Don't take it lying down

HOW will history record the media's performance during this period of national fractiousness, tetchiness, affront? Courageous, perhaps?

Gillard

HOW will history record the media's performance during this period of national fractiousness, tetchiness, affront? Courageous, perhaps? Fair-minded? Rigorous?

And this, of course, at a momentous juncture in the profession's history, when traditional forms of media are fighting for survival. We need ennobling stories here. Television executive Elisabeth Murdoch recently told industry bods that every company needs a "set of values based on an explicit statement of purpose"; that the absence of a "moral language" could be calamitous. It was a clarion call for responsibility, compassion, vision. She concluded her MacTaggart lecture with: "Tell great stories, inspire audiences and contribute to a sense of community."

Great stories. I've been thinking about that recently in terms of our PM. The Meryl Streep biopic of Margaret Thatcher was a clear if dramatically oversimplified narrative of a life robustly lived, yet we find it hard to grasp who Julia Gillard really is. It's difficult to glean a moving story arc because she rarely shows us her true self; she's so careful, cautious, so damned lawyerly about saying the right thing. But then there are those arresting moments when the real Julia blazes through. Answering questions about the Slater & Gordon years - an exhaustive, witty, eloquent chastening. Remarking on Tony Abbott's party room comments: "Recently, I got the best compliment of my lifetime from an unexpected quarter, when it was said about me that 'Gillard will not lay down and die'.

To which I thought, 'Damn right'." A stirring riposte for any woman who's ever been belittled, mocked, ignored. And if there's one thing we women have become very good at, it's enduring. Through continual putdowns, through bad sex, through being told we're not funny, can't drive, are dumb. That's why I'm willing Lara Bingle to keep going as much as I'm willing Julia Gillard to. Because these women won't lie down and die, as much as some people want them to. Don't let them win, I say - don't disappear, be silent, submissive - it's what these people want. Females in their "rightful place".

All this at a time when women have never been more empowered in terms of education, careers, leadership. Alongside it, a disturbing swell of misogyny. Sydney's Anglican Church requesting women pledge to "submit" in marriage vows. British PM David Cameron saying "Calm down, dear" to a female politician. Karl Lagerfeld labelling the singer Adele "too fat" and taking umbrage at Pippa Middleton's face: "She should only show her back." Our own female basketballers flying premium economy to the Olympics but their male counterparts flying business class.

We don't want favourable treatment, we want fair treatment. A lot of the media seem curiously unwilling to scrutinise both leaders to an equal extent. But there was a shift in consciousness when Leigh Sales recently interviewed Tony Abbott on The 7.30 Report. It felt like a woman who'd had enough; a woman who courageously wanted to inject a little equality into the national debate; to be as hard on Abbott as she would ever be on Gillard. For this she was labelled "a cow" by Liberal strategist Grahame Morris.

Would that our banks - in terms of interest rates and obscene profit margins - be put under as much scrutiny and pressure. But we all know that's not going to happen. Yet with these flashes of the real Julia we're starting to see the narrative that may make a great biopic. I fear, though, she'll be a historical anomaly; it'll be a long time before we ever see another female PM. Look at Britain since Thatcher - no woman's got close. It's just too risky, divisive, fraught. For my daughter's generation, and generations beyond it, this breaks my heart.

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