TigerForce said:
Even Caro says something about Burke. Gary Sweet from a female on-air colleague......it's all happening.
My wife and I always joked that Gary Sweet seemed to have a permanently sleazy, smug smirk on his face. My wife actually spent time living in Germany in her youth and brought back a heap of recordings of Australian shows dubbed in German for German TV. The voice they chose for Gary Sweet on Police Rescue was as if they knew he looked sleazy.
tigersnake said:
I find it baffling that you find it baffling PT. Nothing revisionist about it. While many people have never looked positively at sleaze and harrasment, I'd put myself in your boat on that, many others did, and many more tolerated it even if they didn't like it. That is changing. That change is evidenced by the fact we have a tidal wave of women and men coming forward who previously felt they couldn't.
as an aside, but related, I read an amazing interview with the Hollywood actress Maureen O'Hara from the 40s and 50s. She said she was quitting acting because she couldn't tolerate constant requests and harrassment for 'kisses and embrace'. She said it was out of control amongst producers and directors, who had no respect for her marraige, and if she refused, threatened her with blackballing and spread rumours that she was a frigid ice-queen.
Like I say TS, growing up close to my grandparents and their peers, gave me quite an 'older' conservative upbringing. And the undertones were never anything but old style, gentlemanly respect (perhaps from a chivalrous perspective) towards women. Some of my friends may joke that in some ways this upbringing has made me a bit of an old man before my time. But hey, I credit the older style values my grandparents (and their peers) bestowed on me, for having nothing but derision for dirty piggish men and violent male spouses.
Christ, If I had ever shown any violent tendencies towards, or uttered the type of words Don Burke is accused of saying around, women. I would have received an absolute flogging of the highest order! And I'm sure any bloke displaying such disrespect and indecency to my mother probably would have been afforded the same treatment from my grandfather and my uncle (her brother). Hitting a woman was viewed in the context of picking on someone weaker than yourself - ie extremely dishonourable (no doubt viewed in the same light as bashing a kid younger than yourself, or bashing a blind or deaf kid).
If anything, the prudish nature of the upbringing made me quite shy and naive around girls/women when you get to that age that you start to find them attractive. Perhaps even terrified of saying the wrong thing and embarrassing them and myself. But hey, I'll take this over being a pig.
Although I note, modern feminists seem to detest chivalrous 'gentlemanly' motivations nearly as much as they detest misogynistic, violent pigs and sex pests. But as I say, I'll take my upbringing. It taught me very strict grounding on what are and aren't appropriate ways of acting around and towards women.