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Abstract

g negatively about you behind your back, talked over in meetings, oh there are so many wonderful choices!· Told by men to our face that misogyny doesn’t exist and that women now live in a state of perfect equality. In fact, mansplaining in general.· Physically assaulted or intimidated by a man.· Told to shut up and get back in the kitchen. Feel free to substitute any female-disempowering phrases of your choice here.· Told by society and the government that our caring and nurturing responsibilities are unimportant and worthless, through abysmal wages for female-dominated industries and no support for mothers staying out of the workforce to raise well the next generation of taxpayers. That’s a whole other article, right here.· Given no support when calling out any of the above, either from our immediate social groups, or from the media at large, or from the authorities.<h2 id="bda5">Basically, business as usual for a female human in any part of the world.</h2>Take the continuing misbehavior of Australia’s star athletes, particularly football players. Their sexual aggression makes the news with monotonous regularity, and more worryingly, doesn’t make the news as often as it occurs. The behavior, once identified and publicized, is punished severely. But is that enough? Clearly, the punishments are not a deterrent. It keeps on happening. Punishing a mindset doesn’t work. The Soviet Union among others taught us that.If the thoughts and attitudes are there, you can’t punish them away. You have to change them in other ways. We are failing in this regard.<h2 id="e70d">Prime Minister Julia Gillard had to put up with the following:</h2>1) Complaints of “inappropriate” dress — defined as sexually inappropriate (showing too much cleavage). How this can be acceptable by a culture that continually promotes such fashions in the news, advertising, TV shows, and all other media, I can’t understand. If you tell us to wear it, don’t punish us for obeying. Also, don’t tell us what to wear or whinge about what we choose to wear. Basically, shut up.Julia’s — or any woman’s — clothing choice shouldn’t even be a topic for discussion in this day and age. She didn’t wear T shirts with racist messages on them. She didn’t wear fur and show a reckless disregard for endangered animals. She wore fairly conservative women’s clothes. But there it is. Maybe that’s why I can’t immediately remember what deeds Julia did as Prime Minister. Because all I heard about from the news was her wardrobe choices.2) Sexual harassment in the form of e

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xplicit emails and gossip among her co-workers. Not only did she have to live with it and work with the people who did it, she also had no recourse to take action against it internally (government has no HR department, it would seem), and she had to put up with it being splashed all over the news. She could not even deal with it privately.A member of this group of “gentlemen” justified his actions by saying that the same type of emails are written about whoever is in the top job. That is, quite simply, BULLS**T. Men do not sexually harass other men, and certainly not to the extent that they do with women (I don’t presume to speak about the experiences of gay men here, but I am sure they might prove to be an exception). Every woman knows this.I don’t blame most men for not realizing this. Most men are good people who value and respect other people regardless of gender, even if most of them are still unwittingly part of the patriarchy. Unwittingly, I said. You don’t know it. You’re not evil. But you’re still doing and thinking it. Don’t waste time arguing, it’s established fact. Instead, educate yourselves to change.Regardless, anyone can devolve to a low level if the culture around them encourages it. And ours does — certainly in the political and sporting fields, anyway.3) A co-worker of Julia’s told her once (it doesn’t even matter what the context was) that her father would be ashamed of her.That is one of the most patronizing and belittling and disrespectful things anyone can say to a person. It reduced her to a little girl in a man’s world. It disregarded everything she worked for as worthless. And although I can certainly imagine times when such a thing might be said to a man, I think it would not have the same connotations. Men are admired for standing up for themselves against opposition, or parental influence. Women who shame their families are seen as ungrateful, failures, unwomen.Am I being unfair? Maybe. But I am a single mother bringing up a daughter. I want everything in the world for her. I love the country I live in, but I also cringe for its cruelty sometimes. And if my daughter decides to become prime minister one day, I will be there to support and encourage her.I just hope that the only criticisms I would have to support her through would be criticisms of her policy, not criticisms of how she wears her hair. And I hope that I will never have to hold her hand while Photoshopped pictures of her in a sexually compromised position go viral thanks to those who are supposed to be working with her to improve the country.</article></body>

Female Power in Australia

Julia Gillard, Australia’s first (and only) Female Prime Minister

I am the LAST person in the world to comment on politics. In fact, I am famous in my family for one particular episode in which, the discussion having turned to the Tamil Tigers, I asked at random, “Who are they, then, a cricket team?”

Hopefully you are as clueless as I was then, and don’t know why this provoked gales of laughter and endless repetition whenever two or more members of the family get together. And boy, does that joke get funnier every time.

But today I feel I need to air my views. At a time when another female prime minister, Jacinta Ardern, also from the southern hemisphere, is showing all of us how it can be done, Julia Gillard is on my mind.

Julia Gillard was Australia’s first female prime minister, and so far the only one. And I salute her.

Was she a good prime minister? She wasn’t bad, is the general consensus from those who don’t hate her. She was fine. She did some good things. She avoided doing any absolutely crazy things.

But I’m not concerned with how good a prime minister she was today. History will tell us that, better than any modern commentator can.

What I am focused on is the fact that she was a girl who got to the top — and hacked it. Now Australia has had women in senior positions before, and no doubt they had to put up with a lot as well. But it’s the top position that gets the most attention, and I am incredibly proud of Julia for her restraint, her grace under extreme misogynistic pressure, and her perseverance.

If you are reading this from a country other than Australia, you may not be familiar with its people, just its stereotype. You might have an impression of Australians as easy going, sun and beach loving, tolerant people. And we are.

But there is a strong misogyny in Australian culture. And there is no woman alive in the country today who has not experienced it. I’m not saying we’ve all been raped or walked over for a job. But we have all experienced a selection of the following:

· Touched without invitation. Pressed up against on a crowded tram, fondled on the dance floor, every story is different.

· Cat called.

· Bullied or discriminated against at work, often in very subtle ways. Hands shaken in a super-tight squeeze, a male colleague talking negatively about you behind your back, talked over in meetings, oh there are so many wonderful choices!

· Told by men to our face that misogyny doesn’t exist and that women now live in a state of perfect equality. In fact, mansplaining in general.

· Physically assaulted or intimidated by a man.

· Told to shut up and get back in the kitchen. Feel free to substitute any female-disempowering phrases of your choice here.

· Told by society and the government that our caring and nurturing responsibilities are unimportant and worthless, through abysmal wages for female-dominated industries and no support for mothers staying out of the workforce to raise well the next generation of taxpayers. That’s a whole other article, right here.

· Given no support when calling out any of the above, either from our immediate social groups, or from the media at large, or from the authorities.

Basically, business as usual for a female human in any part of the world.

Take the continuing misbehavior of Australia’s star athletes, particularly football players. Their sexual aggression makes the news with monotonous regularity, and more worryingly, doesn’t make the news as often as it occurs. The behavior, once identified and publicized, is punished severely. But is that enough? Clearly, the punishments are not a deterrent. It keeps on happening. Punishing a mindset doesn’t work. The Soviet Union among others taught us that.

If the thoughts and attitudes are there, you can’t punish them away. You have to change them in other ways. We are failing in this regard.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard had to put up with the following:

1) Complaints of “inappropriate” dress — defined as sexually inappropriate (showing too much cleavage). How this can be acceptable by a culture that continually promotes such fashions in the news, advertising, TV shows, and all other media, I can’t understand. If you tell us to wear it, don’t punish us for obeying. Also, don’t tell us what to wear or whinge about what we choose to wear. Basically, shut up.

Julia’s — or any woman’s — clothing choice shouldn’t even be a topic for discussion in this day and age. She didn’t wear T shirts with racist messages on them. She didn’t wear fur and show a reckless disregard for endangered animals. She wore fairly conservative women’s clothes. But there it is. Maybe that’s why I can’t immediately remember what deeds Julia did as Prime Minister. Because all I heard about from the news was her wardrobe choices.

2) Sexual harassment in the form of explicit emails and gossip among her co-workers. Not only did she have to live with it and work with the people who did it, she also had no recourse to take action against it internally (government has no HR department, it would seem), and she had to put up with it being splashed all over the news. She could not even deal with it privately.

A member of this group of “gentlemen” justified his actions by saying that the same type of emails are written about whoever is in the top job. That is, quite simply, BULLS**T. Men do not sexually harass other men, and certainly not to the extent that they do with women (I don’t presume to speak about the experiences of gay men here, but I am sure they might prove to be an exception). Every woman knows this.

I don’t blame most men for not realizing this. Most men are good people who value and respect other people regardless of gender, even if most of them are still unwittingly part of the patriarchy. Unwittingly, I said. You don’t know it. You’re not evil. But you’re still doing and thinking it. Don’t waste time arguing, it’s established fact. Instead, educate yourselves to change.

Regardless, anyone can devolve to a low level if the culture around them encourages it. And ours does — certainly in the political and sporting fields, anyway.

3) A co-worker of Julia’s told her once (it doesn’t even matter what the context was) that her father would be ashamed of her.

That is one of the most patronizing and belittling and disrespectful things anyone can say to a person. It reduced her to a little girl in a man’s world. It disregarded everything she worked for as worthless. And although I can certainly imagine times when such a thing might be said to a man, I think it would not have the same connotations. Men are admired for standing up for themselves against opposition, or parental influence. Women who shame their families are seen as ungrateful, failures, unwomen.

Am I being unfair? Maybe. But I am a single mother bringing up a daughter. I want everything in the world for her. I love the country I live in, but I also cringe for its cruelty sometimes. And if my daughter decides to become prime minister one day, I will be there to support and encourage her.

I just hope that the only criticisms I would have to support her through would be criticisms of her policy, not criticisms of how she wears her hair. And I hope that I will never have to hold her hand while Photoshopped pictures of her in a sexually compromised position go viral thanks to those who are supposed to be working with her to improve the country.