Suse,

"Julie Bishop has to tow the party line of a very conservative, very Catholic Prime Minister. Feminism is a dirty word to him and his band of merry men, no matter how many daughters troop dutifully out to show us they feel women are 'equal'."

Oh I don't know...as far as his governance goes in the present administration, it appears Peta Credlin pulls his strings.

And one imagines it's the IPA who pulls hers.

I don't think it matters if Julie Bishop is the only woman in Cabinet, as long as she's towing the line and doing a good job, gender isn't a factor - as with Peta Credlin - as with Bronwyn Bishop.

Western feminism, when it's reduced to the effect it has on an individual woman's career, only ever demonstrates how successfully she was able to infiltrate a masculine system, endorse it and outshine her colleagues on her own merit.

I'll just add that when I write "...as long as she's towing the line and doing a good job, gender isn't a factor..."

What I meant is "As long as she's doing a good job of towing the line, gender isn't a factor."

Maggie Thatcher springs to mind also.

‘morning Graham,

I think the real significance of the comments by Julie Bishop is being missed.

Words are a key means of communication however, what we say and do in conversation does not instruct or convey, nor determine a response - it simply triggers changes in the emotioning and languaging of another, which, in turn, shape the next bit of the conversation.

Meaning and significance arises from the emotion assigned to the language used, but for this to be effective there has to be “ownership” of the words.

We see “ownership” of many words in society today. The most common of these seem to be sexism, feminism, islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia and so on. Once ownership is taken, a process of assigning emotional value is next. This is called “emotioning” and it is fundamental to owning and operating these adopted words.

The conversations built on these “owned” words form a network and these networks of conversation constitute a culture.

Group cognition is what these networks create. The system is not only self-organizing it is self-referring through its connection with its own world.

It is self evident that much of the progressive world has taken ownership of many phobic words in order threaten, intimidate or accuse through the emotive value they have assigned to them.

These cognitive groups in our society may differ in their structure and place in our society but have a common element in their organization. This makes them autonomous unities.

For example such groups might include the ALP, Greens, ABC, SBS, Fairfax, humanities academia, NGO’s, civil rights and refugee advocates. How can we possibly know this? We can evidence this by simply observing their reaction to their adopted “words”. Just mention any one of these words and the reaction will be the same from all groups, autonomous unities forming self referential networks.

So what has Julie Bishop done? She has just given the brand image of “feminism” to the progressives, flagged the hypocrisy and will force many to distance themselves from it. They now own it, have to defend it and live with the consequences.

Brilliant.

I just read two interesting letters in a magazine that
I think might be relevant:

1) "Hilary Clinton would make a great American
President because she is intelligent,
politically savvy and an experienced campaigner on the
world stage. However, I don't know why she has to use the
"first female President" title to somehow excite the masses.
Gender should be an irrelevant factor. The only focus
should be on her capability and suitability for the top job.
We hate it when chauvinistic behaviour reigns, so
celebrating a female for female's sake is no different.
Politician is a gender-neutral word, so let's keep gender out
of politics."

And on the other side of the coin - this one:

2) "...Peta Credlin, what a shame she didn't use her
undoubted influence over the Prime Minister to include more
than one woman - ... Julie Bishop ... in his cabinet.
Just think, if the Abbott Government adopted the Greens'
affirmative action policy, at least nine frontbenchers
would be women. Then we'd be talking power."

In response to Graham's question, being postfeminist seems more common than self identifying as feminist. Post feminists avoid the feminist label, because it is associated with a stereotype of a relentlessly earnest, joyless, upper middle class battleaxe, roaming the world, looking for opportunities to take offence.

However, most women ascribe to core feminist values of equality and freedom of choice and apply these to various debates. My objection is that they only seem to champion these values when they are convenient. By not identifying as feminist, they avoid being lumbered with values when they might come at a cost.

Poirot -"Western feminism, when it's reduced to the effect it has on an individual woman's career, only ever demonstrates how successfully she was able to infiltrate a masculine system, endorse it and outshine her colleagues on her own merit."

Agreed, however one wonders how they can infiltrate a masculine system if all the males working in that system prefer to leave it masculine, and they will have the last say?

Peta Credlin may well be pulling Tone's strings, but I doubt she will ever get credit for it.

It appears that there are far more women in top jobs in the other political parties who have managed to get there by their own merit.
Surely at least a few more of the Liberal party women are just as deserving?