Land of ‘Female Eunuch’ welcomes first woman prime minister
SYDNEY — Australian women welcomed their first woman prime minister this week, but warned that the unmarried, childless Julia Gillard could face a gender backlash in a land known for its macho culture. Forty years after Australia’s Germaine Greer penned “The Female Eunuch” which unpicked the traditional role of women, Gillard was appointed Thursday in an historic moment seen as the realization of a feminist fantasy. The fact that Gillard was sworn in by another woman — Governor General Quentin Bryce, the first woman to hold the post as Queen Elizabeth II’s representative in the country, appeared the icing on the cake. “It’s precisely what our mothers — and Germaine! — hoped would one day happen, as they argued, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, for fundamental changes to the fabric of the nation,” The Australian’s Caroline Overington wrote. “Imagine that, 30 years ago: an unmarried woman, living in sin with a man. Who is a hairdresser. And aspiring to high office. Forget about it. That’s how far we’ve come.” The change which brings Welsh-born Gillard, 48, to the top job will shake up the land of “cold beer and untrammeled misogyny,” according to expatriate writer Kathy Lette. “Let me say Australian men are quaking in their Ugg boots because even though we’re one of the first countries in the world to give women the vote, it’s a very sexist country,” she told Britain’s Sky News. Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100627com3.html |
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