maybe the media should get over themselves

Once the media gets their targets they don’t let up. Lately the Australian media are quite fond of calling out Nick Kyrgios for being the “bad boy” of tennis. This week it’s a sledge against tennis player Stan Wawrinka, which went along the lines of “Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend, sorry to tell you that mate.” Kokkinakis being Australian team mate. Yesterday Kyrgios was a wanker, today Donna Vekic is the “real victim” and now he’s on his way to being labelled a “misogynist”. Better call all the “first world feminists” in.

Sledging happens in sport. If that same sledge happened on the football or cricket fields I would probably be reading the article “Top 10 world’s best sledges” instead of “The real victim of Kyrgios’ despicable sledge”. Yeah it was probably not necessary to say but we can’t label one person a bad boy and the other guy a legend for saying the same thing.

If Donna Vekic is a ‘victim’, it’s only because the media are making her one. Even if she has slept with Kokkinakis and Wawrinka who the hell cares? It’s not going to taint her image or her reputation unless the person hearing the story wants to judge a woman for her personal life choices. The media want to pick their heroes, the bad boys and their victims. Yeah it makes a good story but in the end it’s the media creating the problem, it’s them making Vekic the victim, not a woman that can make her own choices and not have everyone jump to her defence because she can’t herself.

Feminists don’t need to berate Kyrgios. They don’t need to side with or stick up for Vekic. That is saying she needs to be looked after, that somehow what they are claiming should be something to be offended by and ashamed of. People have sex; it’s not really a news story. People will talk about it, again not really a news story. Something can be said publically about a woman’s sex life and we all don’t need to jump to her defence. The only thing we should be defending is the right for Vekic not to be labelled at all, whether the label is slut or victim.