Jones pays the Price
AS controversy continues to surround broadcaster Alan Jones, the Jewish woman behind a Facebook page, set up in response to comments he made in August, says her resolve in standing up for women’s rights remains “utterly steely”.
AS controversy continues to surround broadcaster Alan Jones, the Jewish woman behind a Facebook page, set up in response to comments he made in August, says her resolve in standing up for women’s rights remains “utterly steely”.
Journalist and academic Jenna Price is the co-founder of the page “Destroy the Joint”, named in reference to Jones’ assertion on August 31 that female politicians were “destroying the joint”.
After recent comments by Jones that Julia Gillard’s father had “died of shame”, the page has garnered unprecedented media attention. The page has 17,000 likes so far.
Critics have called the online campaigns against Jones a witch hunt. 2GB’s Chris Smith accused Price of inciting, rather than fighting, hate. She has also been subjected to abusive emails and tweets.
But the mother of three remained resolute when she spoke to The AJN.
“My resolve is utterly steely,” she said. “Women are sick of walking down the street and having someone talk about their fat arse, or whether they want a shag.”
Price has maintained that the issue of the treatment of women is the central theme of the Facebook page, the seeds of which were actually sown two years ago at a feminist conference.
“People were saying, ‘I wish there was a central place where we could talk about women’s rights and issues and how women are demeaned in public,’” she said.
She maintains the Facebook page is not a witch hunt, rather a “hate hunt”.
“We have laws governing speech in this country,” she said. “We have defamation laws, we have libel laws, we have vilification and harassment regulation; so there’s already a whole lot of stuff in place that says you can’t say whatever the hell you like.”
GARETH NARUNSKY
“Destroy the Joint” co-founder Jenna Price.
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