Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has been cast out of office by her colleagues in favor of former PM Kevin Rudd, whom she replaced three years ago. According to Australian feminist Van Badham, it was because of the very misogyny and sexism that Gillard famously whined about after becoming the most powerful person – male or female – in Australia.

Van Badham writes:

The problem for Julia Gillard was not – as it had been with her predecessor Rudd – her performance. It was that, from to beginning to end, she remained female.

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.

The gendered attention was belittling and that was its aim. Gillard the policy warrior was consistently rendered as an object of ridicule, an object out of place, something unnatural, sexual, not serious. She was the most powerful person in the nation, but not even she could stop the constant harassment about her body and her sexuality. The belittling had an effect; despite her towering competence and leadership, her international triumphs: children threw sandwiches at the Prime Minister when she visited a school.

Whenever these feminists bitch about how hard it is for women at the top, it brings up an obvious question: If women are too tender and vulnerable to withstand the scrutiny and heckling leaders of both sexes are subject to, are they suited for the job?

Actually, I think plenty of women can take it; women can be notoriously vicious to each other, after all, so they may have an advantage in dealing with nastiness and personal attacks. And feminists themselves are perfectly capable of attacking women every bit as aggressively as any male “sexist” — just look at how Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are treated by various women in media. However, Gillard was their kind of woman, so the feminists are doing what they do best here: blaming men and whining about “bullying.”

You know, when grown-ups bully kids we all look down on that behavior. It isn’t fair, it isn’t nice, etc. But why is it considered a low, nasty thing to do? Because children are naturally subordinate to adults, and they can’t do a very good job of standing up for themselves — or for anyone else for that matter. If the same applies to grown women, then, all else being equal, they don’t belong in positions of authority. How could such a weakling possibly represent her constituents effectively, after all?

So whenever a feminist says that the political world is too rough for women, she might as well be telling us that women simply do not belong at the top.

So which is it Ms. Badham: are women really just such wimps, or can they handle the job? You can’t have it both ways…