From Tightrope to Gendered Trope: a Comparative Study of the Print Mediation of Women Prime Ministers
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COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Research School of Social Sciences SCHOOL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS HIGHER DEGREE BY RESEARCH DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY FROM TIGHTROPE TO GENDERED TROPE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE PRINT MEDIATION OF WOMEN PRIME MINISTERS BLAIR ELIZABETH WILLIAMS A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY 19 SEPTEMBER 2019 © Copyright Blair Williams 2019 All Rights Reserved Declaration of Originality I, Blair Elizabeth Williams 2019, hereby declare that the thesis here presented is the outcome of the research project undertaken during my candidacy, that I am the sole author unless otherwise indicated, and that I have fully documented the source of ideas, references, quotations and paraphrases attributable to other authors. Word count: 92,452 i In dedication to my father Ronald Charles Williams (1957 – 2013) ii Acknowledgements Undertaking this thesis has been a highly rewarding experience, uniting my feminist activism with my passion for intellectual pursuits. I entered my candidature as a twenty-one-year- old Honours graduate, leaving friends and family in Adelaide, despite severe anxiety, to further pursue the questions prompted by my research in Canberra. I finish this stage of my life with more support and encouragement than I could ever have imagined, and with a measure of confidence that I have earned through many struggles as a young queer woman in academia. I owe many people a debt of gratitude for their unwavering support throughout this most difficult yet most rewarding time in my life. Above all, I thank my supervisor and chair of panel, Emeritus Professor Marian Sawer AO, for her continual support and confidence in my ability, especially through the arduous process of data collection and analysis. Marian continues to provide a source of great inspiration, both for her contributions over several decades to feminist activism in Australia and internationally, as well as to the discipline of political science, and for her active role in expanding scholarly awareness of gender politics, her collegiality and her support. Forty years ago, Marian co-founded the Women’s Caucus of the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) to support women academics in political science, for which I have been the social media coordinator since 2016. Through Marian’s support I have not only become a better researcher and feminist, but have gained a passionate commitment to the support of women political scientists like myself. To my supervisory panel members, Associate Professor Helen Keane and Associate Professor Fiona Jenkins, I am very grateful for your guidance and encouragement and for providing an interdisciplinary feminist perspective to an indelibly interdisciplinary feminist project. iii I gratefully acknowledge that this research is supported by an ANU PhD Scholarship and thank both the ANU and the School of Politics and International Relations for the financial assistance provided in support of overseas collection and presentation of my research. I would also like to thank my editor, Jennifer Kremmer, for her thorough and insightful assistance at the conclusion of this journey. I would like to thank former Australian Prime Minister, the Hon. Julia Gillard, and former New Zealand Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Helen Clark, for taking the time to speak with me and for the inspiration to undertake this project. Thank you for your strength and passion in spite of all you have endured, and thank you for inspiring generations of women to stand up to the patriarchy, to oppose sexism and misogyny, and to discover a passion for politics. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the other women leaders examined in this dissertation and globally – thank you for smashing the various glass ceilings and for showing the world that ‘we can do it’. I wouldn’t have gotten far on this journey without support, reassurance and inspiration from other strong academic women. I am deeply grateful to my Honours supervisor Professor Carol Johnson who, during my undergraduate studies, encouraged me to undertake Honours in political science, and who has provided continued support since. I would also like to acknowledge the many peers and mentors I have had the pleasure to meet throughout my candidature: Associate Professor Cassandra Star, Dr Chris Wallace, Professor Linda Trimble, Professor Karen Ross, Professor Sarah Childs, Associate Professor Mirya Holman and Professor Mona Lena Krook. I would like to acknowledge the guidance, inspiration and friendship offered by my colleagues in the School of Politics and International Relations at the ANU: Dr Kim Huynh for his inspirational teaching abilities and genuine care for students, and Associate Professor Juliet Pietsch for her passion, determination and sustained belief in me as a researcher and educator. iv Where would I be without the help of my fellow PhD candidates and the cathartic benefits of reciprocal whinging about the PhD process, the neoliberal university system, capitalism and the patriarchy? I particularly want to thank Joanna Richards for her unending encouragement and help, reminding me of the power of women supporting women. I also want to thank James Frost for listening to my neurotic complaints and for reminding me that I am a badass young feminist researcher, unsettling the status-quo in a patriarchal discipline. Special thanks also go to Dr Tania Evans, a fellow participant in Raewyn Connell’s masterclass on transphobia and feminism at the ANU and lasting friend to who I am grateful for her #queersolidarity through the final phases of both our PhD candidatures. I would also like to express gratitude to Dr Sophie Yates, Dr Jess Smith and Dr Jenna Price for their #womenalsoknowstuff support and camaraderie. To my Twitter community, who have supported me at every step (and every tweet) I have made throughout this process (including a not inconsiderable number about the transcendent beauty of my cat) and have amply demonstrated the importance of online networks; and to my APSA Women’s Caucus and International Political Science Association’s (IPSA) Research Committee 19 (RC19) Gender Politics and Policy communities, for continuing the good ol’ fight toward gender mainstreaming the discipline, I dedicate my gratitude and feminist solidarity. I owe a great deal to the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), for their support throughout my PhD candidature and various sessional academic appointments. Unionisation is now more important than ever, thanks to the neoliberalisation of universities and the casualisation of the workforce. The workers united will never be defeated. Join your union. Above all, I would like to thank my partner, Dr Alex Burchmore, who completed his PhD in Art History in late 2018, and has supported me from my first day of university to the last day of my PhD candidature. I am eternally grateful for all his encouragement and love and thank him for supporting me to pursue a career in academia, for his unfailing reassurance of my capability and v competence in spite of the hardships I have faced, and for the shoulder to lean on he has provided throughout all I have endured these last nine years. I love you, always – and the little family we have made in this beautiful heart of the nation, buying our first apartment and adopting our little Mochi, who I should thank also for keeping me warm throughout the writing and editing stages of my dissertation. His warm belly and dignified stare kept me company were invaluable in the harsh Canberran winters. I thank my friends and family for the support they too have provided – often from afar: for the time they have spent listening to my complaints and the understanding they have shown toward my own lack of time, and the absence that comes with living interstate. To Aarti, Jen, Gabi, Iona, Thomas, Reb, Joseph, Emmalee for your friendship that traverses space. To Julie, Ben, Andreas, Ronny and Delilah for your love and support. To my sister Bonnie who has continuously encouraged me and has demonstrated the strength and power of motherhood, teaching the next generation how to think critically about patriarchy, gender norms and gender roles. To my strong Glaswegian grandmother Elizabeth (Betty) Williams OAM, who fought for working women and helped establish the Adelaide Working Women’s Centre as its first official coordinator. I am immeasurably proud to follow in the feminist unionist footsteps of such a strong woman who was awarded an OA, before sadly passing away in 1995. Rest in power. My deepest heartfelt appreciation goes to my parents, who have always inspired me to follow my passions, to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ and to constantly question the status quo and fight against injustice. Thanks to my mum, Kathy Williams, not only for her strength, passion and determination in juggling three children, a full-time career, and university studies, but also for inspiring me to pursue tertiary education even at the tender age of five, when I desperately wanted to attend university rather than primary school! Thanks for your support and love throughout my vi life and especially my candidature, and for showing me how to be a strong, independent and, most importantly, resilient woman. Lastly, all this would not be possible without my late father, Ronny Williams, who sadly passed away a week before my third undergraduate year. You raised me to care about politics and to pursue knowledge, inspiring me to follow in your footsteps not only by completing an Honours degree in politics, but also by becoming the first in the family to undertake a PhD. Though it is hard to find any semblance of light in something as tragic as an early death, one must in order to continue. Your absolute love of life motivated me to go beyond my comfort zone and live life to the fullest – to undertake Honours, to move interstate to a place where I knew no-one, to travel the world, to constantly pursue knowledge, to make change, to fight and to love wholeheartedly.