WINDS OF CHANGE

JULIA BAIRD on demanding better for women in power

The author and journalist writes that despite the gender gains we’ve made in recent years, now is the time for a revived call for change where women are safe and respected.

It can take a while to find your tribe. After I left school, I wandered through a host of industries – I waited tables, served banquets, checked coats, sold flowers, taught university history, and did paralegal work in a law firm.

I also once worked in an American-style diner in London – every time the song Born to Hand Jive came on, all the staff had to rush to the dance floor and actually, excruciatingly, do the hand jive. But the less said of that the better.

I met some fantastic people and made some lasting friendships. But I always felt odd, an alien of sorts.

It wasn’t until I walked into the newsroom of the Sydney Morning Herald that I knew I had met my people: a bunch of committed, hardworking, hard-living, half-mad and eccentric journalists and wordsmiths who cared about the world, abuse of power, corruption, history, the drowning out of marginalised voices and the need to tell untold stories. They were also just fun – raucous, unruly and generally untamed.

I was a cadet then, devoting weekends to the final gruelling stages of a PhD I was writing about female politicians and the way they had been framed by the media throughout Australia’s history.

Ever since women entered parliament they have been caricatured as housewives, cover girls, feisty feminists, saints and sluts. We have, in short, struggled to accept the idea of women exercising authority or wielding power – it seemed weird, unnatural, freakish, unbecoming, unwomanly (whatever that might be).

“It’s only by truly understanding our history that we