Post by @fluffula Thank you
In 2013, what is it like to be an Australian woman? Pretty crap actually, Australian women only marginally more respected than Aboriginal People and those of the Muslim faith and refugees. Just think about this group of people, they are a big chunk of the population but you wouldn’t know it. This group is the play thing of hate politics and boy are we used, rung out and then used again.
This week has been one of the most depressing times for me as an Australian woman, you may wish to mock me at saying this, roll your eyes and say, typical, another woman whinging about how hard it is to be a woman but I felt wrung out by the end.
It just may be because this country’s parliaments and media is chock to the gills with middle aged white men who are threatened by anything that doesn’t reflect back themselves, a sorry lot of unevolved miscreants who only want power, prestige and money, the sole motivation, everything is for sale, including our international standing. I include their female enablers in this group, they may as well be one of these men even the ones who call themselves feminists.
This week we had our first female Prime Minister of this country humiliated like no man can ever be or ever was and you would have thought calling her some man’s bitch was bad, but that’s so 2010, we have moved up the hate a few notches since then.
First we had the visceral dismissal of the a speech the PM gave to an ALP women’s political group Labour for Women, where she spoke of abortion and the need to ensure it doesn’t become the political play thing of men who think they know better. She also spoke about women sharing power in the Labor Party but conspicuously absent from the centre of power in the LNP Coalition with the most powerful jobs in a Government of PM, Deputy PM, Treasurer and Finance Minister all filled by men. She used a blue tie analogy to represent the power brokers in the opposition party led by Tony Abbot. She used the blue tie because Tony Abbott had announced he would be wearing a white shirt and blue tie every day until the election and she was poking fun, how very dare she?
The media were disdainful and so were many on social media. What a failure, what a fraud, she’s playing the gender card and how puerile, can this woman get nothing right? She was accused of using wedge politics and bringing tea party style politics to Australia, because Abbott hasn’t with his daily repetitive big lie mantras, of ‘stop the boats’ ‘she can’t be trusted’, ‘incompetent Prime Minister’ ‘wasteful incompetent Government’; despite Australia weathering the GFC better than most countries, lowest interest rates it has had in decades, a AAA rating from all three agencies (for the first time ever), and an economy with steady growth and improved productivity.
Joe Hockey the man from the opposition party who expects to be our next Treasurer tweeted “Gillard’s comments on abortion and the Coalition are desperate and offensive. She has never deserved respect and will never receive it.” Noice.
We then had menugate (sic) where an owner of a Sunshine Coast restaurant was hosting an LNP fundraiser for Mal Brough the Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Fisher, put together a menu that had the PMs breasts, thighs and vagina (yep) as part of the dishes on offer. Joe Hockey was in attendance but they didn’t see the menu and knew nothing about it, although Mal thought it had been done for the event, but he realised later, no he didn’t know anything about it, he was just confused by all the meeja questioning him about it. It was all a joke, you see, for the venue owner and his son to laugh themselves silly over. The joke creator was also very sorry he had embarrassed Mr Brough and oh of course he really loves women. He wasn’t however sorry that he had humiliated the PM or if he was he never told us.
The picture that got leaked through social media looked like it was professionally printed and even embossed with stars next to the PM dish de jour but no, it was just a joke for two people whipped up on the office desk jet. If you believe this ridiculous mea culpa, I have a bridge in Sydney to sell you.
Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey told us, it was revolving and wrong but it never left the kitchen and to suggest otherwise, was an outrage and nonsense when there are so many other issues we should be focusing on like, Her incompetence, drowning refugees, and the need to rid ourselves of this terrible Government. Furthermore, this was a desperate ploy by a desperate Government to hide their incompetency; See kids, this is how it works, not just deny, deny, but spin the blame back on the victim.
Good old Tones and Joe also didn’t see the need to offer the PM an apology that someone they were associated with would humiliate her in such a way, ’cause you know, she doesn’t deserve respect and she will never receive it.
So while some of us, like myself were not only appalled but a little sad that a female, let alone the Prime Minister can be so humiliated and not only not receive an apology but be beaten down for daring to be offended, we got served up the next LNP related shocker.
The Western Australian shock jock, Howard Settler, who has been master of ceremonies at WA LNP functions, decided that during his interview with the PM he would heap a little more derp and disrespect on her plate, just in case she got any idea that respect would ever come her way from anyone who is on the side of Tony Abbott. Sattler during an on air Q&A with the PM, asked her if her partner of seven years was gay? You see her partner is a hairdresser by trade and ergo, gay. She tried to brush it off, Oh Howard don’t be silly, no, he insisted, this isn’t me asking this it’s what people say, is Tim gay?
How she didn’t walk out is beyond me but if she did, she would be have pilloried for it I am sure. At least this level of hateful endeavour was seen as too far, sweet baby cheeses, we finally got to the point where we as a nation agreed this was too much. Personally I think we hit it in 2011, when Tony Abbott stood next to Ditch The Witch signs at an anti carbon tax rally, surrounded by many of his team and a few hundred older hateful Australian’s that were mad as hell a woman had lied to them.
Sattler has been sacked or suspended, I’m not quite sure and I really don’t care, I hear he is suing for unfair dismissal or suspension or something and has Parkinson’s, ’cause you know, that makes it alright to humiliate the Prime Minister. Remember, she doesn’t deserve respect and she will never receive it.
Oh and what’s even better, this totally embarrassing and disgraceful behaviour is being reported around the world, look at Australia, look at how it treats its Prime Minister, the world is looking at us and saying, what in the hell is their problem? I’m not quite sure I could tell them.
By the end of the week anyone on her side was pretty rung out and most of the women I spoke to or conversed with on Twitter with were appalled and reeling, really, she deserves this, an LNP-voting tweeter said to me, the menu was wrong but she has brought disrespect to the office.
So despite everything she went through, this guy was unmoved by her plight, no sympathy what so ever, she deserves no respect and she’s not going to receive it.
Then The Australian, who has been one of the biggest villain’s in ensuring Australian women think twice about aspiring to political office, decided their weekend paper would kick her one more time this week. Their weekend paper edition’s front page headline screamed that the PM had lost the support of her union factional supporters the Australian Workers Party and she was gone. We soon found out from its Secretary that this was not true and then other ALP caucus members came out in her support. Although, this is mere detail, it’s still running stories on how the majority of her party don’t want her and she is still trying to get mileage out of the Opposition Leaders alleged misogyny.
This is where I just want to scream. I have read so much bile and seen her called ‘c**t’ so many times I never want to see that word again, you know she once did a live online Q&A to answer the public’s questions and she had to sit there and watch the screen serve up the most vile abuse at her by the trolls that want make sure she knows exactly how they feel. They mocked her over her Father’s death, called her c**t (natch) threatened her and gloated at her soon to be political demise.
THIS IS AUSTRALIA 2013.
Now someone explain to me how this is right and how any woman wouldn’t feel completely overwhelmed and even scared by this constant abuse and criticism and if our leaders are doing it why wouldn’t the guy in the next cubicle who thinks like them wouldn’t? It’s now a national sport to abuse the Prime Minister; I do not recall any PM before her receiving this kind of hatred and bile. During the week if you were on twitter a lot of reminders got tweeted into your timeline of the hatred thrown at her. I cried a couple of times, both out of fear and a deep sadness, me the women is forced to watch the abuse of another, in the name of politics. I’m told big deal it’s not me, well NO, I not the sort of person who can just watch and not care, even if it was Julie Bishop, who I despise, I could not bare it, but hey its not me and I am over-reacting and meh, she doesn’t deserve respect and she isn’t going to receive it.
I also have a message for both Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd, there is no way in hell I will vote for men who have so comprehensively been at the centre of the persecution of this women. Abbott you are a misogynist, you may not hate the women you know and love but you sure as hell hate the rest of us. Your decades of berating us for thinking we have a right to control our own bodies and the way you have made us watch your abuse of our first female PM is proof enough for me and I don’t care what the dictionary, The Australian or your female traitors say, you are a despicable man.
Kevin, you were dumped by your party and Ms Gillard put in your place because you were a prig who disapproved of anything you thought played well with the election and outside of the Apology to our Aboriginal People who we have been abused for 200 years and continue to be so and the stimulus, you couldn’t run Government. You wouldn’t consult, you bullied and you ignored those who you thought had slighted you. You were in it for the ego, much like Abbott and you are not a better alternative, I do not believe you could have weathered such an onslaught or gotten NBN, NDIS or GONSKI through parliament all nation building, impressive initiatives, you couldn’t get your ETS or Health Policy through. Yeah I know you leaked at last election to make sure she faced a hung parliament or no Government at all because better the Man than THAT woman. In my opinion, you should leave the party and hang your head in shame.
No gentlemen you were not born to rule, you were born to remind us that some men in Australia are not worth pissing on if they were on fire.
