by Julia Baird
Conclusion
It’s not just what we inherit from our mothers and fathers that haunts us. It’s all kinds of defunct theories, all sorts of old defunct beliefs, and things like that. It’s not that they actually live on in us; they are simply lodged there, and we cannot get rid of them. I’ve only to pick up a newspaper and I seem to see the ghosts gliding between the lines.
— Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts, 1881
All politicians are media tarts. Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie admitted as much, saying that pursuing publicity was part of a politician’s job. It was a bit rich, he said, that his colleagues in opposition should make a song and dance about it: ‘It’s like two prostitutes standing on the corner talking about virginity.’ This is increasingly the case in an age of electronic media grabs, and image-driven makeovers. But when women are the ones with bulging newspaper clippings files, overworked press secretaries, and stellar profiles, they are frequently dismissed as vain, superficial and narcissistic; as being ego-driven, and therefore lacking intellectual or diplomatic ability — even though politicians who lack egos are pretty rare. Right now, those who have fought to keep women out of powerful positions have had some success. Younger women have learnt to keep their heads down. They dress soberly and shy from self-promotion. They play the game better, but they play it more like men. Overt claims that women improve politics have largely disappeared — anyone who is seen to imply they are more moral because they are female will be either thought naive or proved wrong. But accepting that politics is dirty, nasty, and dishonest is not the way forward. Men and women need to tackle and confront the political culture together. In politics, women remain a symbol of what the problems are, as would any marginalised, disenfranchised group. Some women will fail. Some will be mediocre performers, average policy promoters, uninspiring legislators. Just like a lot of the men. But the exclusion of women and people of colour still represents lack of justice, and they remain, despite all their protestations, hoped-for change agents.
Many criticisms have been levelled at the gallery over the past 20 years: they move in a pack, are insulated from ‘real people’s lives’, are too close to their subjects, and are prone to create and fuel controversy and conflict in the search for a good story. Despite its faults, the gallery has often acted as a buffer against the worst excesses of political behaviour — the rumour, innuendo, and use of personal information to destroy opponents. There are unspoken codes and conventions of behaviour that are unknown to most people. But they also condemn politicians for behaviour many of them are guilty of.
The Australian’s Dennis Shanahan, who has worked in the gallery for almost two decades, is both a fierce defender and a harsh critic:
We are unelected, unaccountable, sanctimonious, parsimonious in our attitude to politicians and generous in our attitude to ourselves, hypocritical, two-faced, contradictory . . . yeah, we’re all of those things. And this is the defining difference. We don’t put our hand up to take taxpayers’ money to represent the public and to make an oath of office. I always maintain that personal stuff can remain in the background unreported as long as it doesn’t interfere with office or hide rank hypocrisy. While journalists [are allowed to] be blatant hypocrites, politicians aren’t, so that’s the tough rules. I think it’s very, very difficult on politicians, and overall to the detriment of public service in the wider sense, because of the difficulty of actually finding people who will put themselves forward.1
A close look at polling and focus studies over the 1990s reveals a sharp dissonance between female politicians favoured by the electorate and those journalists respected. Bronwyn Bishop was very popular in 1993, but caricatured by the gallery as a manicured dragon lady. While journalists threw up their hands in horror when Kernot defected to the ALP, the electorate said they understood her motives. When she wore a raunchy red dress for the Australian Women’s Weekly, the press errupted, but then conducted polls that found people did not mind. When Laurie Oakes wrote about Kernot’s affair with Gareth Evans, the public strongly objected. Stott Despoja was dismissed as a lightweight by gallery veterans, but adored by her party. These differences — which are also seen in Pauline Hanson’s experience and, in the noughties, that of Carmen Lawrence — are vital to understand: basically, Australians want a female politician who is honest, down-to-earth, and does not play the boys’ games. But this is exactly the kind of woman who, once she reaches the higher echelons, is destroyed. Their enemies achieve this by tackling their most powerful asset — their image, linked to their standing with the community — by urging the press to publish dirt.
Several journalists told me they had often worried, or wondered, if Cheryl Kernot would commit suicide after some stories were published. The scrutiny was fierce and intrusion intense: she was even interviewed in her hospital room. She was clearly cracking psychologically under the strain, and journalists were there to hold the bucket as she threw up bile then splash it on the front page. To ask questions about this is not to excuse anyone of bad behaviour, to plead for their special treatment, or ask if they can be excused from the scrutiny that comes with being a public figure. It is simply to question how far we need to push, or punish, our elected representatives when they fail us. And whether simply what was seen as whinging or wilting demands punishment or intense scrutiny.
Monica Attard is a highly respected journalist who has been awarded an Order of Australia for services to Australian journalism and has won four Walkley Awards. She told me her interview with Kernot about the affair with Evans (which won her another award) changed her perspective on the media:
I suddenly got a taste of how intense the media scrutiny was of her and how difficult it was, not being able to walk around your suburb, in which you lived, not being able to leave your apartment or answer your phone. I could see it in her face . . . What did we want? Did we want Cheryl to top herself? . . . It’s the ugly side of the Australian media, when we pick, pick, pick, hound, hound, hound, and what do we want from that person? . . . In Cheryl’s case, it was not enough for her to be out of the public eye; they wanted blood . . . It was not my business, but half the time I just felt like saying, just bugger off, leave her alone, she has gone through an awful time, just back off. Unless we want her to put her head in the oven . . . It makes you wonder about our humanity, how cruel we can be. She was obviously suffering, she was really falling apart, and for people to be so cruel and stick the boot in was awful.
Sometimes it seems women are praised then punished for overt signs of femininity. Or at least any obvious reminder that they are unlike the men who have run Australian politics for the past hundred years. It is wrong to assume they are morally superior to men, or even loath to play the same games, but it is disappointing to think that the growing presence of a previously excluded group does not matter, and will not have any impact on the whole, even if just by breaking certain codes or demanding accountability.
*
Some say the 1990s was just a freak set of circumstances for women, an unfortunate chain of events that led to them being pushed from leadership positions into the mud — if they had not leapt themselves. Michelle Grattan argues the ‘meteors’ of the 1990s ‘were very peculiar stories; they were extraordinary stories: Bronwyn who wanted to take the leadership by siege, Cheryl who did something very unusual, Carmen who was destined for high things and had been exposed as not telling the truth and pursued hard by the opposition.2
The reason these events of the 1990s are difficult to quantify is that underpinning each of the cautionary tales — Bronwyn (the woman who sought too much power without permission) Bishop, Carmen (the woman who claimed to be better than the men) Lawrence, Cheryl (the woman who complained too much) Kernot, and Natasha (the woman who got too much publicity) Stott Despoja — are flaws and mistakes. But over and over, these mistakes are considered to be so much worse in women than in men, and attract a greater volume and length of attack: ambition, chasing publicity, claiming to dislike aggressive politics, or co
mplaining. Worst of all is to claim you have been unfairly treated by the media — if you have ever had any positive publicity, you will never be able to make this claim without journalists turning on you. One by one, these women became caricatures — hyped, sanctimonious saints, heroines, ambitious bitches, shallow party girls — and eventually their policy work was obscured by a cult of personality over which they had very little control. As Shaun Carney wrote in the Age, ‘The Australian political scene seems capable of dealing with only one prominent woman at a time . . . many male political players are locked into seeing prominent women as bit players or novelty personalities.’3 They were pursued by their opponents not because they were women, but because they were potentially serious vote-pullers, electoral drawcards with the kind of popularity party strategists fantasise about.
What drove a lot of the press coverage of female MPs then was a questioning of their humanity. Those with right-wing views, who are not seen as particularly compassionate, were portrayed as almost subhuman monsters, with grotesque features ripe for satire or caricature — Bronwyn Bishop and Pauline Hanson. Those seen as honest, decent and warm-hearted were canonised and showered with praise for being human, relatable and real — Carmen Lawrence, Cheryl Kernot and even Natasha Stott Despoja. They were cheered for representing the politics of change. But then, when they showed emotion, made mistakes, or behaved like the men in playing political hardball, they were fiercely castigated.
So where do we go from here? First, media outlets that are intent on luring more women readers should resist patronising women when the temptation arises, and salivating over those considered photogenic, or leadership material. The Australian Journalists Association’s Code of Ethics provides that we should not ‘place unnecessary emphasis on personal characteristics, including race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation, family relationships, religious belief, or physical or intellectual disability’. Second, it’s important for women, and men, to continue to question the dominant political culture, and hopefully undermine it with their presence. If the next generation’s Stott Despoja completely shunned the spotlight, aped the behaviour of the political head-kickers, cut off her hair, dressed in nothing but suits, and refused to be seen at parties, would that be a victory for women? Perhaps, if she became prime minister. But people are sick of the pretension, lies, aggro and name-calling of traditional politics. Australians are cynical and increasingly distrust their politicians. For a democracy that prides itself on social values and the importance of public participation, this is hardly an inspiring scenario.
The challenge for women is to be wary of the problems the media poses, while remaining accessible and open. As history has shown, they have not stood idly by as the press has built — or trashed their reputations in the press. They have refused requests, manipulated attention, exploited stereotypes, called out sexism and continually attempted to shape the way they have been portrayed. They have proved the public craves a different style of politics, and pricked the interest of journalists who are curious about whether women can usher in this change.
There are many talented young women in parliaments across the country, one of whom, it can only be hoped, will become the Steel Sheila journalists have dreamt of for so long. Sugar and steel, and a capacity to feel — that’s what we want media tarts to be made of.
Epilogue
capital
in grade five
they bus our children
to the capital
to the long white building,
high-majestic, on the hill
where the boys mostly learn:
you study hard,
and you might well
work here one day, mate
and the girls hang back,
and button their collars:
cause this place
is where women
get raped
Maxine Beneba Clarke1
The Valkyries
On 10 April 2021, the day after Prince Philip died at the age of 99, I was sitting on an ABC News desk co-presenting a weekend special on the royals, when Malcolm Turnbull walked on set, beaming and chatty. ‘What about Laura Tingle?’ he said to us while we were off-air. ‘She’s been absolutely on fire!’
We all nodded in agreement about the stellar work of the chief political correspondent for the ABC’s ‘7.30’ program, especially her recent coverage of the rape allegations, the misogyny in Canberra culture, the video that emerged of staffers masturbating over a female MP’s desk.
Tingle had steel in her voice when she’d challenged Prime Minister Scott Morrison on how he had palmed off matters regarding accusations against Christian Porter (that he strongly denies) to police, who were unable to investigate the relevant rape claims anyway (as the accuser had taken her own life); night after night, she had stared down the barrel of the camera, addressing Morrison directly and with force.
Turnbull kept talking about her, searching for words: ‘It’s not just about her words, it’s her –’ he gestured to his head, his jaw ‘– face! She’s like a Valkyrie!’
I thrilled to this description, sitting up straight before the red camera lights switched back on and I began asking him questions about his recollections of the man who was married to Queen Elizabeth II for 73 years.
In Norse mythology, the women called Valkyries oversee battles and pick who may live and who may die. They represent honour and uncompromising justice. The literal meaning is ‘chooser of the slain’.
We are so used to women being slain, being prey. We are not used to women being the hunters, the protectors.
Imagine if this new era could be one of the Valkyries, doling out justice.
This is a movie we have not seen before, a narrative we don’t know.
*
It’s an era of restrained, steady anger. Women have long been punished for anger, for railing against the way things are. They are accused of hysteria, emotion, loss of control while blokes storm and rage as though it is expected of them.
Even in 2021, when women, and men, began to ask that allegations of rape be properly examined, scrutinised and taken seriously, the female journalists were accused of being angry activists, motivated by emotion.
So much has changed since I wrote the first edition of this book. Even the debate over the word ‘feminist’ has somehow been quashed or quietened. In 2014 Beyonce, the world’s most lauded popstar, performed her single ‘Flawless’ at the MTV Music Video Awards in front of a screen festooned with the word FEMINIST in capital letters; her silhouette was one of strength. The song samples a TED talk by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calling for gender equality, in which she says:
We teach girls to shrink themselves. To make themselves smaller, we say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much, you should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man’ . . . We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. Feminist: the person who believes in the social political, and economic equality of the sexes.2
We have long taught women those things, too. Even politicians.
Today, media reportage remains a real problem for prominent women, mostly because of the hatefulness that can accompany it: the inferno of criticism on social media. The confidential report prepared for the Liberal Party Executive in 2015 found that ‘the media’s scrutiny of parliamentarians has been one of the biggest deterrents for women seeking a career in politics’, especially the potential implication on their children and families.
The report also found a perception ‘that female politicians are discriminated against by the media’, that ‘the media focus more on the appearance of women than in the message’ and that potential female candidates are deterred from politics by watching what happened to other women shot by cannon into the political circus: ‘Women can cope with playing the ball in politics, but not playing the man or woman.’3 After all, two of our female politicians have had to stomach protracted discussion
s about whether they were ‘sluts’. Sarah Hanson Young sued, won and is still a senator. Emma Husar sued, settled and is no longer in politics.
It’s clearly not just gender diversity that is a problem in our parliaments, but all kinds of diversity; ability, ethnicity, culture, sexuality, race, class, age. If all of this effort — a drive to a more inclusive, transparent polis — just amounts to more white women being elected, we will have failed.
But women MPs are no longer staying quiet, bending like pretzels to fit into politics as they once did. And women like Kate Ellis, Tanya Plibersek and Julie Bishop are eager that young women know how incredibly worthwhile they have found their political work to be, despite all the rubbish. It’s crucial that talented women run for parliament, and that the blokey culture that would block or mock them is made accountable and more transparent.
When I wrote this book, women were carefully, cannily, learning to play the system. It was an era of sober reckoning with what had happened to the women in this book, and a reflection of the constraints of the time. In many cases this has worked — female premiers, a governor-general and one prime minister. And some highly talented frontbenchers. But this requires patience — and patience is wearing out. The closer women have inched to power, the more visible an undercurrent of sludge has become, exposing an ongoing sexualisation, stereotyping and sidelining, a refusal to accept a woman wielding authority. Social media — especially the anonymous and gutless users on there — has pushed this to a more extreme and relentless form. Much has changed in terms of sheer numbers but the treatment of Julia Gillard shocked many; it was so ugly, visceral, unrestrained, damaging and unfair.