Women in politics: Australia and the world

Julia Gillard’s ascension to the position of Australian Prime Minister last week has generated news stories and comment around the world.

She made it to the top job via an unorthodox route, deposing Kevin Rudd in his first term. Whatever you think of this controversial manoeuvre, Gillard certainly showed her political skill and determination, and importantly, that she is supported and respected among her colleagues.

As Gillard joins the growing number of female world leaders*, many observers have examined again the place of women in politics in contemporary society.

Various commentators have noted that Prime Minister Gillard’s gender does not necessarily mean she will immediately set about redressing pay inequality between sexes and legislating a flexible workplace suited to working parents. An article by Nick O’Malley published in SMH quizzed UNSW academic Sarah Maddison on what it means to have a woman leading the country. She said:

while it never crossed anyone’s mind to ask if Rudd would act in mens’ interest, there is the expectation that Gillard should advocate for women. She argues that if people want to see politicians pursue women’s interests, they should elect feminists. ”I don’t think she will practise politics any differently to her male colleagues and I don’t think that women generally tend to. I think women and men in Australian parliaments are governed far more by their party discipline, their faction, their political ideology, than they are by their gender.”  

Irrespective of Gillard’s agenda there are other positive effects from having a female national leader. In the same article, Laura Liswood from the Washington-based Council of Women World Leaders highlights ‘a major benefit to all citizens of countries with women leaders’, what she calls the mirror effect:

Only when women take those roles are all members of society encouraged to engage in civic life. She notes that even though the US is yet to elect a female president, the work of secretaries of state Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton have changed notions of what women can do in that country.

In the Guardian Emine Saner also acknowledges the importance of the values of the individual when assessing the influence a leader’s sex may have on government policy. Saner cites the appointment of Icelandic Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir as an example of a leader with a feminist agenda focusing on women’s issues, such as the sex industry.

In the UK, only four women have been included in the new Liberal-Conservative government ministry. Twenty years after the reign of Margaret Thatcher it is clear that in the UK women are being sidelined in top level politics. On the other side of the chamber, the race for the new Labour leader came close to being all-white and all-male until Diane Abbot, the first black MP when she joined the Commons in 1987, confirmed enough numbers to secure her candidacy for the role. Harriet Harman, currently standing in as leader, is not in the running for Labour leadership, despite having regularly stood in for Gordon Brown during his prime ministership. Harman is a well-known advocate of women’s issues – such as opposing the proposed move to allow rape defendants anonymity during rape trials, and backing a plan that would see half of the places in the next shadow cabinet being reserved for women.

Implementing quotas to guarantee places for women in politics, such as the plan proposed by Harman, is a contentious issue despite the ongoing worldwide trend that sees women consistently occupying dramatically less positions in parliament than men. According to this graphic women constitute 27 per cent of the national parliament in Australia. New Zealand fares better with 33 per cent, while the US comes in with just 16 per cent. One country that defies the trend of male political domination is Rwanda, which with 56 per cent of its parliament made up by women is the global leader in female representation in national politics.

Writing for the Guardian, Mary Fitzgerald overcomes her misgivings about ‘positive discrimination’, such as all-female shortlists and quotas, when considering the situation in Rwanda. In Rwanda, the post-genocide constitution ensures a 30 per cent quota for female MPs, and according to Fitzgerald this

has encouraged many talented women to come forward – people for whom working in government, less than a generation ago, would have unthinkable. Female MPs now make up a record 56% of the Rwandan parliament – a higher proportion than anywhere else in the world – and there are eight female cabinet members. Having met many of these female parliamentarians, “window dressing” is the last description that springs to mind.’

Positive discrimination – suggesting that quotas for women in power will mean that unsuitable or unqualified female candidates will be installed in positions of power – ignores the fact that women are often overlooked for top level positions for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the workplace will have to become more flexible to accommodate working parents – no bad thing. Australian Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner’s resignation this week to spend more time with his family illustrates the difficulty politicians have in balancing a parliamentary career with family life. Perhaps more opportunities will have to be provided to women at grassroots level to allow them to rise on their merits – a positive outcome as well. As the situation in Britain shows, doing nothing means nothing gets done.

*From SMH: “26 female leaders in 23 countries, including three queens, four governors-general, 10 presidents and, as of Thursday, nine prime ministers, according to a researcher referenced by the parliamentary library.”

Best of the rest on PM Gillard

Australia might be ‘tickled pink at having its first female prime minister’, but what else is being said about the dramatic leadership change that saw Kevin Rudd suddenly ousted by Julia Gillard this week? 

Eva Cox at Crikey sees Julia Gillard’s achievement as the first step, rather than the end point, for those desiring gender balance in positions of power: 

‘We will know we really have made progress when women in top positions become normal and not worthy of comment. It will also mean we get better leaders, not just because many are women, but because we no longer exclude good people because of their gender.’ (register to read) 

Also at Crikey Shakira Hussein warns us that Gillard’s ascension to the top job means that some will think that feminism is finished: 

‘The danger now (well, one of the dangers) is that feminists will be told that the battle is won, that anyone who is still on the battlefield is just a whinger, that if a woman can become prime minister, then we have no further reason to complain.’ 

Annabel Crabbe acknowledges the sense of hope that has accompanied Gillard’s promotion:  

‘The approbation of her colleagues, seasoned with a groundswell of genuine delight at the elevation of Australia’s first female prime minister, give her an opportunity to make the sort of progress that eluded her predecessor.’ 

Catriona Menzies-Pike at New Matilda considers Gillard’s momentous caucus win and is left seeking answers: 

‘Once the fuss dies down, some of these questions will be answered and a bigger one will emerge: are Australians really ready to elect a female prime minister? 

‘There’s no doubt that Gillard’s promotion is an important symbolic victory for Australian women. But is this the exemplary trajectory for female success? To act as deputy until those whom you have vehemently opposed act to support you?’ 

 The Australian’s Caroline Overington sees evidence of change stamped all over our new PM: 

Julia Gillard is a woman, but that’s not the only extraordinary thing about her rise. 

She’s got a de facto. 

Imagine that, 30 years ago: an unmarried woman, living in sin with a man. Who is a hairdresser. And aspiring to high office. 

Leo Shanahan at The Punch believes Gillard could be the person to get the government back on track: 

Call me a honeymooner if you want, but in both policy and rhetoric Prime Minister Gillard made a lot of sense today, and that’s something that’s been missing from the Federal Government as of late. 

In Josephine Tovey’s piece at SMH, Gillard’s fruit bowl runneth over, Tovey wants women to stay on their toes: 

Just being a woman in power is not enough. There will be questions, rightly so, from women across the feminist spectrum. 

Will she, as Prime Minister improve the lot of other women, and make their paths to equality easier? 

But these are all questions for tomorrow. For now at least, we should all celebrate this landmark moment. 

 More excitement over at Femisting, with another reminder that all is not yet equal:

Julia Gillard, our new WOMAN PM – sorry, I can’t stop writing that in delighted caps – is a very impressive woman, and I have high hopes that this ouster will get voters’ approval in the upcoming Federal election. But one woman leader does not an egalitarian society make. 

At The Drum Helen Razer, enjoying ‘a little gynaecological bloat as Her Majesty’s female representative swore in the female representative of the people’, writes: 

‘A colony founded in masculinity, Australia can still feel like the land that feminism forgot. On this “historic” day, perhaps Overington, Wilkinson and co can be excused their greeting card gush.’ 

Mia Freedman briefed her readers about their new PM, adding: 

Julia Gillard is a remarkable woman. A fighter who has fought and won against many odds. A self confessed feminist and socialist, Gillard has survived the many attacks from the media and conservatives in Australia to become the Prime Minister of Australia, put in the position by the right wing factions that have previously tried to tear her down. 

Catherine Deveny sees Julia Gillard’s win as ‘a victory for all who do not fit into the category of white, middle aged, middle class, straight (or acting), god fearing (or pretending) university educated males granted a priority pass access to power (and therefore money, control, leisure and choice) at birth.’ Deveny affirms her faith in Gillard, writing: 

I believe in Julia Gillard. Not because she is a woman. But because she’s Julia Gillard. Smart, brave, strong, experienced and independent. I believe in equality and diversity. Which means knowing she can be a maggot and a mongrel when necessary. Delight and disappoint. Her promise not mine.  

  

If you have read any great comment or analysis that I have missed feel free to post it in the comments.

Julia Gillard Is Australia’s New Prime Minister

We’ll write more once the fallout from the spill has settled and we’ve had time to gather our thoughts, but – regardless of how it happened – Australia now has its first female Prime Minister. From The Age:

Julia Gillard has become Australia’s first female prime minister after Kevin Rudd stood aside at the last minute before this morning’s historic leadership ballot.

Ms Gillard was unelected unopposed, making her the nation’s 27th prime minister and its first female leader. She has chosen Treasurer Wayne Swan to be her Deputy Prime Minister.

Ms Gillard had the numbers – reportedly 74 of the 112 caucus votes – and the majority support of the party.

Yes, it would be nice – in an ideal world – for our first female Prime Minister to have been voted in by the public rather than a secretive party ballot, but Kevin Rudd has ended up a disappointment (not to mention certain election promises, like same-sex marriage, that evaporated completely) while Gillard has worked hard behind the scenes and will no doubt reinvigorate the party and government.

But quietly, we’re thrilled and moved that our first female PM will be sworn in by our first female Governor General, no matter how it happened.

Women We Love: Judith Wright

“I wither and you break from me;
yet though you dance in living light
I am the earth, I am the root,
I am the stem that fed the fruit,
the link that joins you to the night.”

From ‘Woman to Child’ (1949), by Judith Wright

Judith Wright (1915-2000) was an acclaimed Australian poet also known for her environmental activism and as a campaigner for Aboriginal rights. I recently read Wright’s memoir Half A Lifetime and was captivated by her independence and the determination of her younger self to forge her own way.

Wright was born in Armidale in 1915. She attended New England Girl’s School and later studied at Sydney University. Wright left Sydney and spent the middle years of the Second World War in NewEngland before moving to Brisbane in 1943 where she found work at the University of Queensland. In 1946 Wright’s first book of poetry, The Moving Image, was published. In 1950 Wright moved to Mount Tambourine with her future husband Jack McKinney, and that same year Wright gave birth to their daughter Meredith. Jack McKinney died in 1966 and Wright lived in Braidwood, NSW until her death in 2000.

Wright was born 95 years ago on May 31, and to mark the day I have asked Sydney University’s Dr Brigid Rooney to answer a few questions about the legacy of this remarkable, unconventional poet, and particularly about Judith Wright’s relevance to women today.

What was remarkable about Judith Wright?

Judith Wright was remarkable, first and foremost, for the brilliance of her poetry – publication of her first two volumes, The Moving Image (1946) and Woman to Man (1949), met with almost instant acclaim, and many Australians (of various generations) encountered several striking poems from these early works when we were at school – such as ‘South of My Days’ (1945) and ‘Woman to Man’ (1946). She continued to produce remarkable poetry beyond these first collections, but they are perhaps less widely known, although increasingly some of the later poems and collections have become iconic for environmentalists and Indigenous groups – such as ‘Eroded Hills’ (1951), ‘At Cooloolah’ (1954) and ‘Two Dreamtimes’ (1973). Indeed her collection, The Two Fires (1955), was inspiration for a festival of arts and activism (established in 2005) in the NSW town of Braidwood where Wright lived during the last decades of her life. But she also offered an example of someone for whom the values relayed in her poetry seemed to fuse entirely with the choices and commitments she made in both her personal and her public life. She became a tireless campaigner for Indigenous and environmental causes, and – although she worked largely behind the scenes, writing letters, administering committees, lobbying politicians and so on – hers was also an influential voice for these causes in Australian public life, partly by virtue of the respect and admiration engendered by her poetry. Her poetry and public roles were reciprocal and mutually reinforcing.

What does Wright’s poetry offer a feminist analysis? What are the feminist themes that run through Wright’s work?

Some of my answer to this is contained in my response to your last question. I have many favourites among her poems. Wright’s poetry offers a powerful exploration of experiences that pertain particularly to the female body and female-oriented experiences of ‘time’ and of life cycles – of death and birth, of pregnancy, and desire, and the interconnections and rhythms of these processes or states. Her very acute observation of the natural world – of the land, of its plants and animals, its birdlife, of the seasons and the elements – is often mediated by this gendered experience. She moves from enclosed, intense, private and individual experiences, through symbolism, outwards toward that which touches the universal human condition. Her voice is captivating, magnetic, yet her versifying is often quite traditional, looking back to her favourite poetic models – the Romantics in particular, like Blake, Keats and Shelley, yet also to some of the modernists, like Yeats and Eliot. These male literary progenitors provided a poetic framework, but what she does with this framework is to convert and transform it to express a woman’s experience. Later she experimented with other poetic forms, from other cultures, from Japan and elsewhere, and they sit alongside these Anglo, often patriarchal models, quietly interrogating a world that operates too rationally and mechanistically to divide body from spirit, human from nature, and so on. From a feminist point of view, Wright’s work is both productive and ambivalent, an occasion for reflecting on the relationship – or tension – between traditional poetic forms or modes and her distinctive qualities of voice, imagery and thought.

What was the relationship between Wright and second wave feminism?

In summary, Wright was a very sympathetic supporter of feminism, and spoke from her position as a woman and as a feminist sympathiser. She did not become deeply or personally involved in activist forms of feminist campaigning. She was much in demand as a speaker, however, at literary and other public events, and she canvassed her views on the topic of women and writing, for example, at an Australian Society of Women Writers’ Biennial Conference in 1980.
 
In Half a Lifetime, Wright relates her bitterness at realising the different destinies open to boys and girls and yet as an adult she devoted herself to environmental and indigenous causes, particularly after she stopped writing poetry. Do you have any idea why she didn’t invest herself in the feminist movement?

This is a tough one and my thoughts on this come from my overall impression of Wright’s life choices and her writing. I think that her lesser engagement with feminism, despite her obvious sympathy with feminist goals, was partly to do with her generational position and experience, and partly to do with her own personality, inclinations and orientation towards others. Wright was a fiercely independent and strong-minded woman, yet in some ways typical of a generation of Australian women (if not also of other white, middle class women in other first world nations) whose careers fell between the two public surges of activism associated with first and second wave feminism. For this generation, youth and maturity encompassed two world wars and the Depression, and they had to negotiate separately and individually the complexities these circumstances brought for women around social destiny and career path. Judith Wright, as the fifth generation descendant of a white pioneering family, however, was also born into a privileged landed class. This circumstance imbued her with a double sense, of closeness to the land, and an increasingly acute awareness of the illegitimacy of white belonging, its basis in the historic dispossession of Aboriginal people. So care for the land and redressing the wrongs done to Aboriginal people were understandably her sustained and driving commitments and top priorities.

I also think that, for Wright, a more vigorously activist approach to feminism would not have been completely congenial, in personal and emotional terms. She was dutiful towards and bonded with a number of men in her life, yet also perfectly capable of standing up for herself and for her views. It seems to me that, in the earlier part of her life at least, she enjoyed loving connections with often mature, older men, either within her own family (father and brothers), or role models and life partners. She had deep, loving and lifelong friendships with a number of women of course, including her daughter, Meredith. Her first life partner and later husband, Jack McKinney, a World War One veteran and self-taught philosopher, was very much her senior in age. His philosophical orientation and passion attracted her. She took on and championed his in some ways eccentric intellectual endeavours, and his ideas entered her poetry. Her poems engage seriously and deeply with McKinney’s ideas, giving them a life and longevity that they might not otherwise have achieved on their own. It is clear from their letters that Judith and Jack enjoyed a profoundly loving relationship. After his death, and at a time when she had assumed both governmental and activist roles in the areas you mention, she developed another very close relationship and intellectual partnership with one of Australia’s most senior and influential public servants, H. C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs – knowledge of their relationship was long confined to themselves and a small inner circle but more recently, belatedly, has been revealed in the public domain. None of this ever precluded Wright’s interest in and sympathy for feminism, but I think that these orientations and positions militated against her making a very strong investment in the feminist movement as such.

What is her legacy to Australian women today?

I think Wright’s poetry, which conveys a woman’s perspective without being ‘feminine’ in a simple, domesticated sense, is perhaps her greatest legacy. It’s a legacy made more powerful and resonant through the energy with which she also contributed to and advanced those twin public causes – of caring for the environment and dealing with the ongoing impact of Australia’s colonial past and present. Her poetry – not just her miraculous early poetry but right through to the work of her maturity and older age – conveys the wisdom and experience of life, of birth, of love, and of the self in dialogue with the other. It possesses extraordinary lyrical power, a vivid clarity and an emotional truth that surely means it will continue to be loved by women (and by men), young and old, for a long time to come. Wright’s poetry is a legacy for all, but I suspect it holds a particular power for women. She has inspired innumerable younger women – especially poets and others – through her writing and her activism. I think women often pass their appreciation of Wright on to other women, to their daughters, and even to their sons. Inseparable from this legacy is the evidence of her active commitment to making the world a better place for both women and men, and for present and future generations. At times she expressed pessimism, in the face of the threats to humanity and to the natural world that she apprehended all around, and in some of her thinking in these areas she was ahead of her time. But her response to these threats was not to withdraw, but to engage and act, and this example might also be her legacy.

Brigid Rooney
27 May 2010

Many thanks to Dr Brigid Rooney for both her time and her wonderful response.

Cherchez la Femme #2 – Get Your Feminism On At The Fox Hotel

Bad news. The first Cherchez la Femme has happened already. You missed it. Or maybe you were there. If you did miss it, you can read Mel’s post here.

Good news! Installment #2 of this rolling panel of thinkers, performers and commentators is happening tonight at The Fox Hotel in Collingwood, from 7pm.

Tonight’s event will be more structured than the first, because it has a dedicated topic – Women and Raunch Culture – whereas salon number one saw discussions range from how you feel when a bartender refers to you and your female friends as “girls”, to the notion of ‘choice’ for women in the workplace – in particular, a non-religious woman being required to wear a burqa on her teaching rounds at a Muslim school. As enjoyable and interesting as it was to engage in a range of issues connected to the feminist cause, I reckon having a topic to work within will allow for much more depth in discussion at tonight’s event.

So, what is Cherchez la Femme all about, you ask? What better way to get an idea than to have a chat with the lady who is making it all happen – Karen Pickering.

Me: Hi Karen. Tell me this, please. Why is feminism, for some, still a dirty word?

Karen: I think there are so many reasons people shy away from calling themselves a feminist. I had a male friend say to me recently “I can’t be a feminist, can I?”. Interesting question, but I think the answer is ‘hell yes’ because we need everyone to be one to effect change. There is no one kind of feminism but I think the one that most people think of is second wave, which has gotten itself a bad reputation in some circles ie. the mainstream media. The best rejoinder to anti-feminists is the cheesy 70s slogan that I think politicised me in one fell swoop: Feminism is the radical idea that a woman is a human being.

Me: Great slogan! So, why did you start Cherchez la Femme? What’s the ideal outcome of holding these events?

Karen: I said at the end of the first Cherchez la Femme that everyone should look around the room and pinch because it was true! A hundred odd people came out on a cold, rainy night to an event that nobody had any idea of the quality of (but maybe the potential) to meet some other feminists! If we get together once a month, talk, listen, be heard, get educated, feel empowered, laugh at each other, make contacts, and generally crack open some ideas that we can’t anywhere else, then this event will succeed in its aim.

Me: What was the most exciting and/or surprising thing about the first Cherchez la Femme?

Karen: I was terrified that nobody would come, and when I saw how many had, I was frightened that nobody would want to talk in front of such a big group. Happily, I was wrong! There seemed to me a real hunger to communicate, a confidence that came from knowing why we were all here, and a… joy? Generosity? I don’t know what, but a good vibe that kept the conversation flowing freely. That was pretty exciting – the spirit in which people engaged and listened.

Me: It was exciting! Finally, what’s in store for people who might come along to the event in the future?

Karen: The next Cherchez la Femme will look at ‘Women and Raunch Culture’ and what it means for the feminist project. From now on, each month will have a broad subject of discussion, so we can cover more ground in more depth, but still keep the focus on audience-driven content – either by asking questions, commenting, or submitting ideas on paper. Upcoming CLFs will look at ‘Women and Sport’, “Women and Work”, “Women and the Law”, children, bodies etc, as well as featuring an ever-changing panel of feminists with good brains and big smiles. How does that sound?

Me: That sounds great. Thanks Karen!

I think it’s pretty obvious how good that all sounds, no?

Head to The Fox Hotel (351 Wellington St, Collingwood – corner of Alexandra Parade) at 7pm tonight, for what promises to be a frank and fearless discussion of what raunch culture means for all feminists. Does it exist? If so, who does it serve? And what might be its consequences for women of all ages, and the girls who are growing up into it?

These are tonight’s panelists:

Clementine Ford – writer, blogger, activist, singer, roller-derby initiate, flame-haired vixen and all-round fierce woman. Also, feminist.

Jeff Sparrow – editor of Overland Magazine, writer, Twitter-maven, activist, and general thinker of impressive thoughts. Also, feminist.

Megan Evans – multi-award winning visual artist, academic, curator, activist, and long-time land rights advocate. Also, feminist.

And the effervescent Kate Boston Smith joins Karen Pickering to host the proceedings and solicit your input.

See you there!

Also, join the Cherchez La Femme group on Facebook if you like! Any enquiries can go straight to Karen Pickering – 0427 381 527.