The decline in the number of women elected to the House of Representatives, its reluctance to implement practical reforms such as quotas, ought to be a wake-up call for the Liberals, for whom History seems to have decided, “It’s Time.”
Of deeper concern, however, is the re-emergence of veneration for the strong man in politics, a fallacy once believed to have been consigned to the dustbin of history, is now enjoying a type of renaissance across the globe. George Santayana wrote,
When Murdoch pledges allegiance to the Right he does so in the global Anglosphere. So is there any chance the Right doesn’t unite behind the center of his power, America? After all, it’s where Peter Dutton fled to on being elected the leader of the opposition. His first stop to shop for his basket of strategies. Nothing new comes out of his mouth that wasn’t first heard and tested in the USA by the GOP, Trump, and or on Fox News.
Behind them lies the ultimate of puppetmasters with money to burn the Heritage Foundation and billionaires like the Kochs that have been fouling Democracy when Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), was the landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding campaign finance laws and free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court held 5–4 that the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, including nonprofit corporations, labor unions, and other associations. They are America’s political influencers today just as the IPA is ours.
The Right is obsessed with gender. This deep paranoia comes out of America and international far right movements. It harms straight people and LGBTQIA+ people differently, and we need to fight it before our copycat Right entrenches it here too.
Source: The war on “gender” is a fascist threat – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In an earlier interview on the Nine Network’s Today show, Mr Albanese said Mr Morrison “doesn’t quite get it yet”. “We need to address gender inequality in our society. That’s why we put our childcare policy at the centre of our budget reply last year. That’s why we need to address issues like domestic and family violence leave. That’s why we need to address the issue of women’s representation in our national Parliament,” he said.
Labor’s Penny Wong, Bill Shorten highlight Morrison government’s gender crisis
Cultural leadership not about replicating the past
But cultural leadership is not just replicating the past — it is about trying to imagine and create something new.
And it’s the scale of what we are missing as a consequence that is so breathtaking.
Yes, it’s the talent, experience, sensibilities and the insights of half the population. It’s also the creation of characters and narratives that fail to resonate with half the audience.
And above all, it’s the chance to turn that map of our identity into something where we can all see something of ourselves, to capture more of the texture and variety of who we are as a people, and how that is changing and being enhanced constantly.
And the session continued without a hitch.
Source: Icelandic Lawmaker Breastfeeds Her Baby Like A Boss While Addressing Parliament | Huffington Post
The numbers of women in Parliament are increasing – albeit at a glacial pace.
Source: Female Labor MPs outnumber Liberal women two to one in new Parliament
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