The ‘Glitter Boobs’ story from the Gisborne ‘Rhythm and Vines’ music festival has been an international hit and our NZ Herald has published numerous articles on it, giving uncritical voice to Madeline Anello-Kitzmiller, Kiri-Ann Hatfield and Katie Ashworth and misrepresenting the events significantly. A bystander’s video recording showed Anello-Kitzmiller walking through the crowd with her bare breasts having been decorated around the nipples with glittery body paint when a man runs up behind her and apparently touches her. The exact nature of the touching is unclear but it was very quick and did not look as though he “grabbed at her” or “grabbed her breast” as claimed by the Herald. It wasn’t even clear whether there had been any contact with the breast, and looked more like a quick, light touch done playfully.

Of course, touching someone without their consent can amount to assault and the women are entitled to object to this. However, in none of the coverage we read was there any criticism of the women’s reaction. Anello-Kitzmiller and Hatfield ran after the man, struck him four times around the head and poured something over his head. The Herald claimed that Anello-Kitzmiller ‘slapped’ the man but that misrepresented the violent nature of her assault. It was retributive violence but the women and their supporters including the Herald appear to believe such violence was perfectly ok. What a blatant example of femaleist self-entitlement and hypocrisy!

The women have since been indignantly vocal in the media and have now announced an Auckland march in support of women’s right to not be touched regardless of their dress and presentation.

Even if one were to accept that breast decoration and display are women’s fundamental right without any responsibility for tempting or provoking alcohol-disinhibited males, there is no way that these women’s retributive violence was legal or acceptable. The violence was not in self-defence. The violence was deliberate and intended to harm whereas the man’s (presumed) breast-touching appeared to be playful and without malice. The women were entitled to call the police to deal with the man’s alleged assault, but it was their responsibility as for any of us to remain within the law and to leave violent punishment to the police and Courts.

Imagine if a woman playfully touched a man who was parading himself and drawing attention to his body. Imagine then that the man and his male friend chased the woman, struck her around the head four times and poured a drink over her. We could expect the Herald to publish a series of articles condemning male violence, the White Fibbers would be marching in support of the female victim, and the police would probably mount prosecution of the males on the basis of the published video of the event. The woman’s playful touching would be seen as trivial and irrelevant. But when the gender tables are turned it’s the man’s playful touching that is treated as the only issue and the women’s retributive violence is treated as acceptable to the point of irrelevance.

Imagine if the police attended a domestic incident in which a woman had briefly, playfully touched her male partner and he had responded by striking her around the head four times and throwing a drink over her head! Would police ignore his violence and order her out of the house for her ‘assault’? Yeah right.

We encourage aware men and women to attend the proposed march with placards such as ‘Retributive Violence is Not OK’, ‘Violence by Women is NOT OK’, ‘Glitter Breast Hypocrisy’, or other relevant slogans. It’s important the public realise that we’re not all so gullible. Some international objection has already arisen to the march, dismissed as ‘trolling’ by our femaleist Herald. When anyone finds out the date and place of the proposed march, please alert us.