Bagging the PM

Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, won, if that is the word for such a knife-edge result, the first election ever contested by a female leader of a major political party. This was another milestone moment to please the hearts of the socially progressive (statistics show that female Premiers elected by the party room between elections have not been so lucky come polling day.)

Despite winning the election the Prime Minister has clearly still not won the right to rid herself of The Australian newspaper’s regressive, taunting scrutiny. Glenda Korporaal’s post election-result article ‘Julia enjoys the high life free of old bags’ is dedicated to the fact that the Prime Minister is rarely seen with a handbag. The writer, and the newspaper she works for, clearly considers this to be an issue worthy of mention and discussion.

The articles states that most woman carry handbags and infers that the PM considers herself to be apart, perhaps better, than the average Australian woman because she does not tote a bag. “There is an air of royalty about her that assumes someone else is following along answering the phone, parking the car, taking notes and paying for whatever needs to be paid for.” I do not recall seeing any of this country’s male Prime Minister’s carrying a briefcase, satchel or manbag. I do not recall bewildered articles in newspapers commenting on this fact and the existence of assistants employed to ‘assist’ them when they had held the office of most important public servant in the country.

The ‘journalist’ also uses the piece to snidely reference Julia Gillard’s childless state “it is certain our first female Prime Minister has never had to go through the tote-bag-as-mobile-nursery routine that is the lot of mothers of young children.”

What has raising a child got to do with carrying a handbag, and what does carrying a handbag, or not, got to do with running a country?

And more importantly what does writing articles like this have to do with journalism?