Sexism isn't responsible for Peta Credlin's own failuresOPINION
By Barrie Cassidy
Updated Fri at 6:50am
Few women in public life would not be subject to sexism. But it is also possible for women - just like men - to be the architects of their own downfall. And when that is demonstrably the case, it cheapens the principle of gender equality to play that card so casually, writes Barrie Cassidy.
Undoubtedly Tony Abbott's chief of staff, Peta Credlin, would at times have been the victim of sexism. Most women have been.
As a woman you would have to work alone in a lighthouse not to be exposed to men who will never get gender balance.
"If I was a guy I wouldn't be bossy, I would be strong," she said this week. "If I was a guy I wouldn't be a micro manager, I would be across my brief or across the detail."
True enough.
But it is also possible for women - just like men - to be the architects of their own downfall, and when that is demonstrably the case, it cheapens the principle of gender equality to play that card so casually.
It makes it harder for women genuinely aggrieved to be heard.
Credlin was a control freak who was given that control by the prime minister. Her clout from an unelected position was almost unprecedented.
To that she says, "If I wasn't strong, determined, controlling, and got them into government from opposition I might add, then I would be weak and not up to it and should have to go and could be replaced."
No. She was - along with the prime minister himself - replaced in part because she was too controlling. And that would have been the case no matter whether a man or woman had played it so badly.
It was her failure to conciliate, to reach out and to build bridges with the front and back bench and the public service that led to the February spill. Because both Credlin and Abbott seemed blind to that reality, even after February, the tensions never went away.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-25/cassidy-sexism-isnt-responsible-for-peta-credlins-own-failures/6803272
