Suit of power

Fashion, politics, and hegemonic masculinity in Australia

Bibliographic Data

ID6233897
AuthorsFreya Jansen, Freya Jansens (The University of Sydney, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume54
Issue2
Pages202-218
Publication date2019-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1036-1146 • E-ISSN: 1363-030X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10361146.2019.1567677
OpenAlexW2914217184
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited31

In 2010 the Australian Labor Party selected Julia Gillard as leader, making her Australia's first female Prime Minister. Between 2010 and 2015 there was a renewed focus on issues of gender inequality in the way that women politicians have been treated in Parliament and in the media. Specifically, women in positions of political and institutional power such as Julia Gillard, Julie Bishop, and Quentin Bryce, were critiqued on their clothing choices in the Australian media. In this article, I argue that the Australian media's attention to the fashion choices of women in politics is problematically gendered, because it subordinates aesthetic features that do not conform to hegemonic masculinity. I argue that in response to the dominant masculine aesthetic norm in politics, women politicians are using their sartorial choices to challenge this marginalisation of femininity in the political sphere

Clothing · Femininity · Hegemonic masculinity · Hegemony · Masculinity · Media studies · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law

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