Health Minister Tanya Plibersek has gone head to head with deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop in a debate about “having it all” and Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s speech on sexism, at the National Press Club today.
They joined ABC presenter and forum moderator Virginia Haussegger and UN Women Australia executive director Julie Mckay for the second annual UN Women panel to mark International Women’s Day on the 8th March.
While Haussegger called the Prime Minister’s parliament speech on misogyny “15 minutes of unscripted fury”, Bishop maintained the speech was a “planned” attack, and a “shield against legitimate questions” about her performance.
Australians should be “quietly satisfied” with the feat of their first women Prime Minister, Bishop said, but Gillard’s attack on the Opposition leader during Question Time was unbalanced, and she unfairly cast herself as a “victim of taunts”.
Plibersek disagreed, saying the speech resonated so deeply because it was a speech that women, who have felt they should remain quiet, have wanted to make in their own life.
“I think most women have had that feeling of being pushed to the limit,” she said.
Bishop said her biggest concern with the speech was around the use of the word “misogyny”, believing that to use such a term to describe the treatment of the most powerful person in Australia deflected the “real, violent” connotation of the word, noting that Gillard’s speech was delivered the same day 14-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban.
Does that mean that Gillard is fair game and can’t be a victim because she occupies high office?
“Verbal abuse is always unacceptable,” Bishop said, “but it shouldn’t always be viewed through the prism of sexism.”
On the having it all debate, Bishop believes that the conversation needs be reframed.
“It shouldn’t be that all women should have everything all the time … We shouldn’t try and raise expectations unrealistically,” she said. “The debate should be about balance and the choices we make.”
Bishop added that while there might be equal opportunity legislation, she believe most women don’t feel like they have equal opportunities.
Plibersek said that men never have to justify the choices they make regarding their families or their careers.
“No man has ever, ever been asked to choose between a satisfying career and a family they love. No man has been asked to explain why they don’t have a family, like the Prime Minister, like Julie … Sure life changes, but the idea that we have to explain all the why we made a choice or even have this debate is unfair and old fashioned.”
There was, however, one issue they both agreed on: there needs to be more foreign aid spending on eradicating violence against women globally.