SJF:"By reducing the behaviour of the former to that of an opportunist wife and the latter to that of a (nameless) slut"

I didn't do that. SJF, the women concerned did that to themselves.

As you plainly disagree with me, perhaps you can tell us all what steriling qualities prompted Neal's advancement, other than her marriage to Della-Bosca (also a pretty third-rate character, but one with his nose firmly in the ALP trough)? As for the other one, she was a petty bureaucrat who tried to buy sex with "favours". How would you characterise that behaviour? Exemplary?

As I said, the vast majority of women and men do not choose to misuse their own sense of power. These two did, got caught and now the usual non-entities are trying to claim victimhood for them. Truly pathetic.

AguneB:"they're attacked in the press not so much for their bad behaviour, but for their status as women"

Rubbish, they're attacked in the press because they misbehaved and got caught. Their gender is a sideshow that the author is trying to use to excuse their misbehaviour. As for the author, I am not attacking her views, merely the fact that she feels the need to trumpet her "feminist" credentials on her academic CV. If this article is an example of the quality of her output, I can understand that she feels the need for some other reason for preferment, but I don't have to respect her for it.

If Zoo Weekly is the litmus test for those deserving of attention it’s little wonder the author’s confused. It’s hardly the arbiter of taste.

“Was it because she apparently extracted sexual favours and gifts from three rich and powerful men over whom she ostensibly had more power, or that such conduct is properly the province of men which she, as a woman, had no business employing?” Well, neither. Try salaciousness. It works every time, particularly in advertising.

Political positions “which until quite lately in western history had been reserved for the excesses of men” ?? Any info regarding dates, which positions, what type of excesses? Or does this just sound sorta kinda right to describe a pollie and get sage nods of agreement from those around you?

This article draws upon one anecdote after another but doesn’t quite get around to making a killer blow. It makes all kinds of assumptions I’d expect to overhear from a girl’s day out at the pub. Perhaps if the author removed that humungous chip on her shoulder the article would be more balanced.

Antiseptic

In both your posts, you avoid discussing Ms Neal’s thuggish behaviour at the nightclub or Ms Morgan’s unprofessional cronyism – which is the bad behaviour that actually got them into trouble.

I assume that to do so would be to define their behaviour – good, bad or indifferent – on its own terms, and as the equals of men. Instead, your posts only seek to define Ms Neal’s bad behaviour in terms of her husband, and Ms Morgan’s bad behaviour in terms of what men she allegedly slept with – which are also what the media mainly focused on.

You (and the media) are basically doing what any male-centric culture does – and that is to define women only as relative to men, not as equal and independent beings in their own right.

Ever noticed how people dont say much about the good stuff others do and cannot stop yapping about the bad stuff. Eventhough the good usually far weighs the bad. People like to whinge.

Plus pollies always have a special kind of stink on them.

Arr human nature. Its still a fact that woman will use their sexy parts to gain a foot hold for their own advantages. But this only make them less in my eyes. Discrediting one another in the political arena is part and parcel to the struggle, and understandable in the male dominated world that females have to endure as equality strives for the balance.
Playing the sex card is as old as mankind its self, so the facts will remain pretty much the same.

This thread shows that we are not as advanced as will like to think.

EVO

What does your title have to do with the text you wrote? I see no connection.

You use Ms Neal. A woman who acts like a bully, waddles like a bully and is a bully. She is recorded on the Parliament's own system as being such. What's not to know? She is what she is. How was she desexed or sexed up please? I didn't notice it, did anyone else.

As to Beth X. I've never heard of her so wouldn't have a clue what she has done etc. Why don't you pick someone obscure next time?

Your subtitle too is wrong.

"Women are still anomalous in politics - they tend to get de-sexed or sexed up so everyone can feel less threatened".

Wrong. It's only the male politicians who feel threatened by them, not the public. I wrote to Julie Bishop asking her why she acted like the stupid boys do and she did not respond. I told her she was embarrassing herself to descend to their level and she is.

She is the most senior woman in Oz politics and she does that stuff voluntarily. Attack her, not the public. She sets the example. She does not have to play schoolyard teasing as the little boys there do. But she chooses to do so.

Enough of your generalisation. Ask Bishop to behave like an adult and set the example for the naughty little boys, as she calls them.

While you are at it, tell Neal to get a real job and get out of the taxpayer's pocket. And take her husband out of there too. What a disgraceful, self opiniated pair they are.

Try opening your eyes before you plunge into the pool of sewage you found this article in.