opinion

Alan Jones’ solution for women he disagrees with: Shut them up by any means necessary.

 

When Alan Jones disagrees with women, he fantasises about how he might like to shut them up.

Whether by disposing of their body in a “chaff bag”, or hanging them in the streets of Sydney, or suffocating them with a sock – it doesn’t really matter for Jones. Just as long as they disappear.

The “sock shoved down her throat” idea is his latest, especially reserved for New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who is trying to address the greatest human and environmental threat of our time – climate change.

Israel Folau speaks to Alan Jones on Sky News. Post continues below. 

Jones, of course, doesn’t have to believe in climate change. He can yell from the safety of his padded radio studio that it’s all a myth, while Ardern stands on the island of Tuvalu that is quite literally sinking and says, with the backing of the discipline of science, that indeed our planet only has a good decade or so left.

The 78-year-old has built an entire career on the ‘art’ of disagreement. That’s his job.

But what his listeners don’t seem to realise, is that Jones is entirely incapable of disagreeing with women.

He doesn’t quite know what to do them. He’s quick to dismiss a man as an “idiot” or a “fool”. But with women, the question becomes: Hang on, why is she even speaking in the first place?

ADVERTISEMENT

When Jones wondered on his 2GB breakfast show on Thursday,  “whether Scott Morrison is going to be fully briefed to shove a shock down her throat,” he barely took a breath before remarking, “She is a joke, this woman, an absolute and utter lightweight.”

The words “this woman” were perhaps the most important in his entire tirade.

On Thursday afternoon, Jones followed up with a statement concerning his remarks about Ardern.

“Of course what I meant to say was that Scott Morrison should tell Ms Ardern to ‘put a sock in it’,” he explained, before accusing his critics of “wilful misinterpretation”.

The statement notably lacked an apology.

He also failed to see that “put a sock in it” has precisely the same implication; shut up.

His comments about essentially gagging Ardern, came within 48 hours of Sydney woman, 24-year-old Michaela Dunn, being found brutally murdered by a male perpetrator.

It was on the same day that the final moments of Melbourne woman, 22-year-old Eurydice Dixon, were released to the public.

Of course, the remarks of Jones cannot be compared to the repugnant actions of men who decided a woman’s life was theirs to take.

But what his words serve to highlight is a culture that accepts and perpetuates violence against women. The ease with which Jones jumped from disagreeing with a woman, to shoving a sock down her throat, is alarming.

And this is not the first time.

In 2011, the broadcaster said he would like to put Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore “in the same chaff bag as Julia Gillard and throw them both out to sea”.

In 2017, he posted a tweet in reference to Moore yet again which read, “$11.3m – can you believe it? You can guess what many people would rather hang 58 metres over George Street…and it’s not a Cloud Arch.”

Many read the tweet as a suggestion that people would like to see Moore herself hanging over George Street. Jones never bothered to explain what he meant.

It wasn’t long after that Jones remarked, while criticising the government’s mining policy, that Gladys Berejiklian’s head was “in a noose”.

Australia’s most popular radio host, who has slots on television, and writes opinion columns for some of our most read papers, does not know how to disagree with powerful women.

Surely that’s part of his job description.

For $4 million a year, Jones suggests a woman be thrown to sea in a chaff bag, or hanged above the streets of Sydney, or have a sock shoved down her throat.

That’s how he plans to shut them up.