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Playing the Gender Card: The Uses and Abuses of Gender in Australian Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2015

Carol Johnson
Carol Johnson*
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide
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Abstract

Former Australian Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard was accused of unfairly playing the gender card against then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in her accusations of sexism and misogyny. It was also claimed that she had thereby initiated the first “gender war” in Australian politics. Analyzing Australian politicians’ discursive mobilizations of gender during the Gillard period provides useful insights that are relevant to the broader international literature on gender and politics, particularly given that Gillard's experiences have similarities with those of prominent female politicians in other countries, including Hillary Clinton. The article argues for a much broader understanding of playing the gender card that includes both issues of femininity and masculinity and that also emphasizes the close relationship between issues of playing the gender card and issues of gender performativity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 291 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2015 

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References

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