Gemma Tognini: Jenny Morrison is not ‘fair game’ just because she is Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s wife

The wrong kind of woman. Such an archaic phrase, don’t you think? It brings back memories of a time when women were seen and not heard, when women were more chattel than people in our own right. I have to say, I’d never have thought to find myself contemplating this phrase in 2021, but here I am. I’ve had these conversations, I think on the fringe at least, more than once but what happened to the Prime Minister’s wife, Jenny Morrison, over the weekend has convinced me that according to some self-anointed elitists in our midst, there are women whom we must defend and those it’s absolutely OK to abuse and harass. Kind of like the gendered equivalent of a two-speed economy. Here’s what happened. Following news of the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, the Prime Minister’s office released a photo of Scott Morrison signing a condolence book for Prince Philip. Dressed in black (appropriately), Mrs Morrison was standing to one side, looking on. An entirely staged, benign and situationally appropriate photo. Until it became an excuse to mock, ridicule and denigrate the Prime Minister’s wife. Based on how she looks, how she was dressed and by inference, her marriage, and her conservative values. It started with a now deleted tweet by Australian comedian Magda Szubanski, in which she questioned whether the image was a photoshopped image from the Handmaid’s Tale. “I genuinely thought this was a photoshopped Handmaid’s Tale meme. But no. It’s 21st century Aussie life,” she tweeted. Cue the pile on from a swag of her followers, who energetically jumped on board. Oh, and as you can well imagine, it was charming and sincere. Things such as, the Prime Minister’s wife is as obnoxious as her husband. She is a white supremacist enabler. Myriad comments about how she looked in that photo. What she is wearing. How she didn’t look as good as Jill Biden in the photo released by the US President. And quelle surprise — most of the nastiness and vitriol came spitting from the mouths of other women. They weren’t defending her, they were happily joining in the offensive. Because, the sisterhood, or something. All of this, right smack in the middle of a conversation about how we treat women in the workplace, and more broadly. So, it naturally follows that some women are fair game. Some women are not. Some women are pinatas, some women must be defended. Szubanski has sought to clarify her intent, that she never meant to criticise the PM’s wife or how she looked. “I think doing a media pile-on about someone’s appearance is not something that I would condone,” Szubanski said. I’m the kind of person who likes to take people at face value. Be that as it may, you’d expect more from someone who has been as unkindly and unfairly treated as she has over her physical appearance. I don’t get it. I really don’t. Let me tell you what this kind of carry on says to girls and young women. It’s OK to attack someone based on their looks, if you think they’re not popular. Or if you’re funny about it. It says that if someone has different political views from you, and those views are a little more traditional, it’s OK to take aim. Let me tell you what it says to boys and young men. That these conversations about respect, and about how we treat women in the workforce and more broadly, they don’t count for anything. They are meaningless when the Prime Minister’s wife, a conservative stay-at-home mum is fair game. You can go for gold if the mob is behind you. It shouts that you can make fun of how a woman looks. You can mock her values if they’re different to your own. You might argue that only a small slice of the population is on social media and that as a result, the abuse wasn’t widely seen. A few people have tried that line with me. Problem with that reasoning is that it’s nonsense. Social media, while a colossal ass, has become a birthing ground for stories that get carried across into the mainstream and before long, what was being said about Mrs Morrison was being widely reported. This is a terrible and potent example of what’s becoming increasingly clear. It’s only right to support a certain type of women, and certainly not those who hold political views different from our own and very definitely not if they happen to be conservative. We gotta pick a horse and ride it, people. It’s that simple. Either we defend all women from this kind of behaviour, regardless of their ideology, their faith (or otherwise), or we give up and declare open season. I refuse to give up. Gemma Tognini is executive director of GT Communications