Does the Nielsen poll show the dark side of Australia?

Last night Nielsen released their monthly poll that showed a further slump in Labor's primary vote. A loss of 3 percentage points to a dismal 29%.

What was more distressing about this number was that support amongst men had dropped a whopping 7%, with support for women gaining a modest 1%.

It seems from opinions in mainstream and social media that the interpretation of this poll result is PM Gillard's strategy of 'attacking men' has failed. Say what? Did I hear that right? Our Prime Minister is waging a war against Aussie men??? That parallel universe thing is happening again.

If this is the way most men view what has occurred over the last couple of weeks (indeed over the last three years) then I am gob smacked. I am appalled and I am so desperately sad.

Unless you live under a rock (or you take LNP happy pills) you will be aware that the PM has faced two highly sexist public attacks in the last week. The infamous #Menugate and Howard Sattler's crude and invasive questioning about the PM's partner.

A conservative man I follow on Twitter said, in defending the menu, that it seemed satire was OK if you were Kevin Rudd or Wayne Swan but apparently not if you were Julia Gillard. I tried to point out to him the difference in the so-called satire. The derogatory remarks about the PM were focused on her sex, demeaning her appearance as a woman. The menu jokes about Rudd & Swan had nothing to do with sex.

The big problem from my point of view is that he couldn't see that.

This underlying blinkered attitude was further demonstrated by Richards, the restaurant owner, who's LNP engineered response was quick to apologise to Mal Brough, but not a thought was given to apologising to the PM.

As if the #Menugate abhorrence wasn't enough we then have 'shock jock' Howard Sattler persistently asking the PM if her partner was gay. Never mind that Sattler's questions were totally and utterly disrespectful of the office of PM, they were also sexist. They would not have been asked of a male leader, pure and simple.

Of course these matters arose after the PM's #WomenforGillard speech.

Despite being painted as a veritable blitzkrieg by Murdoch & Gina's media minions, the speech was not an attack on men. If you took the reporting of mainstream media as truth you would think that the sole purpose of Gillard's oration was to say that Tony Abbott would marginalise women. All the hoopla was on abortion and blue ties. This was echoed on Twitter by right-wing trolls shrilly saying that the PM was 'starting a gender war'.

I would suggest that these reporters and twitter commentators either have not read the PM's speech or have taken a very narrow interpretation of it to suit their agendas. It was a significant presentation that covered many areas of importance to women.

The whole 'blue tie' reference was an analogy. She was saying that no amount of air-brushing, crisp white shirts, fake tans or blue ties would mask Tony Abbott's long standing attitudes and views on woman's issues, particularly abortion. Let's not forget the man has significant prior form on these matters, and most of it is retrograde. I acknowledge there was some politics in Gillard's speech, but no more than would be expected given the topic and the audience.

So we have two recent appalling sexist attacks on our Prime Minister, on top of the catalogue of previous nastiness 'ditching the witch' etc. Yet this poll result seems to indicate that many Australian men don't care, or worse, think that it's OK to behave in this fashion.

If that is indeed the case I have to ask what is wrong with the Australian male? Do most really think it's alright to treat women in this fashion and that they should just stay quiet about it? What if it were your wife, daughter, partner or mother? Just because it is focused at a strong female PM whom you may dislike doesn't make it any more acceptable. It's not a joke, it's not a laugh and it should not be fobbed off as harmless fun.

Entrenched attitudes like this have no place in 21st century Australian society.

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See this great post from Fiona Armstrong - "Sexism: I've had a gutful" via NoFibs http://nofibs.com.au/2013/06/17/sexism-ive-had-a-gutful/

And we are now getting international notoriety for all the wrong reasons - "Treatment of Julia Gillard shows extent to which sexism is tolerated in Australia" - Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/treatment-of-julia-gillard-shows-extent-to-which-sexism-is-tolerated-in-australia-1.1429432