Topical Rumination

A question, toward the end of Alexis Wright's conversation with Sheridan Stuart of the ABC, irked me a little, but I wonder to myself whether it was sociably acceptable of me, to be irked.

I would like to say that it is not my aim to take a dig at Sheridan here, I am simply exploring how a certain question made me feel and hopefully getting some feedback.

 So, Stuart said to Wright (paraphrasing here) ‘you are such a strong and political woman yourself Alexis, so I was surprised when you picked a male to be the first Indigenous Prime Minister of Australia’. Alexis looked a little bewildered at this statement/question and said ‘well, it could have been a woman too’.

To me, this statement seems ill placed and beside the point, inconsequential. The question of equality and women’s rights is something I am very much in favour of - I believe it to be of paramount importance. Yet in this instance I didn’t think it served a purpose, this asking of why Alexis chose an indigenous male PM, in her fictional book, over a female one. If the statement was turned on its head and Stuart showed surprise that Wright chose a female over a male, it would be, in my mind, a sexist and controversial statement.

Maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill here, as they say, and I look like the white middle aged man complaining about racism. Maybe Sheridan was trying to spark a conversation about equality here and get people thinking about the subject. I am not sure, but the statement on its own seemed out of place.

If anything, I think this illustrates the rocky terrain in which we all tread when we talk about gender.