{"id":810,"date":"2009-12-02T11:39:30","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T01:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sandralee.com.au\/?p=810"},"modified":"2009-12-02T11:48:44","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T01:48:44","slug":"why-do-some-women-hate-tony-abbott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/2009\/12\/why-do-some-women-hate-tony-abbott\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do some women hate Tony Abbott?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The new leader of the Federal Opposition, Tony Abbott<\/p><\/div>\n

Within minutes of Tony Abbott\u2019s unexpected ascent to the leadership of the embattled Liberal Party<\/em> yesterday, the women in the Twitterverse that I follow were baying for blood. Abbott\u2019s blood, and lots of it.<\/p>\n

They were furious that the man who has been dubbed Captain Catholic<\/strong> or the Mad Monk <\/strong>had toppled the \u201cprogressive\u201d ETS-champion Malcolm Turnbull <\/strong>by a single vote.<\/p>\n

The invective was so instant and so prolific that it prompted me to Tweet shortly after 10am: \u201cBoy, oh boy, Tony Abbott has a lot of ground to make up to the Twitterverse women – there is anger out there, Mr Abbott.\u201d<\/p>\n

Popular Tweeter and influential columnist Mia Freedman<\/a><\/strong> wanted to know Abbott\u2019s position on contraception and IVF, pretty much around the same time she Tweeted, \u201cthere are still some women who don\u2019t know where their own clitoris is\u201d. She said Abbott’s leadership equalled a bad day for women.<\/p>\n

A few months ago I ran into Abbott <\/strong>and we were chatting about IVF<\/strong> and he said he was for babies, any which way they came.<\/p>\n

As for contraception, well, as we all know from the man himself, he didn\u2019t use it \u2013 he has publicly spoken and written about the unknown son he wrongly thought he fathered in his teenaged years. Not using contraception doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s against it; neither does it mean he\u2019s for it.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t recall anyone asking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd<\/strong>, another committed church-going Christian about his position on contraception, abortion and IVF.<\/p>\n

For the record, Abbott voted <\/a>against removing the restricted goods provisions from the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 <\/em>on the abortion drug RU-486<\/strong> in 2005. But he was not Robinson Crusoe when it came to the conscience vote. And he wasn’t the first health minister to impose the restrictions.<\/p>\n

Another professionally successful and clever woman, Marino Go<\/a>, Tweeted: \u201cI would rather eat my first born than vote for Abbott (with apologies to my first born)\u201d. She later assured me the baby \u2013 now 16 \u2013 was safe. Phew!<\/p>\n

Yet another typed: \u201cAbbott once said that abortion should be outlawed in this country. People have such short memories. 1950’s here we come again!!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Award<\/a>

Award winning journalist Tracy Grimshaw from A Current Affair<\/p><\/div>\n

Last night Tracy Grimshaw <\/strong>pulled on the gloves and asked Abbott – on his first appearance as leader on A Current Affair <\/strong><\/em>– about his position on abortion.<\/p>\n

He answered he was for \u201csafe, legal, rare\u201d. Who isn\u2019t?<\/p>\n

Somehow, Tweetchicks, I don\u2019t think we\u2019re headed back to the 1950s, even though Abbott does want to reintroduce fault-based divorce <\/a>alongside the no-fault system, but only for those crazy masochists who prefer the harder, blame-game route to divorce.<\/p>\n

Another popular Tweeter, journalist Julie Posetti<\/a>, reckoned that Turnbull sounded 10 times better in defeat than Abbott with his \u201cdivisive and robotic\u201d style.<\/p>\n

Yet another wrote: \u201cOh God, Abbott’s even worse than I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

The attacks were loud, many, and varied (I\u2019m not even going to address those by the anti-Abbott blokes on Twitter, of whom there are also many).<\/p>\n

What is it that makes some women hate Abbott? Is it because he\u2019s proudly conservative? Or a Catholic? Would they be so vehemently anti-Buddhist, anti-Anglican, or anti-Muslim?<\/p>\n

And is the antipathy rational? Or is it, as Miranda Devine wrote in her excellent Sydney Morning Herald <\/em>column<\/a> today, just that the chattering classes don\u2019t like him?<\/p>\n

A few months ago, Abbott launched his book, Battlelines, <\/em>and as I wrote <\/a>back then, Melbourne University Press <\/strong>boss Louise Adler<\/strong> agreed he was the \u201cLiberal Party\u2019s intellectual\u201d. And she\u2019s not known as a conservative.<\/p>\n

Abbott likes women. He supports paid maternity leave, has taken part in the annual Pollie Pedal to raise money for breast cancer research (and other charities), and has raised three lovely daughters.<\/p>\n

He even admitted in Parliament yesterday that the \u201cflirting\u201d with the Deputy Prime minister, Julia Gillard<\/a><\/strong>, must now stop.<\/p>\n

She giggled.<\/p>\n

Firting with the enemy? Yeah, Abbott\u2019s really down on women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within minutes of Tony Abbott\u2019s unexpected ascent to the leadership of the embattled Liberal Party yesterday, the women in the Twitterverse that I follow were baying for blood. Abbott\u2019s blood, and lots of it. They were furious that the man who has been dubbed Captain Catholic or the Mad Monk had toppled the \u201cprogressive\u201d ETS-champion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,4,3,13,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrity","category-media","category-politics","category-pop-culture","category-religion","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}