Actoids defend “get raped” comment

Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, June 29th, 2011 - 38 comments
Categories: act, feminism - Tags:

Some uni political hacks arguing, calling each other names, on Facebook is nothing new. The Actoid telling the Greenie to “get raped” was beyond the Pale. Don’t think we’ve ever had to delete a comment that bad here. But the response from ACT on Campus’s leadership has made it worse.

ACT on Campus president Peter McCaffrey said he advised him not speak to Stuff.co.nz.

“What he has told me is that he was being called a fascist, Hitler and he was just angry. You’ll note that the screenshot is cut very neatly to not show anything that was said before.

As to whether McCaffrey believed it was acceptable to tell a woman to “get raped”, he said: “I think he should have chosen a different swear word or called her something else.”

ACT on Campus Auckland president David Peterson said he was sure Browne did not mean his comments. “It’s kind of how you might tell a person to ‘go f… yourself’ but you don’t literally mean that.”

It’s like Alasdair Thompson. The initial remarks are grossly misogynist. The follow-ups attempt excuse-making (ie acknowledging comment is wrong) and, contradictorily, attempt to justify the comment. Both Thompson and ACT fundamentally don’t get it.

The far Right wonders why it turns off women. Why not a single woman said she would vote ACT in the latest Herald poll. Look no further than the worldview exemplified by Thompson and the Actoids.

38 comments on “Actoids defend “get raped” comment ”

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  1. felix 1
    29 June 2011 at 11:30 am

    And this is the supposedly liberal wing of ACT.

    Why did it take someone like Heather Roy so long to figure out that these guys are just a bunch of arseholes?

    • Colonial Viper 1.1
      29 June 2011 at 11:46 am

      Looks like the evil Sith Lords start training their young apprentices in the Dark Side nice and early.

  2. vto 2
    29 June 2011 at 11:33 am

    Do you think it is possible that the rightwing vote may get totally decimated this election?

    A last minute explosion of disgust?

    • Colonial Viper 2.1
      29 June 2011 at 11:49 am

      The global explosion of publicity that Alisdire Thompson has caused has reminded a lot of NZ women about the attitude of powerful men in some quarters of the business world.

      And we know that the monthly nature of the reminder means that it will not be forgotten by these voters by Nov 26.

      Thanks Alisdire, you’ve been a real boon.

      • jackal 2.1.1
        29 June 2011 at 4:08 pm

        The other sad thing about this is that the international opinion on the recent sexism coming out of New Zealand is going to damage our reputation and cost us money. The “get raped” comment is already getting picked up by worldwide mainstream outlets. So while it might be advantageous for the left that the far right cannot control themselves and their underlying methodology is being exposed, it’s ultimately a negative thing that will deter tourism as well as have a negative effect on harder to measure dynamics. Let’s hope that the far right aren’t digging a hole that we cannot fill in again when they become obsolete after the next election.

  3. policywonk 3
    29 June 2011 at 11:37 am

    This is an appalling comment for anyone to make. However your post contains a hasty generalisation. It’s a logical fallacy of generalisation based on insufficient evidence and a vanishingly small sample size.

    Your argument is similar to the example of a person who enters a town, sees 5 children and deduces that the town has no adult residents.

    • felix 3.1
      29 June 2011 at 11:42 am

      And yours is like that of someone who hasn’t been bumping up against these right wing arseholes their whole life and wants to pretend it’s a theoretical discussion.

      edit: you mean the poll? oh yeah, sorry.

      • ZeeBop 3.1.1
        29 June 2011 at 11:20 pm

        The right likes to play poker, someone was making extra playing chips and now they all want to buy out. Oops.

        The left likes to clean house, someone always makes a mess though, and now labour want to clean up essentially after Roger Douglas mess. Oops.

        Both left and right like to kick the poor, they just do it in different ways. Labour had 9 years, National have done more to destroy in three than Labour cleaned up in 9 years. That’s not good enough, over time we the people is watered down. We are turned into serfs.

        Its not about left or right, its about a fair just society for all. And its shameful that too often the left right divide is used to distract us from that goal. The child poverty, suicide, the migration to Aussie, are all on both Labour and National. jerks.

    • lprent 3.2
      29 June 2011 at 12:10 pm

      We have seen rather a lot of ACToids here over the years (and they do have a very very distinctive commenting style). There are some that are civilized. And many are not. But it is very hard to escape the impression that many of them are misogynists – especially when you get them on any topic about women being in charge of males. 

      Basically you’re ignorant and wrong. It just means that you haven’t seen a reasonable sample size. Many of the longer term commentators here have. I guess that you just can’t see the vast lack of surprise from them.

      • policywonk 3.2.1
        29 June 2011 at 1:25 pm

        sorry if I offended but I thought that this website was tolerant of dissenting views and intolerant of pointless personal attacks… 😕

        Zetetic’s comments still amount to a hasty generalisation.

        For example Cathy Odgers is far from misogynistic yet she is no less an “ACToid” than the male pollies from that party

        • lprent 3.2.1.1
          29 June 2011 at 2:43 pm

          It is and I wasn’t.

          That doesn’t stop me from criticizing your opinion (BTW: when i leave comments I’m out of moderator mode. Moderator mode is when I am leaving notes on your comments).

          The key word in my comment was the word “many”. It has quite a distinctly different meaning to other words. For instance it does not mean “all”.

          For that matter Zet never said that it was “all” either. In fact I’d say that he was carefully stepping around making a generalization.

          Perhaps you should read the post and my comment again. This time engage your brain before coming out with such a hasty and imprecise interpretation.

          Perhaps it is simply the effect of your guilty conscience you’re experiencing when you read the post.

        • travellerev 3.2.1.2
          29 June 2011 at 3:09 pm

          Actually PW, women for some insane reason can be very misogynistic and I think She is a good example to be honest.

          • the sprout 3.2.1.2.1
            29 June 2011 at 8:24 pm

            Cathy Odgers is far from misogynistic

            quite true. Odgers is misanthropic

      • Frank Macskasy 3.2.2
        29 June 2011 at 1:42 pm

        A casual glance at fora throughout the internet quickly reveala that there are more misogynists and psychos about than we would care to believe.

        In some ways, ACT is their natural “home”. After all, ACT regularly attacks solo-mothers as “milking the welfare system”. But strangely enough, they never comment of solo-FATHERs in a similar vein.

        It’s also remarkable that ACT – the Party of Personal Responsibility – berates solo-mothers who are responsible and bring up their children, single-handedly. Whilst, again, not mentioning dead-beat dads* who abscond and pay nothing toward their children’s support.

        I’ve never quite understand someone as intelligent as Heather Roy and Muriel Newman joining a party like ACT. Kinda like chickens joining the Local Foxes Club.

        Hilary Calvert and (nominated candidate?) Cathy Odgers are more suited to this fringe group.

        So really, it’s little wonder that ACT seems to have an unnatural number of misogynistic members. Their whole ‘culture’ appears as anti-women.

        * Which is unfortunate for those dads who are responsible and do the decent thing.

        • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 3.2.2.1
          29 June 2011 at 2:44 pm

          Whilst, again, not mentioning dead-beat dads* who abscond and pay nothing toward their children’s support.

          Really. I thought they did. And then I checked their website, and it seems they do:

          “Require paternity establishment for children receiving government assistance.”

          http://www.act.org.nz/welfare-policy

          • lprent 3.2.2.1.1
            29 June 2011 at 3:06 pm

            Hey GF. What does that mean? It sounds meaningless – but presumably they would have explained how that would differ from the current paternity payments that are required by WINZ ?

            I would jump there myself, but I don’t want to soil my iPad. Since you obviously have already been there…….

            • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 3.2.2.1.1.1
              29 June 2011 at 3:17 pm

              You shouldn’t worry about that. I routinely visit the sites of all sorts of nuts (this for instance). If anyone uncovers them in my history I explain I went for a laugh.

              The policy is written in annoying bullet points, so its full import is difficult to ascertain but I presume the purpose of the policy is to hold dead-beat dads to account. Frank Macskasy’s idea that ACT thinks, “this guy is avoiding his obligations that have, as a result, fallen on the State but we’ll let him off because he is a man” just seems a bit fanciful to me.

              • McFlock …
                29 June 2011 at 4:05 pm

                “I presume the purpose of the policy is to hold dead-beat dads to account.”

                Funnily enough it could mean that, or it could just provide an out for the state to not pay the DPB where the father is unknown (e.g. rape) or where the mother is better off well away from the father (for any number of reasons). 

                Not to mention lesbian couples after a break up, or sperm donors, but the medieval thinking, it hurts.

                That’s the thing about bullet points – you need to take a careful look at the track record of the people using them.

              • lprent …
                29 June 2011 at 4:17 pm

                Bullet points was what I expected. At Act they seem to be designed to be completely ambiguous (and a waste of time) because they seldom want people to know what they want. It allows their supporters to read whatever they want into it.

                It is mostly slow bandwidth.. Not worth wasting time to go to the site.

              • Colonial Viper …
                30 June 2011 at 12:43 am

                I’m impressed with how many characters this site lets you have in your name 🙂

                • lprent …
                  30 June 2011 at 8:44 am

                  So am I. It is due for a constraint in the weekend at the display side because it isn’t that good for layout.

          • Blighty 3.2.2.1.2
            29 June 2011 at 5:10 pm

            GF. That’s an anti-women policy. It’s about ‘all those sluts on the DPB who don’t even know who the father is shouldn’t be getting any money from me’

    • Blighty 3.3
      29 June 2011 at 12:29 pm

      The fact that no women at all in that poll supported ACT is significant. It suggests very low support among women for ACT.

    • Huginn 3.4
      30 June 2011 at 10:22 am

      what? . . . . they couldn’t get a single woman to say that she’d vote for ACT . . . . out of a sample of 750 eligible voters . . . really??? really!!!!!

      I’m shocked. No – SHOCKED!!!!!!

      So, how many do you think they would have got if they’d collected a sample of say 1,500 eligible voters – or 3,000?

  4. Peter Nickle 4
    29 June 2011 at 11:39 am

    Get fucked would have been a more pleasant phrase.

    • pollywog 4.1
      29 June 2011 at 11:57 am

      Eat a dick and shut the fuck up has a certain je ne sais quoi…ne c’est pa ?

      …pardon my french

      [lprent: Not really – but it is sort of in context. However I really don’t think it helps the discussion – do you? ]

  5. adriank 5
    29 June 2011 at 12:27 pm

    Despite widespread outcry over the comments, sources say Cameron Browne will not be forced to resign from ACT on Campus as that would leave remaining member, Peter McCaffrey, incredibly lonely.

  6. lprent 6
    29 June 2011 at 12:51 pm

    Moved a thread about Bomber and Cactus Kate to OpenMike as being off topic (and what looked like a diversion troll).

  7. Treetop 7
    29 June 2011 at 2:27 pm

    Browne’s comment goes down like a lead ballon with me. Does this moron not stop to think that he may have triggered a painful memory to the person he said it to? The sluts rally walk was held last weekend for people like Browne to try and educate them, that there is a don’t get raped culture which needs to be changed, to a don’t rape culture.

    Browne needs to resign from his public position because his comment was completely out of order.

  8. randal 8
    29 June 2011 at 2:49 pm

    not only are the actoids mysogynists but the rest of their pathologies would fill a book on abnormal psychology!

  9. deemac 9
    29 June 2011 at 4:01 pm

    in the UK attempts by rightwingers to make solo mums name the dad are not just to save the state money by getting absent dads to pay but also in order to remove benefits from women who refuse to name the dad, even tho some may have very good reasons for this, eg domestic violence victims

  10. millsy 10
    29 June 2011 at 7:14 pm

    What do you expect. Being a douchebag (or hating the poor) is one of the requirements of being an ACT member.

  11. Missy Poo 11
    29 June 2011 at 10:22 pm

    No matter what the politics surrounding the comment was, there is ABSOLUTELY NO JUSTIFICATION for that sort of comment to be made …. EVER. It propagates, subjugates, denigrates, etc etc women and how they are viewed and treated in society.

    If Act had any balls, they would demand Cameron Browne’s immediate resignation from Act but they won’t because they don’t have any balls, conscience or ethics.

    • ZeeBop 11.1
      29 June 2011 at 11:24 pm

      Past behaviour is indicative of future behaviour. Garrent, Hide knew and still let him pass. Too many right wing politicians believe they are not only entitled but sainted.

      The right like to play poker, and they’ve been making extra game chips, they now want to buy out. Why ain’t Labour crying foul?

  12. Inventory2 12
    30 June 2011 at 10:07 am

    Browne’s comment was totally unacceptable and repugnant. However it is as much Act policy as Bradbury comparing Cathy Odgers to Graham Capill is reflective of Mana Party policy, or Trevor Mallard punching Tau Henare reflects Labour’s attitude to violence. Every party has its share of loose units both within and without.