And politicians and commentators have caught on. Even our Prime Minister, who has a comprehensive public record of undermining women’s capabilities and purpose, has taken to falsely declaring himself a feminist, hoping it will curry favour with the women whose support has always eluded him. Conservative commentators suffer the whiplash that comes from swinging wildly between two opposing positions: the one in which they are most comfortable, ie the regular ridiculing of feminists for caring about seemingly overblown issues such as rape and violence; and the one that brings them the most amount of schadenfreude, the chastising of those same feminists for ignoring the "real sexism" exercised against conservative women who, it seems, are not required to have the same backbone and buck-up attitude demanded of the others. Which brings us to Jacqui Lambie and the storm of outrage over the "sexist double standard" that her preference for "well-hung" men apparently embodies. Appearing as a guest on Hobart’s Heart 107.3FM, the newly elected senator was asked what she looks for in a romantic partner. “They must have heaps of cash and they have got to have a package between their legs – let’s be honest. And I don’t need them to speak ... the perfect man.” Later, Senator Lambie reportedly asked a 22-year-old caller – who’d phoned in as a prospective suitor – if he was "well-hung".

"Like a donkey," the lad replied. That the conversation was crass and inappropriate is not in question. Public representatives are elected to represent and speculation about their bedroom activities is of no importance to anybody. But the fallout from this particular incident has provided remarkable insight into the way public perception of inequality has shifted to incorporate the (false) binary of two equal and opposing forces. Painted as a gross example of sexism, Senator Lambie has reported that her office staff have been subjected to abusive phone calls and missives. 3AW’s Neil Mitchell took to his microphone to iterate the new bleating of the faux-concerned right: where oh WHERE are the feminists in all this, and why are they staying SILENT? (One can’t help but wonder why, if speaking out against sexism and discrimination weighs so heavily on Mitchell’s mind, he is comfortable with accepting a handsome pay cheque year after year from a commercial radio station whose presenter roster and management team has more leathery balls than an AFL season.)

In this gleeful belief that Angry Women have scored themselves an own goal, people have been asking how we would react had a man responded in this way. But a man – a Serious Politician, no less – wouldn’t have been asked this question. Serious Men in Serious Jobs are not routinely interrogated about their sexual habits. Their singledom isn’t held aloft as evidence of their sad, shrivelled-up selves, their pointlessness in a society that will agree to listen to them as long as there’s something decent to look at too. Making a crass joke about dick size is hardly a "double standard" when you consider the thousands of years women have had to contend with having their bodies commodified and subject to ownership while their minds and influence have been studiously kept out of the upper echelons of power. This is what the new backlash looks like. Instead of ridiculing critics of sexism as they once did, the beneficiaries of power have begun to claim an equal and opposite degree of oppression for themselves.

Now women are being asked to swallow the pernicious lie that there are two sides to every story and that injustice occurs on a fair and even battleground. It doesn't. Lambie's expression of fancy for a well-hung man may have been crude and impolitic, but it doesn't contribute to a deeply insidious rhetoric that tells men their greatest contribution to the world is in how they can physically service others. These distinctions matter. We are at risk of allowing discrimination to be repackaged as something that arbitrarily and equally affects all people while being perpetrated by none. Lambie can pine for a well-hung man on FM radio all she likes – it doesn’t change the fact the majority of people presenting those shows, running those stations and being paid big money to dominate the public conversation are men. Nor does it change the fact the vast majority of her political colleagues, those people preselected by parties long before the public get to have a say, are men. Criticise her for having not yet figured out how, as an Australian senator, to have appropriate conversations with members of the media. But to charge her with perpetrating a disgraceful and hypocritical sexism? As if the routinely subjugated are capable of wielding power in the same way as those either doing or benefiting from the subjugating.

Get your hand off it, boys. Clementine Ford is a freelance journalist.