Last night on Twitter, amongst the heated debate about Julia Gillard versus Kevin Rudd for Labor Prime Minister of Australia emerged the hashtag #ditchthewitch. It is a belittling, sexist slogan borrowed from the far right of Australia, who sunk to these depths in protests against the carbon emissions trading scheme. It is incredibly disturbing to see this slogan used again, and by some people apparently pro-Labor enough to care about Rudd’s candidacy – although a lot of people using the hashtag read as right-wing opportunists.
There is no denying that this is a bitter leadership contest for both the Labor caucus and for some of us in the Australian public (my own view on this matter is expressed in my comment here), but it is revealing on a broader level that people will draw so readily upon misogyny in this battle involving a man and a woman for the top job, isn’t it?
This article, “The gender agenda: Gillard and the politics of sexism” from Anne Summers at the Sydney Morning Herald is very much worth the read:
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.)
”I can’t remember ever seeing anything like ‘Ditch the Witch’ and I can’t imagine Jeff Kennett sanctioning that by his appearance,” says Joan Kirner, who was premier of Victoria from 1990 to 1992. ”The level of media and political sanction that has been given to this gender bias attack is greater.”
”There is an ugly part to the community and if you give them license it will emerge,” says Clare Martin, reflecting on the ”Ditch the Witch” signs. ”Wedge politics always brought people out and made them feral.” In the territory, it would happen with potent issues such as land rights, especially when claims could affect access to fishing areas or parks or waterfront areas in Darwin. ”We managed it by talking calmly and acknowledging it was an issue,” recalls Martin. ”Not by feeding that hysteria.
The insults leveled at Julia Gillard have certainly made me feel sick, and I think they are in quite a different league from what has gone on in the past.
I have found it very hard to point out how “over the line” some of these comments have gone, without others taking it as a commentary on who I support politically, and entirely missing my point.
Yes, I agree completely. When I raise the point about the sexism against her I constantly have men either telling me I am ‘paranoid about sexism’ or that I am only saying that because I must be a Gillard supporter,
Sadly, this reminds me a lot of the Democratic primaries here in the U.S. 4 years ago, between Obama and Hillary Clinton. The derogatory statements are very similar, and the disappointment it makes me feel is almost exactly the same.
I have been personally disappointed with Julia for a number of reasons, chief amongst which may be that my expectations were high. Whilst I hoped for more, I have struggled to understand the level of hatred she inspires as anything other than outright misogyny. At the moment I cannot see any way forward. I don’t share your hope that the spill on Monday will clear the way for a new consolidated leadership, with Rudd out of the way. I fear we may look back on this moment as the beginning of the end of the ALP. I really hope I am wrong.
Julie, me too, I have been disappointed in her as well and I think part of that was because my expectations of her were very high and the other part of it is that this government hasn’t had a very clear run at anything and the final part is that it hasn’t been a very visionary government.
Here’s my thoughts on the rest of your comment: Those once close to Rudd who are now enemies have been saying for a while that you don’t half-kill off a contender like Rudd, you have to do it properly or he will be back and they see this as what has been going wrong since the change of leadership. I think the Gillard team believes they need to kill the Rudd contender thing off fast or it gets even more drawn out and even more mortifying and damaging for all involved. The reason all these senior Ministers are coming out against Rudd is not because everything has fallen apart, it is not the party in disarray, it is to deliver that big, fast, hard hit on Rudd to take him out and leave him with no doubt that there isn’t any chance left of his return. Right this very moment we’re in the middle of the ‘killing off’ – it is loud and ugly because it has to be if it is going to be done so fast. The time to assess the damage is some time after Monday, like a month from now, or several months from now, and not right in the middle of the thing. Did it kill Rudd off? Have the public been too repulsed by witnessing it all?
I am not so sure this will be the tearing apart of the Labor Party that everyone thinks it is, for two reasons. One, this is ugly and scary conflict but a lot of the party members and position-holders are pretty seasoned in bloody conflict, just not out in public. So, I think they can recover from the experience and still work with each other. Two, Rudd is so unpopular with people in the Labor Party that there aren’t a hell of a lot of people internally to be enemies with over all this. There might be enemies about how this was handled but not much about the man, himself.
People I have spoken to close to the action say that it is a horrifying experience for all involved, but there is a sense that this was last resort action and the last resort time had come.
Of course, whether the public can cope with it all out in the open is another question… but then we didn’t much like the faux-truce either.
I would also say that some of the stuff being used against Rudd is pretty mucky stuff and while common in party politics is probably not the best thinking for the public arena.
I think it is the actions of people desperate for understanding why they need to be rid of this man. Like many desperate actions it is not well thought out, nor is it something that the fervent Rudd supporters will believe. I really hope that Rudd will retire to the backbench and behave, but who knows. He has certainly been telling some porkies lately.
I just can’t see Rudd being killed off. I can understand why all this stuff didn’t come out originally, but by sticking with the ‘good government that lost its way’ line and failing to own the coup in all its surgical brutal glory, it is now hard to deliver the decisive blow required to ‘kill the contender’ without it looking a bit contrived. Presumably Rudd knows that he won’t win tomorrow, and has a whole campaign worked out to continue whiteanting from the backbench. Do I give him too much credit? Perhaps this is not part of a well planned and thought through strategy, You are right that the party operatives are innured to this sort of blood letting and will survive, I’m overly dramatic in my pessimism.
I can understand your pessimism, I think we’re all having a bit of a panic at the moment.
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