Women in politics

The Conversation posted an article on the website and on Facebook recently, titled “The Liberals have a serious women problem – and it’s time they took action to change it”. This subject stirred heaps of trolls who didn’t like what The Conversation said about women – even though it was true! 

Some commenters on the FB claimed that there was no discrimination, that women were nestled righteously in their kitchens. Others , like MF, abused me about my comments about his misogynist comments. I wrote back to him:

… your comments are ridiculous. Do you actually understand what "misogynism" is? I quote (and I won't tell you where it's from, see if you can find it yourself): "A man or a woman can exhibit misogynism, though it's more commonly seen in men or in male-dominated industries or governments." I did not misunderstood your comment(s), I answered them. Maybe YOU should read what I wrote. Julia Gillard did NOT "play a victim". The misogynism was used by Abbott and his hope-to-be-voted party. Have you ever seen anything that Abbott - and yes, women, like Bishop - promoted? Did you agree with when they had on a poster which Abbott and Bishop and other LNPers were? Is that considered anything bad? Oh, possibly not by you. Have a look through this article for abusive comments about her. Have a look through this article - who's making the money selling that? Julia Gillard was one of the best PMs - and you should already understand that women have being running their countries throughout this globe for decades. Unfortunately, Australia has only ever - very recently - had ONE woman PM and ONE woman Governor General. Sad.

The quote that I said I wouldn’t have provided where I got it from came from a dictionary on-line. Have a look if you need to. “A man or a woman can exhibit misogynism, though it's more commonly seen in men or in male-dominated industries or governments.” Yes, it is. 

I sure hope that any readers of this will know some of the history about women in government. Just to re-enable common sense, here’s some history:

• The first women to stand for government was in 1903
• In 1943 the first two women were elected, one to House of Representatives and the other to the Senate – Dame Enid Lyon and Dame Dorothy Tangney
• In the SA state election in 1894, women were legally allowed to vote but didn’t get into the state government until 1959
• The longest serving women were Kathy Sullivan (LNP) served 27 years in the Senate (1974-1984) and the House of Representatives (1984-2001) and Dame Dorothy Tangney (ALP) who served 24 years, the longest in Senate (1943-1967)
• By 1980 only 3% of women made up the House of Representatives
• Dame Quentin Bryce became the first female Governor General in 2008
• Julia Gillard became Australian’s first female Prime Minister in 2010
• The LNP swamped the media with misogynism against Julia Gillard: eventually she had enough and gave a speech which went around the world
• In 2003 Marion Scrymgour became the first Aboriginal woman minister in any state government
• In 2016 Linda Burney became the first Aboriginal woman in the federal parliament

Read the transcript of Gillard’s speech. Read it! If you are a woman, this will make sense. If you are a man who accepts women in equality then you will understand it.

This post is just about politics, and yet women haven’t ‘changed’ more in politics. Why do we need to change? Why do we need to ‘fight’? Why can’t we behave respectfully, politely and equal? Are we supposed to behave like too many men – especially in politics – who don’t care of respectfulness, who never are polite, who just don’t believe we are equal?

I have watched Turnbull yell at Shorten. Shorten doesn’t seem to respond the same way. Turnbull makes a joke out of anything he doesn’t like – which seems to be far too much, and yes, it was Julia Gillard as the PM back then. Shorten has developed a wonderful way he can attack the future election – speak to the people, not at them. ALP has more women than LNP, and LNP doesn’t care that they don’t respect women. APH has an article which lays out the gender composition in parliament, but that was 2016: ALP 44% of women, Liberal 21% and National only 14%.

This is 2018. How much longer will women have to wait for men to respect us, be polite to us, believe that we are equal – without writing some disgusting responses to us in Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media they follow?

We probably should stop fighting, but every time a man abuses us / me / her, I will fight. I don’t want to win, I just want to be equal.

With everyone.