Gen X Journey

How is it to be a woman in public life? Take our new (highly likely to be elected in her own right) Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. She’s just announced we’re going to the polls on August 21 despite presently coping a bit of a caning over her asylum seeker policy and some say she’s not conceded far enough with the mining tax and all that is fair. After all that’s what we did to John Howard and Kevin Rudd. What we didn’t do to Rudd and Howard in the run up to the last election however was take them to task over their wardrobes.

Fashion is one area where men have it all over women. Sure they may pay a bomb for their tailored suit, but that suit can be worn at least three times in one week with the change of a shirt and tie. Try doing that with your Armani suit Julia. You’d have everybody talking. And don’t get me started on evening wear. My husband has one tuxedo, one shirt and two bow-ties (one black tie, one coloured). He is covered for every formal occasion. Me not so much. Imagine if I swanned out in my one evening dress to event after event. Everyone would be talking and I’m not even in the public eye.

So poor old Julia trotted out to an event wearing what critics call a cheap motel bedspread. Sure it wasn’t to my taste, but what a way to shoot a girl down. She tried, she failed and now they’ve brought in every fashion consultant in the country to give her advice.

You know, I don’t think she needs advice. Before the technicolour screamcoat incident who took any notice of what Julia Gillard wore? I have recollections of trouser suits in conservative colours. I don’t recall any cleavage revealing shirts or hideous blouses. I can’t even recall her shoes, so they must have been serviceable and unremarkable. All in all I think her wardrobe so far has been entirely appropriate.

Inject some colour into your wardrobe, demands one stylist. Sure because we all want our Prime Minister walking around looking like she’s permanently at a Pacific nations conference.  Buy some designer clothes says another.  Two words for that–Sarah Palin. 

I think Julia should just keep on dressing as she’s always done. Well cut suits in dark colours will make us focus on what she’s saying not what she’s wearing. Can you imagine us all sitting around debating the cut of Kevin Rudd’s suit or whether a double or single breasted suit was more figure flattering to our treasurer Wayne Swan? Can we at least pay Gillard the same respect or lack of interest?

Anna Bligh, the Queensland Premier, has embraced colour. I have this vision of her going to one of those Vietnamese tailors, picking out the collared jacket with matching straight skirt pattern and asking for one in every colour of the rainbow. Gosh I hope Julia learns a lesson from Anna and doesn’t wear jeans to present any significant trophies. What an uproar that caused.

I wonder if Julia will hurriedly get married before she takes the country to the polls. Anna did (got married) right before she announced the election. The cynic in my thinks that that might have been a ploy to get the Queensland conservatives on side. I mean she was with Greg Withers forever, had a couple of kids and then decides to get married. Must have just been the right time for them. Made it a bit easier to stand on that mother and family electioneering platform that she built for herself.

If I were Julia I’d marry Tim Mathieson quick smart. Not for any election purposes mind you, just for the fact that he’s a hairdresser. Can you imagine how much money you’d save in the course of a lifetime having free hairdressing. And just look how much her hair has improved since she’s been with him (though there was that issue with the grey regrowth last week).  He’s a keeper though Julia. Don’t let him go. Image