This may be a new regular feature of this blog. Wo would like you, dear readers to vote for the Asshat of the Month for January.
The very deserving contenders are:
1. Japan’s health minister, Hakuo Yanagisawa, who just this Saturday in a speech on the falling borth rates described women as “birth-giving machines“. To quote:
“The number of birth-giving machines [and] devices is fixed, so all we can ask is that they do their best per head.”
That’s right friends. Some of us may be in need of an upgrade to our automated baby-making programming software. Does. Not. Compute. Asshat.
2. Israel’s President, Moshe Katsav, has refused to step down from his post following numerous rape and sexual assault allegations.
The President accused the media of leading a “brainwashing†campaign “against my good name†adding: “For six months my family and I have faced an unprecedented assault — with despicable information sullying my honour.â€
Definite asshat.
Nominee number three would have to be our own PM, John Howard for his rhetorical campaign against feminism. It was on the cusp of this month and last month but I’m going to include it anyway. Howard says:
“Fortunately I think today’s younger women are more in the post-feminist period, where they don’t sort of measure their independence and freedom by the number of years they remain full-time in the workforce without having children,” Mr Howard told News Ltd newspapers.
“I think they’ve moved on from that demonstration phase… (when) they thought ‘I’ll be letting the sisterhood down if I don’t stay in the workforce until I’m a certain age’.”
Howard’s come out with this ‘post-feminist’ bullshit before. It kind of makes me wonder though, if feminism’s dead, why the hell are you still talking about it? Howard is doing his bit to ensure that women are now (always and forever?) merely considered ‘baby-making machines’. Him and his cabinet are living proof of the need for feminism. What with their attacks on reproductive rights and working mothers. One for the country indeed.
Feel free to nominate your own Asshat of the Month in the comments or vote for one of these. My vote’s going to have to go to Katsav due to the sheer unabashedness of being investigated for sexual assault and refusing to step aside as leader of your country. Although Yanagisawa definitely gets a point for stupidity.
a kind of localised Wo! version of the Ernie awards? I like…
i nominate Sheikh el din el hilali as a top contender- when it comes to the muslim community i can safely say my misogynists are better than yours :)
I vote for Howard just because it really sh*ts me off that he even pretends to know what feminism is and what it means.
The man couldn’t be more unaware if he was living in a bomb shelter, under a rock, in the middle of the outback surrounded by a three metre fence reading only the Daily Telegraph.
Suddenly I feel a lot less tense. . .
Haha. Exactly. I love it how he appoints himself as some kind of spokesperson about feminism but it’s clear the man has absolutely no clue.
I had a feeling you were going to nominate the sheikh Sarah. I was going to include him but his cat and meat comments didn’t fall within this month. Not that he hasn’t done anything recently that’s deserving of the title. Asshat indeed.
I’ll vote for the Israeli president. You don’t get to rule a country while you’re under investigation for multiple violent crimes against your own citizens.
howard, just for saying ’sisterhood’. it’s makes for the kind of cringe that turns you inside your own sphincter it’s so painful.