Prime minister Julia Gillard weighs in to oppose broadcaster's 'misogynistic' comments
A furious debate on sexual equality is raging in Australia following "misogynistic" comments made by the country's best-known radio DJ, who announced on his show that women in positions of power were "destroying the joint".
Alan Jones's outburst followed the announcement that Australia would be spending $A320m (£200m) promoting Pacific islands women in business and politics.
"[Prime minister Julia Gillard] said that we know societies only reach their full potential if women are politically participating," scoffed Jones, who has previously suggested Gillard be put in a sack and dropped out to sea.
"Women are destroying the joint," he said. "[Former state chief police commissioner] Christine Nixon in Melbourne, [Sydney lord mayor] Clover Moore here. Honestly."
Days of heated debate – including a vigorous social media campaign against him – on the extent of sexism in the country have followed his comments.
Professor Paula McDonald, who specialises in workplace discrimination and gender harassment at Queensland University of Technology, said Jones's comments were indicative of mainstream sexism in Australia. "The pendulum has swung towards highly derogatory and hostile language against women and it is coming out much more overtly than it has done in the past decade," she said.
"The fact that we have a woman prime minister has exacerbated the hostility that's already there, because she's the most powerful political player in the country and is very much in the face of men who are hostile towards women."
Psychologist Suzi Skinner, whose company, Roar People, specialises in women's leadership development, said Gillard was a target because she challenged leadership norms.
"Leadership in Australia is still predominantly male," she said. "The political system is better than the corporate world, where less than 10% of senior executives are women, but fundamentally Gillard is challenging a dominant male status quo."
A Twitter campaign against the comments of Jones, 71, was started by author and social commentator Jane Caro. "Got time on my hands tonight so thought I'd spend it coming up with new ways of 'destroying the joint' being a woman & all," she tweeted.
Caro said the public response was immediate. "Suddenly there were all these women tweeting about how they could destroy the joint," she said. "It worked because it was about turning outrage into humour, which had the effect of disarming and engaging people."
A "Destroy the Joint" Facebook page, T-shirts, two theme songs and a petition for advertisers to withdraw from Jones's radio programme followed.
This is not the first time the prime minister has been embroiled in debate about sexual equality. "For many, many months now, I have been the subject of a very sexist smear campaign from people for whom I have no respect," she told a recent press conference, hitting out at "the misogynists and the nut jobs on the internet" who have targeted her.
Gillard's ire was aimed at well-known cartoonist Larry Pickering, whose drawings (published on his blog) have repeatedly depicted her naked, wearing a strap-on dildo. She said she expected Pickering to propagate "sexist and vicious stuff about me until the end of time".
Feminist Germaine Greer also recently weighed into the debate, accusing Gillard on ABC TV of wearing unflattering jackets and having a "big arse". Greer later suggested that she wasn't condemning Gillard but lauding her. "You don't understand how tough it is for little girls who think that having a fat arse is to be dead, is to be finished," Greer said.
Derogatory descriptions of Gillard have been a feature of her two-year tenure as prime minister. In 2011 "Ditch the Witch" placards began appearing at anti-government rallies. She was also criticised for being "deliberately barren", a reference to her not having children.
McDonald says that using language that can only be targeted at women adds another layer of sexism. "Have you ever heard of a man being referred to as childless as a negative aspersion on their character?" she asked.
"This misogynistic language that seems to have become so prolific in the last couple of years should really be a wake-up call to women and men that we have a long way to go before gender equality is on the map, let alone achieved," McDonald said.