Fed: Sheikh takes out annual award for sexist comments

AAP General News (Australia)
08-12-2005
Fed: Sheikh takes out annual award for sexist comments

By Vera Devai

SYDNEY, Aug 12 AAP - It's the annual gong that's determined by how loud the crowd boos,
and there was plenty to boo about at this year's Ernie Awards.

Now in its 13th year, the Ernies are bestowed on those whose public utterings are regarded
as the most sexist.

Four hundred women who attended the gala event at NSW Parliament House last night decided
that comments by a Sydney sheikh, who said rape victims had only themselves to blame,
were outstandingly sexist.

The audience decided Sydney-born Sheikh Feiz Mohammad, of the Global Islamic Youth
Centre in Liverpool, should take out this year's top prizes, the Gold Ernie, and the Silver
Ernie.

The sheikh shot to notoriety after delivering a speech at the Bankstown Town Hall in
March, telling the audience a rape victim has "no one to blame but herself".

Women teased men and appealed to their "carnal nature" by the way they dressed in "nothing
but satanic skirts", the sheikh told the crowd.

NSW Legislative Council president and Ernies organiser, Meredith Burgmann, said the
sheikh was a worthy winner because "anything that suggests rape victims brought it on
themselves is always going to anger women greatly".

The most hostile response at the awards is often reserved for the winner of the Elaine
- the woman whose remarks were regarded as "the least helpful to the sisterhood".

This year the Elaine went to Australian author Colleen McCullough who, when commenting
on the Pitcairn Island rape trials, said: "They are as much Polynesian as anything. It's
Polynesian to break your girls in at 12."

Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson took out the political Ernie for his sarcastic
response to fears that university services might disappear under voluntary student unionism.

"If they can afford to pay their academics nine months' maternity leave and if child
care needs subsidising on campus, I would be most surprised if they weren't prepared to
subsidise that in some way," Dr Nelson said.

The justice Ernie went to the president of the NSW Bar Association, Ian Harrison, SC.

When cross examining a teenage girl who had allegedly been pack-raped, he suggested
that "to sit on a bar stool with a skirt as short as that takes a lot of confidence".

The Ernie Awards are named in honour of former Labor Council president Ernie Ecob,
who was known for his sexist remarks.

AAP ved/ka/oek/de

KEYWORD: ERNIE

2005 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.