Mark Latham is a hot favourite to take out an Ernie this year. Photo: Luis Ascui

For the bra incinerating misandrists out there: the sound of 300 furious women in one room raging against the patriarchy - booing, hissing and banging on tables - should be sweet, soothing music to your ears, making the Ernie Awards something of a paradise. This prodigious annual event, held in the dining room of Parliament House in Sydney, honours some of Australia's most high profile men with mock awards for the sexist things they have said over the past year.



Meredith Burgmann has been directing and managing the popular awards for 23 years. She says she never expected the Ernies to be going for this long, but much like the red-faced and whining toddler-men who espouse them, many of the archaic and perverse ideas about a woman's place in the world are extremely difficult to put to bed.



In 2013, Alan Jones was awarded The Fred, the celebrity Ernie, for saying Julia Gillard's father died of shame. That year alone three of the ten Ernies were awarded for sexist comments made about our first female prime minister.

This year, as always, there have been a huge number of nominations. Margaret Jones, one of our oldest attendees, sends in around 30 nominations every year. All her working life she endured sexual discrimination from men. Whenever she reads a sexist article, she rips it out of the newspaper and adds it to a heap. At the end of the year, she passes that heap on to Burgmann.

"Young women shouldn't have to endure what we did", she tells me.

The winners of each category are determined on the night by groups of boo monitors who measure the volume of noise we make. When a winner can't be ascertained, there's a boo-off.


The sheer mass of nominations is overwhelming, the statements can be downright depressing, but the solidarity I feel at every awards night makes me proud to be a woman.

If you're lucky enough to nominate one of the men who wins, you have the honour of taking home a big, shiny trophy. Last year I took home The Elaine, the award for women least helpful to the sisterhood, on behalf of our newly-appointed minister for women, Michaelia Cash. She doesn't associate with the feminist movement because it is "a set of ideologies from many, many decades ago," but the Ernies highlights why feminism is still relevant.

To date this year 63 women in Australia have died due to violence against women. We are still waiting for urgent action from the Australian government on this issue. Men in positions of power consistently offer women useless advice and temporary non-solutions. Detective Inspector Michael Hughes has been nominated for an Ernie this year for perpetuating a culture of victim blaming. A problem solver at heart, he told women that it is our responsibility to make sure we aren't randomly attacked in public. His statements, which came after the brutal killing of schoolgirl Masa Vukotic, include the likes of "I suggest to people, particularly females, they shouldn't be alone in parks," and, "We just need to be a little bit more careful… just be a little discreet about where we are."



Apparently any sense of autonomy a woman might have is a falsehood. The Hillsong Church have been nominated after inviting a shamed US pastor, Mark Driscoll, to an Australian conference. "When you marry her and look down you will notice that your wife is shaped differently than you and makes a very nice home," he proclaimed.

There are still a lot of outdated ideas about what a woman's job entails. Late last year Channel 10's Family Feud asked contestants to "name something people think is a woman's job." Nobody guessed doctor, lawyer, engineer, scientist, mechanic, academic, builder, designer or architect. The correct answers were "cooking, washing clothes, cleaning, nursing, doing the dishes, hairdressing and domestic duties."

Women are still viewed as decoration, and men continue to profit from this objectification. Cruise Bar, looking for an incredible way to present their food, featured naked female models as platters at their launch event, evidently forgetting that plates have been readily available for thousands of years. Jai Evans, who came up with the idea, claims it has been "one of the most successful gigs of his career."

The Ernies have a serious objective, to fight sexism and misogyny in Australia, but the awards night wouldn't work if we didn't have fun doing it. We make a lot of noise because we want to be heard. And we will be.

Hot contenders for the 2015 Ernies (so far):

Tony Abbott, when asked to nominate his biggest achievement as Minister for Women, chose "repeal of the carbon tax"

Tony Abbott for spending International Women's Day at a local fire station receiving an award for his volunteer service.

Malcolm Turnbull for patronizing advice to Emma Alberici and Leigh Sales that "a more effective interviewing style is one that is less aggressive and more forensic".

The Queensland Liberal National Party holding their International Women's Day function in the male members-only Tattersall's Club in Brisbane.

Scott Morrison for accusing new mothers of "double dipping" and committing "a fraud" on the Paid Parental Leave scheme (on Mothers' Day).

@RealMarkLatham tweeting "@RosieBatty1 Australian of the Year dividing the nation on the basis of gender. You owe my wife daughter and mother a massive apology."

Mark Latham for calling Julia Gillard "an agony aunt for a generation of Australian women in comfortable shoes"

Andrew Hastie for many photos of himself and constituents on the front pages of his election brochure but no women at all.

Cruise Bar for organizing a function which featured naked women as the fruit platters

Football Federation Australia for paying the Matildas $21,000 per annum and not providing any maternity leave

Nick Kyrgios for "Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend, sorry to tell you that mate"

Former Australian wicket keeper Ian Healy for blaming the Australian cricket team's WAGs for their disastrous test performance.

Former AFL star Graham Cornes for his comment on top level women AFL players "It just does not look right, perhaps it was the outfits…not particularly flattering…most of them looked like girls playing football. Boobs and all"

Merv Hughes on I'm a Celebrity…"Sit down, woman, shut up or I'll chop your head off with this machete"

Russell Crowe for offering advice to older women who say they are not taken seriously by Hollywood "the woman who is saying that …is the woman who at 40, 45, 48 still wants to play the ingénue, and can't understand why she's not being cast as the 21 year old."

Rolf Harris for writing a song in jail, mocking his female victims as "money grubbing worms"

Rev Fred Nile MLC for referring to childcare centres as "day orphanages"

Tim Blair for coining the moniker "Cankles McBabystopper" for Fairfax columnist Clementine Ford

The Australian for their obituary of Colleen McCullough which began "Plain of feature and certainly overweight…"

Rupert Murdoch tweeting "Tough to write but if he (Abbott) won't replace top aide Peta Credlin she must do her patriotic duty and resign".

Steve Price for tweeting with disapproval "Discreet public breast feeding no drama but walking through Qantas Domestic!!!"

Wyatt Roy for posting a photo of himself on twitter with his arms around two shapely grid girls at a Supercars promotion.

Mathias Cormann calling Bill Shorten "an economic girly man"

NT Attorney General John Elferink told Labor MP Natasha Fyles he was "really tempted to give her a slap right now, figuratively speaking".



This year's Ernie Awards will be held at Parliament House, Sydney on Thursday 24 September. To subscribe to the Ernies mailing list, and receive an invitation to next year's awards, visit ernies.com.au.

