[LINK] "Will Aussies elect a childless woman as PM?"

[rfmcdonald]

Can any Australians (Australasians, even) reading this confirm this account suggesting a remarkable degree of hostility towards the incumbent Australian prime minister because of her non-traditional marital and family status? This certainly doesn't go along with my understanding of women's rights in Australia.

For Julia Gillard, Australia's first female Prime Minister, the election campaign was inevitably going to include some mention of her hair.

Not only is it the fate of every female public figure to defend her cut and colour, but for Ms. Gillard, whose boyfriend is a professional hairdresser, some discussion on the topic was unavoidable. However, what she might not have been prepared for was the reaction to her relationship with her mane man, now a styling-product sales representative.

You see, Ms. Gillard and Tim Mathieson live in sin. Not only are they not married, but the flamed-haired Prime Minister doesn't have children and, at the age of 48, isn't expected to change her mind.

The childless, unwed leader of the centre-left Labor Party has been battling these issues throughout the campaign leading up to the Aug. 21 vote, including accusations that she would not understand issues around families and parenting because she is, as one opposition senator once put it, “deliberately barren.”

The issue goes beyond the normal battle of the sexes in Ms. Gillard's campaign for the top job, which puts her up against conservative Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, 52, a married father of three.

The controversy is over her choice to skip being both a wife and mother – a double women are expected to strive for – and how uncomfortable that decision has made some people in Australia.

[. . .]

An Australian sex therapist chastised the Prime Minister's “marriage lite” status, writing in one newspaper: “As a popular role model for women, her lifestyle choice may influence other women into making big mistakes about their lives.”