AUSTRALIA: The Female Factor: What Difference Will a Woman Make?

IN JANUARY 2005, Julia Gillard was home in Altona contemplating a challenge to struggling Labor leader Kim Beazley. She had cut short an overseas holiday and in the 2½ days since getting off the plane had been hunkered down, working the phones, checking the numbers. Her suitcase was still unpacked in the hall.

Sunday Age photographer Ken Irwin arrived and suggested a photo in the kitchen. Gillard cleared away the coffee pot and dirty mugs and posed in a chair at the kitchen table. At its centre was a decorative glass bowl.

And there was the unsurprising, suburban beginning of one of Australia's most bizarre political ''controversies''. Talk-back, tabloids and the commentariat read more portent into the resulting photograph than if the table had been strewn with chicken entrails.

One paper described the kitchen as ''unnaturally spotless'', ''lifeless'' and ''eerily stark''. The ''empty fruit bowl'' was somehow transformed into a symbol of its owner's life.

''It never occurred to me,'' Gillard wrote later, ''… that anyone could really contend that my life, my thoughts, my character and my worth could be defined by the state of my kitchen.'' She had been ''typed'', she said. The bowl, the bare walls and the stark benchtops were a sort of code: Female. Career-driven. Childless.

The following year, Queensland Liberal senator Bill Heffernan took the misogyny to a more neolithic level, slurring Gillard as ''deliberately barren''. The epithet perhaps said more about the senator than his target.

Now Julia Gillard is our first female prime minister. Political and social observers who spoke to The Sunday Age suggest that is a cause for celebration and at the same time a sign of our maturity as electors and an inclusive society. We care that she is a woman, but much more that she be the right person for the job.

''I sense there's a lot of pride, particularly among women, that Australia has finally reached this landmark,'' says Paul Strangio, senior lecturer in Australian politics at Monash University. ''It's a positive expectation but not in a gender-stereotype way. I think people have got beyond this essentialist view of what values a woman leader will have or the characteristics she will bring to the job.''

With past or present female leaders of parliaments in every state or territory but South Australia and Tasmania, and a long international history of female heads of government, any novelty has largely worn off, he says. ''Generally, there will be an element of community goodwill … but to some people it won't matter a jot. I suppose it's one of those points of maturation.''

Social commentator and author Hugh McKay agrees. ''As with Maggie Thatcher in the UK, no one after the first five minutes was prepared to say, 'Well, this brings some kind of femininity to politics.' This is a politician who happens to be a woman. While we're still in the era of noticing women rising to prominent positions, whether in politics, business, academia or wherever, the truth is that, generally speaking, the women who have risen to the top have beaten the blokes at their own game. It's not some different game they play.''

To an extent, says Victoria's only female premier, Joan Kirner, that is right. Over the past 20 years, enough of a critical mass of women has been built in politics, business and the labour movement, that for most people the gender of leaders is of little consequence, she says.

''But it will be still used. One of our leading ABC commentators this morning felt it necessary to say she was childless. I've never, ever heard him mention that any bloke was childless.

''So the comments will still be made, the personal attacks will occasionally be sexist, but my sense of Julia is that she's always risen above that. She's never traded on her gender, though she's always acknowledged it.''

In her first speech as PM on Thursday, Gillard said she had never intended to crack the glass ceiling, notes McKay. ''That implies you're some kind of symbol rather than a substantial person and I think people like Gillard, Anna Bligh and Quentin Bryce would recoil from the proposition.''

Certainly Gillard has described as nonsense the notion that women are too soft and gentle to play an equal role in an adversarial parliament. But ALP strategist Bruce Hawker says voters set different standards in the blood sport of politics. People ''recoil'' at aggression towards the fairer sex, in particular, he claims: ''It's probably people's conditioning, but as a general proposition men can probably be a bit more physical in their interactions with each other than if they are interacting with women.

''It can be pretty offensive to women, particularly, if they see a man debating in a way that is aggressive or overbearing [with a woman], whereas they might be more inclined to accept it with a man, because they think 'They're equal size and shape'.''

Gillard would be horrified at the suggestion that voters will expect the Coalition to pull its punches, he admits. But Labor hopes to win female voters by exploiting Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's pugilistic approach. The former Oxford boxing Blue will have to tone down his ''overly aggressive, threatening sort of manner'', runs Hawker's line. Voters will expect Abbott to adopt a more formal, polite manner towards Gillard - more ABC current affairs than shock-jock talk-back radio - he says.

Graeme Morris, a former adviser to John Howard, says Abbott may struggle to adapt to a female opponent. ''Sometimes it is harder for a conservative male to treat a Labor woman as he would a Labor man. The perception when watching this is that sometimes it's sort of the chivalry thing; one shouldn't attack a woman,'' he says.

''Certainly it is a mood among many on the conservative side of politics that it is harder to attack a female politician than a male one … because, probably, they had a proper upbringing.'' When challenged that such views today seem antiquated, almost sexist, Morris replies simply: ''Welcome to society.''

That might also prove a double-edged sword for the Opposition Leader. There is ''a whiff of misogyny'' around Abbott, says James Walter, professor of political science at Monash University. ''But his real problem is that she's just much better at responding to the 'Abbott type' across the floor. She's quicker, sharper, a good parliamentary performer. I think she'll be a more formidable opponent.''

Neither will pull their punches and Abbott won't do so because Gillard happens to be female, says McKay.

Susan Hawthorne, an expert in women's studies and politics and co-founder of Spinifex Press, says there is much to celebrate, particularly as it has been more than a century since women could vote in Australia. ''I am thrilled we have a woman in the position of prime minister. I like her politics: she is smart, she is articulate, she understands how power operates; she certainly seems to have great capacity to work the power plays,'' she says.

And yet. ''It's hard to explain why I'm thrilled and yet I also don't think it's sufficient she's a woman. For me, it is also: what are her politics?'' She cautions against staking so much on one woman. ''One woman has almost no effect on the masculine culture. You only have to look at the photographs of, say, the G20 meetings, and there are very few women's faces there, and that says a lot about the way politics is shaped globally.''

Gillard will face high expectations, she says: that she will speak for women; that she will reduce inequality between the sexes. Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, has worn similarly high hopes heavily. Ominously, soon after Gillard was sworn in as Prime Minister, one wag emailed a mock-up poster of her in a famous Obama pose, with the slogan: ''YES SHE DID.''

''I think there is huge expectation on her and I think that will mean that some people are really disappointed because they want too much, and the range of things they think she should be able to achieve goes beyond what is expected of a male politician,'' Hawthorne says. ''They will expect that she can fix things, whereas the system is the system. For people outside of white male culture, we have a tendency to expect more: you have to be better.''

Implicit here is the notion that women are more likely to favour female politicians. Bruce Hawker, straight-faced, calls it the ''sisterhood'', which he suggests is based on shared experiences in health and education. Graeme Morris believes the contrary is true. ''Somehow or other they expect more from female politicians. They're harder on them … No one is ever quite sure why.''

Julia Baird is a reporter and editor and the author of Media Tarts - How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians. Now in New York, she says both views are nonsense. The Sarah Palin experience in the US showed that female voters like having female candidates. ''It's important to them symbolically, and they don't want to see them treated poorly. But when it comes to polling day, it's the economy, it's healthcare, it's education,'' she says. ''We're not mugs.''

An Age/Nielsen poll, taken on Gillard's first two days as prime minister, found that 56 per cent of voters surveyed approved of her ascension. Among women, Gillard led Kevin Rudd as preferred prime minister by 46-31, while men were evenly divided (42-42). Almost twice as many women preferred Gillard as PM to Abbott: 59-32 per cent.

Nielsen pollster John Stirton says voters are likely to respond favourably to her ascension but only in the short term. Focus groups and polls, dating back to the mid-1980s, show voters ultimately are more concerned with whether a politician is trustworthy or competent, he says. ''I honestly think Julia Gillard will be rated on what she does and how she performs in the job…

''I think sometimes there is an excessive focus on the fact someone is or isn't a woman, but I think the voters are much more relaxed about it for the most part … The number of individuals who worry about that sort of stuff is minuscule.''

Equally, it is ''nonsense'' to suggest that Abbott has a problem with female voters, in particular, he says. If anything, Abbott's problem is declining popularity with both sexes - his approval rating this month dropped to 39 with women and 43 with men.

Another half-serious truism in Australian politics holds that female leaders - such as Kirner, Western Australia's Carmen Lawrence and NSW Premier Kristina Keneally - were only elevated to the top job when all else was lost, receiving the political equivalent of a hospital handpass.

''Again, it's all predicated on the idea of difference,'' says Baird. ''The guys muck it up and you bring in someone who, by her warmth or cheerfulness or some other attribute that's seen to be gender-related, will be able to smooth things away.'' That is not the case with Gillard. ''She has long relished the fight against Abbott.''

Paul Strangio adds: ''I don't think there's any doubt today that within Coalition ranks there'd be a level of nervousness. And that's about ability more than gender. I think they were coming to the view that they might have Rudd's measure, whereas Gillard's a much more formidable challenge.''

A small survey of voters in Melbourne last week suggested Gillard would not win many easy votes by virtue of her gender. First-time voter Kristy Doherty, 19, recalled meeting Gillard when the politician visited her primary school in Werribee. ''She seems like a lovely person but I'm not sure about her policies'' she says. ''I don't really see why it makes a difference whether it's a man or woman - nobody is quite sure what she stands for at the moment.''

Greens voter Bobby Allen, 23, of Geelong, says he doesn't give a ''rat's arse'' about Gillard's gender. The true test would be whether she continued to support Australian troops serving abroad. ''I hope she's got the - oh, I was going to say 'balls' - gusto to keep us over there, because we need it.'' Labor voter Christine Hirst, 66, of South Yarra, instead charged women with being ''disloyal to their sex'' if they didn't vote for Gillard. ''I think there's a whole group of men, upper-class men, who will never vote for her at all because she's a woman. They just can't believe a woman could be in charge.''

Baird says the long-term historical issue in the way Australians have thought about women in politics is ''a clumsy, awkward grappling'' with the idea of women exercising power and authority. But voters have been ready for a female leader for a long time, contends Baird. It's the male-dominated parties and perhaps the media that have not really understood that.

''We've understood it very poorly. We've seen it in ways that have been a distraction, that have painted them as either excessively ambitious or as soft or as interlopers in a realm properly dominated by men.

''We've considered women exercising power to be surprising or severe - the Steel Sheila, the Iron Lady, ball-breaking stuff - or springing from another source. We're already seeing that aspect with Gillard.

''The fact that she's being called a puppet, where the prime ministership has been handed to her by a group of men in a kind of sinister way.''

There might be lessons in the experience of Hillary Clinton in the US presidential race, says Baird. One of Obama's few slip-ups was when he told her ''You're likeable enough … If there are similarities between the US and Australia, a lot of women liked Hillary, a lot of women didn't. But what united women was attacks on Hillary. And I think we'd see the same with Gillard.

''There's so few of us in prominent positions in public life that women can see those slights, can recognise them from a very long distance - discrimination or insults or being patronised - and they can pick up on it very quickly and react in a very negative way… So I think Abbott is going to have to be very careful.

''But you bring a woman into an all-male group or a stag fight and it changes the dynamic, absolutely. You can only hope that's a very good thing.''

At the same time, she says, the elevation of our first female PM is a historic moment that matters and ought to be celebrated. ''We really shouldn't be blase when we hit a point like this. To be so is to diminish the sweat and the fervent dreams, aspirations and prayers of millions of women who have fought for this very moment.

''This is a critical issue and what Julia Gillard symbolises is the full entry and participation in the Australian political process and I don't think it should be underestimated.''