Thursday, February 18, 2016

Australian senator takes feminist by surprise

Below is a clip of Australian Senator, Mitch Fifield, firing back at a feminist senator, Katy Gallagher, who accused him of "mansplaining". He successfully puts his feminist attacker on the defensive. It's good to see a Liberal Party senator stand up for himself like this (the Liberal Party is the Australian centre-right party, meaning it is a right liberal party). Fifield's tactic is to point out the hypocrisy of a feminist using a sexist term. The strategy worked, but it has the limitation of remaining within the framework that feminists use.


2 comments:

  1. It's something, isn't it? However you're right to point out that the conversation remains within the Feminist frame - and here they have the advantage. It's not hard to imagine how such an encounter could eventually lead to the time-honoured invocation of "historical oppression" in order to secure the moral high ground. That's a dangerous minefield for male politicians.

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  2. I'd like to know what might have been a reasonable response that did not remain within the frame.

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