Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Can a leopard change his shorts?

This afternoon this 1979 radio interview with Tony Abbott came into my Twitter feed, via @wiredjazz. It's interesting listening, but my gut reaction to it being tweeted about today, and posted in 2010, is that it's a long time ago and it seems disingenuous to criticise Abbott for (albeit horrific) attitudes he held over 40 years ago, when he was at uni. Or is it? To be fair, I was at uni a decade later than Abbott, but my core values haven't changed yet. However, my position on lots of things has. I tried to think back to what I believed in the early 90s and it's quite tricky. I suspect I wouldn't like to be confronted with an interview I did back then.

For starters, I definitely believed that men and women think differently. I know this, because I spent some time doing gender based research with respect to physics education. I still think that men and women have broad tendencies to difference (although I suspect I see it as much messier than I did then), but now I focus more on how that comes to be, and on how to cater to difference without worrying about how it lines up in terms of gender.

I've learned a whole hell of a lot about marginalised, oppressed groups of people. I've always held equality dear, and always felt that the Government has a responsibility to make equality and equity happen, but I've radically changed my views about how that's best done. No doubt I will continue to change my views as I learn more, hear more points of view and have more of my assumptions shaken out.

It's a little difficult to tell from an eight or nine minute interview the nuances of whether he's demonstrating deep seated values or his then current views on the best ways to achieve the fulfilment of those values. The former are, I would say, still relevant, whilst the latter would (should?) have been modified extensively over 42 years. The clear, strong commitment that Christian values should guide politics is probably the one thing that stood out for me in that interview. That sounds to me like the kind of belief that doesn't change, ever. I also think there's plenty of recent history evidence to back up that claim. The banning of RU486 is a stand out, but there's plenty more.

The other slightly chilling part of the interview was his obvious disgust at uni students "who seem to think of themselves as women, ... homosexuals or what have you" rather than "students". I don't know whether he's managed to crawl out from under this mountain of delusion that there is nothing that makes "women, blacks, migrants and homosexuals" any different from him, but as a serial student, and a member of communities, I still "seem to think of [myself] as a woman". In 1979 Tony Abbott was wary of and alarmed by people like me. Is 40 years long enough for that kind of leopard to change his shorts?

6 comments:

  1. In the early 90s I was a fundamentalist born again Christian who didnt believe in or support feminism, abortion, divorce, sex before marriage, homosexuliaty (or any other sort of sexuality other than heterosexuality), birth control and a million other things. Nowdays I am a Pagan and a feminist who has done practically everything I didnt believe in or support back then. So yeah, leopards can change their spots. The real question is can Tony Abbott? And I would say no, he can't. And why would he when he doesn't even want to.

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    1. That is a very dramatic change! And you're right, the question isn't whether someone CAN change, it's whether they're likely to, given what we know about them. And Abbott couldn't see his privilege at all in 1979. He was still telling the world he was the best person to decide whether women had access to a particular kind of contraception in 2006 and he's never given any indication that he's ever been able to see past Tony Abbott in his whole life. What possible motivation could he have for change?

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  2. I, for one, am glad that your devotion to 80s LA hair metal has diminished - with excretion of "The final countdown"

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  3. That is exception of "The final of countdown" ... Although auto-correct may have a point !!!!

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    1. Even in the 80s, my devotion was broader than LA hair metal. :) And as for The Final Countdown, I just think it's hysterical that my 9yo likes Katy Perry, Owl City, Marron 5 and The Final Countdown. :) But it's definitely fair to say that it's a song one tends to grow out of. Scream of Anger, on the other hand, is still an awesome song, so I haven't written Joey off altogether.

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