Allison Pearson holds nothing back in diagnosing the destruction of Australian PM Julia Gillard. Pearson argues that the Rubicon was crossed when Gillard ripped into opposition leader Tony Abbott for his misogyny:
It took nine months for Julia Gillard to be ousted, but she signed her political death warrant that day, when she stopped playing by club rules and spoke the truth like a woman. She was guilty of all the things men most hate and fear in the female: she was emotional, she was voluble, she went on and on, and she was right.
Tags: Julia Gillard
For a different take, read John Quiggin, who is much closer to Australian politics than anybody here. Quiggin’s opinion is based on policies, not sexism. Julia Gillard did carry a lot of baggage; you can’t complain of being ousted in a poll-driven palace coup if that’s how you got the top job yourself.
“She was guilty of all the things men most hate and fear in the female: she was emotional, she was voluble, she went on and on, and she was right.” That’s funny, but men with the same set of qualities also have trouble in politics.
Because these traits are seen as unmanly. Again, fear of the female.
I don’t think so. I think it’s because some of those traits are popularly seen as “unstatesmanlike.”
“Statesmen” (or whatever non-gendered term you might prefer) are seen as calm, organized, good-humored, speaking “common sense,” and relatively easy to listen to.
Cf. Obama/Biden 2008, Romney/Gingrich 2012.
Keep in mind that we are talking about the Australian Parliament’s “Question Time”, a rough equivalent of the British “Prime Minister’s Questions” and “Question Time” combined. My understanding is that the Australian version is as unruly and raucous as the British original, if not more so. After all, Tony Abbott, the current Leader of the Opposition, got himself kicked out of Question Time once for repeatedly calling Julia Gillard a liar. British and Australian politics are a contact sport.
The closest thing we’ve ever had in Congress was George Galloway’s guest appearance, I think (try to count how often he says “pack of lies”, not hampered by Westminster parliamentary procedure).
I’m reminded of the behavior of the pro-Hillary Clinton supporters during 2008…
If you’re not willing to accept that your political leader is going to incur hatred for reasons that have everything to do with her actual political positions and record, and nothing to do with the fact that she is a woman, then you’re going to be in for a whole lot of hurt.
Yes, there are plenty of misogynist pricks out there. But there are also, apparently, journalists willing to waste two pages on what can only be called a whole lot of gossip, with zero discussion of whatever of the actual political issues are; and I have no time for that. The UK apparently has a competitor to Maureen Dowd in Allison Pearson.
We also need some cultural perspective here. US national politics is relatively gentlemanly at the personal level. Smears are handled at several arms’ lengths. Somebody correct me, but my impression of Aussie politics is that it’s quite the opposite. Should we feel sorry for Lucrezia Borgia?
Another problem with Pearson’s narrative. Gillard lost her job because she attacked the leader of the opposition for muisogyny? So a lot of Labour backbenchers rallied to Rudd’s putsch because they were offended on behalf of their political enemy?
Occam’s razor applies. The polls have been telling Labour beckbenchers that they face an electoral disaster at the next election under Gillard. Many of them expect to lose their seats and all any hope of office. That’s very strong and sufficient motivation for changing the leader. You don’t need misogyny to explain it. Misogyny mwerely greases the skids or the scabbard, as with the fall of Margaret Thatcher - a far more impressive leader than Gillard.
Australia is a bitterly macho and blokeish culture, none more so than the Australian parliament. Language and disrespect are used there that would never be tolerated in the Canadian Parliament, in Westminster nor in the US House.
Gillard called them on it. In that monotone (Sydneysider?) accent, in a nagging and relentless tone, she called them on it. It must have felt like one of Margaret Thatcher’s diatribes to a disagreeing Cabinet member.
Said it outright and loud: Australia is a sexist society with a strong streak of misogyny and women at the top levels of Australian business and politics face huge misogyny.
You’ve seen other evidence, that ‘menu’ with Gillard chicken ‘small breasts, big ass, red box’ at a Liberal party fundraiser. Interview on a talk show which demanded to know if her partner (male, hairdresser) was in fact gay?
You can’t imagine someone using that language in public about Mrs. Thatcher, Kim Campbell, Hilary Clinton. ‘So Mr. Clinton, is Hilary in fact a lesbian like Eleanor Roosevelt?’ ‘So Mr. Blair, is Cherie a dyke like all those other Hackney women barristers?’
As to why she lost the PMship, it’s about politics within the Labour Party. Just as Margaret Thatcher was completely machiavellian in her rise to power (she was the stalking horse to overthrow Ted Heath, no one expected she’d actually win a majority on the first ballot) and deposed in another internecine struggle, so too Ms. Gillard.
But measure her by what she did: coalition government, a carbon tax- the first one in the developed world on a national level. She’ll go down in history as a PM who did something.