. Male journalists also get attacked so why is this incident being linked to men’s violence toward women?

“Rationally I don't expect to be attacked by men. The point I was making is that it's always in the back of women's minds that It could happen to them.”

If it is not rational then why point it out? You don’t expect it but it is always in the back of your mind. Why is it always there if you don’t expect it? That is illogical.

“Affirmative action to me means showing men that they can have positive relationships with women”

Men already know this - they do not need your input. Affirmative action is when you stop waiting for someone else to change and take control of a situation to guarantee your own safety.

cont.

cont.

If you don’t take such action we can only presume that it is not a big issue for you so why bring it up? It is simply a case of put up or shut up.

“Wouldn't we all, male, female, adult and especially children, be better of off if men didn't feel the need to insult women so much?”

Why wait for men to change when you can make things a lot safer for yourself right now?

“Wow! What an odd reaction.”

It is perfectly logical. Either you do something about your situation which you have described or stop complaining about it because it is obviously not important enough to you to move. It takes courage to act upon your convictions. You have to make a choice. Doing nothing and yet still complaining is cowardice. You neither have the courage to shut up or to put up.

“I was just attempting to explain why woman might not see the funny side of such 'banter',”

Why would you feel the need to do this if you did not think it was meant to be a joke?

“You should ask yourself why you overreacted so much.”

Thanks for telling me what I should do. Is that being patronising or just banter?

“that I was trying to explain why women don't seem to have a sense of humour about such 'jokes'/'insults'.”

No you were trying to link such insults to violence. There is no need to explain why anybody does not like insults.

No, I saw no problems at all in Big Ed's funtime comments with the other big, important men on TV.
In fact, what I would really have liked to see is Eddie drowning in that icy pool he plopped into 'for charity' the other day.
Now THAT really would have been humerous and newsworthy!