Gee, a lot of you readers don’t like the thesis that Labor’s Stacks-On-KRudd manouevre has seriously damaged the party. And many of you certainly aren’t copping criticism of Gillard’s record, especially from our own Bernard Keane. But to suggest that his criticism is misogynist?
One reader was not alone in employing the m word when responding to Keane’s coverage:
I am totally astounded by Bernard Keane’s misogynistic rant against Julia Gillard and then, not sufficiently satisfied, his attack on Penny Wong.
By attack, we think they are referring to Keane’s suggestion that Swan and Wong have done a bad job conveying the government’s record on the economy to the public. By misogynistic rant we assume they are referring to Keane’s prediction that Gillard won’t make it to the next election.
We think we might leave the last word on this to none other than Eva Cox, who asks in Crikey today, “How far should feminists be supporting Julia Gillard as PM because she is a woman and the first one in this job?”:
I agree she has had some rough rides with some s-xist judgments and criticisms and unwarranted interest in her private life. However, these experiences have not seriously weakened her position as PM but the general direction of the party is a problem she and her supporters don’t recognise.
Is her steely determination enough to swing voters? Do they see the ALP policies as positively as the parliamentary party does? The politicians promote the idea that their problems with voters and the media were caused by K. Rudd undermining their program by his leadership project. This claim ignores the fact that it is the party vote that is the problem, not just Gillard’s popularity. The Coalition vote is strong despite Abbott not being, or just being, preferred by a minority over Gillard.
Cox goes on to assess and compare Gillard’s and Rudd’s policies. Funny that.
The furthest Gillard has ever gone in terms of addressing whether her job has been harder because she’s a woman was this very classy quote from a recent Sunday interview, the very same interview in which she was asked by Mike Willesee if she cried much. (Yes, the PM’s patience and restraint knows no bounds.):
“I grew up watching the Prime Ministers of this country and if you’d asked me then, “Close your eyes and imagine a prime minister”, I would have imagined a bloke in a suit. Now, I am the first person to not be a bloke in that suit, exactly the same sort of suit as you’re wearing. It’s a different image of leadership. So I’m not surprised that it’s kind of taking a bit of time for that to settle with the Australian public. It is different. But, it also speaks of how great a nation we are that we can have truly equal opportunity and one of the things that is most joyful in my job is I get any number of young girls or, you know, dads in crowds, pushing their young daughter forward to get a photo with me. I don’t know whether they support me. I don’t know whether they’re going to vote for me but me being here has given them the sense that it is possible for a woman to do anything in this country. And that’s a great thing.”
If Crikey ever asks the Prime Minister if she cries much, by all means call us on it, but if we’re sticking to policy and political performance, chances are you can leave sexism out of it. As for the spill, we can say definitively that there is absolutely no story angle, in the plethora of angles that have come out of the past week, in the plain fact that Julia Gillard is female.
The discourse around issues of feminism deserves a better quality of debate.
SPOT ON CRIKEY !! I totally agree with you.
Methinks you protesteth too much! Putting aside claims of s-xism, isn’t the criticism really about an inability of political commentators such as Keane to move on from making criticisms of politician’s personalities and start analysing some policy positions. Seems to be I am not alone in asking for this. I tire of reading the same old tripe which is usually prefaced by “Voters want to know…..” What makes Keane and his ilk experts on what the electorate want to know? Well here’s a newsflash for you; I’m a voter and I really want to know about policy and what its implementation will mean. This undoubtedly means a bit of hard slog for journalists. Much easier to keep writing about the same old stuff and nonsense I guess.
While I think there can be legitimate disagreement over what may or may not constitute ‘sexism’ in the current discussion, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use Eva Cox as the arbiter of discussions about misogyny. Though well known as a member of the commentariat especially on matters feminist, she is not the only one. Do try to expand your horizons !
MDruid70, …that covers it nicely.
Your opening line is
Gee, a lot of you readers don’t like the thesis that the Labor party Stacks-On-KRudd manouevre has seriously damaged the party. And many of you certainly aren’t copping criticism of Gillard’s record, ”
Then you only attempt to deal with the very last bit about a couple of misogyny callouts. And looking at the comments against you link, whilst there are maybe one or two that suggest BK is being sexist – most comments were unrelated to sexism and the ones that were seemed to point at others than BK. A bit too sensitive I think.
I am one of the readers that think Keane is boringly negative (and predictably so) about everything that Gillard and this government does. I dont particularly think it’s because he is misogynistic but I can’t say actually say why he is thus. Maybe he has only one mode – negative.
I for one do think that this PM has to deal with a lot of mud/innuendo/plain rudeness that previous incumbents have not had to deal with. Whether this is because she is a women, because of how she came to the position, or because the commentators just feel a bit braver etc etc or as I suspect a mix of all of the above plus a general slide in respect for our leaders over the past decade or more, but it is pretty apparent to this lay reader.