Wednesday, December 02, 2015



Australian feminist gets a man fired for free speech

What the man said was undoubtedly an offence under Australia's hate speech laws and it would be hurtful for most women to be so described.  But if this had happened in the USA, it is probable that the speech would be regarded as protected by the 1st Amendment.  Though a defamation action could succeed if the utterance were held to be a serious claim rather than mere abuse.

I am not too critical of the outcome for Mr Nolan, however. He should learn some manners and stop abusing people he disagrees with. He will now have learnt that lesson, I assume.  Users of foul language tend to reveal themselves as unpleasant people and Mr Nolan's employers would appear to have seen it that way. 

The amusing thing, however, is that they may have fallen foul of Australia's unfair dismissal laws.  Firing a man for a single offence without warning is not normally allowed.  If he puts in a claim Mr Nolan might end up a few thousand dollars in front.

I don't think Ms Ford is beyond criticism in the matter, however. I think feminists are insane.  Any claim that there are no significant inborn differences between men and women betrays a severe lack of reality contact. And a lack of reality contact is the defining feature of insanity. 

So if Ms Ford is a feminist in that sense, I claim that she is insane.  Is that as bad as calling her a slut?  Rather worse, I suspect.  But it is a serious and reasoned claim by a Ph.D. psychologist with extensive academic publications on mental health issues so it will be amusing if Ms Ford takes issue with it. If she does not however she would appear to have let the claim stand.

We are often told that fat is a feminist issue too so how is it that the pictures of her in the newspapers show a slim person (as far as we can tell) when her appearances on TV show a woman who is -- dare I say it?  -- FAT.  That seems to me to show a certain hypocrisy



A SYDNEY man as been fired from his job as a hotel manager after calling popular feminist writer and commentator Clementine Ford a ‘sl**’ on Facebook. On Friday, Ms Ford shared a screenshot of her interaction with Michael Nolan with her 80,000 Facebook followers and tagged Mr Nolan’s employer Meriton Apartments in the post.

“I wonder if the folks over at Meriton Apartments are aware that a man listing himself as a supervisor for their business likes to leave comments on women’s Facebook pages calling them sl**s. I wonder if they are also aware that he is a racist,” she wrote. Mr Nolan has posted several racist jokes and memes on his personal Facebook page.

In a statement to Ms Ford, Meriton Apartments said they do not condone Mr Nolan’s behaviour and he has since been let go from his job. “Michael Nolan was removed from the Meriton site on Saturday 28th November pending an investigation, and as of 2:30pm today 30th November 2015, he no longer works for the Meriton Group,” the statement read.

Ms Ford hit back against those who criticised her for getting Mr Nolan fired.  'To anyone who suggests I have caused a man to lose his job, I’d like to say this: He is responsible for his actions. He is responsible for the things he writes and the attitudes he holds. “It is not my responsibility to hold his hand and coddle him when he behaves in an abusive manner just because it might have consequences for him.

SOURCE

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Clementine Ford is a misandrist of similar ranking to Julia Gillard in many ways. Most of her ravings are delusional as is her hatred of men. She probably isn't a slut in the sense most men would recognise but her preferences with other women may be questionable. To call her a journalist is a joke as most of her ramblings are barely coherent due to her gender bias. Only a left wing rag would employ her as a journalist.

Anonymous said...

IF NOT FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS, SHE’D HAVE NONE AT ALL

Tim Blair – Tuesday, December 01, 2015 (1:14pm)


“Actions have consequences,” writes Clementine Ford. Indeed they do – but not for Clementine.

A rude fellow recently called the Fairfax columnist a “slut” on her Facebook page. By Clementine’s standards, this was not particularly extreme. Ford has previously called Daily Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine a “f**king c**t” and wrote of Iranian-born Rita Panahi: “No matter how hard she tries, she’ll never be a white man.”

Clem sure can dish it out. When abuse is directed at her, however, she can’t take even a single word of it. Following the “slut” comment, Ford contacted the man’s employers and had him fired:



A few points:

One. Nolan’s witless and crude comment was obviously offensive and should not have been posted. Dumb abuse is dumb abuse, no matter against whom it is aimed.

Two. Clementine is an extraordinary hypocrite. She is more abusive than almost all of her critics, yet takes the most extreme action possible when even a tiny amount of that abuse is returned.

Three. Clementine’s attitude towards the word “slut” is ambivalent, to say the least. In 2013, she told an interviewer that use of the word was:



… something that’s completely beneath me to even engage with. Because I feel like anyone who would use that word legitimately as an insult to try and tear down a woman is not worthy of my time or even recognition of their argument.


Until she felt like getting someone sacked. By 2015, incidentally, Ford was using “slut” in the introduction to speeches and columns:



This is a letter to the chicks. It’s a letter to the bitches and the broads, the sluts and the whores.


Four. Consider, as might a leftist, the relative power of Ford and her now-unemployed attacker. He’s an ex-apartment supervisor with no extensive online reach. She’s a widely-read media personality with sufficient presence to frighten PR-conscious businesses into sacking their staff. Leftists refer to Ford’s tactic as punching down:



Punching down is a concept in which you’re assumed to have a measurable level of power and you’re looking for a fight. Now, you can either go after the big guy who might hurt you, or go after the little guy who has absolutely no shot. Either way, you’ve picked a fight, but one fight is remarkably more noble and worthwhile than the other. Going after the big guy, punching up, is an act of nobility. Going after the little guy, punching down, is an act of bullying.


Five. Ford isn’t done yet. Yesterday she alerted – in a now-deleted post – JB Hi-Fi to the use of “slut” by one of the company’s staffers. Following criticism, Ford responded:



Who said anything about firing him? It’s up to JB what they do. Perhaps they just need to tighten their social media policy.


Or perhaps, as Fairfax does in reaction to Clementine’s continual breaches, they could completely ignore it. Ford is immune to censure, which makes this Clemmy comment especially notable:



I guess if you can’t handle the consequences of writing comments online then maybe reconsider writing comments online.


Six. Like Clementine, I also receive numerous abusive and obscene comments and emails from the angry and unknown. Unlike Clementine, I avoid identifying the authors of those comments, much less run crying to their employers. A final word from Ford:



“To anyone who suggests I have caused a man to lose his job, I’d like to say this: He is responsible for his actions.”


So are you, Clementine. So are you.

Bird of Paradise said...

Call them what Limbuah calls them Feminazis

Alpha Skua said...

THE OLD HENS REJECT FREE SPEECH

Anonymous said...

Wow Anon 4:18 - brilliant post.