Accessions to power: are women prime ministers different?

Seven Prime Ministers have never won an election. The incumbent Prime Minister is not among them.

Yet Australia's Prime Minister is subjected to continuing attack because the numbers in a parliamentary labor party ballot favoured her – once, through support for her uncontested accession, once through a resounding win. The Australia public is told she should not hold her post, because the Australian public (allegedly) favours her caucus rival. Commentators say her holding the Prime Ministership, is 'wrong' because the February 2012 challenge meant she retains it through caucus vote.

Why?

Australia's political system is not a presidential one. No Prime Minister holds that role as does the US President. No Prime Minister is 'voted in' by electors as Prime Minister – apart from those of an MPs own constituency. Every single Australian Prime Minister has come to that role because the party room (L-CP/NP) or caucus (ALP) supported them for party/coalition leadership. None retains the post without it.

What makes the present incumbent's case different? Inexorably, one is led to conclude that the 'age-old prejudice' to which Eleanor Roosevelt's 1940s Good Housekeeping article referred (asking whether there could be, then, a woman elected as US President)., clearly remains.

Relentless concentration upon the Prime Minister's accession to power and her retaining the post in the February ballot defies past coverage of Prime Ministers – all men, challengers always male. The savagery with which today's Prime Minister is treated online is disturbing. Mainstream media condone and even encourage this by promoting a discriminatory line against her.

The media pride themselves, as 'the fourth estate', in being different from the institutions they critique – that it is their job to critique. Yet onlookers cannot be blamed for surmising that the media-as-institution suffers from the age-old prejudice of other institutions – the judiciary, business and parliament itself – an inability to assess women on the same terms as men, namely, as persons. Entrenched sexism lies in all our institutions, the media amongst them. Its systemic nature means sexism is infused throughout our society. The media can claim no insulation against this. Indeed, its general performance – there are always exceptions – is, sadly, a confirmation of this problem writ large.

In the 1983 Carleton Nationwide interview of Prime Minister Hawke, the 'blood on your hands' exchange was rapid:

Carleton: 'So, Bob Hawke, how do you feel with blood on your hands?'

Hawke: 'You're not improving are you? It's a ridiculous question, and you know it's ridiculous. I hope the standard of your questioning improves. If it's a question, Mr Carelton, of the electorate having to believe between your stupidity in such a question as that and my integrity, I have no doubt where their belief will fall. You can believe it or not in terms of if you want to appear half smart as you look so bad at. I can expect them to believe that you are a damned impertinence, Mr Carleton.'

Bob Hawke has been cited as, by this comment, engaging in a 'tantrum'.

Should Australia's Prime Minister respond in like-manner to any similar question put to her – and there have been many, 'tantrum' would be amongst the mildest of epithets. Media and online coverage would be beyond reason. Just imagine the uproar.