JULIA GILLARD became Australia’s first woman prime minister last month in a parliamentary ambush of the unpopular Labor leader Kevin Rudd. Will she be an inspiring model for women, especially if she is elected soon by popular vote? It’s very unlikely. Feminists in power are often walking advertisements for traditional roles.

The 48-year-old Gillard is childless and lives with her boyfriend, who is her former hairdresser. She presents a realistic image of the practical implications of feminism and socialism. She is the modern female eunuch. By contrast, Sarah Palin, who is attractive, the mother of five, and married to a good-looking man, sells the feminist dream, which is not to reject femininity but to have the advantages of being both a woman and a man at once.

The Labor Party, by the way, has a rule that 35 percent of its parliamentary seats must be reserved for women. This sort of blatant favoritism never seems to embarrass feminists.

Julia Gillard and her boyfriend, Tom Mathieson

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Simone writes from Australia:

The previous Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was ousted essentially because he was polling badly and looked set to lose at the upcoming election. It was a very controversial move on the part of the (left-wing) Labor Party and has been the subject of much discussion in the media and in everyday life. 

On the day that this bloodless coup took place I was talking to a group of mums outside my daughter’s classroom and the conversation inevitably turned to Julia Gillard and the chances of her actually being elected Australia’s first female Prime Minister by the people (rather than by factional heavy-weights within the party). I made the point that, while I wouldn’t want to place bets just yet, Gillard will probably secure a significant proportion of the female vote, i.e. women voting for her because she’s a woman. The fact that the conservative opposition leader, Tony Abbot, does not poll at all well with women will also work in her favour. He’s Catholic (his critics call him ‘the mad monk’), anti-abortion, pro-family and, if elected, probably the closest we’re ever likely to come to having a traditionalist in power. He does get it wrong on some important issues (e.g. he’s suddenly in favour of paid maternity leave), but feminists hate him with a passion, so he can’t be all bad! 

Today I met up with one of the mums mentioned above and she told me that what I said about Julia Gillard getting the female vote was ‘beyond the pale’ (her exact words), and that one of the other mums was equally offended. I was quite shocked because I didn’t think there was anything particularly untoward about what I had said. She told me that I was wrong to make such an unfair assumption about female voters and that it was patently absurd to suggest that women could be so fickle. I protested, but not very convincingly I’m afraid (confrontations render me a pathetic, quivering mess). In the end, my feminist friend basically told me to put-up or shut-up. 

Unfortunately, after much on-line research, I cannot find anything to ‘put-up’, as it were. Now I am starting to doubt myself and wonder if, perhaps, my feminist friend was right.

 Laura writes:

It would have been more accurate for you to say that women tend to vote liberal and because Gillard is a socialist, she is likely to attract heavy female support. Being a woman is only one liberal credential for a candidate. Women voted for Obama in large numbers over Hillary Clinton and many will not be voting for Sarah Palin if she runs. Ideology trumps the sex of the candidate.

Phantom Blogger writes:

And she’s an atheist as well. 

“As a child, she was a Baptist, now she’s an avowed atheist. Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard this week completed the image of a thoroughly modern Australian leader by telling the nation she doesn’t believe in God.”

Laura writes:

Yes, and her atheism has stirred a lot of discussion, with strident atheists claiming her as their own. It seems that many people are unable to articulate why an atheist leader is unsettling in the face of aggressive statements that atheists are just as good as believers. But, if Gillard was asked, “Do you believe there are any objective moral standards?,” she would have to answer, “No.”  Why would anyone want to elect someone who believed she was only accountable to voters.

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