pride @ ll dot net

If the players really had any respect for women, if they could be “taught” respect, they wouldn’t sleep with those girls, even if they were “consenting” because that “consent” is based on false pretences. These pretences being either naivety (i.e. misplaced belief that the footballer might actually want a relationship with them), or a deep lack of self respect. to sleep with someone who is just after you because of who you are, really, that is exploiting them (not that most footballers would be anywhere approaching smart enough to realise this of course). if the girl were more educated/enlightened, perhaps they would not be offering their consent. after the act, this enlightenment sometimes comes, i suppose, and then you get cases where girls feel so strongly wronged that they go to the media.

that charmayne girl they interviewed on the program – ok, she’s a footy slut now, but she was saying when she was raped by a footballer she had been with her partner for 10 years and hadn’t cheated on him – does this mean that she’s become interested in sleeping with footballers only since the incident? seems kind of… fucked up. i mean, she comes across very much like, “oh, i’m doing this on my terms, i know what i’m getting into, blah blah blah”, yet there’s still evidently a profound level of self delusion there.

she wasn’t ACTUALLY raped.  the police investigated the incident at the time and cleared all the players of any wrong doing. the sex was consensual, the whole thing was consensual, she even bragged to people about it the next day. she was a fully willing participant in it, if she later decides that she regrets doing it, well, she should deal with it herself, not go destroying other people’s lives out of pure vindictiveness. Matthew johns is/was a slut, but does that mean he deserves to have this happen to him? most footballers are sluts. girls who pursue trophy fucks like that are sluts, they’re all big stupid slutty sluts. they all need to be taught to have more respect for women, and themselves.

i’m a bit disappointed in the ABC to be honest. usually they can be relied upon to provide responsible journalism, and i don’t think this was the case here. that said, i didn’t actually watch the program (i meant to, but i forgot), so i don’t know what they were trying to say with the program – maybe i’ll watch it now (really should be studying, but what the hell)

Bleuch. football players are disgusting. Hmm… Ok, i can see the point the program was trying to make, still there was a fair bit of sensationalism there… gaaaah, i dunno. like, i feel sorry for the girl, it seems like she was very naive. i suppose alot of girls would be like that, not all sluts (i know, i know, it’s a terrible word to blithely splash about as i did before)… ugh. it’s all so sleazy and horrible. how disgusting was that knights player who said (AFTER the ‘respecting women’ training) that it was about getting them a cab and saying thanks and stuff. they still have a LONG way to go…. but, it’s like, the players need to respect the women, but the women need to respect themselves as well…

Meanwhile, I take it from your Facebook status updates that you haven’t been well for the last couple of weeks… is it the flu or hayfever or both? Whatever, it is, you have my sympathy… I hope it gets better really soon!

Today at work, lunchtime discussion centred round the 4 Corners programme about the NRL and allegations of sexual misconduct. I knew that feelings ran deeply in support of the local team, but I was shocked and actually quite upset about how judgmental and rude and hard a lot of the women were about the victims of the sexual abuse. Not one of them acknowledged that the NRL players involved had done the wrong thing. They all implied that the victims were in it for the publicity (well, to be fair, one of the women on the programme prided herself on her conquests), that they had made it up because they had waited so long to come forward, that they shouldn’t have said anything because it was too upsetting for the player’s families… I had to struggle to keep the shock off my face that no one was saying that sexual assault is wrong, and that something should be done to address the prevalent attitude in the NRL (and obviously society) that women are simply a sexual object to be used and then discarded. One woman even said that the victim of the 12 person “group sex” incident knew what she was getting in for, and shouldn’t complain because she had put herself in that situation. The lack of compassion or even willingness to try to understand what the victims were going through was breath-taking.

Now, I understand that everyone should be careful when they go out, and take certain precautions. But to completely overlook the wrong-doing of the men involved simply because of their sporting prowess is a naive way of protecting them, and actually dangerous, because to maintain silence implies tacit approval for that behaviour and doesn’t show those involved the consequences of wrong-doing and thus puts more women out there at risk of falling victim to these men, who will simply repeat the behaviour, ad nauseam.

Also, to put the blame squarely on the victims… “if she was a decent girl, she wouldn’t have put herself in that situation”… is completely inadequate was of dealing with the matter. Plenty of “decent girls” are sexually assaulted. Often, it is the “good girls” who are taught to respect and obey their elders, to obey authority, to think the best of people, who are the ones most easily taken advantage of. It simply doesn’t enter their heads that someone could be planning to molest them, to sexually assault them, to line up a group of friends to take turns raping them… They might run into the sporting hero in a bar, have a few drinks, be hugely flattered when said hero takes an interest in them, agree to have sex with that ‘hero’ and proceed to a hotel room, thinking he will treat them well because the media does portray him as a ‘decent bloke’ and ’sporting hero’. She is not consenting to rape. She is not consenting to be humiliated and degraded. It is not her fault if she is overpowered and gang raped. So to say that she ‘put herself’ in that situation, implying that she wanted that to happen, or at least suspected it might, it simply not good enough. It is appalling that women could be so judgmental about other women. Also, if we keep on lionising these sports people, lifting them above the rule of law, how is the general public, women (who apparently “should know better”) especially, going to know to avoid them? To not “put themselves” in “those” situations with them?

*shakes head*

I was really very upset and shocked. I couldn’t believe it. In this day and age.

I think we’re just going to have wait for Google to change-up its cache-ing or something. Phil?

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/608968.html

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=35dfc1cdab95a423&hl=en

I think we just have to wait.

Sounds like a good cocktail, Jen. And Uni sounds like it’s going well for you. Better the second time round, huh? At the very least, you already know what to expect, know your way around the Uni, and have some real world experience which can come in handy when having to stick up for yourself with lecturers who are unreasonable. Good luck with it!

I have a question about the blog ‘archives’ (not sure if that is the right word for it)… I once accidently used my full name in a blog post, and even though once I realised I logged back in and changed it, when you Google my full name (I had a good reason for doing that!) the entry with my full name still comes up. Now, I don’t especially want someone who may be Googling my name (e.g. prospective employers) to find this blog. Is there anything I can do to change that? Fiona, does it simply mean deleting the cached archives of the blog? (Again, not sure if using right terminology…sorry for my Luddite-ness! )

Any help appreciated. Hope you are all well.

I had this in Vietnam, and it was named after the restaurant we had dinner at, which i can’t remember the name of, so I’ve renamed it (and very well too, because it’s a green drink, and my bitey little feathered friends are predominately green):

The Lorrikeet

Equal parts Midori, Vodka, Cointreau

Pineapple Juice

Dash of lemon juice

Mmmm. I’m on my second for the night. I decided to give myself the night off because i was good and came home and did my biomed summary right away. I had an anatomy test last night and i think i did very well indeed. Barring silly mistakes (which are, admittedly, likely), I think i got nearly 100%. maybe. we’ll see. sometimes it’s the ones you think were easy that trip you up.

today in our physio lecture we discussed the pelvic floor. and pauline, the lecturer (who is the “queen” of the pelvic floor, and loves to tell us all about how she “brought it out of the closet” – er, not literally brought it out, that would be gross – among the physio community, and is like, this big famous chick because of it) asked us how we thought we should perform the test for muscle strength, and we all sat there thinking “shit, they’re going to make us finger each other in the lab this week”, before revealing that it is done by ultrasound. which doesn’t ACTUALLY measure the strength, you can just see whether they can squeeze it or not, so it doesn’t seem very effective to me, but i don’t want to have to finger anyone as a physio, so i guess that’s fine by me. although i guess if i do medicine and become a doctor i might have to, but i’d prefer not to think about that right now. and she was also asking if any of us do pelvic floor exercises, and i do (especially everytime i see an ad for incontinence pads, or hear the word prolapse – as in prolapse of the uterus phil, UTERUS!!), but i was too shy to put up my hand because no one else in the lecture did.

Ohhh, i’ve finished my lorrikeet… perhaps i should have a third. OOH, you know what we should do? we should have these before we go out picking up boys!

Sorry to hear about your grandmother lenka. my grandad’s a bit the same – we have a scare every now and then. it’s not fun.

My grandmother had another pulmonary edema attack at 3am this morning. This makes the 4th in 4 months. The first two were in conjunction with heart attacks, the third with angina, and we’re not sure if her heart was involved this time. We’ll find out tomorrow. So she’s in hospital now, stable, better, but being monitored until they can adjust her medication and determine the cause of this latest episode. I’m getting quite practiced at making triple zero calls for the ambulance now. Handy hint: always give the nearest cross street to the address if you know it, leave the outside light on and the front door open, and point out any helpful landmarks to assist the ambulance officers to find your house more quickly. I’m also quite adept at knowing how to pack a bag very quickly with all the necessary medical information, medicines, appropriate changes of clothes, slippers, etc to aid the ambulance officers and hospital staff to make a quicker diagnosis, treatment and admission. All good skills to have… but to be honest, I’d rather not learn this particular way. Let’s just say I’m not a fan of “method” acting.

because i bent it back playing netball yesterday. it didn’t actually hurt that much.

grr. i had ANOTHER little bitch tell me i “look older” yesterday. made me want to stab her with my chinagraph pencil. instead i had to grope her leg to try and find the greater trochanter of the femur (we have to mark the bony landmarks on each other. it’s hard).

ugh HUBS. there’s so MUCH of it…

I can hear the birds feeding each other again. Ollie makes baby noises and Mannie stands there gagging and then proceeds to vomit into his mouth. it’s SO gross when they do that.

I went to the blood bus at the uni the other day “no, i’m sorry, we’re closed for today”, and i just put my name down for like, EVERY shift for starlight day at kotara, but all the slots are full already! I only got the friggin email today! How many volunteers can they have? Grizzle. And i was going to GENEROUSLY miss a day of uni and everything!

Oh man, we have this bullshit course called HLSC1000. Today they got this lady to come in and give us a lecture on time management (which she was LATE for, i might add). And it was like i was back in a friggin careers class in high school. Externally i was calm… well, fidgety (with an occasional facial spasm), internally i was slapping myself in the head with the lecture pad and making retard noises. For god’s sake! what a waste of time! then we had a pointless tutorial. The case for staying at uni on a Monday afternoon is growing increasingly weak… we need to move trivia to a different night. I really need to prepare for anatomy on monday nights, if i want to get the most out of my lab on tuesday. Ohhh, the cadaver parts make me a bit queasy. I’m terrified I’ll pass out onto one of the specimens and get corpse juices all over me and have to wear corpse clothes for the rest of the day. I had to buy new shes for the lab too because i didn’t have any closed toe shoes except for boots and joggers. i had to walk around in joggers all day last week and i felt terribly unfashionable. so now i have a pair of converse, like a little clone. they’re quite heavy. you could swing them around your head and brain people with them. er, by their laces that is. my legs don’t swing up quite that high…

Ugh, this stupid dick on the biggest loser is still cut at her sister for bullying her when she was young. get the fuck over it! that’s what sisters do for pete’s sake! when alex and i were young we used to take vicky’s toys and play with them and not let her join in. it made her tough.