Girls to the front: Cassy O’Connor, Lara Giddings, Julia Gillard and Jenny Macklin. Boys behind: Geoff Lyons and Dick Adams
Australia has just lost its first female Prime Minister. A man is running the country, once again.
We’ve lost a hard-working, visionary and reformist leader, who’s served as an inspiration to Australian women and girls.
Julia Gillard led some of the most important progressive reforms in Australian history – including the NDIS, the price on carbon, the Gonski education reforms, and the Royal Commission into child sex abuse.
While I’m not in her party, didn’t always share her views and was sometimes disappointed in her policy approach, as an Australian woman I was proud to have a strong, intelligent woman as our nation’s leader.
But while her elevation to the pinnacle of Australian politics was a cause for hope and celebration, both her treatment in office and the nature of her downfall requires a much deeper reflection and response from Australian society.
Julia Gillard’s three years as Prime Minister were undeniably marred by an ugly undercurrent of sexism and misogyny. In my view, the mainstream media has a lot to answer for too – but you haven’t and won’t hear any of our nightly political commentators or their bosses admitting culpability in Gillard’s downfall.
They never gave her a chance, rarely reported on policy and salivatingly encouraged Kevin Rudd’s persistent undermining.
As the figurehead of our nation, Prime Minister Gillard endured slogans like ‘Ditch the Witch’. She was openly referred to as ‘Bob Brown’s bitch’, and was condescendingly told to ‘make an honest woman of herself’ by the Leader of the Opposition.
Julia Gillard endured deeply degrading and humiliating treatment – such as a recent ‘joke’ menu that made lewd characterisations about her physical appearance.
And she faced a barrage of persecution and disrespect through social media – which has contributed to a current death of politeness and respect in Australian politics. The effect has been corrosive to our national identity.
Many women – from across the political spectrum – now feel both angry and a little afraid as a result of the language used to tear down Julia Gillard, the fact that too often it went unchecked and unchallenged.
In the past week I’ve spoken to many women who feel absolutely gutted about the events in Canberra. Some grieve, not just for the loss of Gillard but for the seemingly lost gains of decades campaigning for equality.
As our first female Prime Minister bows out, combatting those sexist attitudes and vile discrimination must now be treated as a matter of national political importance.
We need to carefully and openly assess the role those entrenched sexist and misogynistic attitudes played in Julia Gillard’s treatment and ultimate downfall as our nation’s leader.
And we must take an unflinching stand against sexism, discrimination and inequality – in all their forms – to ensure bright young Australian women and girls continue aspiring to political leadership, and have the opportunity to achieve it.
We can resolve to take on that mission together, and not take a backward step until every Australian girl and woman lives in a nation that respects and treats them as true equals. The good men in leadership and in our communities have an important role to play in engendering appropriate respect for women in public life and more broadly.
There are many people who’ll wish away the uncomfortable issue of sexism now that Julia Gillard is gone. There’ll be plenty of voices saying “it’s over now – let it go”. We simply cannot.
Like anything that hurts and divides and exposes flaws in human nature, sexism is not an easy or pleasant subject to confront – particularly for those who suffer its consequences.
But we must confront these issues right here and now, because they are fundamental to the health of our democracy itself. There is no more corrosive threat to a free and healthy democracy than prejudice and discrimination – and that’s exactly what sexism and misogyny is.
And frankly, if we fail to now confront and deal with the sexist attitudes that sabotaged Julia Gillard’s leadership of our nation, we betray and condemn other Australian women and girls to the same unacceptable fate.
Julia Gillard herself was gracious and defiant to the end. She declared her own belief that her experience in leading the way would make it easier for Australian women who become Prime Minister in the future. For all our daughters’ sake, I hope she’s right.
Real social change requires real people to show real and lasting courage in its pursuit. It takes the courage to confront the same nasty but powerful attitudes that just helped topple a woman from the nation’s most powerful position. It takes the courage and conviction to expose yourself potentially to the same name calling and persecution that Julia Gillard endured.
Australia’s women are up to that challenge. And thanks to Julia Gillard’s trailblazing example, and that of other strong, good women on the political stage like national Greens’ Leader, Christine Milne, we’re ready for it, right now.
In three years, Julia Gillard achieved great things for our nation. Let a full and fearless confrontation of those backward attitudes and prejudices be her lasting legacy to Australian women.
• Julia Baird, New York Times: In Australia, Misogyny Lives On:
THE fastest way to lance a country’s anxieties about women and power is to appoint a female leader. For the three years and three days that Julia Gillard was prime minister of Australia, we debated the fit of her jackets, the size of her bottom, the exposure of her cleavage, the cut of her hair, the tone of her voice, the legitimacy of her rule and whether she had chosen, as one member of Parliament from the opposition Liberal Party put it, to be “deliberately barren.”
The sexism was visceral and often grotesque.
There were placards crying “Ditch the Witch,” toys designed for dogs that encouraged them to chew on the fleshier parts of her anatomy, and, most recently, a menu offering “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail — small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box.” By the end of her term, on June 27, the prime minister struggled to be heard above the sexist ridicule. When she addressed this, she was accused of igniting “gender wars.”
To point this out is not to imply that Ms. Gillard was flawless: far from it.
Her biggest problem may have been the way she became Australia’s first female prime minister. Under the Westminster system, voters elect parties, who are able to change leaders at will. In June 2010, Ms. Gillard, then deputy prime minister, deposed Kevin Rudd, with support from other members of their governing Labor Party, ostensibly because of poor polling. “The government,” she said, “had lost its way.” It was the first time that a sitting prime minister in Australia had been overthrown by his own party during his first term. Meanwhile, Mr. Rudd never left the picture. He stayed in government, and last month — almost exactly three years after Ms. Gillard had pushed him out — he returned the favor, after polls suggested that the party would be annihilated at the coming election.
Uneasiness over the way Ms. Gillard came to power fed deep currents of misogyny throughout her time in power. (She remains a member of Parliament but will retire at the election.)
She was pragmatic and effective, presided over solid economic growth, reduced Australia’s carbon emissions and enacted historic reforms in the areas of education and disability. History will be kind to her.
But she made many mistakes: abandoning a promise not to introduce a carbon tax, being slow to condemn corruption in her party, and negotiating a limp tax that failed to reap significant revenue from Australia’s mining boom.
She lacked canny political instincts and was unable to project her natural warmth, humor and empathy or convince the public of her sincerity.
• Read the rest here, Julia Baird, New York Times: In Australia, Misogyny Lives On:
First published: July 8
