Last September Julia Gillard rushed out her first ministry list and made a mistake no male Labor prime minister would have been allowed to live down. She forgot to appoint someone with responsibility for the status of women.
A few days later she fixed up that error by giving the job to Kate Ellis. The rebuke from feminists was mild. The first woman Prime Minister, sworn in by Australia’s first woman Governor-General, was not going to be savaged on her first official pronouncement.
It is absurd to argue that the fact Gillard is a woman has not affected the conduct of politics in Australia. It so obviously has.
Even the criticism has undergone a gender shift. Those placards at March’s No Carbon Tax rally referring to a “witch” and a “bitch” were a minority, but showed how glibly the emphasis has been turned on the fact that the prime minister is a “her” for the first time.
It is an easy distinction, but points to a more profound distrust held by some in the capacity of a woman to lead the nation.
But other consequences of the gender overhaul in The Lodge have appeared to some slightly amusing.
There have been mutterings among some women reporters that Gillard “flirts” with their male colleagues, leaving the boys tittering and beaming at her special attention and jokes during press conferences.
Some of these miffed women might have swooned over a chat with Paul Keating or been charmed by Hawkie, but a flirty female PM - and it is low-voltage flirt if it exists at all - is unacceptable.
Some female political writers have given the prime minister fashion advice - not just in passing, but as a theme of their pieces.
There were stories written about Paul Keating’s suits, and his bald spot, John Howard’s eyebrows and tracksuits, and Kevin Rudd’s Milky Bar Kid locks. But none of those examinations had the intensity of the detailed inspection given to Gillard’s hair - colour and style - earlobes, and dress choices.
The attention has been branded sexist, but it also reaffirms that in politics as elsewhere, women often dress to meet standards set by other women.
The interest isn’t just in Gillard. Queensland’s Anna Bligh had a celebrated public discussion about her use of Botox which ran on most TV bulletins and in several newspaper pages. There is a senior female gallery reporter who, on first meeting Kristina Keneally, asked how she kept the distinctive Keneally swoop in her hair. The then NSW Premier readily went through the whole operation in detail.
Niki Savva in The Australian in November contributed to the Gillard fashion advice by calling on Gillard to develop a political agenda, and then get a new hair stylist and “pack up all her clothes and send them to the Smith Family”.
Elsewhere, there was the Sydney talkback radio caller who wanted to know whether taxpayers covered the bill for Gillard’s tampons. The essential debate about Gillard’s sex has been broader but not necessarily more sophisticated.
One of her female colleagues believes a significant part of Gillard’s political problems, specifically her struggle to have the minority Labor government accepted by voters as legitimate, is that she is a woman.
This Gillard supporter is convinced that the Opposition has a male core who privately list her gender as a disqualification from holding the job. It is as if some believe a law of nature has been upturned.
The Labor woman’s theory would be forgettable were it not for the intensity of the abuse of Gillard and the clear reality that many of the attacks would not be used against a man.
In May 2007, Liberal senator Bill Heffernan launched into her—while Gillard was deputy Opposition leader—for being “deliberately barren”, and therefore ineligible to be a national leader.
“One of the great understandings in a community is family, and the relationship between mum, dad and a bucket of nappies,” he said.
He apologised two days later. Gillard said she hadn’t taken as much umbrage as women who had sped to defend her and berate Heffernan. She could flick a sexist attack from the likes of Bill Heffernan off the bottom of her shoe without breaking stride.
But it was harder to do when Mark Latham used his Financial Review column to make the same point as Heffernan - that Gillard’s childless state makes her an inadequate leader.
Latham, who selected Gillard as his deputy when he led the ALP, said she could not be education minister because of her lack of parental experience. He has maintained that view into her prime ministership.
He also argued she needed to be associated with an “alpha male” to succeed. Gillard was hurt to anger. She tried to hide it, but the sense of betrayal was there.
Only a male would toss around a woman’s reproductive history as if it were a genuine matter of public interest and public inspection.
The prime minister isn’t the only politician given special attention because of her sex. The front page of The Australian announced the elevation of Lara Giddings to the Tasmanian premiership by leading with the fact she was single and “still looking for Mr Right”.
Margaret Thatcher was always seen as a woman. Ditto Angela Merkel of Germany, and Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi. But it became an incidental fact as attention shifted to how they did their jobs, not how their chromosomes were arranged.
The same will happen to Gillard should she get a regular term in office. And that could be a critical issue soon for Australian politics.
If the Gillard Government looks like it will go down, there will be women forced to decide whether they could allow a defeat which might be used to disqualify other women from becoming prime minister.
This article was published in the latest Walkley magazine. Check it out here.
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