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Australian Minister Calls Female Lawmaker 'Mr Speaker' 18 Times During Speech

A viral video of an Australian minister is being heavily criticised as the minister constantly misgenders female speaker in the parliament and calls her Mr Speaker.

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Avishka Tandon
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Australian Minister Misgenders Speaker
The incident happened during the speech of the opposition leader of Australia, Peter Dutton, in a recent Parliament session. The minister repeatedly misgendered Deputy Speaker Sharon Claydon and the video of the session and the speech is going viral on the web.
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Workplace misogyny is a common offence that every woman faces at least once in her life. The subtle jibes and jokes that are brushed off as light-hearted banter often sprouts from a fault in the patriarchal minds that knowingly or unknowingly come out of a male co-worker's mouth. A recent example of this was a video from a session of the Australian Parliament where a minister repeatedly addressed the female Deputy Speaker as 'Mr Speaker' in his speech.


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Australian Minister Misgenders Speaker

In the viral video, the leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton, can be seen addressing the Australian Parliament and while giving his speech he refers to female Deputy Speaker Sharon Claydon as 'Mr Speaker'. In one sentence, he uses the title three times despite the speaker correcting him constantly. Dutton is seen saying, "None worse, Mr Speaker, than this man over here. And Mr Speaker he is taking this government and our country down a dead end Mr Speaker." At this moment, the speaker interrupts and says, "Leader of the opposition, I'm just going to interrupt you. You continue to call me Mr Speaker and I have given it a long reign. You need to use my correct title and when you're referring to other members also."

The minister seems to realise his mistake and says, "That is a very valid point Madam deputy speaker and I'm sorry I haven't addressed you with the correct title". However, he again refers to her as Mr Speaker and does that repeatedly and we can hear her saying, "I am not Mr Speaker" which he completely ignored. At last, the Deputy Speaker says, "Time's up. I give the call to Prime Minister". The minister allegedly used the term 18 times during his speech and this act is being heavily criticised by the netizens.

A social media user commented, "If he can’t correct himself, how can he dream of running a country?!". Another one wrote, "He did it by purpose and reiterate it to show he’s above everything, a very common way sometimes for men to take away authority from you making notice that your position usually was covered by a man. I don’t think he would like to be called Ms. Opposition… so indeed it matters".

Australia workplace misogyny
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