Steve Price made an appearance on The Project last night to voice his opinion after his comments on ABC’s Q&A received a backlash.
A man from the Q&A audience, Tarang Chawla, asked a question on the topic of how public figures could change the culture and conversation surrounding domestic violence, using his sister’s murder as an example. When Steve Price defended Eddie McGuire’s now-famous ‘drowning’ comments about Caroline Wilson as a joke, columnist Van Badham explained why this interpretation is problematic. Steve Price responded by calling her ‘hysterical’ and by interrupting her.
Last night on The Project, though Carrie Bickmore is a friend and a colleague of Steve Price’s, when he appeared on the show, she told me just how disappointed she was by his comments.
“A lot of what happens on the desk is theatre,” she said. “But I don’t think there’s room for theatre when we’re talking about violence against women.”
She passionately explained the statistic that one woman is dying every week, and that she didn’t expect him to shift the conversation.
“A man talked to you about the death of his sister, and I was so amazed that you didn’t want to show compassion and use that time you had to constructively talk about something that I would have believed that you really believed in stopping, violence against women.”
Price stuck to his guns, responding that he is going to meet with the man who asked the question, however did not regret his comments.
“I’m not going to be verballed by an aggressive woman sitting next to me who thinks that you can only be upset about domestic violence if you’re female. That is the point I was making.”
Waleed Aly soon stepped in and explained the significance of the word ‘hysterical’ to women, which has been used throughout history to suggest they are ‘irrational and incapable of being reasonable because they have ovaries.’ The word even originates from the Latin for ‘womb’.
Despite this, Price still stuck by what he had said, leaving everyone with this comment:
“I describe things as I see them, I don’t need to make judgements about whether it’s a man or a woman. If that’s the way the person’s acting, I’ll call it out every time!”
