Gender on the agenda after Gillard spit

12 Oct 2012, 4:14 pm   -   Source: AAP

Prime Minister Julia Gillard made international headlines over her attack on Tony Abbott, during a parliamentary debate on the speaker.

Gender was always going to be an issue once Australia's prime minister was no longer a bloke in a suit.

There've been unpleasant mutterings around the water cooler, in backyards, the dark recesses of social media networks and the odd public rally, ("Ditch the Witch", anyone?).

Julia Gillard has ignored it, as many women, and any political leader facing personal attacks from within the community, would.

But this week, something changed. Gillard exploded like the froth from a shaken Coke bottle, triggering accusations of sexism from both sides of parliament.

And it went global, as the scandals over Alan Jones' recent comments about the prime minister's father, and Speaker Peter Slipper's sexist text messages to a staffer, intertwined in parliament.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had stood to call for the removal of the speaker.

Abbott condemned Slipper's "truly gross references to female genitalia" and his "sexist, misogynistic view", adding that while Slipper failed the character test, the prime minister had failed the judgment test in promoting his appointment for political expediency.

As a strategy, it was clever. If it had succeeded, Slipper would have been the first speaker to be forced out - and under Labor's watch.

"This speaker's actions are this prime minister's responsibility, and this speaker's standards perforce are this prime minister's standards unless she has the responsibility and the decency to remove this speaker from his high office," Abbott said on Tuesday.

It's hard to tell just what set Gillard off - Abbott's linking of Slipper's texts to her moral authority or the line that the government should "die of shame", a phrase that, inadvertently or otherwise, harked back to Jones' statement that her father had died of shame because of her political "lies".

Ms Gillard accused Abbott of hypocrisy, and laid out a history of sexist comments going back to his student politics days and extending into his time as health minister.

"I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not," she said forcefully.

Her 15-minute riposte - including a video - went local, then global, becoming an internet sensation on news, blogs and social media sites.

The New Yorker's Amelia Lester said Americans wished Barack Obama had displayed such tenacious qualities in last week's presidential debate with Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

"Supporters of President Obama, watching Gillard cut through the disingenuousness and feigned moral outrage of her opponent to call him out for his own personal prejudice, hypocrisy, and aversion to facts, might be wishing their man would take a lesson from Australia," Lester wrote.

Jezebel - a popular American website dedicated to women's issues - described Gillard as "one badass motherf***er", and in a good way, while the website Salon suggested the US borrow Gillard "to take on Congress's misogynist caucus".

There was similar commentary in the European press as well, but at home Gillard was accused by the domestic media with face-saving hypocrisy for not calling publicly for Slipper's sacking.

The political twist was that as she and other Labor MPs were speaking against the Abbott motion, Leader of the House Anthony Albanese and two independent MPs, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, were out of the chamber encouraging Slipper to resign of his own accord, which he later did.

There is no question Abbott has made a number of sexist remarks about women in recent years.

"What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing ..." is how he opened one remark about the carbon tax in February 2010. He was also caught on camera in 2006 swearing at a female shadow minister.

But no-one would seriously agree to Gillard's charge he's a woman hater.

Abbott, who last week made media appearances with his wife Margie to offset previous claims he had a "problem with women", called for an end to the gender war, telling Gillard she should be prepared to accept criticism and telling Labor to "stop hyperventilating".

But despite his strong criticism of Slipper, Abbott stands ready to accept his vote from the crossbenches.

How this will play out politically, with an election less than 12 months away, is difficult to assess.

Interestingly, just as Obama appears to be more popular as a global brand than he is as the president of the United States, Gillard seems to get more favourable treatment in the United States than Australia, as a woman who has broken through the political glass ceiling.

But this week's gender war episode is likely to reinforce Australian voters' existing stereotype perceptions of the prime minister and opposition leader.

It is hard to think of any Australian political leader in recent history more polarising than either Abbott or Gillard.

This was most clearly demonstrated in the 2010 election - the closest election in over 70 years.

But it can be argued voters have a clearer impression of Abbott, for better or worse, than they do of Gillard.

In a recent Essential poll, a majority saw Abbott (who trails Gillard as preferred prime minister) as arrogant, superficial, narrow-minded, intolerant, aggressive and erratic.

But the coalition maintains an election-winning lead, thanks to continuing anger over the carbon tax and a sense that the hung parliament is not working.

Another poll shows two in three voters believe there is a clear gulf between the values of the coalition and Labor - a chasm similar to that between the conservatives and the so-called liberals of the Democratic Party in the US presidential campaign.

Rather than shift votes to Labor it appears the gender war is more likely to entrench positions as the election nears.

Labor will have to move quickly onto other issues, and emphasise its policy agenda, to give it any chance of victory.

But for this week, at least with women, Gillard struck a resounding chord.

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube