Menzies House

Hello! I'm Granny Gillard

Gather round children while Granny Gillard teaches you how to knit a tangled web sock.

Lesson one: Knit one, purl one. Now do that about 300 billion times and that's how much debt I'm going to leave you poor little darlings. You see, Aunty Julia is always thinking of your future, after I've grabbed my chunk.

Lesson two: The one I'm knitting in the picture is is a nose warmer. Remember children, if you tell lots porkies your nose will grow just like Pinocchio's did and you will need a nose warmer for this winter of my discontent.

And, my little do gooders, I have not used any live animals in that picture, the dog is stuffed, exactly the same as the government I lead today - maybe tomorrow - I dunno after that. And that lovely, old chair? Tim found it on the tip - it was free. As you can see children, Granny Gillard is always saving for your future.

And, kiddies, don't worry about me not having a job, I've put away a bloody bundle for me old age. It's been fun, bye for now and jolly good luck. And, don't let mummy or daddy vote for that naughty Mr. Rudd.

GC.Ed.@L.

A Cat at a Dog Show

Certain gay rights advocates are calling for what they call ‘marriage equality’, or same-sex marriage, writes Justin de Vere 

National governments in New Zealand and France, as well as certain other countries and states, have recently passed laws legalising this. In doing so, the governments of these places now consider a marriage of a man and a woman to be the equivalent of a similar ceremony ‘marrying’ two men or two women.

The desire for marriage equality, while superficially a call for justice and an idea whose time has come, is actually a hurtful, destructive, selfish desire which speciously defies logic, abuses ordinary people’s sense of justice, and will cause damage to an ancient social custom that predates government and civilisation and has nothing to do with homosexuality. The politicians who would effect this change would do so not in the best interests of the country they serve, but in the short-term interests of the party they serve.

Read More: http://justindevere.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/a-cat-at-a-dog-show/

Is it me or is it my blue tie?

According to Anne Summers, Women should be aware Abbott's blue-tie brigade, we (does that include or exclude men?) should all be aware of men in blue ties. Come election time, September 14, we (does that still include or exclude men?) should vote for a woman simply because a woman can make sure we have more women in our Federal Parliament. You’ve got to love affirmative action.

Summers warns us that if we do not vote for a female PM just because she is female then “Australia will go from having one of the highest representations of women in government in the democratic world to a very ordinary presence when compared with similar countries.” Make sense? Sure it does!

All women are equal but some are more equal than others

By Perkin-Warbeck

I bet you didn’t know that there are WOMEN and then there are women.

I have this on the highest possible authority – Emily’s List, no less – which proclaims in the preamble on its website, “A woman candidate, to be satisfactory, must be a ‘feminist’ in the best sense of the word…she should believe absolutely in the equality of status, liberty and opportunity between a man and a woman. A woman candidate that is shaky on this matter, or not sufficiently imbued with its importance to be able to speak convincingly on the matter, will do the movement towards establishing women in Parliament far more harm than good.”

Emily’s List is the ALP affirmative action crowd, the official sisterhood, comprising Labor women who presumably pass the “satisfactory” test. Prime Minister Gillard is a proud member.

Why I don’t care about the Gillard-Abbott sexism war and neither should you

Cross-posted from Major Karnage.

As regular readers of Major Karnage will probably have figured out, I like to follow Australian politics. As you may have guessed (and those who know me would know), I also like to talk about Australian politics. People I associate with know this, so they tend to engage me whenever an issue in Australian politics catches their attention — I even have some friendships based around these conversations. Crazy, I know.

So when there is a huge scandal in Australian politics that the whole world is talking about, I expect that it will come up somewhere. Sure enough, a lot of people have been asking me about Julia Gillard’s now world-famous speech calling Tony Abbott a misogynist. My answer has surprised a few people, so I now feel the need to write a post and justify it. Simply put:

I don’t really care.

It just doesn’t really interest me. I watched a recording of the speech and got bored after a couple of minutes. Since it was such a big thing, I went back and watched the rest later, but now I just want that 10 minutes back.

So why this uncharacteristic apathy? Well, I don’t really see this as anything new. The issue that was much more important/interesting was the resignation of Speaker Peter Slipper because of the revelation of lewd and offensive text messages that he sent his former staffer.

The Slipper issue I care about. In fact, I might care enough to write a whole post on the right to privacy and the dilemmas that this kind of situation brings up (ie should someone be forced to resign over what were really private comments, no matter how offensive they were?)

Gillard’s speech? Well, the reaction says it all really. Below are a few responses from friends on my Facebook and Twitter feeds (for obvious reasons, I am not mentioning any names and have slightly edited some of the comments for length):

Gina Rinehart and how self-styled “progressives” are keeping the boardroom male

Cross-posted from Major Karnage.

IN MY line of work, I get to spend quite a lot of time in high-level boardroom meetings with people who all sit on corporate boards. I also have a few relatives who have sat on various boards in their time and my extended networks include quite a number of others. This means that while am not on any corporate boards, I am not a stranger to them either.

I still remember the first time I was at one of said meetings and a female colleague muttered to me, “do you notice anything particularly… male about the room?” The truth was that I hadn’t. While I had definitely noticed that I was the youngest person in the room by at least a decade (two if you didn’t count her). Until she pointed it out to me, it did not occur to me that she was the only woman there.

That incident jolted me into awareness. Since then, I have been paying attention to the gender balance when I am in corporate settings and a lot of observations have struck me that anecdotally support the mountains of research showing that the boardroom is simply not a place for girls. Not once in the last couple of years have I ever seen anything that even comes close to gender balance. Several times, there have actually been no women present. I also find that the “higher-level” the meeting, the less women tend to be invited.

That said, there are other observations that I can make about people in boardrooms than merely their gender. They are generally very sure of themselves – often manifesting as arrogance, but always including a calm and confident demeanour. They are hard-working, ambitious and persistent to the point of obsession, they know what they want and they make it happen. They are uncompromising – they expect the best and will not accept anything less. They are often very blunt and straight-talking. They can be friendly and charming when they want to, but they can be aggressive and intimidating when they have to.

Why We Still Need Feminism

Jessica Muslin argues that those on the right should embrace - not shun - the feminism label: 

I find it scary that ‘feminism’ is a dirty word nowadays. I find it disturbing that so many women I know don’t consider themselves to be a feminist. I find it frightening that most of my male peers simply view feminism as an instrument for affirmative action. I find it perplexing that many people do not believe that we still need feminism today.

As someone who is very active in a rather conservative political party, many people might find it strange that I consider myself to be an extremely proud feminist. This is because of the simple fact that I acknowledge the gender disparity that exists today, and confidently know that it needs to change somehow.

I have a lot of friends who think that feminism is outdated and no longer needed. Looking at the status quo, you might be forgiven for thinking that that is the case – women have pretty much all of the ‘formal rights’ they didn’t have a century ago, such as the rights to vote, work and run for political office.

However, the issues that women still face are as many as they are complex. The fact that women make up an extremely small amount of corporate CEOs in many western liberal countries upsets me. The fact that domestic violence is still so common in many parts of both the developing and western world enrages me. The fact that many men think that opinionated women “just need to calm down” disturbs me.

With that being said, what frustrates me most about the ‘feminism’ debate is the fundamental lack of understanding about the different types of feminism that exist. Not every feminist supports affirmative action. Not every feminist supports government paid maternity leave. There are an amazing range of ‘feminist views’ within society, and critics of feminism must learn to distinguish between them.

Reminder: Women are not allowed to VOTE in Saudi Elections

 

So why aren’t all the feminists here shouting from the roof tops? Where are Germaine Greer, Eva Cox, Anne Summers and the Minister for the Status of Women Kate Ellis? Why don’t they condemn such inequality?

How come the progressive left media in this country doesn’t report on the inequality against Muslim women?

Pathetic.