Member-only story
Australia’s Next Me Too Movement
Breaking down the old boys’ club
Content note: discussion of sexual assault
There are cracks in Australia’s political system.
In the last few months, members of the Federal government have been the subject of several sexual assault allegations, which our Prime Minister has tried to brush off. Many people have asked, sensibly, why on earth it is not his responsibility to do something about these assaults when he is the highest public servant of the nation, and even if he does not personally do something, why on earth can he not make sure that something is done?
Incredulously, when pressed on this issue, he declared that he’d had a chat with his wife who had told him, think, what if it had been our girls? He was taken aback when a journalist asked him why, to feel empathy for the victim, he needed it framed for him as a father of daughters. Feminists have stated for a long time that when a woman is attacked or killed, she is not just someone’s daughter, sister, mother, wife, but she is some one. A person with her own bodily autonomy. This point flew over our Prime Minister’s head so high it was in the stratosphere.
Over the last months, women’s anger has brewed and developed into what’s now described as Australia’s next ‘Me Too’ movement, as women move to dismantle…
