KEY POINTS:
They have spent years trying to shrug off the ocker stereotypes of Barry McKenzie and Sir Les Patterson but a book out this week suggests that many Australian men remain knuckle-dragging Neanderthals in their attitudes towards women.
The book, subtitled 1,000 terrible things Australian men have said about
women, is a blow to the idea that the home of Crocodile Dundee is now populated by latte-sipping metrosexuals and Sensitive New Age Guys, or SNAGs.
Described by its authors as a "portfolio of piggery", it is an anthology of insults and put-downs compiled from more than a decade of Australian public life.
The book is the culmination of a tongue-in-cheek contest started in 1993, when a group of women gathered in Sydney to celebrate the retirement of a notoriously sexist trade union official named Ernie.
The gathering grew to become the annual Ernie Awards, "the world's premier event shaming men for outrageous sexism."
It was organised by academic Meredith Burgmann, a former president of the New South Wales Legislative Council, and a colleague, Dr Yvette Andrews.
Each year they would arrange a dinner at which hundreds of women would voice their outrage at sexist remarks.
Packed with ignorant and insensitive remarks about women, The Ernies Book includes quotes from sportsmen, politicians, businessmen and journalists. "If it weren't so serious, you'd have to laugh," said publishers Allen and Unwin.
A Kiwi quoted in the book, former All Black Eric Rush, captures the flavour of the tome with his observation that: "In the old days, you were a good guy if you lifted your feet when she was vacuuming."
But fellow New Zealander Russell Crowe rates a positive mention with a "Good Ernies" nomination for banning cheerleaders from South Sydney Rabbitoh games: t"Cheerleaders make women uncomfortable and blokes who take their kids to the football also uncomfortable. We felt we didn't need cheerleaders and would like them replaced with a group of drummers, male and female."
Actor Mel Gibson is included for barking at a female police officer: "What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?" during an anti-Semitic rant last year.
Among last year's winners of the Ernies Awards was P&O Cruises for producing an advertisement with the words "Seamen wanted" above a photograph of sun-oiled, bikini-clad women.
A government MP, Bill Heffernan, took out the political award for calling Julia Gillard, the unmarried, childless deputy leader of the opposition Labour Party "deliberately barren."
In 2002 the Gold Ernie was won by the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, who said abortion was a worse moral scandal than sexual abuse by priests.
LIVING UP TO THE STEREOTYPE
Government minister Joe Hockey on the trials of pregnancy for men:
Well, it's exhausting for me, her being pregnant. I don't know why, during the birth process they only focus on the women. What about the men standing there? I mean, that's pretty hard. Well, as long as they get the cricket in the hospital.
A male magistrate in New South Wales told a female defendant:
Come back when your IQ is as high as your skirt.
An Australian Olympic official said of televised beach volleyball:
You know, you see two girls in nice little bikini costumes flopping themselves around and that's good for television.
Former All Black Eric Rush:
In the old days, you were a good guy if you lifted your feet when she was vacuuming.
Nick Bideau, former trainer and boyfriend of Aboriginal Olympic sprinter Cathy Freeman:
I never turned away from Cathy. No matter how fat she was ...
