22 Results

Crikey readers weigh in on the issues of the day: Liberal women in parliament, Radio National and ranking journalists.

She’s been dubbed the world’s most powerful woman. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has held on to power despite global economy crashes and a euro crisis. Joshua Hammer explains how she does it.

Plenty of placards at the anti-carbon tax rally were misogynist. Problem is, they reflect our political culture, not differ from it.

Far more than men, female politicians have their political identities framed around their family and relationship situation.

A scathing article on PM Gillard by Nikki Savva in today’s Oz is apparently not-at-all-gendered. Oh, because so many male politicians described as “bitchy”, are criticised for their hairdressing decisions and get told that “a bit of exercise wouldn’t go astray”? asks Jeremy Sear.

The growing media obsession with both Julia Gillard’s physical appearance and her marital status could be dismissed as indicative of both the essential inanity of the press and its casual sexism. But it’s more than that.

The election campaign is on. And the first to be led by a female PM! This is the type of change we once naively hoped would signal more attention to better social outcomes, rather than the economic ones.

I know I am not the only Australian who is quietly blessing those trail-blazers of the past for clearing the rocky road to Gillard’s momentous climb to the top job, writes Dr Clare Wright.

Julia Gillard isn’t a woman of principle, she’s about whatever will help her win the next election. But electing a female PM won’t necessarily change the status of women, writes Germaine Greer.

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally acts like a bitchy girl in parliament, making personal comments about dress and appearance. If she’s such a feminist, why resort to typical sexist remarks? asks Liberal MLA Pru Goward.

How does feminism mix with power and the media? Now female pollies get the photoshopping treatment, but where are all the ladies on the Fin Review’s Power 2009 list? asks Helen Westerman

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton shouldn’t field questions about her husband’s opinion or her political legitimacy. Unfortunately for women in politics this is “depressingly familiar”.

Five women have been elected to Kuwait’s Parliament, only three years after women were extended the right to vote in the country.

The Liberal Party needs the votes of women to win the next election but only high-profile women can win preselection for the Party, writes an angry SA Liberal.

Hillary Clinton is a woman of many faces. She’s emotionally devoid, unlikeable, teary, weak and often downright frightening. Or at least she would be if pictures, like the wealth of Crazy Hillary snaps splayed across the media, really do tell a thousand words, writes Crikey intern Emma Rugg.

Does anyone honestly imagine that Brendan Nelson is up to the job? Is it even remotely conceivable that he could be the man with the vision and political wherewithal to lead the Liberal Party back from the brink of what looks to all the world like a steaming pit of backbiting and recrimination?