A lot of people are saying on social media today that a public campaign against Premier Jacinta Allen using the phrase “Ditch the Witch” isn’t sexist because they’ve heard of MFW and know we proudly use the word witches.
Please.
They must not have heard about how we started, which was as the result of an extraordinarily sexist text message sent by Peter Dutton to a mate, and which he accidentally sent to a woman journo instead.
They must not understand history, in which all women who were in the slightest way outspoken or different or not perfectly aligned with patriarchal requirements were called witches and often viciously murdered for their so-called sins.
And they must not understand parody, in which we witches have re-claimed the word “witch” to mean all women who protest the outrageous misogyny so many men practice with barely any constraint.
Because we’re here to clearly say that yes: the campaign against Allen is deeply sexist, just as it was sexist when it was used to denigrate then-PM Julia Gillard (pic in comments), and when it’s been used to stir up hatred towards any women with power or influence or anything other than simply being perfectly pretty and perfectly unheard.
What’s more, the campaign couldn’t be anything BUT deeply problematic, funded as it has been by a consortium of what appears to be a deeply right-wing group of men who want nothing more than to oust Allen from her job, and promoted widely in
#NewsCorpse publications in ways which further harm Allen and her government:
“‘[Allan] doesn’t answer questions. She’s not accountable to everything … It’s just how people are feeling. That’s what they’re resorting to’ Puleo said. ‘That’s not a political ad. It’s basically what the Victorian public feel’.”
theage.com.au/politics/victo…?
The campaign is despicable, and the billboards should be banned. Today. Anything else is unacceptable, and does nothing but show the endemic hatred for women among large sections of conservative men and politics in this country (and among many progressive men and groups too, but that’s another story).
For fuck sake, ban these billboards. They’re hate speech. And us calling ourselves witches as a way to parody that hate will never make the use of the word okay in other settings and formats.
That’s all.
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We won’t stop till advertisers stop funding filth. Go to
mfw.org.au/our-campaigns/ to learn how to contact advertisers. Or go directly to FOE lists for ongoing campaigns here:
campaigndata.mfw.org.au/busi… . Send all responses you get. From companies to witches@mfw.org.au.
Please also support our work to get rid of Vile Kyle: it’s a subscription to the future for the price of a coffee (or two) each month:
mfw.org.au/support
#ToYourBrooms