Hasbeen, Richard was not spinning, he was pointing out that Gillard's problem is not because she is a woman.

Gillard lost it when she

a. cut down Rudd without warning or explanation and then we found out through Wikileaks cables the she, Arbib and Shorten had been planning it since 2008 when Rudd kicked out the Israeli ambassador for the use of Australian passports in a murder in Dubai. I do wish people would get passed the petty games here.
b. her first speech was an appeal to racism with her talk of "proper and worthy migrants like her", and naughty refugees who pay their way to escape and be safe. Then she dreamed up the stupid East Timor prison idea, the Malaysia which was and is illegal and always will be no matter how much the media choose to believe it only requires parliamentary consent to make a crime against humanity legal.
c. she lost votes not by saying she would have a carbon tax but breaking ALP policy and saying she wouldn't. Before that stupid statement she was going to win the election comfortably.

That stampede you all thought you heard was the extra half million voters who went to the Greens.

I have met and talked to Gillard a number of times, she is as cold as ice with little real interest in human issues.

Oh, c'mon you lot, Julia is merely a female version of Kevin & vice versa.

dane

You get no argument from me about the less than admirable qualities of Gillard’s public persona and track record of cunning and manipulation. But I don’t agree with your claim that women in public life are ‘protected’ from criticism, while men supposedly aren’t.

The difference is that that for women in public life much of the abuse levelled at them is sexist in nature, wherease the abuse of men in public life is not.

How often do you hear choruses of women tearing down a male public figure’s credibility and track record by portraying him in sexual ways? Do you ever get choruses of women carping on about a male public figure ‘thinking with his d*k’, or being a ‘testosterone monster’, or being some female public figure’s ‘stud’ or ‘toy boy’, or laughing at his big bum or beer gut? It doesn’t happen because it’s not part of the culture – or if it does happen, it’s very rare and usually initiated by other men.

It's a two-edged sword. Because female public figures are so often targeted with sexist abuse, it's all to easy to use this to exonerate them when they give a less than adequate performance or fall out of public favour - which is exactly what Ms Summers has done.

Killarney I mostly agree with the points that you've made but i suspect it's mostly a case of people using what they think will hurt most (or stick in the audiences mind) rather than being primarily driven by sexism.

I do recall comedians of both genders discussing what a lousy lover John Howard would be, likewise the attacks on Abbott's Budgie Smugglers has a sexist element to it but I think both are more about attacking the people rather than being primarily sexist.

R0bert

The article also forgot to mention that Julia Gillard is a pathological liar. She tells fibs about unimportant stuff that can easily be found out when she could easily have said nothing or even the truth.

The reason she has trouble communicating is because no one believes her any more.

I hope you lot are still below voting age.