Mirror Mirror

Julia Gillard's "Misogyny Speech"

Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia, made her famous “Misogyny Speech” at a parliamentary proceeding in 2012. Peter Slipper, a former Speaker of the Australian parliament, was under scrutiny after a slew of sexist texts sent to a former member of his staff, James Ashby, who accused Slipper of sexual harassment.¹ Naturally, the situation caused a controversy and a demand for Slipper to be removed from his position. As the first woman to ever be Prime Minister in Australia, Gillard endured copious sexism herself, and this instance became another opportunity for her naysayers to discredit her. The main culprit is Tony Abbot, the Opposition Leader, who accused her of tolerating Slipper’s sexism.² In response to his statements, Gillard fired back with her now-famous fifteen-minute speech. Despite the unsavory response to this speech by the Australian media, Gillard legitimizes her position by discrediting Abbot as a supporter of women while opposing his motion to fire Slipper with her passionate anti-sexism rhetoric.

The first few lines of Gillard’s “Misogyny Speech” set a precedent for the rest of the speech; She acknowledges his position, while abstracting him in her speech, so she can further assert herself. She does this by referring to him as “this man” and “the Leader of the Opposition”:

Thank you very much Deputy Speaker and I rise to oppose the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition. And in so doing I say to the Leader of the Opposition I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the Government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever.

The Leader of the Opposition says that people who hold sexist views who are misogynist are not appropriate for high office. Well I hope the Leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn’t need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror. That’s what he needs.³

Here, it is clear that this speech is not a direct response to Abbot’s political points, but more of an attack on his character. In the second line, Gillard addresses Abbot but refers to him as “this man” instead of calling “him” or his name. Grammatically, this sentence is incorrect, but the effect of her diction is clear—despite her formality, this is a personal attack. Additionally, her use of the mirror metaphor and repetition of the word “needs” further emphasizes her point and raises the tension in the room. While she says the last few lines, she is also being sarcastic, and when the camera turns to Abbott, he is smirking. It is evident that Gillard is very passionate from the beginning, and this precedent (sarcastic) that she set may have led Abbot to underestimate the strength of her argument.

As the speech ensues, Gillard provides an ample amount of evidence to prove Abbot’s sexism. More specifically, she lists out the evidence and delivers it in a sardonic way, but before doing so, Gillard emphasizes his political position. In doing so, she is subverting the idea that he should be respected because of his position. As a consequence of his behavior, Gillard believes that he should be held accountable:

We are now supposed to take seriously that the Leader of the Opposition is offended by Mr. Slipper’s text messages, when this is the Leader of the Opposition who has said, and this was when he was a minister under the last government—not when he was a student, not when he was in high school—when he was a minister under the last government.⁴