Why it’s time for the boys club to step aside in Australian politics, to embrace a new way of relating.

Jacquelina Wills
Sep 9, 2018 · 6 min read

It is time to lift the veil !

This time two weeks ago Australia had a day off from being governed. The class was dismissed and it was taken out to the school yard to be sorted out. Thus began the betrayals and drama that ensued and the boys club emerged with a new leader. This is not a once off affair, this has been our story whether it be the liberal or Labour Party, for the past decade? Valid proof in its own right that perhaps there is another way.

It was only a few weeks previous that I had met with a distant cousin I had been matched through ancestry DNA, and was delighted to find out we share a common ancestor that was the first woman in NSW parliament and the second woman in the Australian parliament. Her name Millicent Preston Stanley, she represented the Eastern Suburbs of NSW in 1925 and was the president of the feminist club of NSW for 18 years. I began to do a little research and soon learnt of all the amazing achievements for the advancement of women’s health, law and rights in this country. I also admired how she used language and code to cut through the ignorance that often lay thick in the air of these patriarchal halls. Navigating the undercurrents, women it seems have had to resort to these ways of communicating.

‘We are told that parliament is no fit place for women. I am not prepared to admit that such is the case otherwise I would not be here; but if it is so it is the most serious indictment which can be lodged against men, because parliament up to date is an institution of their own making.’

Millicent also was betrayed by her own party due to her being female and reminded me of the situation Julia Bishop found herself in, our foreign minister and deputy prime minister and a woman who is also known to be a master code speaker. Julie Bishop had served her party in such an exemplary way and would have been by far the people’s choice in being the next leader of Australia.

When Julie Bishop was asked when will the Liberals consider electing a female prime minister?

She replied’

‘When we find one, Im sure we will.’

I had to ask myself, why the speaking in code? Do women not feel safe to shoot straight from the hip so to speak? Are women still cloaked in Veils? Encouraged to be seen and not heard? To dare not offend? To be protected from the patriarchal construct?

Has anything changed since women have entered politics just over 90 years ago in this country? With my research my answer would have to be No, even though laws have been changed for women generally over the last 60 years, it hasn’t considerably changed that much for women in politics. Then I asked myself the question has it changed much for women since the beginning of politics itself?

With a few brain melts and epiphanies, going down this rabbit hole I was surprised (due to my idealistic nature) to come to the conclusion that it hasn’t changed that much since the likes of the ‘civilised world’ which began some 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia. With the cones of law and law tablets somewhat changing slightly over each passing of the major epochs of power, the laws hadn’t really changed that much around women’s roles including that of Greece from which we adopted the concept of democracy which originated around 508BC.

I remember distinctly as a primary school student on a school excursion to Australia’s capital Canberra, sitting in the viewing balconies in parliament watching question time thinking ‘I don’t get this’. And quiet frankly I still don’t…get this! With the shouting and squabbling I felt confused, scared and cold to the bone.

Julie Bishop recently commented (this time not in code).

‘I have witnessed some appalling behaviour in parliament and you’re right to feel contempt for politicians.’

There is an aggression that underpins the very psyche of politics, a male construct that dates back thousands of years to when the reverence toward the female ‘giver of life’ the Goddess was replaced over several generations with a king on a throne representing god. When women were given such orders as Virgin, Whore and Slave and were often referred to in religious texts as ones to fear. When women were told not to speak unless spoken too, or just plainly don’t speak!, especially concerning public matters. It seems when mankind moved into the ownership of land, control over women came with it.

It gained momentum when public life was claimed by the men and the Home life was reserved for the women. The power combination of economics, religion and politics basically began to show its face and locked women out of making any decisions regarding their life. It is ironic that the latest drama in Australian politics is over the Paris agreement on Climate change, the very heart of the issue of the overall health of Mother Earth herself. It is also ironic that the Greek mythical character of Paris represented the wild and free whom chose Helen (someone else’s wife who’s hand was won in a competition) a woman who wanted to be a sovereign being in her own right and rule beside her man. Man and Woman ruling side by side.

Over the past year I have had some conversations with women in politics that represent the area in which I live, we talked about the things women have to put up with including the lack of sincerity and intelligence from which some of these men hold themselves and the bafoonery that accompanies their rhetoric. We also talked about the recent bullying and slut shaming incidents in our parliament and recognised immediately that it is the oldest trick in the book to degrade a women and has been used for thousands of years.

What is the cause of such wiring in the minds of men as to denigrate women and in turn denigrate the environment? Could men in power subconsciously be scared of women’s creation powers, Where women’s focus on creating solutions and movement forward relates to the the overall health and wellbeing as a whole rather than control and ownership. Are the ‘powers that be’ scared to move from *greed to gifting?

How do we digress from these patriarchal systems to that of shared respect for all men and women? When are we to move out of the duality to become more in unity?

As Bronwyn Bishop a former female politician once said,

‘it’s not for any minor reason that the width of table between government and the opposition is the width of two sabres – we’ve replaced swords with words.’

I believe it’s time to create a new way of governance.

It is about time to put the swords and cutting words down and govern this nation with integrity. It’s Time to step away from the illusion that we are operating in a democracy and start asking the important questions. Time to do away with the two party system and let go of outdated modes of governing in order to adopt best practice methods, looking after the people in a good way and caretake our environment?.

And most important of all, Doing no harm!

Moving from the masculine way of governing to embracing the feminine is sure to motivate creativity and unity.

It is time to lift the veil!


*Over many years, I have been working to decode the human condition, regarding the transitioning from Greed to Gifting’ within our own psyche and the collective psyche. Through my visual arts, writing, healing and dreamscaping I endeavour to reveal the keys for opening these doors for our present and future generations.

Moving from duality to unity.

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