Archival tape – Deputy Speaker:

“The question is that the motion be agreed to, I call the Prime Minister.”

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“Thank you very much Deputy Speaker and I rise to oppose the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition. And in so doing I say to the Leader of the Opposition: I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever.”

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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones this is 7am.

Ten years ago the then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered a speech to Parliament.

That speech was at first considered, at least within Canberra, as just another angry speech in the House of Representatives.

But, online, it took on a life of its own.

Now, what’s known as the “misogyny speech”, can be found on merch, in TikTok trends, and is used as shorthand for a particular sense of frustration at sexism in Australia.

Today, Independent MP for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, on the forgotten history of the misogyny speech and why it still resonates with so many people today.

It’s Monday, October 10.

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RUBY:

Zoe, ten years ago Julia Gillard stood up in Parliament and shouted across the chamber the words “I will not be lectured on sexism and misogyny by this man.” And that speech really took on a life of its own once it was delivered. Can you tell me a little bit about what it has come to represent in our political and popular culture?

ZOE:

Well, I think it sort of unleashed something among women, not only in Australia, but across the world. It's not like it said anything that we didn't already know but I think to see a female leader in the Chamber of the National Parliament calling that out was a very powerful thing. The reasons behind it at the time in a political context were quite contradictory but in many ways those elements were forgotten as the speech took on a life of its own.

Archival tape – Good Morning Britain, News Reporter:

“It was a speech in Parliament which saw her stand up to misogyny that has been voted as the most unforgettable TV moment.”

Archival tape – Channel 10, News Reporter:

“She’s become a worldwide sensation, a champion of women standing up for their rights.”

ZOE:

As I recall, it was reported all over the world in newspapers and on electronic media.

Archival tape – Hillary Clinton:

“The speech that Prime Minister Gillard gave about misogyny was very striking to me because she did go chapter and verse. And again this is not about whether you approve of, voted for or had any affinity with the positions that she put forward. I just don’t think there’s a place for sexism in our politics.”

ZOE:

Just because of the rarity of actually seeing a woman call something out so directly and so bluntly. And I think, you know, it resonated with a lot of women who've been on the receiving end of mansplaining throughout their life, who perhaps had a sense of relief to see a female leader call that out.

RUBY:

And it's interesting because when you see the speech nowadays, you tend to see lines of it written on tea towels or on caps or on TikTok. And it's really—it exists now, I think, as a sort of an entity all of its own, without the very particular political context in which it was actually given.

ZOE:

Absolutely. And it is very tempting sometimes when someone mansplains to you to return fire with that line: I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man.

I will not. Not now. Not ever.

RUBY:

Zoe, if we look back on the moment in which that speech came about, back in 2012, can we talk a bit about the challenges that Julia Gillard was facing around that time? She was obviously Australia's first female Prime Minister, but what was the tone of the public conversation around her leadership?

ZOE:

Yeah, I mean it was a very challenged government and ever precarious. Obviously Julia Gillard had toppled Kevin Rudd but she still had Rudd loyalists within her cabinet who were sniping at her in the background. So she really had to pull out all of the skills that she had learnt in her years in the Labor Party and it was survival mode to some extent.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“Julia Gillard has won the ballot. 71 votes to 31.”

Archival tape – Kevin Rudd:

“The caucus has spoken, I accept the caucus’ verdict without qualification and without rancour.”

ZOE:

And obviously the Opposition led by Tony Abbott, sensed that weakness and in many ways exploited her gender to try to push her down.

Archival tape – Howard Sattler:

“Myths, rumours, snide jokes and innuendos, you’ve been the butt of them many times…”

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“I think that’s probably right, we’ve certainly seen that this week.”

Archival tape – Howard Sattler:

“Can I test a few out?”

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“In what way?”

Archival tape – Howard Sattler:

“Tim’s gay.”

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“Well…”

ZOE:

You saw this outrageous and relentless campaign against her based on the fact that she was a female prime minister. And it kind of did appear designed to undermine the notion that a woman would dare to lead the country.
I mean, to see Tony Abbott appearing at a rally outside Parliament with Alan Jones under those signs saying “Ditch the Witch”.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“Tony Abbott has moved to distance himself from protestors he stood alongside at yesterday’s rowdy carbon tax rally in Canberra. The crowd had branded Julia Gillard a ‘witch’ and a ‘liar’.”

Archival tape – Angry Anderson:

“Possibly it could read, if we were going to be politically correct, that Julia is Bob Brown’s female dog.” [Crowd member screams “Bitch!”]

ZOE:

And Alan Jones, the shock jock, as you know, had said that Gillard should be put in a chaff bag and thrown out to sea, suggesting that her father had died of shame.

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“I understand that there’s interest from members of the media about the matter involving Mr Alan Jones. It’s not my intention to make any comment about that matter.”

ZOE:

I mean, it is extraordinary to think of that kind of language being used only ten years ago. But I must say, having just endured a fairly brutal political campaign, I'm here to tell you that sexism, even slightly more subtle, remains very much alive and well in politics.

RUBY:

And I want to talk to you more about your experiences but before we do that, let's speak a bit about the very specific political circumstances that led to the misogyny speech, because it's kind of lost in history now. But Julia Gillard, she was actually defending the speaker at the time, Peter Slipper, in Parliament in making that speech. So talk me through the lead up.

ZOE:

Yeah, so it's pretty sort of interesting circumstances. And obviously there was a sort of fascinating period of government in that, obviously Gillard was elected in the first hung parliament since the 1940s, and therefore accepted the election of the former-Liberal-member-turned-Independent, Peter Slipper, as the Speaker so that she had that extra vote on the floor. The problem was though that he was then caught out for sending a bunch of misogynist texts to a staffer and there were allegations of sexual harassment. So it was on that day in October 2012 when Tony Abbott actually got up to demand that Gillard sack Slipper and then she got up to defend Slipper because she needed him. So there's all sorts of weird contradictions that were going on when you consider that our overriding memory of that moment is Gillard's speech against misogyny. But she was actually standing up to defend misogyny in a way as well.

Archival tape – Deputy Speaker:

“The question is that the motion be agreed to, I call the Prime Minister.”

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“Thank you very much Deputy Speaker and I rise to oppose the motion moved by the leader of the Opposition.

ZOE:

Obviously Gillard having been on the receiving end of so much revolting and relentless sexism leading up to that moment just erupted like a volcano, I could call it that, and stood up and just gave the Opposition Leader both barrels.

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“Let’s go through the Opposition Leader’s repulsive double standards, repulsive double standards, when it comes to misogyny and sexism. We are now supposed to take seriously that the Leader of the Opposition is offended by Mr Slipper’s text messages.”

ZOE:

One thing that is interesting to observe is the Opposition Leader's body language during that speech and also those who are sitting behind Gillard and just sort of the looks on their faces as she unleashes this tirade.

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

When this is the Leader of the Opposition who has said—and this was when he was a minister under the last government, not when he was a student, not when he was in high school—when he was a minister under the last government. He has said, and I quote, in a discussion about women being underrepresented in institutions of power in Australia, the interviewer was a man called Stavros, the Leader of the Opposition says: “If it’s true Stavros, that men have more power, generally speaking, than women… Is that a bad thing?”

ZOE:

You do see Tony Abbott, I think, shrink in to himself as she kind of tears strips off him for, in effect, accusing her of misogyny.

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“I was offended too by the sexism, by the misogyny of the Leader of the Opposition catcalling across this table at me as I sit here as Prime Minister: “If the Prime Minister wants to, politically speaking, ‘make an honest woman of herself’...” Something that would never have been said to any man sitting in this chair.”

ZOE:

One thing that it did make me reflect on at the time and I've been reflecting on that somewhat this week, is this issue of the threat that women pose in the political sphere and the way that you’ve seen women torn down in various ways… Perhaps because of the potential power of the female vote, which, you know, is something that I reflect on now as I sit as a member of the House of Reps.

RUBY:

We’ll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Zoe it's been ten years since Julia Gillard delivered what we're calling the misogyny speech now. You’ve just entered politics yourself. Can you maybe reflect on that ten years and whether you've seen much change for women in politics in that time?

ZOE:

Well, you know, it's a funny thing. I was talking to my mum about this the other day and she said “Ah, it's amazing how far we've come since that speech. You know, you would never see a female politician called a witch now…” It occurred to me that during the campaign, the former prime minister, John Howard, referred to myself and the other Independents who are now sitting with me on the crossbench as “anti-Liberal groupies”.

Archival tape – John Howard:

“Because none of them is standing against…”

Archival tape – Interviewer:

“Was that a sexist term? People say that’s sexist…”

Archival tape – John Howard:

“Ugh, really, groupie?”

ZOE:

“Which I definitely interpreted as a sort of pejorative term largely used to refer to young women chasing sex with rockstars.
And also the group were referred to as “Angels” in an apparent reference to being Simon Holmes à Court’s Charlie’s Angels.

Archival tape – Andrew Bolt:

“They are chosen and funded by billionaire’s son, Simon Homes à Court. They’re Simon’s Angels, really.”

ZOE:

And I think that is very sexist.
And the other thing that comes to mind is that in the last few weeks, three of my fellow crossbenchers have decided to share a flat together in Canberra, and it was referred to in one of the Sydney newspapers as a coven, which of course is a group of witches.

So, you know, how far have we come? Well, we've come some way, but I think one thing that the election result reflected was a frustration among a lot of women, that it's more lip service to eradicating sexism and to achieving gender equality, rather than an actual commitment.

RUBY:

And did you get the sense Zoe, that people's anger at the treatment of women in politics worked in your favour? In the sense that you were tapping into that anger and that frustration at women being sidelined?

ZOE:

Yeah, look, so many women who came up to me during the campaign or indeed as they walked either in or out to vote, just literally shook their head at me and said “something's got to give here.” But I think there's more to it as well.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“This federal election has been dubbed ‘Independent’s Day’ as a wave of teal candidates picked off key seats in Liberal heartlands.”

Archival tape – Zali Steggall:

“Why? Why is there this movement? Why are people turning to this need to do politics differently? And that’s because business as usual isn’t working.”

ZOE:

You know, there's things like women's policies being seen to be put in the too-hard-basket all the time and this is still a niggling issue. So, things like spending money on universally accessible and affordable childcare, things like paid parental leave, you know all those sorts of things that foster women in the workforce. Things like closing the gender pay gap, you know, constantly coming up against that excuse of “it’s too expensive, it's too hard.” And so there was that sense of that conglomeration of all those things. I think the cascading effect of all of those things, of a lot of women just going, okay, you know, we've got the opportunity to elect some professional women who are not politicians who are going to get in there and speak up for us in a genuine way. And I think, you know, a lot of those women got their husbands across the line and those who didn’t just gave me a sneaky wink as they walked out of voting.

RUBY:

Okay and so just finally, the parliament now does have more women than it's ever had before, you're obviously one of them. How different is the parliament that you sit in than the one that Julia Gillard did, do you think? And how much further do you think it needs to go before we actually do see equality in politics?

ZOE:

Yeah, well, I didn't sit in that parliament, so I'm not sure exactly what it was like, but I'm being told by lots of people who are in the current parliament that it's very different to even the previous parliament. As I have said, there's an increased number of women in the parliament generally, there's an increased number of women of different cultural backgrounds and there's an increased number of First Nations women. All of those things are extremely positive. I would love to see more women across the chamber in the Coalition. You know, I think just having more women at the table, in a multi-partisan comms-context is useful and productive. So we've got a way to go. But I do think—you can elevate women into leadership positions and that is happening, happening in the corporate world, it's starting to happen more so now in the parliament—but we also need to be dealing with those structural issues that are restricting gender equality more broadly across society. And it's only when we address those structural issues that we will really, I don't want to say stamp out misogyny because I can't imagine it's ever going to go away, but overshadow it to the extent that women really do stand on an equal footing.

RUBY:

Zoe, thank you so much for your time.

ZOE:

My pleasure, thanks for having me.

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Also in the news today…

Torrential rain has led to over 60 flood warnings across New South Wales over the weekend.

In Dubbo, one of the areas worst affected, carparks, shopping centres, playgrounds, bridges and roads were underwater on Sunday.

And North Korea has fired two ballistic missiles early on Sunday, the seventh launch in recent days. This represents a significant increase in missile activity.

South Korean officials have said that the increasing frequency of launches could signal that North Korea is closer than ever to resuming nuclear testing for the first time since 2017.

By the way, I’m Kara Jensen-Mackinnon filling in for Ruby Jones this week, see you tomorrow and stay dry.

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