My head just exploded…

The mayor from Mt Isa (a mining town in Queensland, Australia) clearly has difficulty attracting women. Perhaps his lack of success in love is not due to the gender imbalance of the town but can be accounted for by the indisputable fact that he is a complete and utter tosser whom no self-respecting woman would touch with a barge pole.

As evidence, take his charming comments below:

‘No means No’ law comes into effect in NSW

No doubt my my idiot co-worker is among the men who are fuming because of the new ‘No means No’ laws that are coming into effect on Tuesday 1/1/2008 in NSW, Australia.

Cara at The Curvature sums it up rather nicely:

So basically, men in NSW can no longer legally “believe” there has been consent with absolutely no basis for doing so. Unless they want to risk rape charges, they now actually have to make sure that the women they’re fucking want to fuck them back. They’ll have to do horrible things like communicate with their sexual partners and stop to find out what’s wrong when a woman is not actively engaging with and responding to their advances. They’ll be forced to ruin the romance by saying totally unsexy things like “do you want me?” and “do you like that?” instead of just shoving it in and grunting and thrusting away like there’s not another person there.

In short, a legislative body has finally decided that men deserve to be held to the standards of basic ethics and humanity. And a large section of men are mightily upset about that.

And now, of course, we have to wait and see how the law will actually be applied in court and whether it will result in more rapists being found guilty. We can only hope.

Another example of sexism in my workplace

This incident took place a few months ago, but provides another example of the rampant misogyny within my team at work. The context is a discussion about the declining number of women in our team and how we are treated (we are now about three women to 12 men) and recent hiring practices.

Male Colleague: Well, you know… it makes sense not to hire women. They are more unstable, aren’t they?

Attitudes to rape: an AAARRGGGH! moment

The conversation quoted below occurred at work today.

And yes, it did contribute to my I Hate Men post. Why do you ask?

(What is below the fold is potentially triggering).