This Comedian Used His Awards Speech To Call Out Sexism

    "I don’t think there were any women nominated at all in the comedy category just then."

    by
    Mikey Nicholson
    by Mikey Nicholson

    BuzzFeed Staff, Australia

    ,
    Michelle Rennex
    by Michelle Rennex

    BuzzFeed Contributor, Australia

    After slaying the competition on the Aria red carpet, Matt Okine won Best Comedy release and used his speech to note the lack of female nominees.

    Zak Kaczmarek / Getty Images

    While the speech wasn't televised, Okine, who is one half of Triple J's Matt and Alex breakfast show, pointed out his discomfort about the glaring omission.

    Twitter: @ARIA_Official
    Twitter: @ARIA_Official
    Twitter: @ARIA_Official
    Twitter: @ARIA_Official
    Twitter: @ARIA_Official

    He said: "I feel bad if I don’t make a point of mentioning something that I feel a little weird about. I don’t think there was any women nominated at all in the comedy category just then. And I don’t think there are any women who are featured artists on tonight’s show even. I mean there’s Tina Arena obviously, but other than that, there’s a couple of featured guests, but it’s like, there’s no one. I’d feel stupid if I didn’t use this opportunity to say something about that. I read an article today about how it's important for guys to take a step down in order to ensure equality. Clementine Ford wrote that article, she's a controversial sort of person. I guess this is just the situation where if it means I don't come back here or I get in trouble from ABC or something that's fine, but I didn't feel great reading that list of people."

    Twitter users were quick to add their messages of support to Okine's statement.

    Laura Imbruglia @LauraImbruglia

    @mattokine Excellent work using your speech to call out the gender imbalance at the Arias. Legend!

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    Ruth Mitchell @drruthmitchell

    .@mattokine love love love what you said at the Arias. Thank you for speaking up for equality.

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    Meg Watson @msmegwatson

    The #ARIAs Best Comedy Release category had more male puppet nominees than female human nominees.

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    Brooke Holmes @brooke_aholmes

    Kudos to @mattokine for calling out the lack of females represented at the #ARIAs.#legend. Too bad @channelten cut it from broadcast.👎🏻

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    Watch Okine's speech here.

    ARIA @ARIA_Official

    Winner: Best Comedy: @mattokine - Live At The Enmore Theatre #ARIAs https://t.co/Z0aIWS83d7

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