It is 2013, right? Why then, is a woman's status as a mother still relevant to her career potential?

It’s a question quite a few of us are asking since Bob Hawke said that, while Tanya Plibersek was “a very impressive representative,” she may not be a candidate for Labor leadership as she has a three-year-old child. "She could be a candidate for the deputy," he told The Australian.

At the top of Bob Hawke’s list is Bill Shorten. WHO ALSO HAPPENS TO HAVE A THREE-YEAR-OLD.

Journalist Lisa Wilkinson first pointed out the inconsistency on Twitter, while Destroy The Joint’s meme has been shared more than 760 times.

What I'd like to tell Bob Hawke is this. Being the leader of the Opposition is no doubt a huge job, but Tanya also has three children under the age of 13. She’s been in politics since before her children were born, and managed a $5.1 billion health portfolio as a cabinet minister in the Labor government. It is up to her and her alone as to whether she is able to step up to leadership.

http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/life-style/family-finances/bob-hawke-says-tanya-plibersek-shouldnt-lead-labor-as-she-has-a-threeyearold-20130909-2tgku.html

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Jenna Price, one of the co-ordinators of Destroy the Joint, in reply to Helen Razer's post yesterday about feminism.

Note: While we are more than happy to post Jenna's reply, The Tribune will not be running any more pieces on this debate. We strongly support feminist principles and strong, reasonable discussion, but we are not a single issue publication and it's time to take this debate out into the wider world. So thank you to everyone else who has sent in pieces, but we're closing it here. 

(GUS: ISN'T THIS A DISGUSTING WAY TO SHUT PEOPLE OFF!)

Hi Helen,

First let me say I am sorry to hear you about your relationship problems. Of course, relationship problems are by no means the worst thing in the world but they certainly make each of us feel more alone.

Secondly, I'd just like to correct some errors of fact in your post and in your comments about Destroy the Joint and me.

The most serious of those errors is your suggestion that Destroy the Joint accepted a cash prize from the NAB Women's Agenda awards. This award consisted of a bottle of champagne and a certificate. We won it because members of the public nominated Destroy the Joint as an agenda setter (and, we are not shy, we also nominated ourselves). Then members of the public voted for us. A public nomination and a public vote; not a cash prize judged by a board. Just to make this completely clear, the award was from the public, not from a bank.

Next, may I draw your attention to my story in New Matilda about women in the media, part of a large project. At no point in the story did I suggest women are better or "gifted", as you put it. I said that there were very few women editors. This was an exercise in counting. I enjoy facts and figures and commend them to you. At the end of the story, only 600 words long, I wrote: "Would women exercise better judgement in running media organisations, companies on the brink of extinction? Perhaps the better question is whether they could do any worse." I mentioned that more women ran suburban or regional papers. This is not to dismiss that contribution - but those jobs do not attract the same status, power or remuneration as running a major metropolitan daily.

As you clearly demonstrate, women are not "nicer". I am in agreement with you on that. Or, since I am somewhat older than you, you are in agreement with me. As I approach 60, I like to think age affords some privilege.

Most concerning though, is your implication that in order to be a feminist or to take feminist action, you should somehow have heard of me, that I should be the kind of celebrity you are. I am, as they say in the trade, a wife-of-one, a mother-of-three, teacher, journalist and member of two unions. I'm certainly middle-class and am grateful every day for the benefits it gives me. My sister, who was born in a refugee camp, missed out on the first years of life as an Australian. My view is that, as a result of that difficult start at birth and beyond, she was not well for most of her life. She died at 57.

http://www.kingstribune.com/index.php/the-shout/item/1745-why-i-will-not-be-lectured-on-feminism-by-that-woman

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Helen razer's post...

For mine, Destroy the Joint began, very quickly, to Destroy the Point. As a fairly rash user of social media myself, I made the view known to tens of followers that I found the exercise distastefully onanistic. The fast cycles of uncritical rage that greeted a number of purportedly “misogynist” incidents — the average comedy of Daniel Tosh, the dressing of children in inappropriate clothing, the naming of a racehorse as a woman  — brought to mind the usual pace of my own visits to RedTube.

We sit in front of screens and we suspend our thought to enhance our desire and then we mash our own genitals to the point they explode in a brief but ecstatic frenzy of nothing especially productive. It’s a sad little ragegasm we need to repeat seven times a day in the absence of genuine congress.

I do not mind a good wank but I have little patience for a bad one and this mean and dessicated DTJ masturbation must, at some point, cease. The expense of this libidinal energy cannot be calculated. We are spending our climaxes in tiny online moments when, really, they are due elsewhere to fuck the system.

Feminism is the struggle against masculinsed violence and feminised poverty. Or, the acknowledgement that physical violence is enacted disproportionately by men and poverty is experienced disproportionately by women. That’s it, really.

And don’t give me that “there are many feminisms” shit. Yes, of course there are and my experience of gender is markedly different to that of a lass (or lad) living, say, in Maputo. But, for the sake of fuck, at SOME point, we have to agree about our basic aims and get off this DTJ-endorsed fap-wreck before we all perish from the carnal stink.

There are two chief DTJ problems and the first is that it feels like a cultural studies tutorial from 1991. I know what it is like to be absorbed in the novelty of semiotics and that “Angrily Calling Out Sexism Wherever You See It” is habit-forming. The behaviour is compulsive and sometimes, you know, it makes you act before you think and you get it wrong. SO wrong. I recall, for example, a moment in which DTJ ally Anne Summers called a urinal shaped like a mouth “misogynist”.

read more at Crikey...

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A recent silly post by Razer:

Look. I have no idea who Cathy McGowan is and, frankly, neither do you. We can probably be sure that the independent candidate for Indi has eaten no children, and was not the sole author of Mein Kampf . This absence of doubt about absolute evil should be enough to celebrate her as the “grassroots” campaigner. Go Cathy. Whoa Cathy. She’s a little battler who’ll usher good into the world.

I do, however, know who Sophie Mirabella is. And so, it seems, do you. Until the federal election last Saturday, she was a Coalition middleweight chiefly known for being (a) the executor of a rich man’s will and (b) the object of Hansard’s most peculiar insult. If you’ve forgotten, former MP Belinda Neal doubled-down on crazy to offer to a pregnant Mirabella: “your child will turn into a demon if you have such evil thoughts. You'll make your child a demon, you'll make your child a demon.” It was the best/worst thing ever, and could only have been improved if both parliamentarians were clad in tiger-print bikinis.

Despite what is – ‘fess up – a wretched lack of knowledge about both candidates' proposals for the seat of Indi, we have nonetheless attributed to one a Marian halo, and to the other the capacity for producing a demon baby.

But can Mirabella be so bad and vexing as your stupid Facebook groups and your idiot opinion pieces suggest? And if she is, as seems to be the consensus on the lazy-left, a warmongering succubus who reproduces hate with her devil-vulva, then where is the evidence?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/13/sophie-mirabella-hate

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Gus: Of course, Razer says things we rarely know if she jests or not... The "lazy-left" makes a good alliteration, though I know that my good friends in the lazy-left government worked their guts off to keep this country running in a more equitable way during a very difficult global financial crisis (that contrary to Abbott-the-liar utterance, is still going on)... Even those I know of the previous NSW Labor Government were working hard. Sure some people like Obeid abused the system somewhat, but compared to what many rich people of the rabid-right with offshore accounts get away with, the Obeid nest-eggs is chicken feed. In Europe the biggest swindler of moneys from one single government goes into billions of Euros. 

But it would only take anyone a few minutes to check out who Cathy McGowan is, Ms Razer... Most people in Indi would know. And Mirabella might still win by a few noses at the post office, according to The Australian, a rag from the murdoch stable who would have been pushing Mirabella to the hilt and canning McGowan... Whether Mirabella deserves the shit poured onto her is for those people's conscience to study Mirabella's antics and lies which are obvious for anyone to see except to those who don't look. 

Politics is a grubby business but it should not be. To see Mirabella in front of those large panels damning Julia Gillard as a bitch and witch was not a good look... Ignorance is not an excuse and Mirabella*'s refusal to attend a government apology to the stolen generation shows an enormous small-mindedness. It's her choice though and the choice of us to pan Mirabella as much as possible. Bringing back Belinda O'Neal's utterance is below the belt. Belinda may suffers from a disease akin to social incompetence, and I'm not trying to make excuses for Neal... But this was a long time ago and Mirabella has shown before and since she is not worth the trouble as a politician, except to get "promises" from her mates, the Libs (COnservatives) that she calls "secured" as bribes to the electorate. Now, are those "secured" allotment of money still going towards Indi, should Mirabella not get the gig?

That would be interesting to see...

But let's say here that Cathy McGowan rationales on all the issues facing Indi and this nation are pretty superior compared to those of Mirrabella whose grand standing is about the money she "would get" from her mates rather what she's ever done for Indi... I know that for the nation, Mirabella has been a stubborn obstructionist and a miserable reactionary. In regard to global warming, McGowan is way in front... But then, many people don't "believe" in global warming — EVEN IF 97 PER OF SCIENTISTS KNOW IT'S COMING furious and fast — because the libs (CONservatives) don't believe the science, nor does the media in general, controlled by or follower of Mr Murdoch empire mouth piece... I don't know Razer's position on this most important subject.

But as the new Abbott manistry is announced, Tony Abbott regrets that there are not "two women" but only one in his Manistry for the Boys... And of all things, Mr Abbott, the closet misogynist, has chosen to take the portfolio of MANISTER FOR WOMEN.. A joke?... You be the judge... We know Tony-the-shit is trying hard to wipe his smug of his face as he announces crap... 

I may say too that Razer's attack on Jenna Price is quite out of line and ultra-poor in her chosen arguments, though carrying the usual Razer's colourful vernacular. Mind you she might be writing in jest... But even her feminism jest is on par with the anti-feminism practised by Janet Albrechtsen — if you know what I mean...

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And please would someone tell Bob Hawke he has passed his used-by-date long ago. He should stop being a mouthpiece for those nuclear dump profiteers... In regard to what is happening in Fukushima it's time to put this dump-baby out of his mind... And as a father, Bob was not the best example of politicians, though many good politicians have been able to lead a family and political life simultaneously...