It doesn’t take much for women to be declared “sufficiently assertive.” Just elect a woman to lead for the first time in history, ignore the fact that very few women are coming up behind her, and everything is fine on gender diversity.
At least, that seems to be the opinion of Liberal Party elder and former party president Alan Stockdale, based on his comments on Tuesday night.
Stockdale is reported to have told the Liberal Party’s online women’s council meeting that women in the party are sufficiently “assertive” and that it’s actually men who may need quotas and protection in the future.
A former Treasurer of Victoria, Stockdale is currently one of three people appointed to a panel to run the NSW Liberal Party. His Tuesday comments, according to four anonymous sources present at the meeting, were reported by the Australian Financial Review today.
Stockdale has since described his remarks as a joke and regrets that “people felt disrespected”.
It’s hard to think of a worse time to share such a joke than during a women’s council meeting discussing how to reverse the Liberal party’s membership decline.
Did Stockdale see the recent election results? Is he aware of the Liberal party’s much-reported and evidence-backed problem with women voters?
Just weeks since being elected the first woman to lead the Liberal Party, Sussan Ley has founder herself defending the role of women in the party.
She issued a statement last night in response to Stockdale’s story, declaring: “There is nothing wrong with being an assertive woman, in fact I encourage assertive women to join the Liberal Party.”
“The Liberal Party must reflect, respect and represent modern Australia, and that means recognising the strength, merit and leadership of the women in our ranks.”
National Senator Bridget McKenzie was less diplomatic in responding to Stockdale’s comments.
“I think it’s time for Alan to head back to the Melbourne club, have a stiff whisky, and chat with he old boys about what went wrong,” she told Nine’s Today show on Thursday morning.
Like Ley, Senator McKenzie said that what the Liberal party needs is more assertive women.
Many of those present during the women’s council meeting were in “disbelief” at Stockdale’s comments, according to the AFR. The Liberal sources quoted shared various versions of what Stockdale had said, including that women are “sufficiently assertive” and “very assertive and challenging in the party room.” They said Stockdale implied that maybe it wasn’t the case that women needed protection or opportunities but that men’s involvement needed protection.
Stockdale admitted to the AFR that he made the assertive comments following a discussion on quotas during the meeting.” I made a light-hearted but poorly chosen remark,” he said. “I certainly intended no disrespect to anyone, and I regret that people felt disrespected.”
It’s hard to consider what’s worse: the idea of a Liberal leader tasked with determining the future of the party holding such views, or a male leader deciding the right time to share “light-hearted” remarks regarding the evident lack of women’s represention is during a women’s council meeting that hopes to bring the party into the current century.