A Brisbane woman has shared some pretty shocking footage of the sexist verbal abuse she faced while watching yesterday’s fight between Manny Pacquiao and Jeff Horn at Suncorp Stadium.
Journalist Tegan George shared a short clip on Twitter, featuring a man in the stands who can be heard saying “come on bitch, fuck off away from me, will ya?”
George asked if the man spoke to all women like that, to which the man replied “no, only c*nts like you.”
On Twitter, George wrote
“never have I or my sports loving girl friends been so badly abused & sexually harassed. Went on for hours.”
She claims that short clip represented only a small fraction of the abuse faced during the bout, which was also directed at two other female friends in attendance.
Journo Clare Barnes, who was also present, wrote on Twitter that “I can honestly say I’ve never experienced something so disgusting.
“It was so confronting to see first hand that this still happens today.”
Speaking to The Brisbane Times, George’s friend Sally said “every girl is used to a bit of a wolf-whistle, or a bit of a comment here or there.
“But what happened to us this afternoon is well beyond that.”
She said “we weren’t engaging with them, we weren’t fighting with them in any way.
“We tried to defuse the situation and make it OK… And it kept escalating, it wasn’t us talking to them, it was us ignoring them and them upping the vulgarity of the comments.”
After that torrent of abuse, Sally was able to find police officers at the stadium, who removed two of the men from the stadium.
However, she says “what was most shocking about the whole scenario [was] the fact that nobody said anything.”
Drawing attention to the way others around her responded, Sally asked “how much are we supposed to put up with? How much is supposed to be the ‘cool girl’, how much is supposed to be relaxed?”
Twitter users have praised George for publicly calling out the man and his seriously repugnant comments.
PEDESTRIAN.TV has reached out to Suncorp Stadium regarding information on any possible further actions against the man shown in the video.
Source: Brisbane Times / News.com.au.
Photo: Tegan George / Twitter.
