Barnaby Joyce copped something of a shellacking from more than a few in the media and the mainstream for some comments on domestic violence this week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In an interview with The Leader on Monday, the deputy Nationals leader and minister did suggest we need a change in social culture, in attitude, to affect the filth of family violence.
He’s right.
Good manners and etiquette and a return to some old social standbys of opening doors for women or giving up your seat for a pregnant woman were mentioned.
And on Monday ABC’s Q&A program the New England MP wheeled them out again, saying opening doors and not swearing in front of women are part of a cultural change needed to tackle domestic violence.
Pundits have decried it as another pithy party platitude, in the wake of stop the boats, stop the carbon tax, stop the dogs, now stop the swearing.
He rattled on a bit and went off track, but he’d nailed something earlier.
“Ultimately it’s a cultural change and we’ve all got to be a part of that. This may seem a bit quaint and whoozy (sic) but I think we’ve got to start changing our attitude all the time in how we deal with women. Like, don’t swear in front of them. It’s not politically incorrect to open a door.
“All these things, so we can change the attitude, so we can show that we respect people. Because if you don’t teach respect from a younger age then how are you going to develop it later on.”
So reports yesterday said Barnaby had walked through a door – back in time, opening himself up to easy mockery.
Some sniggers and some rolling of eyes.
And while there’s been some savagery from some media and onlookers, it is also supercilious and superior.
Witness this: “Back in the days when men didn’t, as a rule, swear in front of women, and when they opened doors for ‘the ladies’ as Joyce is prone to calling them, domestic violence still existed – it was just not spoken of or acted on. And those women being waved through doorways by chivalrous men were also being waved through to the typing pool in the office, the ladies’ bar at the pub and the second tier of just about every aspect of a male-dominated society.”
Yes. Forget the doors, but don’t slam the door on the essential message.
It is a lack of respect by many of others, including parents and kids – and that is now a disease behind much of our social problems.
