By Stephanie Dowrick
Should women support and speak up for other women solely on the grounds of same-sex solidarity? I don't think so, although others clearly do. Writing for Fairfax Media about Peta Credlin on Monday, Prime Minister Abbott's increasingly prominent chief of staff, Melbourne publisher Louise Adler questioned why the "sisterhood" is not defending Credlin in the wake of increasing questions about her influence on the current political agenda. For Adler, "attacks on a highly effective political warrior are disturbing". Adler is "equally disturbed and disheartened by the deafening silence from the sisterhood".
I find this curious. Peta Credlin certainly operates (successfully) within a system that's overtly sexist. She works for a Prime Minister who was eager to display his daughters and wife during an election campaign but, with a single exception, was unwilling just days later to appoint women to key roles in his cabinet.
Decency isn't gendered: There's no evidence behind the presumption that women are generally capable of a more humane and longer-term view in politics.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
In Abbott's world, power is self-evidently masculine and aggressive. Women, however, are clearly needed to support and bolster that power and perhaps it is no surprise that Credlin, if she really is "the most powerful woman in Australia", as some have claimed, is wielding that power with the privileges and the restrictions of an unelected position. She's Abbott's employee in effect: his to elevate or fire. Her flag is on his ship. Should the ship sink, her flag goes under.
In fact, if Credlin really does have the influence over Abbott that some claim, it would be easy to argue she's doing a poor job. The Prime Minister is increasingly widely disliked. He and his almost-all-male cabinet are increasingly mistrusted. This is no surprise. Abbott, Credlin and the current cabinet in whatever combination have espoused key policies that separately and in combination have serious negative consequences for this country. They include the continuing punishing of asylum seekers, abandoning both the principles and revenue of the carbon tax, "taxing" visits to the doctor, cutting essential funds from the ABC, SBS and the CSIRO, undermining access to tertiary education, and withdrawing investment in the vital green economy in innumerable ways. Each of these affects how we see one another and ourselves, what we value and privilege, what and whom we support – and how we will do that. At the very same time, stories circulate about continuing petty greed among some politicians and not-so-petty continuing support of the lardy end of town.
Gender solidarity doesn't, in my view, trump this long, dispiriting list (and it could be longer). Where policies are potentially harmful to the most vulnerable, or the silenced, it is additionally disappointing when women support and attempt to sell them. Yet even this disappointment must be questioned. Such a view expresses a presumption that women are generally capable of a more humane and longer-term view in politics. Where, though, is the evidence to support that?
Former prime minister Julia Gillard has and had massive support from the "sisterhood". Her friendliness and warmth as well as her intellect are unquestioned. Yet, as a feminist, I cannot and did not support her handling of several key issues, most prominently the same asylum seeker issue that has been dragged even further into the mud by the current Abbott-led, Credlin-supported government. Kim Beazley, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard all, from my perspective, failed the decency test when it comes to this country's treatment of those fleeing violence and seeking safety. If Abbott and Scott Morrison have far outrun even the worst of their policies, this doesn't excuse those earlier leaders' compassion and common sense deficits.
Gillard's feminism did not lift her gaze on that vital issue. She, like Rudd, further politicised a central humanitarian issue. The hostility that she endured as a woman is appalling. But it doesn't mitigate her policy stance; nor can it with Credlin.
We would surely take women and men most seriously if we could look less obsessively at their gender (or race) and more closely at their values and actions. These are what Louise Adler rightly calls, "matters of substance".
When it comes to politicians and those who work for them, the causes they espouse ring loud and clear. Decency isn't gendered. Nor are honesty and trustworthiness. Those values, plus the far-sightedness and fairness of opportunity that feminism has long promoted, are at grave risk in our current political world. As women or men who care what we are becoming, we need to articulate those values with vigour. Where they are absent in public life, we can and should protest. But where they are present, regardless of gender, we can and should offer meaningful, even passionate support.
Stephanie Dowrick is a writer and social commentator whose books include Seeking the Sacred.