Title: ‘Not Now, Not Ever’: Julia Gillard and the Performative Power of Affect
Abstract: Denise Varney traces the relentless gender-based attacks on Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister (2010–2013). Effectively engendered as a type of biopolitical subject, stripped of personhood and made fair game for political opponents, Gillard, in her widely circulated ‘Misogyny Speech’ of October 2012, denounced the sexist and misogynistic remarks mobilized to destabilize her leadership. Varney analyses the performative power of Gillard’s speech in the patriarchal context of Australian neoliberalism. Delivered in the ‘theatre’ of the Australian parliament, with an intensity that carried it around the world (more than 2.5 million views on YouTube) as a heightened feminist event, the Misogyny Speech recirculates the hateful affects directed at Gillard into a resistant and transgressive act.