TV

This Week’s’s #QandA, Or: That Time Germaine Greer Dared Julie Bishop To Show Her Boobs To Save The Bali Two

Oh, Germaine.

by Steph Harmon  10 March 2015

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Presented in collaboration with Sydney Opera House’s All About Women festival, last night’s Q and A was pretty damn watchable. For the first time in the show’s history, the panel was stacked with women — feminist icon Germaine Greer; author, writer and “bad feminist” Roxane Gay, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, engineer and youth advocate Yassmin Abdel-Magied, and Best & Less CEO Holly Kramer — and hosted by one too.

Annabel Crabb did a great job in Tony Jones’ seat, guiding the conversation from feminist theory, to sexism in the workplace, to the role of women in business and government. Of course an all-woman #QandA panel for International Women’s Day was always going to focus mainly on gender issues, but it was refreshing when both Bishop and Gay were given a chance to tackle the death penalty and the Bali Nine.

Bishop defended her decision to not call herself a feminist, calling for people to focus more on actions than words while listing off her achievements as a gender equality advocate. “The more people demand that I describe myself as a feminist, the more I say, ‘Well hang on, let me describe myself as I wish!'” she said. “Annabel, you wrote in the paper yesterday that you were disappointed I don’t describe myself as a feminist; I am SO disappointed you don’t describe yourself as a Liberal!”

Abdel-Magied brought the conversation round to unconscious bias, and examined how her religion sits with her status as a feminist, and how often she feels Islam is misinterpreted by the movement. “As a Muslim woman, I’m often asked, ‘How can you possibly be Muslim and be a feminist?’,” she said. “Western feminism sees religion as a tool of oppression, whereas I see — and a lot of other Muslim women see — our religion as a tool of liberation … We all agree that this book is divine, for example, and we’ve been given equal rights in this book. So: you have to agree with it.”

Although not given nearly as much airtime as this viewer would have liked, Roxane Gay was once again was full of nuance, smarts and sass, tackling the death penalty, explaining the concepts that underpin Bad Feminist, and shrugging off a question about how to involve men in the movement: “I’m not trying to market feminism to men,” she said. “I want men to grow up and learn how to get over themselves”.

Meanwhile, Germaine Greer inspired a whole lot of this kind of face:

But the major talking point came an hour into the show, when audience member Katie May Allan asked the panel what they thought of young women posting topless photos of themselves, and claiming it as an act of feminism. Crabb immediately lobbed the question to Greer, whose response was… odd?

“It’s always very strange, because you get the picture online of these women who’ve taken their tops off and are standing nobly in the street and there’s never anybody there — except the police who are going to arrest them, any minute,” she said. “And they NEVER have big breasts, have you noticed? If they actually had breasts that would cause wonder and amazement, they wouldn’t do it. They’re always under-endowed … It’s another version of exhibitionism, and I’m not sure it accomplishes anything at all.”

Crabb then flipped the question over to the Foreign Minister: “Julie Bishop, I’m so bold as to suggest you don’t consider freeing your nipples on a daily basis, but what’s your view on all of this nonsense?”

“I think you’re pretty safe on that one, Annabel; it’s not something that I’ve ever actually had the desire to do online,” Bishop answered. “I’m quite adept at my emoji language, but that’s about as radical as I get.”

And then, a question from Greer: “But what if it got you the commutation of the life sentences for two Australians in prison?”

It sure was… something.

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yassmin

“Please don’t go there, Germaine,” Bishop pleaded. “Please don’t go there.”

But it was too late.

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You can watch the full moment on this clip here, or head to iView for the full episode.

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