A feminist takedown of Whale Oil
Whale Oil does it again. How many more times is he going to attack and discredit Tania Billingsley publicly? In a short blog published on Wednesday ‘Nothing to be sorry for‘ Whale Oil also known as Cameron Slater, is defending John Key in his refusal to say sorry personally to Tania for his fucking appalling handling of the Malaysian Diplomat case. Tania Billingsley reported to police in May of this year that diplomat Muhammed Rizalman followed her home, entered her house and then attempted to rape her.
Tania asked John Key for an apology as it was Murray McCully, John Key’s Minster for Foreign Affairs, who did not take the allegation seriously, allowing the diplomat to flee back to Malaysia. Although McCully could not have stopped the diplomat from going back to Malaysia without being in breach of international law, he could have asked the Indonesian government to wave diplomatic immunity. As RadioNZ reported Malaysia was prepared to waive his immunity, but still McCully failed to act. This inaction, as I have previously stated, is a classic example of our state system and how it views sexual crimes.
Cameron Slater sees no point in John Key apologizing personally to Tania. He wrote, “Tania Billingsley demanded an apology from John Key in her political hit job against the government, apparently he looked bored and that outraged her. She won’t be getting an apology from John Key though, and why should he?”
John Key said he would say sorry to Tania once he knew her name, he lied. If Key had said sorry it would mean he takes responsibility for governmental incompetency. Key apologizing to Tania would mean he admits to being wrong and behaving in ways that minimize rape and sexual assault, as Rape Crisis has said Key needs to take the case more seriously. When you minimize rape, when you do not take it seriously you trivialize, legitimize and normalize it.
In another blog published last week by Cameron Slater, ‘Tania Billingsley and the Green and Rape Crisis Fingerprints’ he not only denies the existence of rape culture in New Zealand when he said “I do not subscribe to the notion New Zealand has a culture of rape,” but also casts doubt over Billingsley’s alleged attack by the diplomat. This blog by Slater is an exercise in both victim blaming and rapist apologizing – all narratives that create rape culture; they are harmful and vilify the victim while pardoning the perpetrator. In his blog Slater effectively accuses Tania of baiting her attacker Muhammed Rizalman. Obviously, as women we like being raped so much we seduce our rapists into attacking us – this is victim blaming in the most disgusting sense. Slater mused,
‘Now, dear readers, what are the odds of a Malasian diplomat deciding to follow Tania home from a bus stop, apparently at random? What are the odds of him picking a woman that is befriended with and herself involved in women’s issues going back many years? What are the odds of him randomly standing there not touching her, then, backing off and waiting for police to arrive out in the street? What are the odds of Green MP Jan Logie getting involved, erm, randomly? What are the odds of a situation that has NONE of the hallmarks of an attempted rape, being shopped by TV3 as attempted rape and the label “Rape culture” being used to intimidate and shut up critics like ourselves lest we look insensitive to (real!) rape victims?’
Rape is fun “if you just ease into it and relax”. In Slater’s world Tania has an agenda – this agenda is pushing and proving the existence of rape culture and obviously, pegging an attempted rape on an unwitting diplomat is the perfect scenario to do just that. Slater’s “proof” behind his position is that Tania knows Tabby Besley, who has previously worked at Rape Prevention in Wellington. She also contacted green MP and women’s rights activist Jan Logie for support and has previously spoken out against rape culture. Yeah, that is all the evidence he has. Move aside Sherlock Holmes.
Whale Oil claiming Tania has an agenda and needed to come up with an explosive way of proving the existence of rape culture is ridiculous. What are the Roast Busters proof of, then? Are they just an aberration? An anomaly? A gang of young men getting underage girls drunk and having sex with them, then boasting about it in youtube videos and online? Elliot Rodger’s who is responsible for the Visa Isle massacre in America, in which he shot and stabbed 6 people because “dumb blonde sluts would not sleep with him” spoke of his sexual self-entitlement to women’s bodies in a youtube video and a manifesto before he committed the Massacre. Like Rodger’s the Roast Busters held the same ideologies and beliefs; they believed women owe men sex.
Soon after the explosive news of the Roast Busters broke, two other 16 year old boys in New Zealand unrelated to the Roaster Busters, were arrested and eventually convicted of the same thing; getting an underage girl drunk and then taking turns raping her. After the girl was abused by each teenager separately and left naked in a bedroom, she was further humiliated by a group who came in with their cell phones lit up and touched her. In America the Steubenville rape has been dubbed the Abu Ghraib of rape culture. Two all-star footballers took turns raping a young girl who was comatose from alcohol consumption while many young men watched. They made jokes at the victim’s expense, filmed and photographed the assault on their phones and later uploaded them to youtube.
These sexist and misogynistic beliefs held by Rodger’s and the men involved in the Staubenville rape are not just something that happen in far off countries, they are part of New Zealand culture; they are part of New Zealand rape culture. The Roast Busters and the two teenagers who raped a young girl are powerful evidence of this and I am not the only person who thinks so, thousands of people all over New Zealand took to the streets on the 16th of November of last year, to protest rape culture in the wake of the Roast Busters scandal.
John Key brushed off the actions of the Roast Busters by saying “these young guys just need to grow up” he may as well have said “boys will be boys” and be done with it – language which minimizes the actions of rapists is all part of rape culture.
If Tania needed evidence of rape culture, she already had it. Rape culture is all the things I have already spoken about; the minimizing of rape, victim blaming but it is also the daily catcalling by men of women on the street, it is the sexual objectification of women’s bodies and it is the denial of wide spread rape – something Slater seems so hell bent on doing.
Why would Tania need to create evidence of rape culture in New Zealand? When our own Prime Minister John Key has time and time again perpetuated rape culture himself. He has done this by his refusal to apologize to Tania, with his minimizing of the Roast Busters actions and his governments slashing of funding to services that support victims of sexual assault, just recently Christchurch’s only Rape Crisis Centre had to close due to lack of funding. As Tania said in an essay she wrote in relation to her attack and in response to the government handling of the case, “We have seen this rape culture reflected in our own government’s response to my assault.”
Cameron Slater’s blogs are rife with sexism, homophobia, racism and transphobia – recently he wrote about Kelly Ellis who is transgender and a Labour MP and made fun of her genitals and body shamed her. As Ellis said when I spoke to her, “This is just part of his [Slater’s] women-hating. He used me and my body to have a supposedly funny crack at gender equity within Labour’s caucus. His talk of my genitals is an attack on me and my privacy. No one should have to put up with that.” How low is Slater willing to go? Cameron Slater is not a journalist he is a conservative gossip columnist. His blog ‘Whale Oil Beef Hooked’ is the ‘News Weekly’ of the right wing. Denying the existence of rape culture may bring you comfort Mr. Slater but your comfort silences those who have survived sexual assault and rape.
This week Slater told Heather du Plessis-Allan of Seven Sharp that he talks with John Key all the time, after all best buds have to stick together. If anyone has an agenda here, it is Cameron Slater, and not Tania.
It surprises me that slater doesn’t get constant attacks on his website given the amount of hatred he generates
I intend to keep trying to take him down through my blogs I will do it with research, facts and the truth not malicious gossip and flawed arguments.
There was a DNS attack earlier this year which took it offline for a day or so.
Ordinary posters are unable to have much of an impact because any dissent is immediately shut down and the dissenting voice banned. Ironic that they should indulge in the very thing they pretend to abhor – censorship.
It’s impossible to verify if any of the posters on that website are real. For all we know it could just be whale oil and few mates posting under multiple names in the comment section.
They certainly sing off the same song sheet. A greater display of intolerant boganism I have not seen. Except on Kiwiblog.
it is probably heavily moderated.
He screens out anyone that looks or sounds threatening, not like TDB where anyone (even right-wing trolls) can make a comment. Real courageous, eh?
The views of yet another dangerous feminist, no doubt a confidant of the evil Logie. Slater will wipe the floor with the left this election, and he has not even brought out the big guns . . . cannot wait to see the massacre.
I would agree feminism is dangerous, which is why it threatens so many people
Oh those awful feminazis are at it again, and that Evil Logie. What a hoot some of the knuckle dragging males I call my fellow citizens are, I would hazard a guess that Slater has never wiped the floor with anything, that’s women’s work!
I’m sure he has.
IGM, another dangerous feminist? You sound quite frightened of the woman. Can’t wait to see what the unbigotted, unbiased, whaleblubber will make of the big guns, Greenwald and Kimdotcom when they fire the opening salvo of the war to rid our country of the lying, cheating, thieving, rape enabling KEYparty. Massacre is exactly what is going to happen. LANDSLIDE THE LEFT.
Dangerous feminists are my favourite kind.
@IGM – you obviously feel threatened! So much contempt for strong women it seems!
Geeze, you must lead a miserable life, with all that hatred & bigotry festering inside you.
Get over yourself for goodness sake!
Please do not feed the trolls.
You notice that the Nats have almost 20% here? Why do you think that is? Many I am sure are here to keep an eye on what is being said, just like a lot of our people keep an eye on Slater’s hateblog.
However, some will be here to troll. To “wind up the leftie commie faggots”, as I once heard it described. There is a group filled with hate and bile that are the same odious little people who perpetuate this rape culture. Don’t feed their egos by responding. Freud would have a lot to say about such people, as we all know!
A great article and thought provoking. I have two daughters here, and I want them to grow up as equal members of society, and not as sex objects, or future victims!
As for Kelly. She is fantastic! I consider her as one of our best Candidates for Parliament, and totally support her. Anyone who attacks the person rather than the policies has clearly not heard of “Vote Positive”. To me as a fellow Candidate, Vote Positive means play hard – Play fair. If the National Party pet hate monster refuses to do that, it says more about the loony right than it does about us, or about my good friend Kelly!
Keep up the bloody amazing work!
Simon – the more Nats read this blog, the better. Some of them may actually pause to think on what they see… (Fingers crossed.)
@Frank well I am now Whale Oils ‘Face of the Day’ so no doubt we will get some right wingers having a look at what I said about Cameron Slater. His ‘lover” wrote a rebuttal. Ok.
You are doing awesome stuff here Chloe.
Good to see you have rattled the blubberman!
Opinion.
Feeling threatened, IGM? You must be. After all, why is Chloe “dangerous” to you?
As for Slater’s “big guns”… Hmmm… compensating for something, IGM? (By the way, your use of pseudonym is noted. I wouldn’t put my name to garbage like that either.)
@IGM:
Obviously you are a supporter of rape and abuse, and the entire disgusting culture of it.
There could be no other reason why you would be scared of Chloe or her article here.
Interesting to know you are scared of feminists though. And remember IGM, feminist is a good word! How wonderful that men like you are scared of women who stand up for themselves.
Opinion.
It’s all very well the left bloc and the feminist movement having a voice here. Most that visit TDB are less than enamoured with National, Colin Craig and the mottley crew in terms of their misogynistic and homophobic messages and their hardened states of mind. There are a few Tories that visit here to vote in TDB poll, and to snipe at Frank and Bomber, but generally you are preaching to the converted, or those open-minded enough to agree.
With all due respect toTDB, how can your erudite message and analysis of the worsening attitudes to women get out to middle New Zealand?
When a rabid racist, homophobic, misogynistic nut like Slater can appear on Seven Sharp and be legitimised as a slighty gauche Key’s best mate, how does sanity and balance prevail? He’s ‘normalised’ by making it onto the screen at 7.00pm when dishes are being cleared and supervising homework happens. The content of his bilious diatribes and vitriolic monotribes should be R-rated and scheduled for 3.00am time slots when no-one is watching.
Suffragettes chained themselves to railings. There’s a Malaysian Embassy in Wellington at 10 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn. Chain yourselves to the railngs until Key apologises and/or Slater retracts.
Suffragettes carried posters. Start a Facebook page or send a captioned photo and see how far around the world the women’s network can get a picture of Slater (Key’s second best mate), with a relevant quote from from his blog?
The propaganda state we live in boils simple messages down to their essence and repeats them over and over. Hitler blamed the Jews for the Versailles Diktat. Cunliffe is not a man, or is whingey. I heard a Tory ring up Radiolive and say that he could understand Helen Clarke apoligising for being a man, but couldn’t understand why Cunliffe did.
The country that first gave women the vote on 8 September 1893 now has a more urgent deadline. 20th September. You need to get the powerfull message contained in your blog into the hearts and minds of every woman in the country.
The misogynistic attitudes that McCully, Key, Paul Henry and that hideous Slater espouse need to be outed and be in the minds of every woman as she enters the polling booth. Crystallise 1470 words of your excellent article down to a pithy ascerbic heading and 10 or 15 words that will stick in the minds of women everywhere.
Mobilise a sound-bite. Change got a black man eleced in the US, it can get an odious bunch of men-haters un-electable in New Zealand.
The regress in women’s rights, worsening attitudes to women and hopelessness for a better future for women hangs in the balance on 20th September. The choice is clear, but it needs simplyfing and repeated often and loud.
Cameron Slater? Who is cameron slater? What is whale oil? None of this is in my bookmark list.
Some group of people need to get off their backsides and actually DO something about this gross and disgusting sickness in our society – the rape culture that prevails unchecked.
All the reports that have come out of all the millions, and probably billions of dollars that have been paid to govt departments and ‘consultants’ for research into this matter of rape, haven’t managed to achieve anything. In fact, it’s getting worse!
This just proves that it’s not about money, or any reports that make it appear as if something is being done.
It’s about attitude, and a big change of attitude by EVERY NZer is what is needed.
We need to name and shame.
We need to hold the police, and our justice system accountable for not doing their job properly in this regard.
Women need to empower themselves and their children.
And every one of the hundreds and thousands of these victims in NZ need someone to hold their hand through it all.
Opinion and belief based on vast experience.
It isn’t a mystery, we need to vote out National, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party in 55 days.
Slater is what you are left with when you take the ‘journalist’ out of Gutter Journalist ……………… He’s just a gutter at a sewerage pond.
A conduit for filth and best buddy of john key.
Its hard to say who’s the most effluent 😉
Well said Chloe.
Thank you so very much for continuing to expend your energy to fight against rape culture in Aotearoa.
Sending you hugs and support.
Thank you.
I concur, Lara. Chloe has my respect for taking on these ‘issues’ – especially the country’s own Sultan of Sleaze, Cam Slater.
@frank well apparently his “lover” thinks she could take me in a physical fight. Ok. I think I annoyed her.
Oh gawd… Only in Whaleoil Land… *facepalm*
@lara thanks for your kind words hun, yeah well you know with people thinking rape culture does not even exist, the ignorance can get a bit frustrating.
Why so many negative votes against such a simple message from Lara.
Who are you dickheads?
because not everyone likes what I have to say, so they do not like people who support the things I speak on?
I <3 you Chloe, another excellent article/bog post.
Please replace the mainstream media, thanks in advance.
Hey beautiful lady thanks for your kind words and reading what I have to say <3 xxx
So SB whale oil’s “lover” is keen to for some kind of debate between me and her, no probs as I know you are reading these comments on here, I happy to meet up contact me via my FB, and we can have a conversation and “you can slay me” with your arguments about abortion being wrong and why rape culture does not exist.
Interesting post Chloe. You raise some valid points however, rather than wasting your time on a wannabe journalist who the NZ Press Council still refuses to grant access, I think you would have more success by focusing on the broader issue & just casting your net a little wider.
That said, calling Cameron a bigot & sexist does have some merit – his ever adoring wife claims he’s not because he supports Judith Collins as the next MP (I’m not sure that is a particularly convincing argument….!) and was all for marriage equality….yet has posted pictures of bikini clad girls with big boobs & guns & has been known to frequently use homophobic language to discredit someone he doesn’t like.
I have to say though that despite the many vile & cruel things he has posted online I am surprised he has come out & attacked Billingsely; he appeared to be very anti domestic violence & has even posted many attacks against a senior political figure in the National party accused of assaulting his wife (now ex wife……the man has got name suppression & I am just using the words printed in MSM).
So I wonder whether Cameron’s attack on Billingsley might fall into the same category as that where he blamed the West Coast car crash victim & labelled him feral….the kind where he turns into a rabid dog frothing about spilling all kinds of BS, realises he has committed a massive faux pas, a fuck up of gigantic proportions so tries to justify it by directing the blame elsewhere…..typical Thatcherism scapegoating actually (Falkland’s War)???
Further you will note by his wife’s post today & by the frequent comments made by his wee online besties that threatening to take him down just plays into his hands. He loves a good fight, whilst he calls himself a Christian he fights like anything but. He plays mean & dirty so such threats often just mean his comfortably rabid self & his most loyal parasitic wasps will turn on you & try & dig up anything and everything to discredit you….meanwhile his poor suffering (& perhaps seriously misguided) wife waits with baited breath as to whether yet another defamation suit is going to mean they struggle to pay their bills!
No, I reckon it is far better to let the foolish trip themselves up; with every so-called rise to the top there is almost always a massive fall & Cameron has been perched (albeit wobbly) on his self-inflated pedestal for far too long. After all, he genuinely thinks he was award the Canon award because of the brilliance of his blog & his superb journalistic prowess! 🙂
I think the best thing you can do is know your source – know for a fact that Tania was not the girl who cried wolf (the idea that this was some kind of leftwing conspiracy is not only lubricious but such an outrageous claim by Cameron) & continue to fight the good fight.
Keep highlighting examples of rape culture in our country (that young group of rapists is just a small group in a long awful history…..which sadly includes our own police force), keep promoting messages like that in the ‘Don’t be that guy’ campaign (e.g. just because she isn’t saying no, doesn’t mean she is saying yes etc) – see http://www.theviolencestopshere.ca/dbtg.php & celebrate the really good men we have in this world. Good men who understand there is no blurred lines with consent, who don’t have to ask commentators why EL James domestic abuse trilogy is fucked up (Cameron actually wrote a post feigning ignorance on the issue & his wife said it was fine, no issues of consent……Robin Thicke’s wife said the same about Blurred Lines too…..look how well that turned out…..!).
When you look for the good stuff, the positive stuff that can actually result in real change, you may be surprised who is also in your corner…..Rodney Hide is…..a man who Cameron loves to quote when it suits just the other day said:
“I have reluctantly concluded that New Zealand does suffer a rape culture. It’s not an “all men are rapists” and “I am sorry for being a man” type of thing. Rather, it’s the way men can commit sex crimes and get away with it. The system works to protect the privileged and powerful.”
Re the prominent New Zealander facing charges of indecent assault Hide also notes that “Our “prominent” New Zealander’s media mates rang journalists to minimise his offending. The spin was that the judge didn’t believe the woman and, sure, their mate had made a forceful pass, as he does, but not an assault. Yeah, right…..these are the enablers. They defend, minimise and excuse sex crimes.”
So focus on the real stuff, the real issues & the people that matter & just ignore Cameron…..don’t give his septic irrelevant crap any more oxygen and you may find he will eventually crawl back under the rock he came out of.
After all, everyone has a use by date.
P.s I meant ludicrous not lubricious – silly predictive text!
P.p.s may as well add to my already essay length comment…..Chloe I really wouldn’t bother engaging with the wife either as people believe what they want to believe (abortion aside since it is a question of personal values so no one can ever win that argument no matter how hard they try) & see what they want to see because it is our tendency as humans to hope that if we tell ourselves a lie for long enough it begins to look like the truth.
The wifey can defend her husband for the things he says or does (breaching name suppression amongst other things….people can insert what they like here! 😉 ) & argue there is no rape culture in NZ as much as she likes, but facts will always be facts.
Cameron loves to tell us how he is the disinfecting sunlight on whatever his pet cause is for the day so call his bluff; you be the sunlight and continue to say what you have been saying until something changes.
Remind us to not be complacent, to demand & expect more from the men in our lives. Remind us that rape is caused by rapists (predominantly men) – not short skirts, not leftwing associations, just rapists.
Continue telling us that men who say “……..“not all men” does not absolve [them] from the actions of other men. It does not mean [they] get to be excluded from the conversation. It does not mean [they] get a free pass to not give a shit”. Demand that men stand up for this issue as much as women. Demand they stand up for their grandmothers, mothers, sisters & daughters.
Keep telling us that we”have a massive problem as a society when a man apologising for the violence men commit against women causes more outcry and insult than the violence he is apologising for (incidentally it is ironic that Judith – our Justice Minister & the very reason why we should believe Cameron is not sexist – is posing in that selfie with Jamie Lee-Ross mocking Cunliffe for expressing shame at our domestic violence record….and at a boxing match no less….own goal anyone?).”
Even if poorly worded, the sentiment Cunliffe expressed was spot on.
So ignore the bullshit, ignore the noise & just continue encouraging women to stand up for themselves, to get them to make sure men especially treat them with the respect & dignity they deserve…..and encourage them to treat the men in their lives the same way.
Continue to demand men stand up and be real men……men who actually know the difference between appreciating a woman’s sensuality & misogyny…..who know yes means yes & no means no. Period.
It is ludicrous that a man who produces such simplistic and limited responses to events actually won an award for his blog this year (and last year too). He seems incapable of complex thought.
Actually, I just read his wikipedia and apparently he sees himself as sticking up for the “little guy”. Does he mean johnkey?