When you have buried us told your story ours does not end we stream
into the unfinished the unbegun
the possible
Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language, W.W. Norton &Co., New York, 1978
An overcast spring day in Melbourne is nothing unusual. Having a former Prime Minister attend a packed venue and address an adoring audience is, however, a little bit out of the ordinary.
I was one of those who attended the ‘Credit Where Credit Is Due’ event on 10th November at the Melbourne Town Hall. In an event organised by the Victorian Women’s Trust (VWT), an appreciative crowd not only had the opportunity of hearing Julia Gillard speak, but also VWT CEO Mary Crooks, former independent federal MP Tony Windsor, and former Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls.
The majority were middle-aged women, and they found countless reasons to clap during the afternoon. The standing ovations, however, were mostly reserved for Julia herself.
This was not an uneducated crowd. It was not clapping for the sake of it or mindless fervour. What was it? Well, it was a celebration of women and a thank-you—not just for Julia’s significant achievements, like the national disability insurance scheme, but a thank-you for being the groundbreaker, the women who took the heat for all of us. To hope that the venom she was subjected to will perhaps make it easier for our daughters and grand-daughters to forge their paths with less antagonism.
Throughout his speech, Tony Windsor made a point of addressing Julia as ‘Prime Minister.’ He praised her calm demeanour while in office, saying she always had a stability of mind and purpose and never once raised her voice. He utilised his favourite saying, ‘The world is run by those who turn up.’
Julia always turned up.
Politics can be a ruthless business and Rob Hulls stated that women are clearly judged by different criteria than men, often unfairly. The reality of political achievement can also be less lofty that we imagine: “Sometimes the most you can achieve is to stand in the way of something worse.”
Then Julia herself spoke. She was professional of course; did not indulge in any pettiness, was not tempted to utter any words of revenge or spite. No, she articulated and defended her government’s record with warmth and humour. She quavered slightly once twice. Once was when talking about Sophie, the beautiful girl with Down’s Syndrome whose photograph of Julia at the time of the introduction of the national disability insurance scheme will stand the test of time. The second was when she referred to her friend and cancer survivor Jodie who, she said, put everything in perspective.
And why were we there, I wondered, this group of largely female faces? To acknowledge Julia and say thank-you. To say sorry we weren’t vocal enough during her term to drown out the relentless hounding she received from sections of the media. A communal coming together for those of us who had been rudely shocked by the treatment of her. We listened respectfully as Julia laid out her record, but it was not just what she said but the space that she has occupied in our minds that was important.
Julia as PM not only represented achievement and success for all women, but it was a catalyst for the emergence of vile misogynistic voices that had lain quietly, simmering under the surface. These voices that I had imagined only have existed on the fringes of society and were scorned by the overwhelming majority, actually erupted from the most respectable quarters. Suddenly misogyny was everywhere and since Julia was a politician, apparently anything was fair game.
The revolution for women’s rights over the last fifty years that many of us felt had fundamentally changed our society was more tenuous than we imagined. It was, as Julia put it in her speech, just a “brittle veneer” covering a darker truth. And as she said, there are lacerations for women when they break through the glass ceiling.
Those who had nursed misogyny silently and quietly inside of themselves, had in the last three years the example of Tony Abbott to emulate ; to allow them to vent every sexist rant that had ever occupied their minds. Yet in the midst of this misogynistic storm lay another contradiction: the faux offence taken by those who were outraged, not at misogyny per se, which became an accepted part of public discourse, but at the fact that they may be accused of being a misogynist. Forget the sexism: it is being called sexist that we hate! Suddenly, the crime was not misogyny but to accuse someone of it.
Yet despite this, Julia maintained that the ups were worth the downs; the positives greater than the negatives. It was a sentiment echoed by Mary Crooks who said, “Don’t get mad, get elected!” Yet some hesitancy remains: as Julia said, there are uncomfortable truths we haven’t found yet. One uncomfortable truth that has been determined is that our aim for women to be able to occupy positions of leadership without resentment and without the possibility of the advancement being undone is not yet achieved.
At the conclusion of the Town Hall event, I asked a companion how she felt about it. “Hope,” she said. Which was true. But as my friend Cath pointed out, hope is too passive and implies waiting around for change. It is like wishing for Santa to bring you a present but not knowing if he will. In Cath’s view, the event was about strength: finding it and keeping it. The strength to keep going. The strength to move on. The strength inside yourself.
Mary Crooks in closing said that the quest for equality and respect for women and girls is unstoppable. However, we are far less progressed along that path than we had imagined. Now that unpleasant reality has hit us square in the face, we, like Julia, must seize our moments in history and make of them what we can.
We waited over a century for the first female Prime Minister of Australia. Now it is time to celebrate the possible—and make it happen.
