Misogyny war has no winner
October 12, 2012
Michelle Grattan
Political editor of The Age
The PM may have made a hero of herself to some feminists but she did the wrong thing in trying to protect the sexist Peter Slipper.
JOHN Howard had his history and culture wars.
Now Julia Gillard has the gender war. Or the ''misogyny wars'' as the extraordinary, bitter, unedifying clash is being dubbed.
Although the fighting has been building, this week's intensity was a shock.
The government operates on the basis that Tony Abbott's weak point is his ''woman problem'', which shows in polling. Many female voters find his style excessively aggressive and some of his attitudes (such as on abortion) unacceptable.
So they keep on and on and on about it, whatever it takes...
But it took the brawl over Peter Slipper to turn conventional battle into nuclear conflict. In Slipper we do seem to have a model misogynist. His offensive description of female genitalia and other unsavory messages reek with contempt for women.
Abbott used the revelation of Slipper's texts to launch a parliamentary attempt to remove him as Speaker. The motion failed;
opposing it, the government essentially said the sexism issue was less important or urgent than observing due legal process. But for country independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, the tipping point had been reached. While the debate was on, they twisted Slipper's arm: they wouldn't humiliate him in the House but he had to quit immediately afterwards.
The political demise of the little-respected Slipper is not so surprising. But Gillard's speech in the debate about his future was a seminal moment.
Rarely do we see a leader so genuinely unleashed in excoriating an opposition leader. ''I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man … Not now, not ever … If he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he does not need a motion in the House of Representatives - he needs a mirror,'' she said, in a performance full of anger.
Which just shows why she is unfit to lead Australia.
Two things were going on here, one full of personal emotion, the other calculatingly political.
Exactly. The irrational machiavellian... whatever it takes Gillard.
Gillard has recently lost her much-loved father, a dreadful time in the life of anyone close to a parent. Coping is made more difficult for a leader in the public eye, let alone having to endure the odious comment of Alan Jones (Tony Abbott's friend) that her father died of shame because of his lying daughter.
Condemned by both sides of politics and by Tony Abbott.
Gillard was ready to unload he
r misogyny tirade otherwise known as a rant whatever Abbott said in Tuesday's debate,
exactly but she wouldn't have expected his echo of Jones, when he referred (he swears without thinking) to ''another day of shame for a government which should already have died of shame''.
Well it should have. BTW he didn't mention her Father once.
The PM's outburst against Abbott reflects her fury at the often-disgusting sexist campaign against her in parts of the blogosphere.
Not to be confused with the genuine deserved criticism she engenders, which is also wide-spread.
But labelling Abbott a ''misogynist' - defined as hater of women, therefore a dramatic step up from the milder ''sexist'' tag - also has a deliberate political edge. Jones' crassness and the huge social media backlash against him gave the government an opportunity to twist further the latest knife it had put into Abbott after the story appeared about his alleged intimidatory behaviour (that he denies) towards a woman at Sydney University.
Whatever it takes...
Gillard's speech has gone viral internationally, struck a chord locally,
and divided commentators and women. Feminist Anne Summers lambasted press gallery journalists who criticised it, saying they were totally ''out of kilter with how so many of the rest of us reacted''.
How about how so many of us were disgusted with it and labelled it for exactly what it was.
Why the divide? It's partly because the commentators judged Gillard's performance on broad criteria, and placed greater weight on the PM's contradiction of protecting the sexist Slipper (on whatever ground) while accusing Abbott of misogyny.
But feminists and a portion of female voters were applauding what they saw as a feisty woman finally hitting back at her tormenters. (Summers recently gave a lecture about the sexist campaign against the PM.)
But Summers doesn't recognise the politics and bad inept incompetent government led by Gillard, which is why she cops the criticism she does.
Some believe
(I think wrongly) it is totally appropriate to toss Abbott in with the serious misogyny nasties. For some women who have experienced severe sexism, Abbott may have become a surrogate for the men who have treated them badly.
Totally irrational. Totally irrational women.
Measurement of how Gillard's outburst has played awaits the polls. A few in the Rudd camp were trying to stir leadership speculation based on he
r ''lack of judgment'', but there was no evidence it was translating into a shift to Kevin Rudd.
Wind back one week and Margie Abbott was out defending her husband against allegations of his ''woman problem''. It remains to be seen whether bringing Mrs Abbott onto the stage will have given Abbott some inoculation against
the misogyny onslaught or highlighted his problem. Abbott says he won't allow Gillard's attack to force him to stop muscling up. But he's aware he must be careful. A word or two, literally, out of place can magnify into a political storm.
Typical labor tactics, dirty politics is part of their whatever it takes culture.
Gillard might be cheered and flattered by New Yorker managing editor Amelia Lester writing that ''After his performance last week, supporters of President Obama, watching Gillard cut through the
disingenuousness and feigned moral outrage of her opponent to call him out for his own personal prejudice, hypocrisy, and aversion to facts, might be wishing their man would take a lesson from Australia.'' (The article became the most popular on the website.)
Yet outsiders are unaware that the disingenuousness and feigned moral outrage shoe is actually on the other foot.
But the fact remains that
Gillard did the wrong thing in embracing Slipper last year and again in resisting his ditching. She might have
made a hero of herself to some feminists by flailing Abbott, but she betrayed feminism in trying to protect Slipper (that she condemned his messages is not enough mitigation). The clarion call that so appealed to those praising her was another confusing message for many who find her hard to read.
She's not hard to read... she will do and say anything to keep hold of the party leadership and power.
As Gillard and Abbott flew off late yesterday to today's Bali commemoration, each must have been unsettled by this week in the
political gutter. It's hard for anyone to keep a foothold when walking in so much muck.
Which Labor wallows in and produces with nauseating regularity.
Michelle Grattan is The Age's political editor.
