A heartening speech. In disheartening circumstances.

I rarely blog about politics because it’s not a topic I believe I can offer a particularly nuanced or sophisticated take on. Unlike, for example, my favourite royals. But after last week? I can’t not venture there. In all honesty my views on this matter are more about principles than they are about politics anyway. So. Let’s talk about Julia Gillard’s performance in parliament. She came out firing in acknowledging and condemning sexist and offensive conduct from Tony Abbott.  And, politics aside, I couldn’t agree more.

In my view she nailed it; she spoke with conviction and eloquence, her argument was cogent and the passionate delivery of those words – long overdue – felt cathartic to watch. Internationally it was an instant hit. Some said she excoriated him, others suggested Barack Obama follow her lead and, well, my favourite UK writer, Caitlin Moran, in her own inimitable fashion, suggested Gillard had torn Abbott a new orifice. And I’m not even going to say what most of the mainstream press said. Because some of it made my want to cry and because I sincerely believe they missed the point entirely.

The circumstances in which her speech was delivered were not ideal, and whilst it might seem naïve to say that didn’t impact the power of her words, in my view, it didn’t.

The government’s handling of Peter Slipper and the lewd scandal in which he stars has been tardy; there is no hiding from that. But the opposition cannot wipe their hands of him; from 1993 until just last year he was one of their own. At the 2010 election Tony Abbott stood beside Mr Slipper declaring him not only a valued politician but a valued friend.

That is relevant not in relation to the government’s response to the broader situation but because it puts Julia Gillard’s direct response to Tony Abbott in context. Like so many of the cheap political points Abbott constantly seeks to score against Gillard, it is hypocritical. It is hypocritical to slight the government on the basis of its affiliation with Peter Slipper when for decades and decades, the liberal party supported him and Abbott counted him a personal friend. If they were in the reverse situation, there is every likelihood, if not certainty, that an Abbott-led government would have acted similarly in not disposing of Slipper immediately. They, too, would have afforded him the luxury of due process.

Many of the concessions Gillard has made in office were required to form a government at all. Because no party won a majority at the last election, the government was up for grabs with three independent ministers calling the shots.  Those ministers met with both Gillard and Abbott and those ministers have made it explicitly clear, on the parliamentary record, that had they given the mandate to Abbott he would have made the same concessions. He told them as much. And yet Gillard is constantly goaded by Abbott for being a liar who can’t be trusted. But worse than that he regularly uses her gender, explicitly and implicitly, to attack her.  

So, last week, when Abbott so provokingly recalled Alan Jones’ revolting words and said the government’s handling of Slipper would cause it to ‘die of shame’ the scene was set for a showdown.  And it was less about Slipper than it was about Abbott. Gillard had had enough and was ready to take him on. And that meant raising the inevitable; her gender and the offensive way she is treated.

Despite some now saying she is using her gender as a shield I disagree. Vehemently.  I think she has avoided mentioning gender for so long because for so long I believe, she believed, it was irrelevant. And yet? It hasn’t been. She has been called barren, she has been told to make an honest woman of herself, she has been called a witch and a bitch and as Anne Summers so comprehensively covered, she has been discriminated against and persecuted, on the basis of her gender.

Sexism and misogyny are ugly words but what is even uglier is the fact they remain alive and well. And, uglier still, the fact we’re not supposed to say that. And that’s what made Gillard’s words so powerful. She broke the unwritten rule of staying silent. We have reached an insidious point in the quest for gender equality where the mere suggestion of ill treatment on the basis of your own anatomy is deemed irritating at best and vexatious at worst. It is why instances of discrimination or blatant sexism are most often dismissed out of hand by the target as much as anyone else. The treatment of women who do pursue action for sexual harassment or sexist conduct is a persuasive case in point. They are always cast as money-grabbing, troublemakers, disrupting the status quo.  Against that backdrop why would anyone speak out?

I know from my own personal experience that I have always opted for silence over confrontation when I have encountered less than acceptable behaviour on the basis of my gender. And I can hazard a solid guess that the women among you have too. And the question I now ask is why? This isn’t 1930 or 1960 or even 1980. It is 2012.  

And it’s the reason why I thought having our prime minister, regardless of her political affiliation, stand up and call time on being subject to insulting and offensive treatment on the basis of her being a woman was so heartening. In the most disheartening of ways

My favourite reading material on the matter

Words many have rehearsed yet never spoken

An apology to Paul Sheehan

Corinne Grant on The Hoopla

Why Gillard’s speech was brilliant

Jessica Irvine on The Punch