"Newly elected Liberal Party [NSW State] frontbencher [and former federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner] Pru Goward has been caught speeding in a school zone. It was her second driving offence in three months after she was fined for running a stop sign in February...."
- Jano Gibson, "It was extremely careless: Goward," Sydney Morning Herald (18 May 2007)
Hmmm, let me guess Ms Goward's two most likely responses:
1.
"Hmmm, that's odd... my
daughter used to get clocked doing 50 K's over the limit all the time, yet no police
man ever ticketed her. Strange..."
or
2.
"Speed limits around schools are inherently sexist. Because the picking up of children from school has traditionally been constructed in a gendered way, as 'women's work', these lower speed limits constitute indirect discrimination against females. Oh, yeah, sure, supposedly such laws 'protect children from being killed', but as a
pro-choicer, I of course utterly reject the patriarchal view that saving the lives of young humans is important enough to justify interfering with a Woman's freedom to speed through life as carelessly as she damn well pleases. After all - the ability to drive a car is extremely important for Women to have control over their own lives. It is surely no coincidence that fundamentalist misogynist regimes, such as the Taliban and Saudi Ara-... What was that, Mr Howard? Oh. Sorry. -- like, uh, the Taliban and like Margaret Atwood's
The Handmaid's Tale, have forbidden women to drive cars. Since an absolute prohibition on all members of the female gender from driving cars at all is patently abhorrent, it follows that a law regulating how all persons drive is equally abhorrent if it can be shown to have a disparate impact on the female gender. I mean, it's just obvious. We Women Decide."
Pick one.
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