On July 13 2021 I wrote a cheeky post rating women in politics for hotness. As I explained, it was my anti-PC, satirical knee-jerk to all the “toxic masculinity in politics” articles at the time, none of which I necessarily disagreed with.
Well, it’s “toxic femininity” time now.
Claire Chandler, for example.
LNP Senator from Tasmania, I awarded her a weak-eight because I thought she looked like a middle-aged Wonder Woman disguised as a librarian. Well, revise that number downward, baby! Because in Feb ’22 Chandler introduced a ‘Save Women’s Sports’ bill to legalise gender discrimination in sport.
She’s now a four.
Coming in at a solid two, Prime Minister Scott Morrison threw his paunchy weight behind this “terrific” bill, applauding Claire Chandler as “a champion for women’s sport”.
Which I guess means everyone else that wants to play kickball can be damned by God and go burn at the stake, or drown, or whatever it is that Christians do nowadays.
Moving on to newcomer Katherine Deves, she was selected by Scotty to challenge Zali Staggall for the seat of Warringah. Her platform? Banning transgender women from sport completely.
In any case, “Half of all males with trans identities are sex offenders” she claims, likening them to Nazis.
Never forget that Deves was Scotty’s best pick for Waringah, seat of former PM Tony ‘The Mad Monk” Abbott.
Scotty made his captain’s call, and described Deves as an “amazing individual” for her “common sense” views against trans people. It probably doesn’t escape anyone’s attention, particularly the PM, that Deves also happens to be a solid 9.
It’s the rose/thorns thing, but also a demonstration of the power of distraction and dog-whistle politics.
Distract the media with arch nonsense so nobody thinks to ask the important questions, and in the process give a nod to your ultra-conservative supporters.
While Shakespeare’s “Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it” could easily be the catch-cry for a whole new generation of ambitious young pollies, it won’t happen unless we let it happen.
Only dogs can hear the whistle, after all. And they only whistle to put you on a leash.
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