Matthew Norma puts the elevation of Julia Gillard as Australia's Prime Minister into perspective:
With the aftershocks still reaching us through the Earth's core, via some form of geopolitical China Syndrome, any attempt to make sense of the news from Down Under feels nihilistically futile.
Even trying to grasp the bare fact may be over-ambitious. However often one repeats it â?? Australia has a woman prime minister; Australia has a woman prime minister; Australia has â?¦ â?? it won't sink in. All you can do is flail around in the perspective-seeking quest for a precedent.
America choosing a black man with the middle name Hussein to lead the free world? It doesn't come close. Eternal class warrior John Prescott photographed wielding his croquet mallet on the Dorneywood lawn? Closer, yes, but still no cigar. If the gerontocrats of Beijing handed over absolute power to a 17-year-old Tibetan anarchist in a "Leave Taiwan The Hell Alone" T-shirt, and with the Dalai Lama tattooed on his forehead, we'd be getting somewhere. Almost halfway, in fact, because Julia Gillard's rise to the Australian premiership sets a record for political surrealism as outlandishly unbreakable as anything on Court 18.
Finding the words to capture the depth of Australian sexism is an impossible dream...
(AP Photo)
