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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
"This isn't Celebrity Big Brother … It is about who can lead the nation … who as prime minister has the personal attributes and the personal strength to get things done." (24 February 2012)

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ARE women leaders treated differently from men? And are such differences a disadvantage or, worse, outright discrimination? And how do women themselves feel about the ongoing vilification of the Prime Minister? These are very hot questions at present, especially after the near hysterical reaction from politicians and much of the media to Senator Bob Brown's recent comment that ''quite a bit of the criticism [of Gillard] is sexist and unfair and unrelenting''.

To explore this, I speak to a number of past and present women political leaders, seeking to draw on their experiences as well as their opinions. The Prime Minister declines to be interviewed and others prefer not to go on the record; some are happy to go public with their thoughts.

The conversations are a somewhat sobering reminder that, despite the quite respectable number of women political leaders Australia has now produced, our comfort level has not undergone a commensurate improvement. There is disagreement about the basic proposition: ''I achieved the confidence of my electorate, the leadership of my party and the premiership of my state,'' says former New South Wales premier Kristina Keneally. ''I can't ever consider that I experienced some kind of disadvantage because I am a woman. I won't lend support to such a thesis.''

Most of the others have stories to tell of differences and disadvantages.

Gillard has been criticised for not having children (''deliberately barren'', in the infamous phrase of Senator Bill Heffernan) but so has Julie Bishop: ''Sometimes it's used as a slur,'' she says. ''As public figures we are subject to very harsh judgments by people.''

For the increasing number of women politicians who do want to combine their career with having children, there are issues men never have to deal with. ''It might mean you have to travel with the Esky and the breast pump and the baby if you want to make it work,'' says Sophie Mirabella, shadow minister for industry, whose second baby was born in June 2010, a few weeks before the federal election was called.

Nicola Roxon, the Attorney-General, gets irritated that ''the media is more interested in me as someone with a young child than anything to do with policy. My male colleagues who have young children don't get asked these questions.''

''You literally cannot win,'' says a cabinet minister. ''You are criticised if you dedicate yourself to your career and don't have children. Or if you do have them, you're told you are neglecting your family. Or, when you spend time with them, that you are not doing your job properly.''

Often women politicians overcompensate, feeling they need to prove they are totally up to the job. ''The successful women I see are tremendously good at their jobs, and are phenomenally well prepared, '' says a Labor frontbencher. ''They turn up at local events with a written speech, while the men just turn up.''

Clare Martin, who was chief minister of the Northern Territory for 6½ years until 2007, agrees that women often overachieve in the diligence stakes. ''I can see with Julia, she's like me. I read all my briefs, I knew what I was doing when I went to a meeting.'' Martin now says, in retrospect: ''I worked too hard. I got very tired. You are not flexible enough when you are tired.''

Yet these issues pale before the avalanche of hatred that has at times almost crushed Gillard. At an anti-carbon tax rally in Canberra in March last year, angry protesters held up signs that said ''JuLIAR'' and ''Bob Brown's Bitch'' and ''Ditch the Witch''. It was a long way from the mockery that Australia's first two women premiers, Carmen Lawrence and Joan Kirner, had to put up with. ''Lawrence of Suburbia'' and ''Spot on Joan'' (a reference to her clothes) seem pretty tame by comparison.

It was nasty and it was personal but it was also sexist for using that word. A ''bitch'' is ''a malicious or disagreeable woman'', says Macquarie Dictionary. It is one of Kevin Rudd's preferred descriptions of the Prime Minister, according to Andrew Probyn, federal political editor of the West Australian newspaper.

''Women are expected to be tougher than tough, but there is a fine line between that and being a bitch,'' says Chikarovski, acknowledging the negative power of the 'b' word.

And although Liberal women recall that John Howard was mocked for his eyebrows, his glasses, his voice and his tracksuits, no one can point to an example of a gender-specific term being used to attack Howard, or any male politician for that matter. ''Is there a comparable male term to 'bitch'?'' asks Judi Moylan, the Liberal member for Pearce and a former minister for women. She could not think of one.

On July 6 last year, Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones said on air, referring to Gillard: ''The woman is off her tree and quite frankly they should shove her and Bob Brown in a chaff bag and take them as far out to sea as they can and tell them to swim home.'' The comments caused outrage. Tony Abbott joined in the denunciation and Jones later said he regretted the remarks but by then they had become part of the firepower that was being aimed at Australia's first female prime minister.

These inflammatory (and verging on violent) sentiments have now become commonplace in Parliament. During the last sitting, Christopher Pyne compared Gillard's leadership to ''a person with a gangrenous wound [and] the body is now seeking to excise the sick limb''. Nicola Roxon considers the Abbott/Gillard contest to have gone ''beyond the normal push and shove of Parliament''. She says the level of personal abuse and vitriol in the current parliamentary debates are of a substantially different nature from anything we have seen in the past.

SO IN Parliament and in the community, it is now apparently deemed OK to subject the Prime Minister to cruel, violent and often gender-specific commentary and insults. And many in the media join in. The Herald Sun described her as ''coquettish'' and ''giggling'' with President Obama. Andrew Bolt described her as ''weak, even girlish'' with the US President.

But it is on talkback radio where the hatred really gets out of hand. She has been labelled, by hosts Alan Jones or Ray Hadley or by callers to these programs: ''a menopausal monster'', ''a lying cow'', ''a lying bitch'', a ''vitriolic, bitter, lying, condescending facade of a prime minister'', ''a horrible mouth on legs'' and ''brain dead''. One of Alan Jones' listeners even said: ''Does she go down to the chemist to buy her tampons or does the taxpayer pay for them as well?'' (These were included in a compilation on The Hampster Wheel by The Chaser on ABC TV last November.)
Some are worried that these attacks on Gillard will jeopardise future opportunities for women in politics.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/the-gender-agenda-gill
ard-and-the-politics-of-sexism-20120225-1tv7n.html#ixzz1nYvxPguX

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Originally posted by Niki2:

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