I thought this was the season to be merry, not the season to sharpen your claws.
If you’ve scoured the Instagram accounts of some of the most followed women in Australia right now, you’ll notice that there are flights of cats galore.
Whether it’s Abbie Chatfield calling out misogyny, Roxy trying to stay relevant, Laura Byrne jumping on the bandwagon, Em Rusciano applauding Meshel Laurie… it all comes down to the gram.
Jana Hocking says the fight between Abbie Chatfield and Brittany Hockley is a good thing and that online ‘boxing matches’ are a sign of bravery.
Abbie, 27, lashed out on Tuesday after learning that Brittany, who replaces Jackie ‘O’ Henderson on The Kyle and Jackie O Show, had joked about her love life while interviewing American rapper Yung Gravy.
Now listen, I’m not going to lie, I’m making popcorn and making sure I have a front row seat because I live for the drama, I live for it.
But it wasn’t until I heard a bunch of men laughing about it, one of them exclaiming ‘mobody hates a woman like a woman’ that I stopped and thought ‘wait… are we embarrassing ourselves here? Do we live up to the widely held belief that women can’t get along? Are we really constantly trying to bring each other down?’
Later that day, during a WhatsApp group chat, my friends and I were discussing the Brittany vs. Abbie fight, and a girlfriend said, ‘I just hate that it’s a woman against a woman. We shouldn’t go for each other’s throats’ and at first I agreed, but then I thought about it, and they were both wrong.
You see, never before have we seen so many strong and fierce women take such a strong stand for something they believe in, and better yet, not back down.
While host Kyle Sandilands led the conversation, Abbie said Brittany was complicit in her ‘misogyny’ by staying silent.
It’s bringing misogyny to the forefront, it’s calling attention to whore-shaming, it’s making people reevaluate their values. It certainly makes me wonder if it’s time to update my beliefs. In 2023, should I really laugh when a radio host makes a sexist joke?
When I first saw Abbie walk away after finding out she’d been slut-shamed in a public forum, I thought ‘preaching sis’ because slut-shaming is my absolute hate.
When Brittany re-evaluated the segment and was brave enough to publicly apologize and admit she was wrong, I thought, yeah, that’s how you accept responsibility for the role you played in it.
Watching someone be brave enough to smack him on the chin and talk takes big lady balls.
And while we may not be seeing the full effect right now, I think a good old-fashioned fight is actually therapeutic. Clearly, something has been bubbling under the surface.
Whether it’s Abbie scoffing at constantly being called a shameless for living her best life, or Laura getting annoyed at the amount of hate directed at her best friend, both have a right to speak up and both have good points.
No kidding, if you were keeping count, it would be hard to count.
So while it may seem like a game of tennis right now, with each camp throwing a new replica over the other side of the net, what they’re really doing is airing it all out. Ventilate girls, ventilate!
It’s one thing to say things behind someone’s back, but here are grown women saying straight up ‘Hey, I have a problem with you, and here’s why.’
While the man has gone eerily quiet on this one, the women are talking. I call it brave.
Plus, the endorphins you get from shredding it all can’t be replaced. I had a verbal disagreement earlier this year with a friend who I felt had been bugging me for months. I completely lost my cool.
There was swearing, stomping, and a very good shouting match. I realized that she had been building up all this anger for so long, and when she finally reached her capacity, I had to let her out.
Laura Byrne (right), co-host of the popular Life Uncut podcast with Brittany (left), called Abbie a hypocrite for speaking out about her best friend’s allegedly misogynistic behavior, only to be announced as the host of a troubled new dating show just two days after. later.
Jana says the dispute has highlighted misogyny, denounced slut-shaming and caused people to reevaluate their values.
Now I’m sure there are much better ways to express yourself than yelling ‘Fuck you’ but my gosh, I felt better once I let it all out.
It took a couple of weeks, but once we both calmed down, we were able to talk openly and honestly about how we were feeling and figure out what was really going on. In fact, we laughed a lot about it. Was it fun at the time? No. Am I glad I got it all out? Yes.
So yeah, our Instagram looks a bit like a boxing match right now, but it does make us think more deeply about the subtle ways we shame each other, or wonder if we might be holding onto some really misogynistic undertones. old, so That can’t be bad, right?
Fight girls, address everything that has clearly been bothering you, and then go away and think hard like I did. Did your opponent make some good points? Are we learning as we go? Are we allowing people to fill up and own their oopsy daisys? It would not be nice to see this end in a hug and a white flag.
Here is hope.