I can think of countless words to describe former Australian of the Year, Grace Tame.
Brave. Strong. Whip-smart. Uncompromising. Fearless.
As a young woman who courageously confronted her own harrowing experience of grooming and rape to advocate for other survivors, successfully overturning laws that had historically silenced victims, it’s hard to see her in any other light. At every turn, through the most gruelling and public of reckonings, Tame treated her voice as a responsibility, even when it wasn’t hers to bear.
So, when Anthony Albanese opted for “difficult” as a descriptor during a light-hearted word-association game at the Future Victoria Summit, it was hard to stomach.
The PM even paused, long enough to suggest he understood the choice, and then delivered it with a wry smile.
“Difficult.”
The contrast in his language elsewhere was striking. Asked to describe Donald Trump in one word, Albanese chose “President.” A simple, institutional descriptor for a man accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct, found liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, convicted of felony crimes relating to hush money payments, and repeatedly named in the Epstein files. A man who has repeatedly referred to women as animals (or worse).
When the topic turned to the Australian women detained in Syria after aligning with ISIS, Albanese said, “they made their bed, they’re lying in it”. Ruthless condemnation to a complex humanitarian and legal debate that concerns women who were likely abused and children who are innocent.
And then there was Australia Day. “Great!” he offered, enthusiastically, with no mention of the date remaining profoundly divisive and painful for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait people.
Altogether, it’s a curious calibration of language. Somewhere along the line, the PM, who in his first years of government tracked as steady and quietly competent, appears to have absorbed the misguided memo that Australians are seeking a callous strongman.
Deserted women and children? Pfft. Needless pain for First Nations communities? What of it? Support for a courageous advocate and survivor of sexual assault? Not likely.
Albanese could have chosen any number of words to describe Tame, but “difficult” showed a side of him that rings alarmingly for many of us. Because women are used to being called difficult. We know this word intimately. If we don’t laugh at the offensive joke. If we refuse to smooth the tension in a room. If we speak up against uncomfortable truths. We’ve encountered it in boardrooms, in media commentary, in classrooms, in politics, and often around our own dinner tables.
Tame grasped the subtext immediately. This morning, she reposted a series of social media posts including one that read: “‘Difficult’ is the misogynist’s code for a woman who won’t comply. History tends to call her ‘courageous’.”
Greens leader Larissa Waters put it plainly, saying labelling women as “difficult” won’t “stop us from speaking truth to power.”
And that’s the core point. Grace Tame is not “difficult” for the hell of it. She is difficult for those who would prefer silence. She is difficult to change the outcomes for so many women who have been destroyed by the system.
History is rarely shaped by the agreeable. It tends to remember the women who disrupted, who agitated and who made it impossible to look away. Difficult, on the other hand? Is confronting the sad reality that Albanese may not be the man and leader we thought him to be.