Women in charge: Julia Gillard (right) and MP Kirsten Livermore survey recent flood damage
On 6th April, my daughter, two sons and I are getting on a plane to join my husband in Sydney. Our tickets are one-way. We’re leaving Britain behind for all kinds of reasons—not least because, as one British expat friend recently put it: “In Australia, no one can box you into a corner unless you want to be boxed into that corner. That’s just not the case in Britain.”
She has a point. Look at the people who run the two countries. In Australia, it’s an array of tough women whose rise has not been down to bloodlines or schooling, but to grit and determination. Julia Gillard, an unapologetically childless, state-educated atheist has been prime minister since June 2010; Lara Giddings, from a similarly modest background, is premier of Tasmania. Conservative premier Anna Bligh steered the ship when her state, Queensland, was recently hit by devastating floods. In January, the 180-year old Sydney Morning Herald appointed its first female editor, the formidable Amanda Wilson.
If you were living in Sydney, none of this would be news, because you’d be used to women in power. There are five layers of it. First up, city mayor, the deliciously-named Clover Moore (elected 2004 and re-elected 2008). New South Wales premier, Kristina Keneally, (appointed in 2009). Then Marie Bashir (New South Wales state governor since 2001). Above them, the prime minister and the governor general, Quentin Bryce, the first woman to hold the position.
How have these women been received? Far from living up to the sexist Aussie stereotype, the public and media have largely judged them on the same criteria as men. Local commentary about the gender issue has been striking for its absence. Australia, after all, has form: it gave women the vote years before Britain, and was the first country in the empire to allow them to stand for parliament. These more recent developments feel modern, as opposed to novel.
A no-nonsense female archetype goes back a long way in Australian folklore. She’s called “The Drover’s Wife” and is celebrated in paintings, photographs and literature. The new breed of female politician is the modern equivalent: outspoken, self-sufficient, uncomplaining, effective. Gillard’s government is committed to the Aussie value of “a fair go” for all—in education, the workplace and politics.
Would a woman like Gillard, a coal-miner’s daughter from Wales, have risen so far in Britain, where one of the most prominent female role models for schoolgirls is a woman in her late twenties who has rarely held down a proper job and has spent the six years since university waiting for her prince? Or where fewer than 20 per cent of cabinet members are women? It doesn’t seem likely—and we’re not hanging around to find out.
On 6th April, my daughter, two sons and I are getting on a plane to join my husband in Sydney. Our tickets are one-way. We’re leaving Britain behind for all kinds of reasons—not least because, as one British expat friend recently put it: “In Australia, no one can box you into a corner unless you want to be boxed into that corner. That’s just not the case in Britain.”
She has a point. Look at the people who run the two countries. In Australia, it’s an array of tough women whose rise has not been down to bloodlines or schooling, but to grit and determination. Julia Gillard, an unapologetically childless, state-educated atheist has been prime minister since June 2010; Lara Giddings, from a similarly modest background, is premier of Tasmania. Conservative premier Anna Bligh steered the ship when her state, Queensland, was recently hit by devastating floods. In January, the 180-year old Sydney Morning Herald appointed its first female editor, the formidable Amanda Wilson.
If you were living in Sydney, none of this would be news, because you’d be used to women in power. There are five layers of it. First up, city mayor, the deliciously-named Clover Moore (elected 2004 and re-elected 2008). New South Wales premier, Kristina Keneally, (appointed in 2009). Then Marie Bashir (New South Wales state governor since 2001). Above them, the prime minister and the governor general, Quentin Bryce, the first woman to hold the position.
How have these women been received? Far from living up to the sexist Aussie stereotype, the public and media have largely judged them on the same criteria as men. Local commentary about the gender issue has been striking for its absence. Australia, after all, has form: it gave women the vote years before Britain, and was the first country in the empire to allow them to stand for parliament. These more recent developments feel modern, as opposed to novel.
A no-nonsense female archetype goes back a long way in Australian folklore. She’s called “The Drover’s Wife” and is celebrated in paintings, photographs and literature. The new breed of female politician is the modern equivalent: outspoken, self-sufficient, uncomplaining, effective. Gillard’s government is committed to the Aussie value of “a fair go” for all—in education, the workplace and politics.
Would a woman like Gillard, a coal-miner’s daughter from Wales, have risen so far in Britain, where one of the most prominent female role models for schoolgirls is a woman in her late twenties who has rarely held down a proper job and has spent the six years since university waiting for her prince? Or where fewer than 20 per cent of cabinet members are women? It doesn’t seem likely—and we’re not hanging around to find out.
