Overboard on Children?

I cannot believe that the fertility (or not) of women in politics is an issue.

Yet yesterday, Senator Bill Heffernan decided to stand by comments he made last year about Julia Gillard being "barren" and somehow believes he's right to say it about her because as a leader "You've got to understand your community. . . . One of the great understandings in a community is family and the relationship between mum, dads and a bucket of nappies."

I love the idea that there can be a mum and dads in a family - what would be handier than three or four husbands? But never mind that.

Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but I think Heffernan's really the one who's out of touch (I'd hate to think there's a lot of Australians out there who think the same about being "barren"). The latest figures show that there are 1,962,100 lone-person households in Australia today, compared to 1,798,400 houses occupied by couples living with children. The growth in the trend of living alone has been driven by people under the age of 35, although there's still a somewhat significant portion of alone-dwellers who are in the 65+ group. Almost a quarter of people living alone had never been married and were not in a defacto relationship.*

Not having squeezed offspring forth from your loins doesn't make you a lesser person, and I think in many ways, comments about "barrenness" and how women who haven't had children aren't capable of tying their shoelaces let alone being a deputy leader in a political party are highly insulting to all women. And yet there are probably a lot of people out there who'll nod their heads in agreement with what Heffernan's said instead of thinking to themselves, "Good Lord, what is this uncouth man saying and why doesn't he return post-haste to the rock he apparently belongs under?!"

The merits of women in politics sadly still seem to be based solely on their attributes as women, rather than their abilities. Looks, dress sense, family, how many young'uns they've popped out, what their weight is, whether or not they have fruit in their fruit bowls in the kitchen... It's insane, to say the least, and makes me sad that women are still being judged as objects, particularly by people who have a say in how our nation's run.

"Oh the naughty scamp!" seems to be the likely response from Libs who have possibly a modicum of decency, and Labor leader Kevin Rudd and frontbencher Jenny Macklin are saying an apology should be forthcoming. Perhaps an apology to priests could also be chucked in, seeing how Heffernan says of them, "like the rest of us, wake up with a horn at four in the morning." Or if not to priests, at least to people who had to read that quote and are blessed/cursed with having a vivid imagination.

Anyway. If there are people out there who really think Julia Gillard's childless state makes her less of a leader, I think it really reflects more on their own problems than anyone else's. Unfortunately, Heffernan making stupid comments and maintaining them rather than apologising or extracting himself from the 1850s probably encourages these people in their thinking that childless women are some variety of threat to society.

But then again, according to the writer of the letter to the editor that makes me want to scream the most today in the SMH, daring to get up the duff while you're working is something that means women shouldn't be employed - he'll never employ a woman of childbearing age (what about with childbearing hips?) if Labor wins the election and makes changes to the Industrial Relations laws. Possibly he thinks they should be locked in a cupboard somewhere. Hopefully his wife, if he has one, reads it and gives him a good dressing down when he gets home.

Update: The Heff has made an apology for his comments, even going so far as to say what he'd said was "totally inappropriate."

* The Power of 1, Katherine Fleming, The Bulletin, April 10, 2007.