In 2023, we encountered a range of ludicrous, sometimes funny, sometimes problematic occurrences around the world. Commonly, these ridiculous occurences came from high-profile, powerful men who were inclined to let us know just how out of touch they are.
As the year approaches its end, we’re looking back at the Top 10 most ridiculous, problematic, funny or sensational things we’ve covered at Women’s Agenda this year.
Dominic Perrottet admitting he wore a Nazi uniform costume to his 21st birthday— January
Remember this conservative father of six? He stepped into the role as NSW premier in October 2021. In January this year he called a press conference to share the “mistake” he made when he put on a Nazi uniform costume at his “uniforms” themed 21st birthday party .
The 40-year old said he was “deeply ashamed” and “truly sorry for the hurt and the pain that it will cause people right across our state.”
“I just did not understand the gravity and the hurt of what that uniform means to people, not just to our state, but around the country and around the world,” he said.
He credited his parents with reminding him how “wrong and insensitive” his actions were. Two months later, he stepped down as Liberal leader after losing the state election to Labor.
Stuart Robert describing himself as “a dutiful cabinet minister” – March
In July 2019, Liberal MP Stuart Robert went on national TV to defend the Robodebt program. He did this despite knowing there were “massive” issues with it. The disastrous program was found to be unlawful, and resulted in a $1.8 billion government settlement to hundreds of thousands of victims.
Earlier this year, during the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, Robert told commissioner Catherine Holmes he was a “a dutiful cabinet minister.” He said it was an act of “cabinet solidarity” to defend government programs even when you don’t agree with them.
He also admitted to implementing “many things” that he “passionately disagrees with” because he is required as a minister to represent such programs and defend them — as he did with robodebt.
Despite having “massive personal misgivings” about the scheme, he said he waited for the solicitor general’s advice before raising concerns publicly. It took him until November 2019 to announce a “refinement” of the program.
Conservative men call the Barbie movie ‘man-hating’ and ‘an assault on men’ — July
During the “Barbiemania” craze earlier this year when Greta Gerwig’s much anticipated film finally dropped, some male right-wing public figures like Ben Shapiro, Ted Cruz, and Piers Morgan were up in arms, calling the movie “man-hating” and accusing it of abandoning notions of “faith and family”.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz even called it “Chinese communist propaganda”.
YouTuber Ben Shapiro was so insulted by it he called it “one of the worst movies” he’d ever seen.
“The movie is a sh**show. Conceptually, the movie is a sh**show,” Shapiro said in the video, which has had 2.9 million views so far.
“The basic sort of premise of the film, politically speaking, is that men and women are on two sides and they hate each other. And literally, the only way you can have a happy world is if the women ignore the men and the men ignore the women.”
Sky News commentator Piers Morgan called the film “an assault on men”.
“All the male characters in the Barbie world are simply called ‘Ken’,” he said. “So it’s pretty clear where this movie is going. This is an assault on not just Ken, but all men.”
Who knew that a simple movie that put women in the forefront (instead of the background) could trigger such fragile emotions?
The last ‘male sanctuary’ – the barber shop that didn’t want to allow women — August
Meanwhile, in Adelaide, a barber shop publicly declared itself a ‘male only’ space. The owner of Robbie’s Chop Shop in Unley, Adelaide applied for an exemption from the state’s Equal Opportunity Act in order to provide a “male sanctuary” space for their customers.
The business posted an open letter on Instagram announcing its application for the exemption and calling on the community to support the business’ agenda.
“A complaint has recently been made to the Equal Opportunity SA about our Robbie’s Chop Shop and its request that women observe our status as ‘the last male sanctuary’,” the letter read.
“Whilst we feel that this complaint is misconceived, we are doing our best to resolve the situation in a respectful and understanding manner to the satisfaction of all involved.”
The shop hangs signs that chart its Five Commandments, which include “Male Only. Don’t Lose Your Place. No Stress (It’s Ok Not To Be Ok). Love Thy Barber. BE A MAN!”
The male barristers who put up a fake “Men in Law Awards” poster in Melbourne — September
In September, inside the lift of Melbourne’s Owen Dixon Chambers, a fake “Men in Law Awards” poster was noticed by several observers. The poster purported to be from The Victorian Bar Association. “The Men in Law Awards” called for nominations for prizes including “most woke counsel” and “best virtue-signalling counsel.”
The notice read: “The Men in Law Awards, in conjunction with various stakeholders and a panel of leading pseudo professionals, have developed a robust awards methodology to form the backbone for assessing, analysing and benchmarking Victoria’s leading legal professionals. Sadly this expertise will not be called upon in judging such nominations.”
It concluded with the recommendation: “Men: Bring a plate. Women: BYO”.
Journalist Louise Milligan posted a picture of the notice on LinkedIn, noting that “women barristers were not amused.”
Neither were we.
Tim Gurner calling for a rise in unemployment to reduce “arrogance” in workers – September
Tim Gurner, founder and CEO of property development company Gurner Group, made some particularly out of touch comments at the Australian Financial Review Property Summit in September.
The 41-year-old millionaire criticised the productivity of tradespeople in relation to how much they are paid, saying “Tradies have definitely pulled back on productivity. They have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years, and we need to see that change.”
He added, “People decided they didn’t really want to work so much anymore through COVID, and that has had a massive issue on productivity.”
According to Gurner, a “pain in the economy” was needed. He suggested a 40-50 per cent rise in the unemployment rate was needed, “…to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around.”
“There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around. It’s a dynamic that has to change. We’ve got to kill that attitude.”
We agree with Dr Collette Snowden, who said that much of the issue lay in the audience’s reaction to Gurner’s comments – or lack thereof.
“When Tim Gurner casually and sincerely suggested that pain be inflicted on other human beings – to put them in their place – NOT ONE PERSON in the audience challenged him – they nodded their heads in agreement. He is not an isolated case,” Dr Snowden tweeted.
Anthony Pratt saying his superpower is that he is rich — October
Australian businessman and billionaire Anthony Pratt believes he has a superpower. What is it? Being rich. In October, new recordings and documents were released, reportedly suggesting the owner of paper and packaging giant Visy said in 2021 “My superpower is that I am rich.”
The recordings revealed the nature of his relationships with former US President Donald Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, even King Charles III.
When you have a net worth of over AUD$15.8 billion, perhaps you really can get away with saying anything.
Scomo’s memoir that nobody asked for — October
This year, we found out that former PM Scott Morrison has written a memoir. The description of the book on one website reads, “Less political memoir and more pastoral encouragement, Morrison is passionate about encouraging others to discover how they can access and see the many blessings of God in their own lives, no matter their circumstances, drawing on Jeremiah 29:11, that God’s plans are for our good and not our harm, to give us a future and a hope.”
The book, set to be released in February 2024, will chart how Christianity has guided the country’s 30th PM in his leadership and how God stood by him through thick and thin.
Will you be reading it alongside our journalist, Olivia Cleal?
AI generated woman used as fake speaker at tech conference — November
In November, developer conference DevTernity in Latvia posted a photo of a woman under the name ‘Anna Boyko’ to their event website. She was listed as a staff engineer at Coinbase and a core contributor at Ethereum.
The problem is that she’s never spoken at any events and her supposed employer, Coinbase, had never heard of her. She was a fake profile listed on a prominent conference website to boost the perceived number of female speakers.
In the aftermath of the discovery, many speakers (real people) pulled out of the conference. A few days later, the event’s organiser Eduards Sizovs confirmed in an email to Bloomberg that the whole conference had been cancelled.
What did he blame it on?
“Cancel culture.”
In a statement on X, he admitted to having “auto-generated” a woman’s profile after a another speaker dropped out.
“But I won’t defend myself because I don’t feel guilty,” he wrote. “I did nothing terrible that I need to apologise for. The conference has always delivered on its promise.”
Miss France has short hair and some people got really offended — December
Finally, to top off this list of ludicrous happenings, a beauty pageant in France crowned a winner with short hair — and some people were not happy. Miss France winner Eve Gilles was crowned the winner earlier this month, sporting a short brown bob and a sweeping fringe.
Some users on X (formerly Twitter) called the 94-year old competition of going “woke” for crowning a woman who didn’t have the conventionally feminine hairstyle of long, luscious locks. Gilles said she wanted to “show that the competition is evolving and society too, that the representation of women is diverse, in my opinion beauty is not limited to a haircut or shapes that we have… or not”.
It goes without saying that her comments are contained within an industry where nobody is larger than size 6, or over the age of 30— so her definition of ‘diverse’ doesn’t actually reflect the true representation of women’s bodies across society.