Over the weekend, conservative columnist Miranda Devine offered some advice to the working mums of Australia.
Don’t let your career make you a bad mother, she titled her piece for News Corp, which laboured the point on Sunday.
Devine argued “mother” has become a “dirty word” and that there are “goals worthier than career status”.
And she hit a nerve. Media personality Em Rusciano was visibly upset by Devine’s words when she addressed the comments on her radio show this morning.
“Sometimes I feel like when someone puts out something so poisonous, so harmful, it’s my responsibility as someone on air and with the beliefs I have to be the antidote to that poison,” the 37-year-old said on the 2Day FM breakfast show.
“[Miranda Devine] basically said that women are defined by their family. Women who care about careers are selfish. She said that the pay gap isn’t real and that women prefer to selfishly work and use IVF by choice.”
Rusciano — who has two daughters, Marchella and Odette — said she was warned not take on the “very litigious and very wealthy” Devine, who has a history of fighting back against her critics. But she could not ignore the dig.