Failed Veitch hire shows Sky’s the limit on ignorance

Maybe it’s the time of year, when people’s brains switch off in advance of the holiday season, or maybe it was a stroke of sheer brilliance: appoint a man convicted of breaking his ex-wife’s back to a ‘‘hard-hitting, opinionled show’’ on Sky TV. Think of the ratings. Think of Tony Veitch. But don’t let’s think of what people might think.

Perhaps only a male could be responsible for such an idea, and only other males would have cheered when it ran up the corporate flagpole.

Currently so many men are being called out for abuse of women that they might have noticed, and wondered if domestic violence counted, but what offends women has always seemed trivial and silly, hasn’t it? And besides, this was in the realm of sport, where jocks rule.

They were serious. Astonishingly. And then suddenly they weren’t.

It fell to a woman – I’m tempted to say ‘‘of course’’ - to explain why Sky was reconsidering: ‘‘That’s a normal part of the process. And you do listen to your customers,’’ said spokeswoman Melodie Robinson, channelling Trump’s deadpan Sarah Huckabee. Nothing rattles her.

Sky had no ethical filter, then, but its viewers and advertisers did. It was White Ribbon Day only last Saturday, all about standing up against male violence, and internationally everyone but Sky had noted the series of prominent men in the media, politics and elsewhere, who’ve suddenly tumbled from power because women found a voice.

There are people who question why it took women so long to speak out against outrageous behaviour. They should look to Sky, which modelled such a dismissive attitude to domestic violence, and ask themselves if it would be a workplace for women to step forward in and expect to be heeded. And then they should multiply the answer by thousands.

Speaking out about abuse can more likely cost the complainant a job than their tormentor.

It’s a boy thing, and such a thing has led to extraordinary outcomes for Fox News, where female presenters have to wear short skirts, big hair and Barbie outfits, we now know why, to feed the fetishes of grubby old men and the prejudices of their traditional right-wing viewers.

It took scandals within that network to reveal that those women, subjected to degrading behaviour, had degrees from top universities.

There is a clear link between violence towards women and the sexual predation of women. Both spring from the same ancient, hostile place, where women are ogled, groped, disliked, and silenced when it matters.

Hillary Clinton faced venomous personalised attacks as a female presidential candidate, and it’s the same for the wonderful Mary Beard, the Cambridge Classics professor who fronts TV programmes and writes books about the ancient world. She is trolled with attacks on her genitalia, she reveals in her new book, Women and Power.

Women avoid Facebook for good reason.

I’m hopeful that the outing of so many distinguished men for their weird behaviour will prove the last roar of old white (mostly) men before they shuffle offstage. That would be nice.

In this country a splendid example of such a beast has turned up in the Waikato. Businessman Sir William Gallagher got carried away last Friday as he expanded on an antiquated, eccentric view of this country’s history in a talk to other businessmen.

Unlike Beard, his view was not burdened by facts as they can be demonstrated, more likely facts as he believed them to be regardless.

The Treaty of Waitangi was all nonsense, he declared, expanding on his talk later, and the Treaty documents displayed in Wellington were fraudulent.

‘‘There is no doubt [Maori] gave up sovereignty … and now we have these bloody reparations going on.’’ Oh dear, those rotten Maoris are so uppity.

Not everyone enjoyed his rambling view of race issues, but from the sound of it, it was a blast of a distant past when paternalism prevailed, along with arrogant European superiority, always magnified by wealth and a lack of serious reading.

My mother used to chortle over a faux Maori column in her local newspaper, supposedly penned by someone called Hori, that summed up that attitude.

We’ve learned better.

Sir William’s fortune was made from fencing, which seems apt for someone with a them-and-us attitude to race relations and a comic book view of history.

I’m thinking he should give Trump a call and offer his services.

They’d have a lot to commiserate about, what with those uppity Mexicans on the rampage too.