ICYMI: Over the weekend, the Royal Australian Navy celebrated the launch of a new $2 billion navy ship and enlisted local Woolloomooloo dance troupe, 101 Doll Squadron, to perform at the event.
NEW: The Royal Australian Navy commissioned HMAS Supply in Sydney today, and uh..... organised this dance to celebrate
Initial reactions from commenters on the coverage labelled the event as "awkward", "cringe" and a "miscommunication".
Whether or not you believe the dance routine to be "appropriate" entertainment for the event, there's no denying that this group of performers were hired to do a job — and they appear to have had a lot of fun doing just that.
These dancers have done no wrong, appear to be a local group and can't be blamed for taking a gig. Whether they were the right choice for a Navy event is another question... https://t.co/va3YblZF6Z
So power to them, they fulfilled the brief that was handed to them.
But now the Australian media, including the Daily Telegraph, is shaming not the event organisers, but the dancers themselves — labelling them as a "troupe of scantily clad twerkers", complete with all the worst navy-related puns you can imagine.
The @dailytelegraph’s decision to shame the young female dancers, instead of keeping the focus on the poor decision by Navy officers to hire them for this particular event, proves that misogyny is alive and well in the Murdoch media! https://t.co/d1ddmdHo2q
The Aussie public is firing back, blasting the coverage focusing on the dancers themselves as "sexist" and a form of harassment.
@alijd_mac @thejimmalo There is absolutely nothing wrong with twerking or its sexualisation The problem here is why an institution that is currently dealing with a sexual harassment crisis thought it would help their optics to have these women dance like this for seated powerful men
PSA: It’s possible to find the twerking dance odd and/or out of context without making sexist comments and targeting the dancers involved
Ok so what's the go with the navy twerkers. Are we mad because it's twerking or are we mad because someone in th navy picked a "sexualised" dance for the ship opening or whatever it is. Because I hate to say it but just hating twerking is not that ok
The female dancers were simply hired for a job and they did it. It’s the Navy who are to blame for this misjudged attempt to involve the wider community in their ship commissioning. Stop harassing the young women!! #NewsCorpMisogyny
Others commented on the absurdity of Australian Defence Force Chief, General Angus Campbell, being present — who, in March, warned cadets not to make themselves "prey" to sexual predators by being out late at night "alone" and "attractive".
@thejimmalo The girls ain’t the problem. The powerful army dude watching who told serving women not to dress attractively so as not to invite rape, on the other hand...
@maxblackhole @thejimmalo All of this, and a healthy dose of issues of the armed forces telling women to be more careful so they don’t get raped.
@tarang_chawla A little over a month ago the ADF boss told women not to look too attractive to avoid being raped. Absolutely, revolting. And now this? It’s a disgrace.
Suffice to say, the Australian government is continuing to fail women in 2021.
