This week, journalists across Belgrade and five other Serbian cities gathered to demand that Serbia’s defence minister resign for making a sexist remark. The protests were sparked at a press conference two weeks ago – a female journalist crouched to stay out of camera view and Bratislav Gasic thought it opportune to remark “I love it when female journalists kneel so easily”.

In the face of outrage, Serbia’s prime minister has promised to dismiss him, but with that dismissal not forthcoming, a furious press corps hit the streets, holding signs that declared “Journalists Do Not Kneel”.

Sexist garbage like that uttered by Gasic was once a privilege of male social entitlement all over the world, and passed wholly unremarked. But a global feminist movement that can now see its own vastness through access to social media has mobilised impressive denouncements of those still grasping for the privilege of old inequalities.

The protests in Serbia are but the symbolic December conclusion to a worldwide year of sexist jerkery, and the rage spawned in its wake.

JANUARY

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The year began in sport, with the humiliating treatment of Canada’s highest-ever ranked tennis player, Eugenie Bouchard, at the Australian Open. The 20-year-old former Wimbledon finalist had just crushed Dutch opponent Kiki Bertens in a straight-sets victory, 6-0, 6-3. Yet the attributes of raw strength, tactical mastery and athleticism required for such a victory went curiously uncelebrated in her post-match interview, when male commentator, Ian Cohen, asked the world No7 “Can you give us a twirl?”

“A twirl?” She replied.

“A twirl, like a pirouette, here you go,” urged Cohen, indicating her tennis skirt.

The Guardian reported: “Somewhat uncomfortably, the No7-ranked player did as she was asked, then laughed and buried her face in her hands.”

FEBRUARY

February saw controversy sparked by the release in Australia of the BDSM-lite pornette movie, Fifty Shades of Grey. The story of an innocent and inexperienced young woman who is sexually manipulated and abused by powerful man had already provoked comment around the world, with Irish feminist Emer O’Toole inspired to rethink her sexual practices in the wake of the mainstreaming of BDSM and a horrific local femicide. In Glasgow, a bar was roundly criticised for celebrating the film’s release with a free roll of duct tape given away with every sold pint (“that’ll shut her up!”).

The issue in Australia was even less well-handled. The White Ribbon campaign to end violence against women was already having a problematic February; campaign “ambassador” Tanveer Ahmed announced in the Australian that feminism itself was limiting the effectiveness of anti-violence campaigns because it was a “cult of victimhood” focused on “male villainy”. In that context, the eager White Ribbon beavers who’d planned a fundraising screening of Fifty Shades of Grey as a “great conversation starter” to talk about violence against women sensibly decided to cancel.

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MARCH

Sport, again - and March was an unhappy month for the world’s female football fans. It wasn’t only that an Indonesian clothing company saw fit to label some of its sports shirts for the Super League football team Pusamania Borneo with the washing instruction “Give this shirt to a woman. It’s her job”. It was the news that British soldiers had shouted sexist abuse at women playing in a football international between England and Australia near a military base in Cyprus, and it was the revelation of an ongoing pay-gap that sees female professional footballers paid a mere third of their male counterparts.

APRIL

April was the month for a sexist controversy in science. A postdoctoral researcher spoke out when an anonymous peer reviewer for a science journal questioned the contents of her and a co-writer’s research with the suggestion that they should have recruited a male author to ensure its data was correctly interpreted.

The journal apologised for the response, and also for an email to the authors that explained the grounds for rejection were “the qulaity [sic] of the manuscript is por [sic] issues on methodologies and presentation of resulst [sic]”.

The subject of the paper that received the criticism was - ahem - on “gender bias in science”.

MAY

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In May, it was the entertainment industry coming in for criticism over the dress policy enforced at the Cannes Film Festival. Despite denials from the Cannes organisers, reports continued to circulate that women in flats were turned away from Cannes premieres for failing the obligation to meet “evening dress” requirements – a particularly dark rejection, considering one of these women was an amputee. Cannes admission of Natalie Portman fronting in a see-through dress was, of course, no problem.



A greater problem for women in Hollywood was – again – a persisting gender pay gap, exposed by the infamous Sony Hack of 2014. That as late as October this year, actor Jennifer Lawrence was still publicly condemning it says much – as does the gendered expectations of behaviour around pay negotiation familiar to any industry. Hollywood Life reported Lawrence as saying the all-too-familiar:

“I would be lying if I didn’t say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight,” she explained. “I didn’t want to seem ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled.’ At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the internet and realised every man I was working with definitely didn’t worry about being ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled.’”

JUNE

And sexism in the entertainment industry continued into June – especially after actor Rose McGowan publicised on twitter the casting call of an upcoming Adam Sandler vehicle. Demands for “Wardrobe note: Black (or dark) form-fitting tank that shows off cleavage (push-up bras encouraged). And formfitting leggings or jeans. Nothing white” perhaps should have drawn professional condemnation of Sandler – but it was McGowan who was fired by her agent for revealing them.

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McGowan remained defiant, defending her right to an agenda: “You’re goddamn right I have an agenda,” she told Nylon, I have an agenda for people to be better humans.”

Her anger is understandable. Closer to home, the entertainment industry’s scrutiny of women’s bodies took one step closer to the laughable end of hysterical when Australian actor Caitlyn Stasey’s decision to post Instagram pics containing armpit hair became a news story.

But back to science: as women scientists the world were speaking up about ongoing industry sexism, into the maelstrom blundered the surprisingly hapless Nobel laureate, Tim Hunt. Perhaps he was joking about courting his eminent scientist (and feminist) wife when he quipped that men and women should occupy gender-separate laboratories because “you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you” – but the times were not ripe for such humour, and Hunt was forced to resign.

JULY

Over the course of the entire year, including their history-making progress into the finals rounds of the World Cup which officially finished in July – a greater progress than any male Australian team had ever made at international level – Australia’s Matildas were being shockingly underpaid. Receiving just $21,000-$23,000 a year for their work, a proposal to lift their income to a base level of only $33,000 a year was rejected as “unaffordable”. Industrial protest culminated in their cancellation of a US tour in September – quite understandably, given the number of similarly professional male footballers one expects would refuse to walk out on a pitch for less than $33,000 a game.





AUGUST

Bic, the pen manufacturer company that has previously disgraced itself by gendering the humble pen “for her”, further disgraced itself in August with a sexist campaign in South Africa, using Women’s Day to encourage pen-using business women to “act like a lady, think like a man” to empower themselves for success.

A better use for a Bic pen in August was perhaps considered by Megyn Kelly from Fox News, who had the temerity to ask Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump just why he has called women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals” in previous statements.



The Guardian reported: “Trump replied that he did not have time for “political correctness”, but then went after Kelly on rival network CNN. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”

SEPTEMBER

If Australian sexism has a federal parliamentary mascot, it’s surely George Christensen, the member for Dawson in Queensland. From a youthful past publishing quotes like “the truth is that women are bloody stupid” and publishing - only this year - cartoons depicting Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk naked, in September he somewhat unwisely chose to pick a fight with popular internet feminist commentator - and fellow Queenslander - Rebecca Shaw, choosing to attack her looks and choice of clothing. Her takedown response went viral, no doubt spurred by the consciences of her Northern compatriots, who heeded her advice to: “Think about the fact that for every second he is in office, and after almost every tweet he sends, he is reflecting poorly upon the rest of Queensland. And let’s face it, haven’t we suffered enough?

OCTOBER

The October preparation of a crew of female Russian cosmonauts for a space mission to the moon did not receive the celebration it should have. Before entering a simulated spaceship environment for eight days of seclusion, the crew of engineers and scientists preparing to pilot, you know, an actual space mission were forced to field questions from the press about how they’d manage their hair, makeup and absence of men on the craft.

Puzzled cosmonaut Anna Kussmaul responded: “We are doing work. When you’re doing your work, you don’t think about men and women.”

Yet the strange male obsession with female grooming habits continued the rarified space alien environment which is New South Wales politics, when the secretary to the premier, one Ray Williams, slammed plans to redress the discrepancies between the plush male bathrooms to the under-resourced female ones in the local parliament building – designed at a time when female participation in government was much smaller.

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“The Premier knows full well that if we were to give the women in parliament any more bathrooms, then we’re never going to get anything done in parliament,” said Williams, tenderly.

NOVEMBER

November was certainly the month where women not only fought back, but won. Oft-harassed Fairfax columnist Clementine Ford achieved an all-too-rare victory for online feminists when her reporting of a Meriton hotel group employee who called her a “slut” online resulted in his employer sacking him.

But the even sweeter victory was earlier in the month, when jockey Michelle Payne, the only female rider in the Melbourne Cup race, also won it. Payne’s glorious denunciation from the winner’s podium that the sexists who’d knocked her could “get stuffed” was a sunshine-bright defiance amid the enduring, misogynist gloom.

DECEMBER

And then December appeared, with the painful realisation that the achievements of Ford, Payne, feminism and, indeed, all women standing up to sexism, drew predictable criticism from male commentators for not being the right sort of feminists.

In a year of sexist jerkery, it was only to be - yawningly - expected.