Takin' our jerbs.

Outspoken media personality Sir Robert Jones said he believed a “lesbian takeover” was behind a new law requiring a court jury foreman to instead be called a foreperson.

That’s interesting.

And by “interesting” I mean, “At best misogynistic, and at worst batshit insane.”

It’s very obvious that the female gender gets the short end of the stick with regards to language use in contemporary NZ culture. Men say things like “That’s a bit of a girly drink”. People are told to “Quit your bitching.”. Sports figures “Throw like a girl”. And so on, and so on.

“Foreman” isn’t as bad as the explicitly negative comparisons I’ve just listed, but it does still clearly contain an inherent bias. Of COURSE the person fronting for the jury is a MAN! One could hardly trust a woman to do the job!

I’m not excluding myself from this gripe, by the way. I’m as bad as anyone at using language in this manner, but at least I’m aware of it, and I try my best not to be a complete pillock with regards to matters of gender bias.

I’m certainly rather shocked that anyone in the 21st century could seriously see an attempt to neutralize this kind of male skew, especially in the language of law, as a “lesbian takeover”.