I’m not a fan of Annabel Crabbe. Her writing style grates with my sensitivities and deals with serious issues in too much of an off-handed manner.
That said, she identifies a very pertinent point in the ongoing battle between the so-called ‘left’ and ‘right’ in this Drum piece. The perception that female politicians make better targets that male politicians, due to their looks, dress-sense, way they walk, etc, is widespread. For instance, one need only sit on the Twitter hashtag #auspol for 30 minutes to count in excess of a dozen slights at the PM over her nose, hair colour, voice tenor, clothing, dress sense, bodily shape and so on. To what end, other than subjective ad hominem in oblique relation to…..what? There cannot possibly be any personal dislike because non of the critics know the PM personally. None of them have a point to argue or display a willingness to do so, but libel the PM on the basis of her hair colour or hip spread?….constantly!
And this is something which isn’t necessarily exclusive to those on the so-called ‘right’ of the political spectrum. I’ve been known to equate Bronwyn Bishop with Basil Fawlty’s description of his wife, Sybil.
"… rancorous, coiffured old sow" needing to seriously "syringe the donuts out of her ears” and get some sense into the “dormant organ” she keeps hidden in that “rat’s maze”
not because I have a personal angst against Bronny, but purely because she matches Basil’s description. Very well.
Women do it to each other as well, as one-time political advisor to Peter Costello, Nikki Savva, displayed in this piece, suitably picked up and critiqued by Jeremy Sear.
It’s a complete nonsense. To be even more pointed, I believe the behaviour displays a complete lack of understanding of issues with a bigoted preference to attack the feminine gender. We rarely, if ever, see this vehement bitchiness aimed at how a male politician dresses or has their hair cut. Yet women seem to be fair game in some witless competition between ideological haters to out-do each other in proving someone unfit as an electoral representative because of their tone of voice. Somewhat demeaning of our society, don’t you think. At least one sector of it anyway.
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