Sisterhood’s blunt feminism

THE F-word has been twisted by ideologues on the Left.

PETA Credlin was right to strike out against progressive feminists for their lack of support when she was assailed by Clive Palmer. The Queensland MP claimed, incorrectly and incorrigibly, that Tony Abbott had designed his paid parental leave scheme “just so the Prime Minister’s chief of staff can receive a massive benefit when she gets pregnant”. This was sexist, wrong on several counts, distressing for Ms Credlin personally and professionally, and an injury to the good faith of our political system. Mr Palmer was widely condemned. Yet absent from the voices of support was the sisterhood. As Ms Credlin told this newspaper yesterday, “this solidarity that women are supposed to have just wasn’t there”. That experience has, in part, motivated Ms Credlin to set up a networking group for female Coalition staff and conservative women in politics, which held its first gathering last week.

On the same day, at an event for women in the media, Julie Bishop spoke about empowering women from the perspective of her foreign affairs portfolio. Ms Bishop said feminist was “not a term that I find particularly useful these days”, nor did she find the need to self-describe in that way. It was a position of candour and strength that struck a chord with many women, of all ages and mainstream political persuasions. Of course, the idea of rejecting the F-word label has not endeared the Foreign Minister to noisy activists. Blunderbuss tweeter Jane Caro vented: “women who benefit from feminism and then refuse to embrace the term ... not a position I have much respect for”. That’s a lot of women. For prominent feminists such as Anne Summers and Ms Caro, the forceful message is that if you don’t subscribe to the glass ceiling, believe in abortion or support quotas in the workplace, then you’re letting down the team, you’re not a proper woman. But for many women feminism is not a label they care for; it’s become a progressive club, with strict rules, that admits only card-carrying, right-on gender warriors.

As The Australian’s columnist Janet Albrechtsen said on Network Ten’s The Bolt Report on Sunday, a multitude of Australian women — stay-at-home mothers, especially, and those of a conservative mindset — feel excluded from the Left’s in-crowd, its doctrines and femocrat social engineering. It’s easy to see women such as Margaret Thatcher and Ayn Rand as role models for women, yet they both championed individuals rather than the collective — a feminist ideal. To reject the feminist label is not throwing in the towel to break down the barriers that women face in the workplace here or challenge the world’s harsh regimes that oppress women and girls. Nor is it disrespecting the achievements of pioneering women who have made the world a better place — for women and men — by changing attitudes and social structures. The cause of closing the gender gap, which will feature at the G20 meeting in Brisbane, is now a diverse and dynamic movement that has outgrown the conflict and rancour of yesteryear’s feminist straighteners and punishers.