When cartoonist Jon Kudelka started the #ruddmentum hashtag on twitter in response to the never ending ALP leadership speculation. I thought it was pretty funny, but sadly #ruddmentum soon developed a life of its own as it was picked up by the mainstream; by the trolls in #auspol; by everyone that disliked Julia Gillard.
This sculpture by Jon Kudelka, part of the Art From Trash show, now in the Long Gallery, is also pretty funny.
But today it doesn’t seem that humourous at all. Today the Rudd Sculpture with its butter knife in the back of its head just makes me feel sad for my country. Today I mourn the loss of Julia Gillard, I mourn the loss of our first female Prime Minister and I will always be grateful to Ms Gillard for opening my eyes to the truly horrendous levels of misogyny in Australia.
There will be thousands of words written today about Julia Gillard and I will leave you with this extract from Van Badham’s article in The Telegraph
The message sent to Australian women is a cruel one. The message is that achievement does not equal respect if you’re a woman – that sexism does not become less as you ascend the slippery pole of power, but intensifies. That if you call out the misogyny for what it is – as Gillard did – you’ll be belittled again, for using what your critics call “the gender card” and what every woman knows is the goddamn truth.
In the face of our first female Prime Minister’s vile treatment and viler end, one could forgive Australian women for rolling over and giving up, and finding a nice, soft place to wait out life and die.
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Well said, Kim. It’s a disgrace what Julia Gillard has been put through and it really makes me feel hopeless about the prospects of women in our society. No wonder we are retreating into retro housewives… Or at least some of us are. It is going to be years, if not decades before we have another female leader like Julia. No-one will have the guts to even try.
I am sulky today Dorothy. I can’t even articulate properly how I feel I just feel sulky and grumpy.
HISS AND SPIT. I am sad and angry. To the max. And appalled that no-one could mention any of Julia’s achievements – and there are lots. Oh, thats right, she was hopeless. No achievements. None. They lie like pigs in mud.
I may go away and cry a puddle and drown someone in it.
There’s a while yet to the election, so I’m going to find my nice soft place and wait and see.
Got so incensed with lazy, formulaic, unoriginal reporting and questions and comment on polls, polls, polls and more bloody polls. Wake me UP. And if I hear the phrase “gender card” again – I mean, come ON. We’re human beings. We’re meant to have some facility with language. You’d think we’d turned into a nation of parrots. Definitely galahs. Feel a bit ruddy ranty today.
Hi Kim,
I know I’m on the other side of the world, but it’s a small world. Check out http://emilyslist.org… for women working together to get women candidates elected for a better future. I’m sorry and angry about your PM.
(Hi – I just came across from Miscellaneous Mum. First Time Visitor.)
You know, I agree with everything you’ve said, and it frankly makes me sick that I now have to hope Rudd will be our PM after the election (at least as long as Abbot’s the alternative), but – I really think Gillard’s comments in her outgoing speech (and what a speech!), that it will be easier for the next woman, and the one after that, and the one after that, is spot on. And I take heart from that.