"I was a reluctant feminist."

In the lead up to the 2010 election, one of my girlfriends told me I had to vote for Julia Gillard. HAD to. Her reason? Because she’s a woman.

She pointed out that as the mothers of two daughters (as we both are), it was pretty much our daughter-mothering duty to vote for Julia Gillard.

Well that’s just bollocks, I thought. And said. Women shouldn’t get to positions of power by virtue of their vagina-holding any more than men should get to positions of power because of their penis-holding (and we all know they do more than they should of that!).

Gender shouldn’t play a role in a woman’s success. In fact, I argued, women who get to positions of power because they are women, are very possibly going to let the team down. They might actually send the whole movement backwards. If they are crap at what they do, then there will be plenty out there who will very quickly point to their womanhood as the reason for their crap-ness. It has got to be merit – every time it has got to be merit or we’ll never really be considered as the all-important equals.

"Women shouldn’t get to positions of power by virtue of their vagina-holding any more than men should get to positions of power because of their penis-holding."

My friend vehemently disagreed.

Julia Gillard was our first female Prime Minister – at that point achieved via what the media refused to accept as any method other than KNIFING. Our first female Prime Minister, voted by the public into the position, was going to be a beacon of hope for our daughters. For generations of girls to come. A symbol of YES YOU CAN.

But I was having none of it. I didn’t like Julia Gillard. I didn’t like a lot of what I saw her say. I didn’t want to vote for her. Nor did I like her opposition. I felt like, as an Australian voter, there was no one who was speaking for me. Not the man. Not the woman. But I couldn’t bring myself to vote based on gender alone. I wanted women to have equal opportunities but I couldn’t get my head around affirmative ballot-paper action.

Beyonce has never been afraid to call herself a feminist warrior. (Post continues after video.)

I guess I’ve been what some may call ‘a reluctant feminist’.

When Julie Bishop said she didn’t call herself a feminist, I kind of got it. Kind of. I didn’t go around calling myself a feminist either. Julie Bishop (like Julia Gillard) was doing her bit for feminism just by succeeding. She didn’t have to call herself anything. But I’ve had to ask myself, why didn’t I call myself a feminist? And I really want to ask Julie Bishop, why? What the hell is wrong with being a feminist? Why is Michaelia Cash not prepared to call herself a feminist?

I ask this now because I’ve realised that being a feminist doesn’t mean, as many of us have been media-trained to believe, that you are seeking out a world where women just present their vagina at the secretarial pool door and get ushered right up to the CEO’s chair. That is the fear out there, I think. That’s the dirty-feminist-word-fear-mongering that’s going on. That vagina could come to mean automatic advancement (kind of like penis has meant automatic advancement in years gone by… but hey… we’re better than that, aren’t we?!)

"Whatever people have come to think of the word, being a ‘feminist’ doesn’t mean trying to get your secretarial pool vagina into the CEO’s chair." Image via iStock.

And that’s why people – including lots and lots of women – are terrified of the word ‘feminist’.

Whatever people have come to think of the word, being a ‘feminist’ doesn’t mean trying to get your secretarial pool vagina into the CEO’s chair. It means, I think, having choices. It means being able to choose a path – whether that is to secretarial supremacy (or complacency … as you like it) or to CEO-dom. It means expecting the same pay for the same work. It means garnering respect for your greatness, and not accepting being called great ‘for a girl’.

So back to Julia Gillard and my girls. Just recently one of them asked about being Prime Minister. She asked, ‘Can you be Prime Minister if you’re a girl?’ Then it dawned on her. ‘Oh yeah,’ she said, ‘Julia Gillard.’

Hmmm.

Australian author, Deborah Disney, practised as a litigation lawyer prior to finding her true calling in the school pick-up line where she started typing a little story on the notes app on her iPhone one afternoon. Deborah’s first novel, Up and In, hit the bestseller charts on both Amazon and iBooks and has enjoyed international acclaim. Deborah is currently working on her second novel, which is about in-laws. You can connect with Deborah anytime on Facebook. You can buy her novel on Amazon, iTunes and in all good bookstores.