En Garde Read online

  In 2007 Sarah Hanson-Young became the youngest woman ever to be elected to the Australian parliament. With over a decade in politics as a Greens Senator, Sarah is a leading voice for progressive change. She lives in the Adelaide Hills with her optimistic eleven-year-old daughter, Kora.

  Little Books on Big Ideas

  Germaine Greer On Rape

  Germaine Greer On Rage

  Fleur Anderson On Sleep

  Don Watson On Indignation

  Katharine Murphy On Disruption

  Sarah Ferguson On Mother

  Nikki Gemmell On Quiet

  Blanche d’Alpuget On Lust & Longing

  Leigh Sales On Doubt

  Barrie Kosky On Ecstasy

  David Malouf On Experience

  Malcolm Knox On Obsession

  Gay Bilson On Digestion

  Anne Summers On Luck

  Robert Dessaix On Humbug

  Julian Burnside On Privilege

  Elisabeth Wynhausen On Resilience

  Susan Johnson On Beauty

  Sarah

  Hanson-

  Young

  En

  Garde

  MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

  An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

  Level 1, 715 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

  [email protected]

  www.mup.com.au

  First published 2018

  Text © Sarah Hanson-Young, 2018

  Design and typography © Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2018

  This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

  Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

  Author photograph by Andrew Correll

  Inside cover illustration by Istockphoto

  Text design by Alice Graphics

  Cover design by Nada Backovic Design

  Typeset by Typeskill

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  9780522875027 (paperback)

  9780522875034 (ebook)

  Contents

  En garde

  Little companion

  Calling it out

  Snowflakes

  Slut

  Nursery rhymes

  Oldest trick in the book

  Women of all stripes

  Child’s play

  ‘Nasty woman’

  En garde

  To be truthful, you must be vulnerable, and to be resilient, you must be aware of your own vulnerabilities.

  For years, I let slide the sexist slurs and innuendo spoken against me, both inside and outside parliament, thinking that staying quiet and not making a fuss would eventually make it stop. I had convinced myself that not giving it oxygen would force it to fade away. I was wrong. As a woman who has a reputation for not being shy about standing up and calling things out, this silence led to a festering conflict inside me.

  The insults got louder and the men hurling them grew bolder. It seemed their aim was to break me, to bully me out of doing my job. They never did shut me up—not fully, anyway—but there were plenty of times they came close.

  Then I started to call this sort of behaviour out and, ever since, I’ve been wondering whether I’m resilient enough to handle the consequences. Being honest means being truthful about how vulnerable I am to their attacks. Am I up for the critics saying that I’m playing the victim, that I’m being precious, that I’m nothing more than an attention seeker, a snowflake or princess? I have to be up for this.

  Thankfully, there are women, and men, across the country who’ve responded to the attacks, and to me calling them out, with support and care, undeterred by the lazy labels from critics, naysayers and trolls. Women and girls have been telling me their stories— horrible examples of sexism and abuse, and many of them far worse than I’ve experienced. For these women, my ability to speak out is important. There is strength in expressing vulnerability. My vulnerability empowers them and, in return, their belief empowers me.

  Politics is, by its nature, a tough gig and therefore not for the faint-hearted. The increasingly rigorous debate about ‘values’ means things in and around parliament often become intensely passionate and personal. I’ve always given as good as I get—debating issues and pushing for the ideas I believe in. I’ve never been too shy to say I agree or disagree with something. So, I’m used to the rough and tumble, but that doesn’t mean I like it or that it’s easy. While I’m talking about what we can do to make this country better, I’m constantly preparing for the insults to start flying. I’m in the parliament to debate policies, not to be attacked for my sex life or because I’m a mother. Sadly, despite many people saying they play the ball and not the man, or the woman, the opposite is often true.

  Until recently, I thought being resilient meant not admitting that I was being bullied. I thought that doing so would show I was weak, but I was mistaken. It turns out that real strength comes from admitting to and confronting being bullied. It’s hard, much harder than ignoring it, but it’s the only way to make change.

  I am aware that my ability to appear resilient in the face of attacks, or to weather the embarrassment that comes from my mistakes, can make me seem indomitable. People describe me as ‘cold’ and ‘defensive’ just as ambitious women are described as ‘fierce’ and ‘nasty’. Whether the allegations are true or not, their narrative prevails.

  My guard has always been up because it’s needed to be; I am always wondering where the next attack will come from.

  Critics have accused me of being ‘a nasty piece of work’, while, in the next breath, saying I am a ‘bleeding heart’. I’ve been accused of being a ‘social justice warrior’ and ‘playing the victim’ at the same time. These negative terms are used to belittle the ability of women with or without public profiles to speak honestly and compassionately, with strength and power.

  I’ve found it hard to reconcile the fact that that I am both resilient and vulnerable. But I am, and that’s okay.

  My vulnerability allows me to be resilient, because, ultimately, it is to do with being true to myself and what I stand for. I think most people are the same.

  Politicians should be real people, who feel things deeply. We should be motivated to make the world a better place, and be disgusted when we see injustice and inequality.

  So, I am real, I am tough, but I am also vulnerable, and I won’t apologise for it anymore. I’ve spent all that time with my guard up, only to realise that I’m more powerful when it’s down. My opponents should consider this a warning.

  En garde!

  Little companion

  My daughter’s name, ‘Kora’, comes from the language of the Wonnarua Nation, the traditional land owners of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. It means ‘companion’. This is fitting because, from before she was born, she has been with me as I’ve navigated my way through the world of politics. We’ve grown up together, her as a kid and me as a politician. Together a family, neither of us knows a life without the juggling involved in politics and the curveballs that come with it.

  Back in 2006, the same week I found out I’d won preselection for the Greens in the upcoming South Australian Senate race, I found out I was pregnant. I was in shock, mostly because doctors had told me that, despite falling pregnant and having an abortion when I was at university, I was unlikely to conceive naturally, as I’d developed polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). PCOS, despite its name, is a hormone di
sorder. Some women who have it suffer from cysts on their ovaries, but not all of them do. Other women experience symptoms of depression, weight gain, and excessive hair growth or loss. Despite the condition affecting up to 20 per cent of the female population, there is little public awareness of the disorder and many women don’t even know they have it. Sadly, medical conditions like PCOS that relate to women’s reproductive systems don’t get the funding, research or public attention that they need. Whether it’s ovarian or cervical cancer, endometriosis or PCOS, it seems that things to do with a vagina are still too icky to talk about, let alone to raise the interest of health ministers so that they secure proper funding to tackle them. My symptoms were less severe than those of many other sufferers, but doctors had told me that when the time came that I wanted a baby, it would be nearly impossible for me to become pregnant without hormone treatment. Having had an abortion when I was nineteen gave this advice an extra sting.

  With all of this in mind, the last thing I had expected after winning the top spot on the Greens Senate ticket was to discover that I was now also winning at conception.

  So, there I was, twenty-four years old, preselected and pregnant. At that stage, the Greens had never won a South Australian seat in the federal parliament. But Bob Brown was the leader of the party and Prime Minister John Howard was on the nose. He had refused to say sorry to the stolen generations or to sign the Kyoto Protocol. I could feel that the support for the Greens was about to increase. It didn’t take me long to work out that I’d been given two very big opportunities and I would be crazy not to take them. The baby was due in April 2007 and the election was due by the end of that year.

  Perhaps it was naivety or the excitement of the campaign, or both, but not once did I think that trying to pull off being a new mum while starting my political career was unreasonable. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, of course, but I’ve always worked hard. Silver platters weren’t handed out in my family; I was taught from a young age that if you wanted something, you go get it yourself. I never thought for a moment that anyone would complain about it or try to stop me. Working mums are everywhere, and many are far less supported and not in positions as flexible as mine. It wasn’t the 1950s anymore, even though we did have Howard as PM. I had won the preselection fair and square, so what was the problem with me having a baby?

  Plenty, apparently. From the moment I started telling people inside the party that I was expecting, the grumbles started. ‘You really should have told people you wanted to have a baby before you contested the preselection,’ one male party member said to me. It wasn’t the reaction I had banked on. My joy at being an expectant mother quickly turned to disappointment when a group inside one of the local branches tried to have my preselection ruled invalid on the basis that I was now pregnant. They argued that members had not been given all the relevant information before voting in the ballot. While it was never actually said, the meaning was clear: they were accusing me of concealing wanting a child, when, all the while, I had thought it was impossible. Why on earth would I reveal to a group of party members that I had skipped a period, or that I had a medical disorder that affected my fertility? These are questions a male candidate would never have been asked nor was it information he would ever be expected to divulge.

  Thankfully, reason prevailed and the campaign against me was quietly dropped. Even so while the complaints were never formalised, they hung around in the background as mutterings and the odd snide comment, like unsubstantiated gripes often do, acting as a reminder that people were watching me and that some, perhaps, were waiting for me to fail.

  One person’s comments, when Bob Brown was in Adelaide to announce my candidature to the media, I will never forget. The press were keen on the story because the Greens’ vote was growing, while the Democrats’ had crashed, and I was a young woman stepping into politics at the same time former Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja was bowing out. The headline in The Australian the next day called me ‘the Green Natasha’, as though my age and gender were all that mattered.

  Ten minutes before the press conference was due to start, a senior woman from the party came over to tell me exactly what she thought. ‘So, you’re having a baby?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ I said, on some level still expecting, from a colleague, the customary positive response to news of a pregnancy. ‘That’s a mistake,’ she said, implying I was guaranteed to fail. She also said I should forget about trying to keep a partner because ‘that would soon be over’.

  I was floored.

  Who says that? And, especially, who says that to another woman? A younger, female colleague who was looking for support? I was twenty weeks’ pregnant and about to front the waiting media to announce the start of my political career. I bit my tongue, smiled and told her I hoped she was wrong. I felt small and I felt ill, though that could also have been morning sickness, which I was suffering from terribly at the time, but I knew from that moment I had to work harder than ever to pull this off. I had to make sure she was wrong. As motivation, there’s nothing quite like proving those who doubt you wrong. I walked out to where the media were assembled and found Bob Brown waiting for me. He looked at me and said, with a big, warm smile, ‘Babies are wonderful, just wonderful. This is great news!’

  Kora was born in February, seven weeks early. She was perfectly healthy, but such a tiny little thing. I hit the campaign trail almost immediately, with bub, nappy bag and optimism all in tow. By the end of November, I had been elected, and was not just the first Green from South Australia, but the youngest woman ever to be elected to any Australian parliament.

  I was off to Canberra, with my little companion by my side.

  Calling it out

  I can’t tell the story of how I decided to stand up to the bullying and sexism that has infected the Australian parliament without explaining what happened with Senator David Leyonhjelm on the chamber floor earlier this year.

  That said, just as the straw alone didn’t break the camel’s back, this one incident doesn’t explain the range of issues facing women in today’s society, or why I’ve decided to call out the problems we in Australian politics face. Sexism in our media and public life has a long and torrid history that can’t be encapsulated in one exchange. This is simply one part of my story—it just happens also to be the moment that I decided I’d had enough.

  It started in June 2018, when former One Nation senator Fraser Anning asked the Senate to vote on whether the best thing to do to prevent the assault, rape and murder of women would be to arm them.

  This is just one of a series of tired old arguments used to make women feel responsible for the violence that they are so regularly subjected to in Australia. It came off the back of the rape and murder in Melbourne of Eurydice Dixon, a comedian, who was found dead in a park only blocks from her home. This horrifying incident had sent ripples across the Australian community and people were angry; how could a young woman be so unsafe in her own city, simply because of daring to walk home from work at night? Vigils were held across the country, including at Parliament House in Canberra.

  Senator Anning’s motion called for the law to be changed to allow the ‘importation of pepper spray, mace and tasers for individual self-defence’, and called on state governments to legalise and actively promote the carrying of the weapons for women’s ‘personal protection’. It was a nasty, ham-fisted attempt at exploiting public concern regarding violence against women to bolster a dangerous campaign, championed by a number of right-wing MPs, to weaken gun control and the regulation of weapon imports.

  Putting the responsibility on women to defend themselves is the same cheap trick as asking, ‘Why didn’t she just fight back?’ Or, ‘Why did she choose to put herself in a dangerous situation?’

  The truth is, every woman I know has felt unsafe or intimidated at some point, whether it was at a bar, walking home at night, in her workplace or, tragically, even in her own home. Maintaining the safety of women shouldn’t require us to carry a weapon just in cas
e someone wants to attack us.

  I voted against the motion because I don’t believe that putting more weapons on the streets will make women safer in their homes or in public. I fear that the opposite would be true. More weapons in circulation is dangerous for everyone, but especially so for women. I also don’t think that women should continue to have to take responsibility for the violent crimes and behaviour that some men carry out against them.

  I wasn’t the only one who felt this motion was a bad idea. The majority of the Senate voted against it, including all Liberal, Labor and Greens members.

  Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, who voted in favour of the motion, found himself with few friends on his side of the chamber. Only five senators voted in favour. Not one woman was among them.

  It was then that Leyonhjelm decided to attack me.

  ‘You should stop shagging men, Sarah!’ he yelled at me across the chamber.

  I heard the words as clear as a bell. They flew across the chamber like bullets and jolted me, which is, of course, what they were designed to do. It wasn’t the first time that comments about my sexuality or gender had been used to put me down, shut me up and unsettle me. I’d copped slurs like this before. And despite ignoring them, hoping they would stop, they’d got worse and got louder. As I sat on the red benches of the Senate, surrounded by my colleagues, who were seemingly unaware of the impact the interjection had just had on me, I realised I’d been naive. This was never going to end, not until I stopped pretending that it wasn’t happening.

  After the vote was complete, I walked over to Senator Leyonhjelm and asked if I’d heard him correctly.

  ‘What did you just say to me?’ I asked.

  ‘I asked if you were off men yet,’ he replied.

  Stunned, I said, ‘No, that’s not what you said.’