The Big Freeze fundraiser is an annual event in Australia. Celebrities, particularly people from footy – Australian rules football – plummet down a slide into ice water. This raises money to fight motor neurone disease (MND), better known in the USA as ALS.

On June 13th, some footy guys were jabbering on Triple M radio about footy and the Big Freeze. The jocularity soon turned to drowning a woman. One of the pundits was Eddie McGuire, shortly to do his own icy plunge. McGuire’s a TV personality and current president of the Collingwood Football Club (aka Magpies or Pies).

Also joshing around were James Brayshaw (president of the North Melbourne Football Club, Danny Frawley (footy commentator and retired player), and journalist Damian Barrett.

McGuire suggested someone who should be pressured do it next year. “I reckon we should start the campaign for a one-person slide next year. Caroline Wilson. And I’ll put in ten grand straight away – make it twenty. And if she stays under, fifty.”

Caroline Wilson is an award-winning sports journalist who’s covered footy for more than 30 years. Why the idea of her staying under amused McGuire is unstated. Many guffaws. McGuire asked the others if they were in.

“Yep. Straight in,” said Brayshaw.

“I’ll be in amongst it, Ed,” said Frawley. “I’ll actually jump in, and… I’ll hold her under.”

McGuire elaborated a scene of fan support. “I could do an auction… I reckon we could charge ten thousand for everyone to stand around the outside and bomb her.”

“Bloody oath,” said Brayshaw.

Barrett demurred on grounds of journalistic solidarity. “I’m on Caro’s side these days, Ed.”

McGuire’s Big Freeze went well. The men’s hilarious vision of drowning Wilson did not.

There was a furious public outcry. (Yup, social media.) The fact that the AFL (Australian Football League) had juuuust partnered with White Ribbon Week, an Australian campaign to combat violence against women, did not help. The players of the Richmond Football Club (aka Tigers) said they would boycott Triple M. The Prime Minister let it be known “There is no place for disrespectful language towards women, and that particularly applies to people who are in the public eye.” Sponsors threatened to withdraw sponsorships.

Feeble apologies ensued.

The AFL released a statement saying their CEO Gillon McLachlan had contacted McGuire, Brayshaw, and Frawley and admonished them “although seeking to be light-hearted, the language and tenor of the wording could be seen to be supporting violent attitudes or actions against women, and was therefore clearly not appropriate.”

Frawley told Fox Footy of his “insensitive, inappropriate” remarks, “Clearly it was a poor attempt at humor, for which I sincerely apologize.

“So, we’ll just leave it at that. As I said, it was a poor attempt at humour and it didn’t go down that way.’’ He told a team he coaches, “I regret making what was a terrible joke and that I am sorry for upsetting many people, including Caroline.” He said he’d discussed the matter with his mother, wife, and three daughters. Apparently they helped him get half a clue. “If those comments… were made about one of my daughters, it would make the hairs on the back on my neck stand up.”

The faintly apology-shaped statement that interests us most is McGuire’s. Reportedly, the AFL told him to apologize or resign. He texted Wilson. He gave a statement to the Herald Sun:

Anything that can be perceived to promulgate domestic violence is unacceptable.

That was the least of anyone’s intention. The day was based on good humour, sledging of each other and tomfoolery.

In raising money for motor neurone disease, all day everyone was cracking gags at each other’s expense and that was the tone, clearly, of the banter.

However, on White Ribbon weekend, we have to be ever-vigilant in stamping out anything that can be misconstrued one iota as supporting the abhorrent act of domestic violence.

On TV, he elaborated the kidding-around and I-hate-violence-against-women-more-than-anybody themes, and added she-does-it-too. “Anything at all that can be perceived as promulgating domestic violence is abhorrent. Full stop. Joking, or anything else, just full stop. That’s where it starts and ends, as far as I’m concerned. To put it in the context of the day, everyone was joking. We were all having a go. In fact I’ve just received audio from the 3AW commentary box with Caroline Wilson in there joking with her colleagues at 3AW, the exact same jokes. ‘Yes, we’ll pay money to push you down, are you going to do it, yes in fact I’ll hold you down’ – it was the joke of the day, because that’s what everyone was saying. I was copying it as well…. That was what was going on in that situation…. In the context of White Ribbon weekend, you know what, it’s a good time to just everyone have a think about what we’re doing. You know, a woman a week still gets murdered in domestic violence situations…. Y’know, and this is a good touchstone… for us all just to sit back and say ‘right, ok, we do joke about these things, but it’s not a joking matter anymore.’”

(The 3AW commentary actually has Wilson trying to shut up two guys on the subject, not joking about it.)

MacLachlan thought that apology was okay. Many disagreed. As do we.

Caroline Wilson, for example, didn’t buy the banter excuse. “I think he’s probably crossed the line and I didn’t like the language. I don’t accept that it was playful banter, I’ve got to say. It’s like casual racism, casual violent language might be meant as a joke, but I wonder how many times we have to draw this line in the sand between this sort of language and what is a joke and obviously what is completely unacceptable.”

James Hennessy wrote in Pedestrian Daily, “Basically, it’s all bit shit and embarrassing for both the guys involved and the AFL. Numerous commenters have reached out to us in true form to accuse us of ‘not getting the joke’ but ultimately, if your idea of humour involves a bunch of blokes holding a woman underwater until she drowns, then you’re probably not that funny.

“You can prattle on about a ‘culture of offence’ or the ‘P.C. police’ all you like, but there’s a good reason why this one has copped it from everyone – even those who are normally quick to condemn automatic outrage. Aussie sport has a serious problem with women, and it’s embarrassing. That’s not really up for dispute.”

The Collingwood board had McGuire in for a three-hour meeting. Possibly they hinted he might want to try again.

And he did. He talked with people with experience in domestic violence. He talked to activist Rosie Batty, whose abusive ex-partner killed their child. He talked with Phil Cleary, whose sister was murdered by her partner.

Here’s his 2nd statement (paragraph breaks adjusted):

…I’ve spent the day taking counsel from friends and foes, senior government officials, the AFL and community leaders. In particular, Rosie Batty and an old footballing and political mate, Phil Cleary, both of whom have seen first-hand the tragic consequences of domestic violence….

First the perception, real or otherwise, that last Monday on the stage of the MND Freeze event, in an interview on Triple M that was meant to be harmless fun, things were said that could also be seen as men with a pack mentality attacking a woman.

I met Caroline Wilson in a press box when I was 14. Over the journey we have had plenty of battles and laughs. It’s all part of the cut and thrust of the media and football. I’m long past thinking of Caroline as anything but Caroline Wilson. Gender has never entered my head in terms of the role she plays. In fact, I hired her for the role she has on Footy Classified because she was the best person for the job.

In the last 24 hours, and particularly since this morning, I’ve seen the impact of the comments on her. No person should ever feel uneasy or threatened in football’s family.

For that, I am deeply sorry and I apologise unreservedly to Caroline for putting her in that position.

I am a father and a husband. I am passionate about stopping the violence that claims the lives of more than 65 women a year in Australia. So too, do I want to continue to play my part in changing the culture that has sustained violence against women. That includes giving no comfort to men who belittle or mistreat women.

I am really disappointed that I made remarks that are at odds with my views on the place of women in modern Australia.

On July 23, our club, in conjunction with the Pratt Foundation, will host a scheduled fundraising function with Rosie Batty. Today, on what would have been her son Luke’s 14th birthday, and having spoken to Rosie earlier, I’ll be making a personal contribution to support the victims of domestic violence.

At a time when I am so looking forward to being president of three women’s sporting clubs — Collingwood women’s football, Collingwood netball and the Melbourne Stars women’s cricket club, it is important to show leadership on this issue.

That includes being able to admit you are wrong and willing to learn.

Better. There’s still too much about the gender-blind awesomeness that is Eddie McGuire. But he apologizes for his impact on Wilson, and for the effect of his remarks on others.

That seems to have come from his conversation with Cleary, recounted in an interview with Cleary by Richard Glover.

Cleary comprehends apology. “Some politicians will say ‘If you take offense, I am sorry,’ which is just disgraceful.”

The interviewer remarked that, as a journalist he thinks he’d feel pride if people were willing to spend $50,000 to shut him up. And, “I could imagine him saying it about a man.” Cleary replied, “If it’s a bloke it’s a different context. We men don’t experience the same history of fear that’s associated with the lives of women.”

Cleary talked to McGuire about the difference between how he intended his words “versus the comfort others would take from them…. We just have to be careful… [about] language and normative discourse that give comfort to violent men. Imagine a wife-basher sitting at home hearing the story of how the boys playfully drowned Caroline Wilson because she’s a loudmouth who talks back.”

He recalled the trial of his sister’s killer. It was claimed that “words she used were a provocation.” As a result, the court spared the killer a harsher sentence. “The symbolism was really profound.”

The outrage roused by the original jerkiness and by the first cruddy-ha-ha apology resulted in McGuire’s being sent out to learn something. It seems as if he did.

 

Thanks for the tip to John McWhorter, our new Australia Correspondent. Any errors about, say, the nature of footy are not the Oz Desk’s fault.