For Albanese, joining a global atrocity is far less “difficult” than Grace Tame

Lack of widespread accountability has always protected horrible men. This layer of protection has lasted so long and grown so solid within our society that the men who abuse it have also become emboldened by it. It has shaped the world we live in. Political systems, education, money, government, entertainment, sport and the black engine of modern capitalism are all fuelled by it. 

It’s been part of our lives for so long that the majority of humans barely notice when its cage is rattled by those who fight against the apathy which allows it to thrive. But occasionally this happens. When people like women’s safety advocate and Australian of the Year Grace Tame fight against it, society revolts with online abuse and media smear campaigns which cause more long-term harm to how we live our lives rather than any attempt at proper solutions or even the admittance that a problem exists in the first place. Despite Tame’s energy and drive, which would be enough to power a small city, this patriarchal system remains steadfast. 

Yet every so often, a sequence of events falls into place which peels back this grimy film of indifference to expose the immediate priorities of these men. It’s not typically caused by the irreversible monsters which are destined for the bowels of hell but rather the fools that blindly follow them. Men like Anthony Albanese.

It’s 11:30am on 25th February and Anthony Albanese calls Grace Tame ‘difficult’.

News Corp’s Melbourne tabloid, the Herald Sun, held what it called the ‘Future Victoria Summit’ at Crown Hotel and Casino. At $250 per ticket, attendees were treated to Prime Minister Albanese engaging in a cheap word game on stage, among other things. The host and purveyor of the game was Sam Weir, who since 2019 has overseen the Herald Sun newspaper as editor, including being the custodian of the ‘Dictator Dan’ era of their coverage concerning former Victorian premier Dan Andrews’ managing of the Covid-19 crisis.

The game was simple. A one word response to a quick-fire question. Albanese played along. Donald Trump? President. Angus Taylor? Leader. Oscar Piastri? Winner. Grace Tame? Difficult. 

What is difficult is to imagine a scenario in which anyone’s brain would produce this word to describe Grace Tame that didn’t involve them being complicit with the system that condemns women who speak up. 

The backlash to his answer was understandably swift. Calling a woman ‘difficult’ has such deep roots in misogyny that they started growing long before any of us, including the Prime Minister, were born. 

Champion. Inspiring. Seminal. Catalyst. Cool as all hell. Those are more accurate words that Albanese could have used when describing Grace Tame. Faced with a nasty tabloid asking questions within a male-dominated media system, is it understandable that our Prime Minister came up with the response that he did? The answer is still no. 

Albanese could have taken a few extra seconds to come up with some alternatives but as the following days proved, time has a funny way of making fools of us all.

It’s 11:26am on 26th February and Anthony Albanese offers an ‘apology’. 

There was no strategy in place. No set announcement, media response or political spin doctor rushing from place to place to quickly attempt a photo op with Tame to smooth things over. It took a full 24 hours before Albanese was randomly asked by an ABC reporter about his comment.

It also wasn’t really an apology but rather one of those reliable ‘sorry if you took it the wrong way’ remarks that have the smell of saying sorry but the longer your sniff, the more your stomach turns.

He had no plan to apologise. It just happened because someone stuck a microphone in his face. This suggests that he believed he didn’t do anything wrong when he summed up a strong woman as ‘difficult’. Logic would indicate that surely somewhere in his mind, he knew he’d made a mistake immediately after saying it, but his actions for an entire day afterwards don’t support such a theory.

It’s 6:30pm (AEST) on 28th February and Donald Trump declares war on Iran.

Donald Trump is a feral animal, broken free of any leash. The only reason he continues to acquire money and power is due to those who support or excuse him. And it’s been this way since the 1980s. 

Receiving unequivocal support and praise on more than one occasion from Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, went a long way in Trump’s goldfish-like mind. Even to the point of teaming up to drop bombs on Iran. 

Dressed in his best ‘USA’ baseball cap, Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social that ‘combat operations’ were underway against Iran for the purpose of destroying their ballistic missile program. Or bring peace to the region. Or prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. Or stop an imminent threat to America. Or free the Iranian people. As of this writing, nobody has clearly defined that part.

Granted, all these supplemental attempts at reasons for murdering over 1000 people, including 165 schoolchildren, came after the fact. He later dubbed the operation MIGA (Make Iran Great Again) because one of the hallmarks of the undeveloped mind is bull-headed repetition.

It’s 8:34pm on 28th February and Anthony Albanese announces his support for Trump’s war.

Despite the fuzzy logic of attacking Iranian soil, it only took two hours after Trump’s announcement before Prime Minister Albanese was totally on board. It was similar to his support of US strikes in June of last year, but this was different. Albanese knew nothing of Trump’s announcement, his military plan or the locations of missile targets, and yet our Prime Minister raced to make a formal announcement that he agreed with whatever Trump was doing in less time than it takes to watch three episodes of Heated Rivalry.

Albanese has form in this regard. In October last year, he visited the White House to celebrate the final agreement on AUKUS. As a cherry on top, Albanese gifted Trump a model submarine, plated in the President’s favourite metal of all, gold. In return, the President gave the Prime Minister some Trump-branded stationery. This appeasement of a madman and fear-based exchange would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. 

Two hours to blindly support a psychopath but twenty-four hours to apologise to a woman. A stark juxtaposition which exposes the dread of retaliation versus the apathy towards accountability. Albanese’s deliberate choices and lack of responsibility have resulted in more online abuse for Grace Tame, more fear of America’s actions and our complicity in them, and more reminders that no matter how much progress is made in the battle against systemic misogyny, it only takes a one word response in a tabloid game to bring it back into the national spotlight.

When Albanese made his ‘apology’, any attention paid to his location at the time was completely ignored. The media didn’t care that he was at the Evoca Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain Clinic in Werribee, Victoria. The purpose of his visit was to promote the Labor Party’s initiative to open 30 new pain clinics and introduce more affordable medicine for women. But ironically, like society’s view of endometriosis itself, most people didn’t even see it, much less cared. And the only person the Prime Minister has to blame for that is himself.

Despite the protective nature of this system which men of power have built for themselves, the effects of its abuse don’t go away. Especially when it can be boiled down to a single word. Knowing our leaders will always be terrified of Trump is difficult. Watching parents mourn their carpet-bombed children is difficult. Navigating societal systems that rely on misogyny is difficult. Reading about golden gifts being given to tyrants while struggling to pay your own bills is difficult. Teaching our kids to be responsible for their bad behaviour while grown men flaunt the exact opposite is difficult. On the other hand, recognising cowardice is the easiest thing in the world.