Tag Archives: Menu

Sexism in Politics

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I should warn you, the last couple of days have made me very angry.

First, there was the Liberal fundraiser menu, referring to Julia as so:

I am shocked and horrified. This is totally inappropriate. It may have been a “joke” but if it were, then why is Julia’s menu item the only dish that has extra (and very offensive) information? If there hadn’t been the description or if every dish with a Labor MP’s name had the extra description, I might still be annoyed, but I wouldn’t be as angry as I am.

What makes it worse is the Joe Hockey, the Shadow Treasurer and MP for North Sydney (my electorate) was at the function. Whether or not Mr Hockey saw the menu is right now irrelevant to me. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t condoned it. He hasn’t said that it is wrong. That’s what is making me so angry. For all I care, he can wax on as much as he wants saying “I haven’t seen it!” – but he isn’t condoning it. The only people condoning it are the Labor Party – as far as I can tell.

Next we move onto what happened in Perth on Thursday. Here is what happened on 6PR that afternoon:

It is astounding how people like Howard Sattler think they can get away with things like that. I do have to commend Julia Gillard for maintaining her poise during Sattler’s questions. People may not like her, but she appears on radio shows and TV channels that she may not like, unlike Tony Abbott who has been avoiding the ABC News and ABC Radio interviews ever since Leigh Sales trumped him on 7:30 about a year ago.

I happened to be watching Ten Late News this evening when I heard the story – it was still developing – and it turns out that Howard Sattler has been stood down pending an “internal review”. Hmm. Like many twitterers – I think he should be sacked.

It’s made me realise in the last couple of days that there is ingrained sexism in Australian culture. It has been there for a while, but with recent, high-profile developments, it has become more obvious to me. I just hope that something can be done about it soon, and it has to be made clear that it is not OK.