After the “Racist’ Moral Panic Over the Banana, How about a Moral Panic about Violence Against Women? by Mrs Vera West

The great moral panic over the banana throwing incident, a few news cycles back, has now died down, and the chattering class have moved on to other things. But if white-woman-throwing-banana-at-indigenous-man is bad, which it is, then why is there not an even greater level of moral outrage over domestic violence against women issues related to Australian football? Wouldn’t-football-star-almost-kills-girlfriend be a domestic-violence issue? Shouldn’t there be national hand-wringing about this, and other incidents?

The latest incident involves an indigenous football star (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Proud), who has been sentenced to five-and-a-half-years for brutally bashing his girlfriend, although he could be free as early as next October, due to parole eligibility: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/former-brisbane-lion-albert-proud-jailed-for-brutally-bashing-girlfriend/news-story/49cd5b0338d75a38883349f40f38122d.

The victim received at least two blows to her head, a strike to the chest, as well as being grabbed by her shoulders and arms and strangled. She also received a fractured skull, which was likely to be due to her falling against something during the assault, and was hospitalised with a life-threatening brain haemorrhage. The victim appeared on The Project and “slammed the decision”:  http://www.mamamia.com.au/richelle-kadadi-slams-albert-proud-sentence/. The attempted murder charge was dropped due to lack of evidence: the victim had suffered memory loss due to the severity of the injuries. We should also “slam” the decision.

There have been numerous cases of “group sex” and “sex scandals,”  illustrating footballs pack mentality: http://www.mamamia.com.au/rape-culture-australian-football/, which essentially constitutes a “rape” culture, or at the very least, a culture with a profound disrespect for women, who  in the football culture, are definitely in a position of servitude. This always leaves open the likelihood of exploitation: Anna Krien, Night Games, (Black, 2014). It is about time that the feminists did something useful and got onto this issue.