For the next few Fridays I am going to try and review a book that discusses feminism or discuss some of the issues facing women.
A lot of what Anne Goldworthy writes in her essay in The Quarterly is nothing
new but it showed how much progress there still has to be made. When she says
that ‘what men should do and what women should be remains a persistent bias of
our culture even as it bears no resemblance to the actual divisions of labour’.
Her article documents the gender issues surrounding the prime ministership of
Julia Gillard and describes the state of play of the role of women in public
life. It seems outrageous that what women do and look like is still important
in 2014.
This essay covers everything from how language is used to degrade women as
well as the concept of the gender card. Not only does she look at female
politicians but also at women scholars, miners and novelists.
There is also an interesting discussion on the female body as a unit of shame and hate as well as its role in popular
culture.
Goldsworthy states that ‘the shame of the original sin was the shame of a
woman. The psychology of shame is feminine: blushing, withdrawal. It prompts us
to make ourselves smaller, through dieting or modesty of bearing. Shame
underlines our compliance, our fixed grin, our need to please.’ From the moment
we’re born we seemed to be conditioned to behave in a subservient way and is
amazing to see how ingrained it is.
Much of the essay looks at Gillard’s famous misogyny speech, where
she points out that what caught people’s attention around the world was that it
was more than Julia vs. Tony or Labor vs. Liberal but women vs. misogyny.
Her article made me sad, it made me angry that despite the progress
that women have made that Australia’s first prime minister would be such a
target of vitriolic abuse from shock jocks and “commentators” and have to deliver
such a speech in order to be taken seriously.
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