Toby Creswell - The History of Australia in 100 Objects

2013
Julia Gillards spectacles
A womans work

Prime Minister Julia Gillard kicked off the election year of 2013 with an address to the National Press Club on 30 January. The following day the political stories in the news fought for space with stories about her Oliver Peoples rose-red spectacles. Why these glasses should be so controversial explains part of the Gillard prime ministership; women in power are scrutinised differently.

On 8 October 2012, Prime Minister Julia Gillard fielded a question from Tony Abbott, the leader of the Opposition. The question related to text messages sent by Abbotts good friend but now political enemy the Speaker of the House, Peter Slipper. The private but sexually explicit messages were in poor taste and Abbott taunted Gillard about them.

Gillard rose and opened her answer with:

I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever. The leader of the Opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well, I hope the leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesnt need a motion in the House of Representatives he needs a mirror. Thats what he needs. Lets go through the Opposition leaders repulsive double standards...

Gillard enumerated in the parliament the double standard, the sly sexism that operates in our society. Its a world in which women have the apparent trappings of equality but are not the equal of men. Its a world where women are still doing the ironing while men look after the big jobs.

Gillards speech stopped the nation in its tracks for its passion and its plain speaking. It was reported all over the world the only time in 200 years that an Australian prime ministers remarks have been. Australian women, even the legion who otherwise despised Gillard, recognised that for the first time someone had articulated the sexism and discrimination they put up with on a daily basis.

The 27th prime minister of Australia and the 13th Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard was the first woman to hold the top job and the first woman to lead the ALP. She was, even for years before that, a character who fascinated and polarised the Australian public. Unlike other ambitious politicians, Gillard never married, never pretended to have religious beliefs, spoke with a very broad accent, and in one of her first major photo shoots posed in a kitchen with an empty fruit bowl and little evidence of hominess. These characteristics were commented on incessantly. One especially uncouth Liberal politician accused her in parliament of being barren.

There is a general sense that sexism goes unremarked. Women are supposed to put up with it because they are good sports or because its beneath them to acknowledge it. The fact that women make up 50 per cent of the population and yet only 3.7 percent of prime ministers goes completely unremarked. Gillards ascent to the top job was a lightning rod for men and women in Australia who were threatened by the idea of a woman being in charge.

Gillards position was not helped by the coup that installed her in power. She had been deputy to Kevin Rudd following the 2007 election. By 2010 most of the government had lost confidence in Rudd as prime minister and believed that the ALP was facing defeat at the imminent election. Gillard stood against Rudd and won the prime ministership, but was thereafter seen as a traitor. Her ascent over Rudd was the same as that of Bob Hawke over Bill Hayden, Paul Keating over Hawke, John Howard over a number of people and Rudd over Kim Beazley, but Gillard was painted as a Lady Macbeth and never transcended that archetype. The fact that Rudd launched a relentless destabilisation campaign against her helped neither Gillard nor her government.