Clementine Ford slams man for stealing a woman’s moment after he proposes at uni graduation ceremony
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Australian man comes under fire for proposing to his girlfriend at her graduation ceremony as the university is forced to issue a slavish apology for letting it happen: “Stop stealing women’s moments”
- Feminist Clementine Ford said the proposal was not romantic but ‘captivating’
- Video shows man proposing at a La Trobe University graduation ceremony
- The woman had just received her degree when her partner stopped her on stage.
- Ford said the man stole the woman’s achievement and made it all over him.
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An Australian man has come under fire for making his girlfriend’s graduation ceremony “about him” by kneeling as she accepted her degree, prompting a humiliating apology from the university.
Outspoken feminist commentator Clementine Ford slammed the would-be fiancé for “making everything about him” after video of the moment surfaced during a recent graduation ceremony at La Trobe University in Melbourne.
The man is heard telling his girlfriend, “Stay here… I love you with all my heart” before getting down on one knee and proposing.
But the sweet moment didn’t impress Ms Ford, who called the gesture “entrapment” in a Facebook video on Friday.
He sarcastically noted that the proposal would remind the woman that her achievements will never compete with the “greatest achievement of all: getting a man and a ring.”
Clementine Ford (left) slammed a man for “stealing a woman’s moment” after video surfaced of him proposing to his girlfriend while onstage at her college graduation ceremony (right)
She called on men to stop creating female empowerment moments about them and allow women to be ‘brilliant without you’.
‘Stop stealing women’s moments. They don’t belong to you. They are not yours to have,” said Ms. Ford.
‘That is his moment, he has graduated. We don’t know in what conditions she went to university, we don’t know how difficult it was for her, but she did it alone.
‘Why do men look at situations where women have achieved something for themselves, where they are about to receive praise and admiration… and think, ‘you know what? I’m going to make this moment about me. I’m going to make her remember, always, that the day she graduated was the day she proposed to her. That was the most important thing that happened to her that day.”
He also called out audience members who applauded during the proposal, claiming they were giving themselves to ‘property samples’.
The outspoken feminist author claimed the gesture was not romantic but “getting” and said the moment became “the greatest achievement of all: getting a man and a ring.”
La Trobe University faced backlash and has since removed the video and apologized for its misjudgment.
“We made an error in judgment today,” the university commented on Ms Ford’s Facebook post.
“Our graduation ceremonies are all about celebrating student achievement, and this event detracted from that important recognition of our students’ success.”
Ms Ford’s video has garnered more than 1,300 comments, with many users upset by the public proposal.
‘This annoys me so much!!!! I worked hard to get my degrees and if my partner did this I would be furious. And the relationship would end,” wrote one user.
‘This makes me unreasonably angry, especially for her. I hope he gets his PhD, is very successful, makes tons of money and he ends up in his mom’s basement,” another commented.
A third chimed in: ‘Watching men do this sort of thing infuriates me. They feel so threatened by a woman’s achievements that they feel the need to photograph the moment. He’s weak and pathetic.
La Trobe University has since removed the video from its TikTok account and apologized for its “misjudgment.”