Catherine Deveny

So Catherine Deveny, a columnist for "The Age" got sacked this week for posting something on twitter. Sorry, should I say, because of the response created by her posting on twitter. I'm not saying I agree with what she said, about Bindi Irwin getting laid or about Roves new wife not dying, but really? What is wrong with this country. What is wrong with the media industry. If you don't like what she says, here's an idea... don't follow her on twitter? Don't look at her twitter? Don't read her column? But for gods sake, don't ruin it for the people that think she is funny and that she should be allowed to say whatever she wants, on her personal social networking sites. 


This is her response to the peoples responses. I think it's clever. 


Fellow Australians, if you are reading me now, it means I have been murdered.

It appears I've arrived. But where? In a country I didn't know existed, with a language I do not speak. No maps. And it appears I'm the tour guide.

So why do I do this? Why write?

I realised why at 4 o'clock the morning after this all happened, when I looked down at my seven-year-old son asleep in my arms, I do it for my children. For my three little boys.

So they can grow up being able to read the books they want to read and write the books they want to write. So they can say what they want to say and hear what they want to hear. So they can be equipped with the skills, knowledge and insight to assess the information and the source it's coming from and separate the man from the ball.

So they can grow up knowing that boys don't have to act like Sam Newman and marry a girl who looks like Livinia Nixon. So they can sing from their hearts and make mistakes and know they are not expected to be perfect but they are expected to try, to love and to stand for what they believe in. And have the guts to change their mind and admit they were wrong.

So they do not grow up in a world believing The Age is right, The Herald Sun is wrong, the ABC is full of communists and lesbians. Which it is, but that's beside the point. 

So I can show them how I wrote: 

• "I'd rather my children watch lesbians on television than Christians."

• "Tony Abbott is really keen on embryos but not so keen on them when they turn into brown people on boats." 

• "All children need is to know that they are loved and all they want is to see their parents trying, not all always succeeding but trying to get their sh*t together."

• "The Footy Show should be called Pigs In Suits. It's a morally bankrupt orgy of chauvinism that degrades the culture of football, alienates women and teaches boys that females are slaves, trophies or bitches. For any of you who have been surrounded by people laughing at this maggot thinking there's something wrong with you, there isn't. There's something wrong with them."

• "Of the last 69 opinion pieces published in The Age only 13 were written by women. And of those 13, four were from from abroad, and only four were opinions, the other five were 'sharing their experiences'." 

How I fought for public schools and public health, for Indigenous rights, the rights for same sex couples, the environment, society's appalling treatment of carers and the disabled. About natural birth and the dangerously high levels of caesarians because women are being manipulated, lied to and bullied at their most vulnerable by people they trust.

How I wrote about the confected outrage and hypocrisy after I dare question marriage, women who change their surnames when they marry, Two and a Half Men and a shopping centre called Chadstone.

And I could go on. Because I have written over 600 columns for The Age.

And done many other things. Stand up, radio, and public speaking. I am not two tweets. Nor am I a poster girl for atheism, a self-appointed spokesperson for the left or the voice of feminism. I am me. The girl from the wrong side of the tracks not playing the game and saying the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

I do it for my little boys. To make money to buy them pyjamas, lunch orders and pay for the school camps. And so I can make a living from what I love to do, and be able to do it from my home so when one of them is sick I can zip 'round the corner pick them up and bundle them into my arms and we can lie on the couch and so I can show them that women can speak their mind however they choose.

And if I am not there, their dad is. Because we have divided the paid work and domestic labor equally from the moment our first son was born.

The only thing I ever wanted to be remembered as is a good mum.

I'm tough but I'm heartbroken. Yeah, you heard me, heartbroken. I am not one-dimensional. And that has been my point all along. None of us are. Men are God, the Son of God, made in the image of God. Women are virgins. Or martyrs. Or whores.

I loved that paper and I loved the readers. For my beloved Age to drag my corpse through their paper for hits and circulation while I am on the phone cancelling the trip to Wet'n'Wild I'd promised the kids was soul destroying.

They have lined their pockets with my courage, hard work and willingness to stick my neck out with some dodgy lines while fighting for equality, truth, a more diverse society and the right for a woman to make dick jokes in a broadsheet newspaper.

Women's biggest fear is men killing them. And men's biggest fear is women laughing at them. So they killed me.

But I am thrilled that there is intelligent debate going on. And maybe, they haven't given me the bullet but handed me the gun.

But maybe I have had it all along. Because I've never been in it for the money, but to make my soul grow.

I live a cheap but glorious lifestyle and that has freed me up to do what I do. And not live in fear. Maybe that's why they killed me. Relevance deprivation anyone?

First thing Sunday I sent out a tweet: "Happy Mothers' Day! I hope you get laid and I hope you don't die."

I won't be changing myself. And I won't be explaining myself. You either get me or you don't. And if you don't get me you either get that it's okay not to get everyone all the time but you don't sack them for saying something that makes you squirm, after something that makes you laugh, then something you think is wrong, then something you think is offensive after 600 columns - the proceeds of which you have happily lined your pockets.

I am not an attention seeker. I am an attention getter. I did not offend you. You felt offence. I made two tweets. Real people were the subjects of those tweets. I didn't intend to hurt these people, but I am deeply sorry for any hurt I have caused them. 

The people who created the media storm chose to reproduce those two tweets outside of twitter and were not motivated by any concern for those real people. The reproduced those tweets to cause offence, add hurt. They need to look to themselves. They need to admit what this is really about. This is so not about Twitter.

Which in any event has moved on. To gerbils. Miranda Devine has deleted her comments. I have not. I stand by my explanation. You won't find me mumbling through some press release spin like a disgraced footballer.

The Bindi one? Employing humour to highlight the sexual objectification of women, raunch culture and the nature of celebrity. On the Logies catwalk Bindi Irwin was the only one not dressed in anything remotely provocative which highlighted the one-dimensional reality of the relentless sexual objectification of women of the media.

It was like going into room full of naked people and pointing at the clothed security guard and saying "I hope he gets laid".

I rail at this every year. It's all about how the women look. The one dimensional approach. And always the same dimension. Every Logie that was not gender specific went to a man. And every Logie that went to a woman was for a role in a blokey show. Either a 1:5 female:male ratio or stories about blokes (Underbelly, Rafters etc).

And Rove? True sentiments are lost in Twitter. Love him. Worked for him for five years and he endorsed my first book. I adore him. And have said that in print many, many times. He has created jobs, opportunities and love for many people.

I looked at Rove and Tasma and thought, "I hope she doesn't die". I'm constantly aware of death. My favourite quote is W H Auden "Death is the distant thunder at a picnic". Momento Mori. Remember you will die.

Context? Twitter. A medium changing so fast it's like getting on a horse and it changing into a camel then into dinosaur then into a whale... Twitter is, well it was the uncut version of people. My quote to the Herald Sun on Monday last week: "Twitter is online graffiti not a news source".

What I should have said is: "Twitter shouldn't be a news source".

And here's the thing. The tweets I made do not contradict me at all. This is a woman who has just finished a one woman show called God Is Bullshit, That's The Good News and whose first book was called It's Not My Fault They Print Them. I'm a comedian, a social commentator. That's what they paid me for. I swing between stand up and sermon, cultural terrorist to cultural therapist. And I had no contract.

It was like they didn't want to marry me but performed an honour killing because I shagged other guys.

Offensive? Where is the rule book? People are telling me they are offended by neither or offended by both. How they were more offended by the Bindi than the Rove. Or visa versa. Or more offended by Miranda's tweets than mine. Who cares?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And offence is in the sphincter of the uptight white honky who's convenient answers have been questioned. Offence is an unavoidable and healthy byproduct of free speech.

I weep as I write a deep thank-you to all the people who have supported me. I have been profoundly moved by the thousands of fans, friends, followers and supporters who have taken time to contact me. I have felt embraced by my beautiful Melbourne and beyond. 

A bigger thanks to the people who do not like my work and do not agree with me but do not think I should have been sacked for two tweets. Even bigger thanks to the people who have had their guts to see the bigger picture and change their mind. And been big enough to admit it.

Seeing past the invisible electric fences and the rumble strips of social convention that my sacking is so not about Twitter. I'm thrilled by the intelligent debate this has generated. People questioning the elastic moral codes that inform our personal definition of offence. And what really informs those codes.

Don't stop buying The Age. Support the brilliant and passionate staff to do what they do best. Fight the management to make The Age the brave newspaper we all loved.

Fairfax may own The Age but it belongs to Melbourne. Don't have a Stuff The Age Party. Have a Reclaim The Age march.

Don't sack Miranda Devine. I believe in diversity in the media and standing by your staff. I don't agree with much of what Miranda Devine writes but by reading her I find out what I do think and why.

Excuse me, I have gerbils to roger.