Grace Tame: the embodiment of the untameable new female

Galvanising: Grace Tame. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images

“A ribbon tied around a bomb” was the description of Frida Kahlo by surrealist theorist André Breton, and when I think of that quote I think of our very own Grace Tame, of how her voice has flavoured the tenure of Scott Morrison. For a woman, to say no to powerful men is seen as a rebuke, a challenge, an insult. Which is why Tame is so enraging to some. She cannot be controlled. Will not smile when she is expected to. Will not soften her voice, her fury, her honesty. Why should she? She’s the embodiment of the untameable new female who has arisen from the flames of the #MeToo era. The affront of her. To some. The exhilaration of her. To some.

Young women, traditionally, have been conditioned all their lives to be successful young ladies, of the type that men approve of. Females who are obedient and compliant, smiley and quiet. Why be anything but that? Yet, yet, why be that.

The long established exemplar of good womanhood changes nothing; she is not the one who progresses the standing of females in society. Because women, traditionally, have always been bound by what they’re expected to be. By what men want them to be. The curse of obedience has always snapped at their heels. Young women in particular have so often been our pleasers, which binds them to a servitude some may not particularly want. Being “good” never got women anywhere. Being meek and quiet and subservient keeps them in their place. A lesser, quieter place.

Yet now the old order is creaking, cracking, and Scott Morrison’s tenure at the pinnacle of power has coincided with this. Will a perceived “woman problem” be a stumbling block for the Coalition at the ballot box? How far in the past are the memories of Brittany Higgins’ experiences at the heart of government? The story of a champion teenage debater called Kate? A comment that protests such as last year’s Women’s March are being met with bullets in other countries? The cloud over Alan Tudge’s behaviour? Barnaby Joyce’s marital woes while he preached family values? Christine Holgate’s departure from Australia Post? All the Band-Aid announcements and inquiries kicked into the long grass, all the shelving and spinning that never seemed to result in quantifiable, effective change? Prime ministerial hands washing a young woman’s hair for a pic opportunity? Jenny Morrison saying that Grace Tame should be polite and have some manners (as if that alone would have ever gotten her Australian of the Year)?

Hazel Hawke, a far more proactive first lady, once said, “It is important to learn from other women. Change does not come without a lot of reading, asking, listening, risk-taking and hard work.” Nice and quiet gets a girl nowhere. Nice means to be put in a box alongside meek, and obedient, and pliant; all those words that have hemmed women in for so long. The old world still wants women to be conveniently silent. To not be persistent and driven and questioning; to not remember. To stop striving for something different and better.

“Poor men/they have forgotten, that if you/punch a woman/six more grow/from the wound,” poet Joelle Taylor wrote in her incendiary collection C+nto. The era of Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins and Kate – and the Government’s missteps when it comes to ensuring women’s equality and respect – have been galvanising for many women. But how potent is the tribe that’s united in revulsion and frustration? Does it occupy a mere rage-filled corner of the Twittersphere, involving mainly professional women, or is there a seething unease that’s much wider than that?

The question asked again and again as the election draws close: What has Scott Morrison actually done with his time as prime minister? And for many women in particular, the more pointed question is: What has he not done?