different league

Gillard is probably most famous for her 2012 targeting of opposition leader Tony Abbott’s understanding of sexism. “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man,” she said. “If he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn’t need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror.”

It was exactly this kind of engaging (and often ferocious) performance in parliament that first saw Gillard elected as Labor’s deputy leader in 2006. Gender wasn’t the only way in which this election marked a departure from the types of personalities usually seen in Australian politics. Gillard was an atheist, with a working class accent, and she had never married or had children, living instead with her partner.

Compared to the bookish, bureaucratic Rudd, she was seen as dynamic, young and progressive. Most people agreed that she was his natural successor; even Rudd himself had said that she would eventually replace him. When she ascended to the prime ministership in 2010, less than three years after Labor had formed government, Gillard was considered one of the most popular figures in Australian politics. But that all changed after she got the top job.

Political journalist Annabel Crabb says: “The reason for her removal and lack of public approval was all to do with her means of accession to power.”

Crabb is referencing Gillard’s move to take over from Rudd, which was carried out in true Australian fashion: by disloyally challenging a long-term friend and colleague whose public popularity was flailing. Gillard’s ascension was viewed as aggressive, and did seemingly come from nowhere, with no rhyme or reason. As the public understood it, Rudd and Gillard were a team. There was also a belief that if Rudd were to go, the Australian people should replace him – not the internal machinations of his own party.

“Usually Australian prime ministers are put out to pasture long after they should have been, but Rudd was thrown out before his time,” Crabb explains. “And while there were reasons for it, Gillard was never really able to talk about it freely. It created a barrier between her and the people she was leading”

It is a view that is reflected by Tamara Moore, a 32-year-old retail manager from Brisbane who usually votes Labor. “I couldn’t relate to Julia,” she says. “She immediately came across as untrustworthy.”

If Gillard wasn’t able to talk about the way in which she became leader, it was partly because she was not the architect of her own leadership. Instead of publicly declaring her leadership challenge, Gillard was installed in position by a political party who thought she was their best chance of winning the next election. “It was clear from her face, the morning that it happened, that she wasn’t comfortable with the way it had happened,” observes Nareen Young, CEO of Diversity Council Australia.

But in politics, image is everything, and however innocently Gillard came to the prime ministership, the political narrative of her rise was brutal. “She was reframed as a Lady Macbeth character,” says Cheryl Kernot, 64, a former Australian Labor minister and high profile former leader of the Australian Democrats. “People have allowed history to be rewritten that she initiated it, that she lusted after the leadership, when in fact, the opposite was true.” Add that to the fact that Labor was reduced to a minority government after the 2010 Australian election – even with the new leader – and there was a sense that Gillard’s leadership was illegitimate. And where for a male politician that might be channelled into cries of stupidity and corruption, for Julia Gillard, it manifested itself as gross sexism.

Almost immediately after her ascent to leadership, journalists began to critique her for the fit and colour of her clothes. She was threatened with violence, with TV and radio talking heads suggesting she should alternately have her throat slit, or be “kicked to death”. When Gillard’s father passed away last year, shock jock Alan Jones opined that he had probably “died of shame”.

Much of the attention was focused well away from Gillard’s actual policies, despite the fact that they themselves were worthy of many column inches. When Gillard became prime minister, she did so on the assumption that she would scrap some of Labor’s less popular policies. But she was a pragmatist, and when she needed to, she would reverse her stances – for example she said she’d “rule out a carbon tax,” until she needed to win the support of the Greens and Independents to win government. Despite a lot of people viewing her as progressive, she showed a lack of support for same-sex marriage, asserting that she believed that marriage between a man and woman had “a special status.”

Though these moves were sandwiched between positives – she dramatically improved access to health care for people with disabilities through the National Disability Insurance Scheme and introduced Australia’s first parental leave scheme – it was felt that she was lacking a clear vision. Radio commentators came up with a nickname: Ju-liar.

Beyond Australia

While the political landscape of my country exacerbated what happened to Julia, the misogynist elements go far beyond Australia. And I don’t believe we are any more sexist than elsewhere.

When Hillary Clinton ran for president of the United States back in 2008, opponents produced The Hillary Nutcracker: this is the kind of thing high-profile female politicians frequently have to deal with.

Brutally Removed From Power: Why?