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Feminists welcome first woman PM for Australia
Julia Gillard ousts Kevin Rudd in ballot; ‘First Bloke’ is a hairdresser
Australian feminists were today celebrating the coup in which Australia got its first woman prime minister today. She is a Welsh-born lawyer, Julia Gillard, whose family emigrated when she was four. She now leads the governing Labor Party after Kevin Rudd stood down when he realised he could not win a party leadership challenge last night.
Rudd, who only a year ago rivalled Bob Hawke as Australia's most popular prime minister, had made several political gaffes in recent months. The most serious was his shelving of an emissions trading scheme, the centrepiece of his environmental strategy. Labor looked set for defeat at this October's general election and when Gillard decided to stand against him in yesterday's party ballot, it was all over in hours.
Even opposition leader Tony Abbott extended his sympathies in Parliament today when Gillard was sworn in. "A midnight knock on the door, followed by midnight execution is no way that the Australian Prime Minister should be treated," he said.
Gillard was first elected in 1998 and quickly got a taste of what it would be like to be a woman in Australian politics when a conservative MP claimed she would be unfit to govern because she was unmarried and had no children. He later apologised for the comment.
Gillard, 48, remains unmarried but has had a partner for the past five years, hairdresser Tim Mathieson, who now - as the Herald Sun puts it - becomes 'First Bloke'.
Caroline Overington, a columnist for the Australian, wrote this morning: "Julia Gillard's ascension to the highest office (under the Governor General, another woman) is the realisation of the great feminist dream.
"It's precisely what our mothers - and Germaine! - hoped would one day happen, as they argued, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, for fundamental changes to the fabric of the nation... If you're capable, there ought to be no barriers."
Overington went on: "Julia Gillard is a woman, but that's not the only extraordinary thing about her rise. She's got a de facto. [Oz-speak for a unmarried partner.]
"Imagine that, 30 years ago: an unmarried woman, living in sin with a man. Who is a hairdresser. And aspiring to high office. Forget about it.
"That's how far we've come."
No word yet from Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunuch and still the country's most iconic feminist. But she was reported to have applauded Gillard appointment as deputy prime minister back in 2007, and will no doubt be hunted down for a comment soon. ·
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Doubtless Australia has all sorts of problems, just like the rest of the world and the best of luck to their new leader in sorting them out. How typical though, that psychologically challenged feminists should be allowed to hijack the start of a fresh administration, as they continue to obsess about what a person has between their legs and attempt to bestow merit accordingly. Surely in a progressive thinking society, these fools and their bigoted utterances became redundant years ago. I for one would be happy of a plague were to wipe these childish 'women' from the face of the planet.
Rudd was fatally wounded by pushing his insane carbon policies, some sort of 'moral crusade' that included dissing anyone who had a different opinion. This would have crippled Australia to no benefit whatsoever, and then he was pushing for a supertax on mining to finish the Australian economy off for good. Gillard, a diehard socialist, looks to be just as foolhardy - she has committed to pressing on with carbon legislation if she gets re-elected after going to the country in the next few months.