Comments for ThinkUKnow: New Government Initiative to Blame Victims Everywhere

Thanks for sharing the email, I might pass it on to a dude I was speaking with earlier who was all "Sexting is can be fixed by ads, but social attitudes towards women can't, therefore the way these ads were portrayed is fine." Which made my brain attempt to grow Krang-like appendages so it could slap his.

_it's damn near impossible to work in a technical field without encountering it at some point_

Yup. And remove the "damn near" part if you're a woman who posts on Slashdot with a feminine-sounding name! Eesh! (That said, I haven't visited Slashdot for years now... partially for that reason.)

Also, woo, you know @bogurk, what a small world we live in! (I know @bogurk solely through the #qanda discussions on Twitter, though ;)

Jason, thanks for this great post. I'm going to share it widely.

"women should be more careful" or "young adults need more education in privacy, sexual ethics and how to read ingrained cultural biases" is entirely dependent on personal prejudices' - which are meshed with and formed through complex cultural prejudices (men and women are not islands). This ad does what most dominant English speaking portrayals of young adults do (particularly American teen films) it positions hetero boys as misogynist sexual predators and girls as passive dupes ripe for the using. Heterosexual masculinity is constructed here as snide and brutal and feminity as timid and stupid. It's a horrible trope reconstituted in pretty much every culture. It operates to shift blame, but worse to resist critique and silence brutality (against women and also the men who try and voice their opposition). What would happen, for example to the man who spoke out against the tech bully in the work place? There's a reason men don't speak and or act out. They are afraid that they will be the one running from the room crying. This aspect of sexism needs to be urgently acknowledged. Just like white people who speak out against racism are often called the 'N' word lovers, the consequences of all forms of bigotry shape our culture in fundamental ways, be it racial or gender. It’s great to hear men getting angry about this (at last)!!!! Hopefully if (and when) more men express this, at some point, those gender bigots won’t go so unchallenged and be so ‘cock’ sure, as surely this is the most offensive aspect of the ad – the absolute surety of the boy who operates with impunity because he fears no reprisal?

Since I have had no response from ThinkUKnow, I've elevated my complain to the [Sex Discrimination Officer](http://www.hreoc.gov.au/sex... at the [Australian Human Rights Commission](http://www.hreoc.gov.au/).