La Trobe University graduate proposed to at ceremony breaks silence after Clementine Ford blast

A woman who was proposed to in the middle of her university graduation has revealed what she thought about the grand gesture, lashing out at the ‘hate’ thrown at her new fiancé after he was accused of ‘stealing her moment’.

La Trobe University student Stephanie Bail was accepting her degree in psychological science last week when her boyfriend walked on stage and dropped to one knee.

The Melbourne university graduate shared footage of the moment where the man told Ms Bail ‘I love you with all my heart’ before popping the question on stage in front of guest and fellow graduates.

The moment was widely embraced by the crowd, with a wave of applause and cooing from onlookers, but his sweet gesture was swiftly condemned by feminist commentator Clementine Ford, who claimed the boyfriend had made it ‘all about him’.

However the newly-engaged Ms Bail strongly refuted Ms Ford’s assessment of the situation, saying the ‘hate’ heaped on her partner was ‘absolutely disappointing’.

Stephanie Bail’s boyfriend got down on one knee after she accepted her degree at the La Trobe University graduation ceremony in Melbourne last week 

‘I celebrated graduating (not my first time) and getting engaged to the love of my life,’ she said.

‘Whilst I appreciate your concerns, I don’t appreciate being spoken for nor do I appreciate these wild assumptions being made about myself and my partner.’

Ms Bail called on Ford to take down the video blasting their proposal because ‘it does not represent me or my partner.’

In a rant uploaded to Facebook last Friday, Ford labelled the gesture as ‘entrapment’.

She called on men to stop making empowering female moments about them and let women be ‘brilliant without you’. 

‘Stop f***ing stealing women’s moments from them. They do not belong to you. They are not yours to have,’ Ms Ford said.   

‘That is her moment, she has graduated. We don’t know under what conditions she went to university, we don’t know how hard that was for her, but she did it by herself. 

Clementine Ford (left) has slammed a man for ‘stealing a woman’s moment’ after a video emerged of him proposing to his girlfriend while on stage at her university graduation ceremony (right)

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‘Why do men look at situations where women have achieved something for themselves, where they are about to receive praise and admiration… and they think, ”you know what? I’m going to make this moment about me. I’m going to make it so that she remembers, always, that the day she graduated was the day I proposed to her. That was the most important thing that happened to her that day”.’

She also called out the audience members clapping during the proposal, claiming they were indulging in ‘displays of ownership’.

The backlash even prompted La Trobe University to remove the footage from their social media page and apologise.

‘We made an error of judgement today,’ the university commented on Ms Ford’s Facebook post.  

Ms Bail said it was not the first time she was graduating and slammed those criticising her partner

‘Our graduation ceremonies are all about celebrating student achievement, and this event detracted from that important acknowledgement of our students’ success.’ 

Ms Ford’s video has garnered more than 1,300 comments, with the majority of Facebook users angered by the public proposal. 

‘This makes me so angry!!!! I worked my arse off to get my degrees and if my partner did this I would be enraged. And the relationship would be over,’ one user wrote. 

‘This makes me unreasonably angry, especially for her. I hope she goes on to get her doctorate, be wildly successful, makes tons of money, and that he ends up in his mom’s basement,’ another commented. 

A third chimed: ‘Watching men pull this kind of thing infuriates me. They are so threatened by a woman’s accomplishments, they feel the need to photobomb the moment. It’s weak and it’s pathetic.’