From the outset, her detractors launched on her gender as a weakness - and it was. The opposition never let the public forget her gender and the media crucified her. Rhetoric and vitriol that even the caustic conversation of Australian politics would not allow of a male leader was unleashed with a rare bodily hatred.
Opposition MPs reminded the public that the childless and unmarried Gillard was "deliberately barren". The opposition leader and members of his shadow cabinet stood in front of protest signs describing the PM as a "bitch" and "witch". Radio commentators suggested her beloved father "died of shame" and that she should be "dumped in a chaffbag and thrown out to sea" and asked, to her face, if her partner was gay. She was criticised after showing her cleavage in parliament, and even Germaine Greer appeared on television to say that Gillard's "arse was fat". She was scrutinised for what she wore, for her past lovers, held up to ridicule for liking to knit. Opposition MPs appeared at dinners where her "small breasts, big thighs and red box" were literally on the menu. A chaffbag was auctioned at a Young Liberal dinner. Some opposition MPs even physically bullied her in a Parliament House hallway.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10143834/Julia-Gillard-ousted-by-sexism-Achievement-does-not-equal-respect-if-youre-a-woman.html
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