![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well the fallout over Bill Heffernan's comments on Julia Gillard being unfit to be a leader of this country because she has chosen to be deliberately barren continue, Heffernan is well known for his 'blunt' style, however I think this goes way beyond being blunt and into the realms of deep personal attack.
Whether a woman decides to have children or not is a deeply personal issue and some women like Ms Gillard have decided that in order to pursue the life they wanted then they wouldn't have any children, which is fair enough, this does not preclude her from being able to empathise with woman who do have children, I wonder if Heffernan has the same disdain for male pollies who aren't married and dont have kids, I would say probably not.
So going by Heffernan's logic then for politicians to be able to do their job properly they have to empathise and have experience with the full range of lifestyles in australia, so not only do they have to be married, they all have to be gay/bi/transgendered/disabled/aboriginal/refugees/homeless all rolled up into one neat little polly package.
Sure by all means attack Ms Gillard on her policies, which sadly was not hard to do this week, but leave off the ad hominen attacks on something as personal as her choice whether to have children, and whether that makes her unfit to be a leader.
Whether a woman decides to have children or not is a deeply personal issue and some women like Ms Gillard have decided that in order to pursue the life they wanted then they wouldn't have any children, which is fair enough, this does not preclude her from being able to empathise with woman who do have children, I wonder if Heffernan has the same disdain for male pollies who aren't married and dont have kids, I would say probably not.
So going by Heffernan's logic then for politicians to be able to do their job properly they have to empathise and have experience with the full range of lifestyles in australia, so not only do they have to be married, they all have to be gay/bi/transgendered/disabled/aboriginal/refugees/homeless all rolled up into one neat little polly package.
Sure by all means attack Ms Gillard on her policies, which sadly was not hard to do this week, but leave off the ad hominen attacks on something as personal as her choice whether to have children, and whether that makes her unfit to be a leader.
