The point isn’t that politics can be hostile, tense, threatening and ugly. The point is that it shouldn’t be. | OPINON by Julia Baird. politics auspol ConcettaFierravantiWells
the responses of Liberal MPs to allegations of bullying and intimidation by female MPs and found that “a ‘politics is tough’ repertoire … served to downplay and legitimise bullying and intimidation as normative and unproblematic”.
As the authors, Jasmin Sorrentino, Martha Augoustinos and Amanda Le Couteur from the University of Adelaide, point out, the consistent pattern of responses to bullying is to deny it happens more with women than men, and to shrug it off as part of an intense political environment.about whether women had been bullied before his leadership win he said: “Well politics is pretty ferocious.
Her serious charges should be investigated by the party, and probably won’t be. I cannot speak to the truth of them. But in previously denying bullying when it happens to other women, and by shoring up the narrative that politics is a tough business, she too has been part of the problem. Sure, her act of vengeance on budget night was gutsy, but true courage would also require talking about behavioural issues in your own party – or across parties – when you are in Parliament, when you are in a position to lend weight to other people, when you are being watched by other men and women who have suffered from similarly vile behaviour and been silenced by the prospect that their complaints would only see that behaviour get uglier.
The stifling notion of putting up with all behaviour in the cause of unity is partly what made Brittany Higgins think she had to stay quiet about her alleged rape. She said: “There is a strange culture of silence” within the parties, as though to speak of poor conduct would be “letting the team down”.On Thursday night, speaking on a panel about women in politics , Julia Banks was blunt: “The leader determines the culture.” This applies of course to all party leaders.