:: Can We All Just Pull Our Socks Up?

Something’s happened over the last few days/weeks. The treatment of our former PM Julia Gillard by her colleagues, fellow Australians and the media has made my blood boil. Usually I try to keep things very pretty and creative and inspiring over here. But what use is all of that if your blood is boiling? Pretty chevron straws aren’t going to fix the boil. Nor are lovely bouquets of wild flowers. Or very awesome bunting. Or something cleverly made from a tin can. Nope.  Don’t get me wrong, those things are ace, but they don’t fix this big problem. And what’s a blog for if not to speak up when things are getting a bit fraught and alarming?

These last few weeks in Australian politics have alarmed me. I am fraught. There’s been so many sneaky moves. So many things said by women against our former PM. And many things said my men too. Our media outlets have done their best to objectify and belittle her. Even Australia’s biggest selling women’s magazine took great delight in lampooning her (and knitters too!) To top things off, I only just realised that the leader of the so-called Women for Gillard movement is the wife of Bill Shorten (and daughter of the Governor-General).  What?! I dare not think about what happened there. Weirdness.

There’s proof and commentary all over the internet today, detailing what happened to Ms Gillard. What went wrong. Who went wrong. You can go find that if you want. But I want to talk about how wrong this all is and our role in it.  Apart from the fact that the whole leadership shift is CRAY, it’s amazing how many Australians DO NOT CARE about what’s been going on. It’s just another chortly BLIP on the internet for them. They love the culture of contempt which sees them anxiously await the latest obnoxious PM/former PM related meme/update in their newsfeed. Julia Gillard in a gold bikini anyone? Chortle. Like. Share. Shut up.

We need to call each other out on this bad behaviour. We really need to stop belittling former PM Gillard. And the current PM. And (to be fair) the NEXT PM too. We need to speak up and make sure this kind of bullying doesn’t happen to anyone in Parliament (or in our community!) We need to be fighting this fight on smarts, policies and facts. Personal attacks will undo us all. They prevent any intelligent debate and progress. They’re a stupid diversion. Begone.

We also need girls and women (like Young Julia) to aspire to positions of power, where they can action some real change. We need to encourage them to stand up. We DO NOT need high-profile women to EVEN NOW be saying that Ms Gillard’s made it harder for women to be in government and talking about how crap her final speech was etc etc.  We don’t need high-profile women to be discouraging girls and other women’s ambition by SCARING THE SHIT out of them with their frosty, sniggery mean girl behaviour. I’m talking to you Miranda, Helen and Caroline. What the heck?

This woman is our first female Prime Minister. How amazing. Despite a few shite policies she achieved a lot. Personally I would not have voted for her, but that doesn’t make me want to destroy or humiliate her. It makes me want to invite her to tea, ask her some antsy questions and give her the smallest piece of cake. I’m old-fashioned like that.

Cake aside, whatever happened to kindness, the sisterhood and fair play? We need to SPEAK UP about this crapola. We don’t want this happening to good humans. And we want to encourage future generations to have bold ambitions too.

It’s time to draw the line.

There’s too much dissing by a long shot. For sure disagree, but don’t disempower, dissect and distress. Also don’t disgust. But do discuss. If that makes any sense.

Can we all just pull our socks up?

xx Pip

PS:  If you’d like to vote for me instead, comment below. I promise to be rad.