







































Children and Teenagers 
ISSN 2576-3709 (Print) ISSN 2576-3717 (Online) 

Vol. 5, No. 2, 2022 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ct 

1 
 

Original Paper 

Analysis of the Discourse of Disrespect of Women in Politics: 

Hating Hillary and Getting Gillard 
Dr Pamela D Schulz OAM 1* 

1 Senior Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Law Justice and Society, University of South Australia, 

Adelaide, Australia (OAM Order of Australia Medal) 
* Pamela D Schulz, Senior Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Law Justice and Society, University of 

South Australia, Adelaide, Australia 

 

Received: October 10, 2022     Accepted: October 26, 2022     Online Published: November 3, 2022 

doi:10.22158/ct.v5n2p1                               URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/ct.v5n2p1 

 

Abstract 

From June 2010 until June 24th 2013, and at times into 2014 the then Prime Minister of Australia The 

Honourable Ms Julia Gillard was subjected to the most intense and ruthless political rhetoric ever seen 

in Australian media. Personal attacks and talk back callers openly admitting they “hated her” and 

calling into question her mental state and hormonal status was just part of a brutal media campaign 

aided and abetted by Opposition Leader in Tony Abbott. He linguistically derailed a reforming and 

intelligent woman who held together a minority parliament which delivered significant legislation. In 

addition, a selection of media articles and a review of media analysis of the candidacy of Hillary 

Clinton in preparing a run for the White House in the USA during the years 2015-2016 echoes eerie 

parallels to a sub textual cultural discourse of misogyny especially in politics. This discourse analysis 

and media study questions whether the core of the Real Matilda misogyny reported by Miriam Dixson 

in Australia since 1976 is alive and well and lingers on in our linguistic heritage. The polarisation of 

political debate and concomitant bias some media quarters is analysed and shown to have a significant 

pattern beginning with disapproval and ending in directional linguistic commands from media. The end 

result was that the Politicians listened to the unrelenting chorus of demands to “end leadership 

speculation “and complete chaos and to go to an election. 

Keywords 

women, misogyny, disrespect, politics, discourse 

 

 

 



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Introduction: Women and Politics 

In ancient times there was indeed a celebration of women who could argue their case and be seen as 

shining examples in discourse between armies and ideologies. Indeed, as Plutarch (translated by 

Goodwin 1684) noted: 

“The women placing themselves between the armies, took up the controversies, argued them so 

accurately, and determined them so impartially, that an admirable friendly correspondence and general 

amity ensued, both civil and domestic. Hence the Celts made it their practice to take women into 

consultation about peace or war, and to use them as mediators in any controversies that arose between 

them and their allies”  

There is scant literature on the discourse of politics and women, but it is replete with actual 

representations of misogyny and gender inequality in general media and society. For example, the early 

work of Miriam Dixson in the book The Real Matilda which was first published in in 1976 to a hostile 

reception showed a highly segmented work force and a discourse of sexism directed at women who 

were often known as Sheilas. The notion that women were not equal was anathema at this time. This is 

despite Australia having been one of the first places in the western world to give women the right to 

stand and vote in elections (including Aboriginal women) as early as 1896. New Zealand often seen as 

a cousin to Australia “across the ditch” (Note 1) gave women the vote in 1894 two decades ahead of 

Britain and of course the USA. 

Dixson has since been well and truly proved correct despite the 40 years that has transpired since it 

rings true. A more recent edition echoes these views (1994; 1999, p. 84) which outlines the strong and 

continual mistrust of women in Australian history. She noted this when she suggested:  

“Some might argue that the greateer the social weight of aristocrat and bourgeois the less democratic by 

definition, the moral economy of a community. So if historians, political philosophers and political 

scientists were to begin to consider the sitiatuaion of women with any intellectual seriousness, they 

might then have to recasst some basic conceptual structures. If they were to include women as a first 

approximation, on emihgt have to begin with an apparently paradoxical furmulation: the greater the 

degree of democracy, the greater the misogyny,…‘Demos’ means people. A more accurate term would 

clearly be ‘Andocracy’”.  

She adds that the key standards on which modern democracy are based are masculine and that the 

fundamental political discourses may need to be reconfigured in some way. This is echoed in the work 

of other political and discourse analysts where examples of gender bias are overtly noted and discussed 

(Delahunty, 2014; Goldsworthy, 2013; Campbell, 2012). There is a consistent avenue of discourse 

which highlights the notion of gender wars or when women themselves raise the issues related to 

misogynistic issues, they are often accused of playing the “gender card”. For example, in Britain 

research has shown a similar focus on women in political battles and are highlighted for entertainment 

in media (Coole, 1993; Fairclough, 1995). Coole highlights the historical evidence which is cited by 



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her of Rousseau and Aristotle both of whom ascribe to women “natural characteristics” as evidence of 

their womanly roles. Indeed, she states: “the Characteristics ascribed to women rob them of their 

credentials for citizenship: they lack the right sort of reason, autonomy, judgement, sense of justice and 

the ability to consent”.  

This view was brought into sharp relief when Mr Donald Trump suggested he could sexually push 

himself onto a woman because he was “famous…And they let you do it”. This notion that a woman 

lacks this ability to consent when faced with fame and fortune was strongly evident throughout the 

campaign. Fairclough (1995, p. 44) echoes this view by suggesting that the mass media has in the last 

decades become a form of entertainment and that audiences are manipulated so that they are 

“spectators” rather than citizen participants. The visual and active process of debate and discussion of 

issues is left to media to shape and in some instances set the ideological agenda. What Trump managed 

to do is shift the agenda to uncertainty which in itself became the news. 

In recent times and especially during his candidacy for the US Presidency Donald Trump the nominee 

for the Republican Party USA Presidential election has himself incurred the wrath of political feminist 

researchers and media alike by referring to women in pejorative language. Some examples have been 

significantly vitriolic and would in any other context other than the political sphere be considered as 

clearly inappropriate. It also suggests a latent hatred of women. A list of them has been identified by 

Nadia Bahadur (2015) which emphasise a notion that perhaps women have no place in holding political 

or public office. His constant attacks on women in general appear to have any place in modern 

democracy but nevertheless the frequency of his comments are now legendary website and active on 

social media. One example a tweet which suggested that Presidential Candidate for the Democratic 

Party in the US Presidential race Hillary Rodham Clinton “Cannot satisfy her husband” appears on the 

Bahadur (2015) webpage. 

 

Method 

The entire study took over three years and has been in a draft format seeking feedback and comments 

since then on collegial terms with other discourse scholars the results of which are this current political 

and discourse analysis modified and corrected over the last few years. From 2010-2014 a series of 

headlines, stories and media platforms totalling more than 175 news sites, television news channels, 

printed newspapers, and social media sites were examined and subjected to a media discourse analysis. 

Areas that were examined in detail included the following: 

• Themes and topics which occurred on a significant basis  

• Descriptors and adjectival clauses used to report on women in political life as they were seen at 

press conferences and on television programs reporting on the political day to day drama as chosen 

by television reporters and political commentators on various media platforms 



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• Frequency Anaphora or repetition: this type of study first identified by Altheide (2003) and 

Aronson (1994) in which the frequency of themes and topics are seen as a measure of author 

mindset 

• Metaphor: often used in political discourse to describe culturally appropriate information so that 

a collective understanding is delivered to the audience. This has been described in detailed by 

Lakoff and Johnston (2003) as a way of defining a set of beliefs such as conflict (factional fighting) 

and chaos marking a style of politics. Indeed, the notion of political debate being full of fire and 

discord is also characterised by elections as a type of horse race or race to the finish a style of 

metaphor which shows people “running for office” and being able to defeat an opponent. Some 

media platforms considered for this discourse analysis were in fact called InfoWars.  

• Topoi or collective belief systems delivered via media or language. Within society the notion of 

a collective belief in democracy is often used by politicians to promote their view in fact history as 

a foundation of political democratic development has been seen by many theorists as a way of 

determining the mindset of media and reportage according to Shenhav (2006) and that this can lead 

to a point of view being considered as true or representative.  

 

Media Stories and Media Sensationalism 

For anyone with red hair in the world there is an apparent discriminatory situation which is known and 

reported as “Gingerism”. Since 1652 and even earlier the problem with red heads has been documented 

as in this advice given by Gillemeau in 1612 for choosing a wet nurse to feed a baby: (note the archaic 

spelling of this extract) 

“she must not be deformed, neither squint-ey’d, lame, nor crump shouldred: she must be 

one that is healthfull, and not subject to any disease: the complexion and colour of her 

bodie, must be lively, and rosie; she must not be spotted with rednesse, and especially 

she should not have red hair ( bold my input): and therefore, such as are of a browne 

complexion, are held to be best, whose haire is of a chest-nut colour, betweene yellow 

and blacke”.  

Excerpt from Childbirth or The Happy Deliverie of Women by James Guillemeau, 

London 1612. Reproduced by DaCapo Press, The English Experience series, no. 464, 

1972. Transcribed from the original by Jacquelyn J. Smith 

Clearly being a red head and female (Note 2) has been a problem for sections of the media and 

community…Julia Gillard, the red headed politician, lawyer, first female prime Minister of Australia 

has been signally brutalised by media and community. This paper seeks to explain what happened and 

whether it could happen again. Again, in many articles there have been references to her red hair or 

supposed red headed temperament. Indeed, from the first few days of her elevation by the Australian 

Labor Party Caucus (unopposed) to the position of leader and therefore Prime Minister she was 



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subjected to advice about being a red-haired leader (Wilson, 2010). This article begins with 

comparisons between a former Queen of England Elizabeth 1 and how she rose to power as the result 

of bloody factional fighting which had been “ripping the country apart” and this was seen as an “echo 

of the day 452 years ago” when a subject exclaimed “Oh Lord the Queen is a woman!”. 

Other articles from Business Chic related to her style and dress sense right from the very beginning and 

suggested ways in which to attain style for the “top job”. It would appear that from the very beginning 

Ms Gillard was a marked woman. Other commentary noted that she was indeed a “ranga” Australian 

slang for a red headed person. This refers to the colour of orang outangs (the colour of jungle people as 

the words translates from Bahasa Malay and Indonesian) This was often used to suggest by hard line 

radio talk show hosts that she somehow used the “rule of the jungle” to attain power. She was marked 

for being female, for being a red head, for being smart, for being unmarried, and for being childless and 

more of that can be considered later in this paper.  

Hillary Clinton is also marked for her style and lack of glamour and indeed her age is also is question. 

In addition shock jock style magazines are questioning her health and ability. For example, the “New 

Dawn” magazine suggests that she has a significant oral cancer and that her strange speaking style is 

due to this anomaly.  

 

Are the Media to Blame? 

Media analysts talk about and research the main frameworks which outline stories that are considered 

suitable to print and publish in any media platform. The fit within this summarised form that I have 

identified using the work of the Glasgow School as a guide “Emotion; Sensation; Conflict; Division 

and Celebrity” the old adage if it bleeds it leads only now works with a sensational addition. This 

happened when Megyn Kelly Fox News host interviewed Donald Trump in August 2015 and he 

retaliated with his reply to probing questions that she must be “bleeding from I don’t know where” and 

casting aspersions on female menstrual cycles. She had probed him about a range of matters on the 

campaign trail and Kelly also pressed Trump about misogynistic and sexist comments that he made in 

the past, such as calling some women "fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals (Yan, 2015)”. The 

media according to Tanner (2011) see politics as a form of entertainment and that politicians are fair 

game and are seen as performance artists.  

 

The Sheila “Who Asked for it” 

In Australia the term “Sheila” while also being a female name is often used for a collective term for 

women. In Australian folklore the term is often used a pejorative term for women of a lower class by 

men (often called blokes in Australia) who consider all women who stand out from the crowd as fair 

game. For anyone accessing media of any kind in the period 2010 to the end of June 2013 when Prime 

Minister Julia Gillard lost a caucus ballot of the Parliamentary Australian Labor Party, they would have 



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expected this outcome. An unrelenting and brutal linguistic attack on the person of this Prime Minister 

(PM) is unheralded in Australian politics. Traditionally politics is played fairly and squarely and attacks 

on policy and their implementation are fair game. But for Australia in the period of minority 

Government 2010-2013 a campaign of destabilisation attributed to the former deposed PM Kevin Rudd 

found…This campaign was aided and abetted by a ruthless mainstream media still in thrall to the 

notion of politics as a contest; a horse race or football match with winners and losers identified. The 

minority Parliament which required constant negotiation and working with traditional political foes did 

not sit well with the business community, the press gallery who prefer the notion of contest between 

two parties. Eventually the general public were persuaded by this and grew to dislike this style of 

politics.  

During the election campaign called by Ms Gillard following the deposing of Kevin Rudd in 2010 the 

media were treated to ongoing “leaks” about her lack of commitment to national security, her betrayal 

of pensioners, and her obvious power-hungry behaviours. This is carefully documented by Kerry Ann 

Walsh (2013) in her seminal analysis of the media in her book where she documents these continued 

attacks reported faithfully by the mainstream media and in turn the talk back radio hosts who took to 

criticising her via the shock jocks approach. Terminology such as “menopausal monster” “Bob Brown’s 

Bitch” “hate her” and “she should be taken to sea in a chaff bag and drowned” and even questioning 

her parents as too “ugly to conceive her” and should have “taken precautions” were not uncommon.  

During this period, she was subjected to what many people have suggested was the fiercest and most 

prolonged hate campaign ever seen in Australian politics (see for example the Mama Mia (2013) 

website for a brief summary of this). In addition, there is strong evidence cited by many authors that 

there is a streak of misogyny that runs throughout Australian political history and in some other 

cultures such as America where the notion of women as equals has been at the forefront of community 

pride. This is not borne out in my research. For example, Anna Goldsworthy calls this “Unfinished 

Business: Sex Freedom and Misogyny” in her essay which details a long and unhappy history of 

sexism in Australia.  

Citing former Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Howard Government as an example where he is 

quoted as saying “I think it is disgraceful to go around calling people sexist and misogynist” on Sky 

News (Goldsworthy, 2013, p. 14). In the Quarterly Essay she notes that:  

“His objection is not that it was disgraceful to be sexist of misogynist; nor that it is 

disgraceful to call people sexist and misogynist inaccurately; simply that it’s disgraceful 

to use these words at all”. (Goldsworthy, 2013, p. 14)  

In response to the now famous misogyny speech delivered in the national Australian Parliament in 

October 2012 it become obvious that Ms Gillard as PM had struck a chord with a community not just 

in Australia but around the world. The speech was widely reported both in Australia and abroad. 

Nevertheless, it sparked a series of media commentary in which she was accused of “playing the 



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gender card” and where Paul Sheehan columnist in the Sydney Morning Herald suggested that this had 

become a driver of the politics of hate in Australia. Later he also wrote: 

“When her standing sank and her government was in real trouble, and several cynical 

deals were unravelling, the first woman prime minister played the gender card. She threw 

mud and called it misogyny. For her passion and her eloquence on that day she has been 

roundly praised but it was a desperate act and it helped create an astounding gender gap”. 

(Sheehan 2013 web page 1) 

In fact it has been widely reported that despite the adversarial nature of politics where opposing sides 

determine and debate policy that Ms Gillard had more than one opposition to her term of office.  

Erik Jensen (2013) argues that Kevin Rudd the former PM waged a continuous campaign to regain 

office by co-opting the media to great effect. This campaign was waged with the help of social media 

platforms, twitter and Facebook as well as significantly placed commentary and media releases each 

time Ms Gillard made announcements designed to highlight the positive aspects of new legislation or 

policy developments. These were clearly highlighted by Walsh (2013) showing instances of competing 

media interest whenever Rudd (former Prime Minister) made appearances clearly in contest with her 

and her team. 

 

Hillary hated by media shows a similar trait 

Mrs Clinton is often shown as lacking in integrity and a liar. Thus in media analysis some lexical 

choices clearly identify of whom the constituency should be afraid.  

 Some media have reported the strange and often disgraceful comments made not only about Mrs 

Clinton but direct to reporters who dare to ask him to probe questions and despite the shortcomings 

identified of Mr Trump and his rhetoric it is Mrs Clinton who is consistently reported as having 

difficulty in relating with the community. The media have consistently suggested that somehow the 

racist and bigoted comments attributed to Mr Trump (see for example his comments on Muslims and 

Mexican immigrants) are connecting with people who are afraid and left behind. Commentators even 

while visiting Australia have suggested that Mrs Clinton is the embodiment of what to “hate” in a 

politician standing for office. This view has been aired on programs such as the popular comedic 

review of American politics here on Australian ABC television known as Planet America. Mrs Clinton 

is often referred to as elite and part of the “Washington Elite”.  

Further research of websites related to the so called unpopularity of Mrs Clinton described in a recent 

Google search showed no less than 23,000 sites devoted to this topic alone. One example included an 

article by Matthew Continetti from the National Review dated November 7th 2015 which gave a listing 

of her failures and how she could be beaten at the polls. Within this article was a report of a CBS poll 

which reported that 64% of the respondents concluded that Mrs Clinton was “not honest” and 

considered as “untrustworthy”. Richter (2016) also considers that she will be an abject failure and 



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several stories of this ilk are to be found on line.  

A recent content analysis showed that in identifying Ms Clinton in media reports Mr Donald Trump the 

Republican nominee for the Presidential election has referred to her as being “crooked” and a criminal 

on more than 70 occasions. This of course is amplified by the number of media stories and social media 

platforms that echo these sentiments. In recent times Mr Trump has been referring to Hillary Clinton as 

Hitlery [sic] Clinton and this has been echoed by website and social media ad infinitum.  

Military and Conflict Metaphor a feature of Gillard being instated by the Labor party caucus 

and her coming to power reportage of her time as Prime Minister 

Most of the reportage of the deposition of June 2010 clearly used conflict and military metaphor to 

highlight the seriousness of the situation. A selection of articles considered for this article shows a 

strong preference for suggesting that Ms Gillard had overthrown the former PM in some sort of coup 

d’etat. A striking number of lexical choices indicate this view. Some examples of this genre echo the 

work of Schulz (2010) and Teo (2008) who indicate that marginalising unwanted members of society or 

a group is often done by describing them as aggressive, ruthless and cold. This is clearly identified in 

various headlines just following the deposition via the party room, and later after Kevin Rudd was 

reinstated.  

It should be noted for international readers that the leadership of the party in power in Australia is the 

gift of party room by ballot and negotiation of numbers and not through voting via the ballot box.  

• Gillard takes top job in bloodless coup “The 7-30 Report” ABC and on line at 

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s2936441.htm  

•  Gillard Knifes Rudd in Bloodless Coup ABC Report 24th June 2010 

• Prime Minister Julia Gillard reveals - why I knifed Kevin Rudd News.com.au June 18th 2011 

• Rudd knifed 

• Rudd decapitated 

• Gillard knifes Rudd in overnight coup  

• Kevin Rudd calls Julia Gillard a coup plotter and backstabber “the Australian” Sept 24th 2014 

• Bloodied but unbowed Rudd returns  

• Where Gillard went wrong “Catallaxy Files” June 23d 2013 

• The battle for supremacy Gillard… Gillard prevails in Leadership Battle Sydney Morning Herald 

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/gillard-prevails-in-leadership-battle-20

120226-1txbz.html  

• Gillard attacks Abbott the famous misogyny speech in which Prime Minister Julia Gillard 

responds to what she believes is overt sexism in the Australian 

Parliament…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeGeooZOUdE and seen millions of times on 

YouTube. 

The above selection is reflected in thousands of blogs, on line reports and news stories which shows Ms 



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Gillard as antagonistic and belligerent in her approach to Parliamentary debate. Several theorists have 

described the traditional methods of debate in modern democracy as significant in how it responds to 

protagonists…Recent media reports highlight conflict as a significant factor in stories contesting policy 

and ideas. For example “war breaks out” is often a precursor of headlines and echoes the work of Teo 

(2001) who identified conflict as way of “othering”. 

Dumbing down Democracy and the failure to report nuance and complexity 

Lindsay Tanner (2011, p. 36) a former Minister in the Rudd- Gillard Australian Federal governments 

has suggested in his book Sideshow: Dumbing Down Democracy has suggested that the focus on trivia, 

titillation and distortion has allowed the news media to see politics as a sideshow worthy of 

entertainment where and when serious issues are set to one side and ignored. This is to the detriment of 

modern democracy where what is said and how it is said is constantly in the news, but the major issues 

ignored.  

For example, in Australia the Race Discrimination Act section 18C allows people who are offended or 

insulted to lodge a claim. This issue is under constant debate and review and subject to a myriad of 

controversial commentary. However, during the insulting of Julia Gillard PM in her time in office not 

once did the commentariat suggest that she too could have lodged her own claim of being offended?  

For example some insulting lexical choices have included the following in headlines for both women 

who it seemed could not turn the tide of unpopularity. These can be easily accessed through on line 

posts and archived news stories.  

 

Table 1. Topoi in Discourse as a Reporting Genre 

JULIA GILLARD LEXIS JUXTAPOSED IN 

HEADLINES AND STORIES 

HILLARY CLINTON LEXIS 

JUXTAPOSED IN HEADLINES AND 

STORIES 

Road Kill Liar 

Anger  Crooked 

Power hungry Improper practices 

Toppled Unpopular 

Juliar ( Julia Liar implicit) Liar  

Red headed, ranga ( taken from red coloured orang-utang) Blonde haired (fake) grandmother  

Witch /bitch  Bitch  

Dominant power Domineering  

Deliberately Barren by choice  Absent mother  

Unmarried ( living with partner )  Married to lying cheating former president 

Execution of PM in office Back stabber 

Big arse ( large bottom hips)  Dress sense questioned 



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Fierce domineering 

 

Lemke’s (1998) view is that discourse analysis should always include a number of resources and 

strategies, such as lexis and grammar, rhetorical formations, and the construction of thematic 

formations and cohesion chains; the whole set building upwards, as broader formations are detected 

with the same “patterning” of responses. Such elements are used in assembly of any discourse 

describing and surrounding a reality, to reveal the particular characteristics of a community and its 

public perceptions. This is echoed in the work of Fairclough (1995), who indicates that powerful 

participants within a given communication format can control and constrain what is said or done within 

a particular discourse. Nowhere is this more evident than in the constraints imposed on the political 

female candidates by the commentators and reporters, within their own professional “habitus’ 

(Bourdieu, 2003, p. 101). The reporters and political commentariat, by their very situation, are 

architects of a punctiliously observed set of ideas on how and what to say when writing about politics. 

Echoed in the work of Tanner (2015) there is a view that the entertainment value takes precedence 

followed by what Mc Combs and Shaw indicate is the framing sequences. My own view (Schulz & 

Cannon, 2013) is seen as connecting with emotion sensation division conflict and celebrity where those 

in the spotlight are often placed on trial by the media for trivial “gotcha moments” or what they were 

wearing on the day of the report. For example Ms Gillard’s jackets were so often remarked upon that 

they literally had their own Twitter hashtag. In fact many stories devoted to Ms Gillard fashion sense or 

“dressing for power” moments were faithfully recorded.  

When celebrities or others are persuaded to comment, either within their own professional circles or in 

response to some of the issues raised about the reportage a, their topoi are strongly connected to 

community understanding of politics current public opinion, media reporting, and those outcomes 

which relate directly to community concerns and issues of public confidence. It is surprising then to 

note that Germaine Greer a known feminist provocateur had a derogatory attack about the way Ms 

Gillard was dressed (August 27th 2012).  

She could only muster comment about the size of Ms Gillard’s bottom in her preferred jackets which 

left a highly acclaimed ABC Australia program QandA audience laughing but serious political scholars 

amazed that a feminist scholar of some note could be so negative about a woman in power. It is thus 

where the discourse community of media in all its forms show a consistency of effort in topoi or 

themed topics which reappear time and time again in discussion within a discourse community that is in 

charge over what is to be considered and to be reported. When it is political debate over two high 

profile women at different ends of the earth who attain power it is clear that the media set the tone and 

tenor of reportage which is then echoed in the new public square of cyberspace.  

The topoi of appearance 



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The topoi of appearance was a constant theme in Mrs Clinton’s candidacy for the presidency and many 

websites attested to this theme. This was a common one held by media commentary within the confines 

of celebrity and how they deem those in the news are supposed to be presented. This is echoed strongly 

by media scholars who suggest that the cult of celebrity is a known two way approach to relationships 

with media (Bennett Hall & Holmes, 2008). In a way the notion of Schadenfreude as outlined by Cross 

and Littler (2010 cited in Harvey et al below) indicates a type of attack against privileged people such 

as politicians who are constantly in the limelight and evaluated via public opinion. For example one 

website the Daily Wire suggested that Hillary had worn the “ugliest outfit in human history”. In a 

similar vein the topoi of appearance was credited in the discourse related to Hillary Clinton’s 

underperforming in engaging young female voters by suggesting that she had made several fashion 

failures which led to her poor polling with this demographic by the Federalist websites in April 2016.  

“Cross and Littler (2010) locate Schadenfreude as a ‘trans-individual affective pro-cess 

of resentment’ and response to the contemporary political conjecture of neoliberal 

capitalism, where individuals have a ‘desire for equality but [are] unable to think of 

anything other than levelling through humiliation’ (p. 397)” cited in Harvey Allen and 

Mendinck, 2015)  

Some examples of this appear in a myriad of websites from traditional mainstream media to off grid 

conspiratorial websites which heralded negative commentary about the candidate and her appearance 

throughout the campaign. Several media stories about Mrs Clinton’s appearance showed her with an 

open mouth and evidence of a supposed tongue biopsy as proof of her inability to lead the nation. The 

Conservative Tree House website (July 31, 2016) condemned her for a number of ailments which had 

not been publicly mentioned in mainstream media and which was affecting her appearance with the 

American public. Criticism of Mrs Clinton was unrelenting and constantly upbraided her fashion style, 

weight and health profiles.  

Similarly Ms Gillard was also subjected to the discourse topoi of appearance and one example of the 

Blue Shoe lost in a secret service removal of Ms Gillard from turmoil and a significant scuffle was a 

prime example of this genre. The media were busy reminding the community that Gillard lost her blue 

shoe in the active strong armed escort, and that she had stumbled once too often, lost her footing 

politically, and avoiding framing her in a narrative of the victim of protesters (generated by remarks 

reportedly made by the then Opposition Leader Mr Tony Abbott) but rather as a metaphor for how her 

prime ministership was also stumbling and tripping over. Such lexical choices were indeed pejorative 

and according to some researchers set the tone for public opinion. For example Hallahan (1999) 

suggests that knowledge of political issues and candidates can be set in media frames that encourages a 

point of view and sets the tone for reporting and commentary: 

“McCombs (2004) labelled the media's ability also to frame attributes as second-order 

agenda setting or frame setting. The extension of the familiar description of 



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agenda-setting thus suggests, although media are not necessarily effective in telling 

people what to think, media can be strikingly effective in telling people what to think 

about—and how to think about it”. (Hallahan, 1999, p. 213) 

The tone of commentary was thereafter very pejorative and focussed on the Federal Government’s 

inability to get anything right and that Ms Gillard stumbled and tripped from one disaster to another on 

a regular basis. Such reporting is according to Mc Combs and form of agenda-setting and framing the 

narrative in order to glean a particular point of view.  

The topoi of trust/integrity as an evaluative tool to disparage 

Throughout the entire campaign for the election of the US President (won by Donald Trump on 

November 8th 2016) the topoi of distrust and integrity was raised consistently. Mr Trump and some of 

his colleagues asked the question whether the community of electors could or should trust Hillary 

Clinton as she had allegedly committed crimes by using a private email service during her term of 

office as Secretary of State for the USA. The refrain was used often at debates and rallies by Donald 

Trump and was effective in that in the latter part of the campaign his collocations or relational word 

contexts with Mrs Clinton often included the chant or phrase “She should be locked up” and calls for a 

special prosecutor to ensure that she is thoroughly investigated. Since the end of the election campaign 

Mr Trump’s office and he himself have remained remarkably silent on this issue.  

Collocation as a form of control information.  

Some extreme examples of this form of anaphora (repetition) are readily available on line and can be 

seen to echo the theoretical principles outlined in Discourse Analysis by Fairclough (2001, p. 95) in 

which he suggests that collocation of assumed behaviour gives an ideological scheme for classifying 

someone or their behaviour and thus metaphorically represents a form of imprisonment via discourse.  

The main examples of collocation that are evident include the following words used in juxtaposition 

most often in the more than 175 sites examined include: 

• Crooked [Hillary] 

• Criminal  

• Untrustworthy 

• Corrupt [includes terms such as most corrupt]  

• Member of the Elite 

• Hopeless  

• Lock her up (three word slogan)  

• Liar  

• Elite  

• Left leaning  

• Too liberal (progressively left wing)  



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The pejorative nature of the above collocations with the term Hillary or Clinton appeared constantly 

and indeed in recent times have been reiterated by Trump and his team. 

The topoi of popularity and celebrity qualities 

The topoi of popularity and celebrity qualities were significant in the election to the White House and 

clearly showed that the cult of celebrity has enormous influence in community decision making. For 

example Bennett et al (2008) and the work of Yi (2012, p. 2) indicates that: “In the celebrity world, 

then, there are far fewer standardised methods of predicting and measuring celebrity success, as 

celebrities are not confined to any one set of designated rules. But the answer actually lies in the way 

fans and news follow every little detail of celebrities’ personal lives and appearances”.  

This was indeed the issue as Trump’s Tweets dominated the news media at all hours in the 24 hour 

news cycle. Trump was known to have tweeted in the early hours of the morning and often news 

looking to break with an item of interest would headline anything that seemed controversial or 

significantly anti his opponents. One example in late 2016 is typical of this genre in which Trump 

attacked Hillary and her supposed connections with “rigging the election”.  

“This election is being rigged by the media pushing false and unsubstantiated charges, and outright lies, 

in order to elect Crooked Hillary!” Donald J Trump 15th October 2016 on Twitter feed.  

Earlier in September 2015 when it became clear that Ms Clinton would be a major presidential 

candidate he had also called attention to Ms Clinton’s fainting (according to some news outlets due to 

heat exhaustion) and her lack of stamina and health status. This became a news phenomenon when 

pictures emerged of her shoe left on the kerb following a stumble and other stories featured a possible 

brain tumour or haemorrhage. A twitter storm can still be found online through most search engines.  

Stories written by newspapers and on line media platforms (see for example Revesz, 2015) highlighted 

the fainting episode but continued to discuss the issue and this made it possible for Trump to insist that 

she was unfit for office.  

 

The topoi of feminine traits and attributes 

Trum often used the issues raised by allowing the country to fall into the hands of someone without the 

significant attributes to run the White House and the world’s most powerful nation. Some examples 

include suggestions that former President Clinton had been unfaithful due to Ms Clinton’s inability to 

please her man. Other collocated terms with Ms Clinton questioning her feminine qualities ranged from 

wearing pantsuits to other more derogatory comments.  

• Lacks the authenticity and the kind of charisma required  

to unite a nation. ... model, that inspiring leadership traits 

• embodying masculine leadership traits 

• she embodies too few of the traditional feminine traits we like to see in women (likeability 

• She lacks in charisma and excitement that many look for when choosing leaders 



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• Too much like a man  

• Characteristics we tend to associate with women—such as being  

facilitative or caring—are not at all what we think of as leadership traits. McLean Parks has 

studied the differences in perceptions of male and female leaders, and says that Clinton faces 

an uphill battle trying to overcome voter bias 

All this discourse echoes the notion that while women are gaining in being seen in political and public 

life the community can be easily persuade of the shortcomings of female candidates in political life. 

See for example Holtz Bacha (2013) in which she describes the significant hurdles faced by women 

entering politics. The collocations listed alongside and juxtaposed near the descriptors clearly indicate a 

mindset that is anti the female leaders and finds fault with a large variety of things such as their failings 

in dress, femininity, ability to placate voters and deride falsity. 

She describes voter bias as media becomes obsessed with a range of issues related to the private lives 

of female candidates:  

“Women politicians know that the media act as a significant hurdle for their career. The 

media report differently on women and men. Since decades (sic) we have been hearing 

from women all over the world complaining that the media only seem to be interested in 

their looks and in their private life but not so much in their political aims and concerns: 

How she dresses, how is her hairdo, does her husband have to prepare his own meals and 

who takes care of the children while she is doing politics? Her male colleagues are rarely 

confronted with these sorts of questions. That means female politicians are confronted 

with evaluation criteria that do not come from the political field and that do not play a 

role for the evaluation of male politicians”. (Holtz-Bacha ,2013, p. 64) 

The topoi of power in female hands  

Many male politicians describe power in female hands as somewhat dangerous. Since the early days of 

Margaret Thatcher being dubbed the iron lady other titles have been used to discredit powerful 

women. The following collocations alongside Hillary Clinton and also former Prime Minister of 

Australia Ms Gillard clearly identify the issues of concern raised by their opponents. 

• Machiavellian 

• Mendacious 

• Thirsts for power 

• Unlikeable aggression 

• A sea of men will pay no heed 

• Not really in charge 

• Witch using hexes to get ahead 

• Wearing a mask 

• Who knows what they are thinking? 



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• Expertly tailored 

• Coiffed 

• Dressed for power  

• Problem with women seeking power  

It appears then that when a woman strives for power, she loses likeability. This is consistently 

hammered by the press and the echo chamber of Trump followers or those that opposed Julie Gillard 

when she attained the role of the first PM of Australia  

The Discourse of Direction by media  

It could now be a problem created by media which hungry for news in a competitive online world 

greedily and actively reported the Twitter storms and the stumbles both literal and metaphorical by 

both women. Is it the problem with American or Australian culture? Do we have a more conservative 

community than we like to think? The decision is open. However, as Schulz (2010, pp. 51-52) in her 

study in Courts and Judges on Trial that often the Discourse of Direction is indeed media driven by the 

frames that continue to attract and court viewers and media users. Hallahan (1999) argues strongly that 

emotions are a quick and easy route to engender responses from readers (and Twitter) participants in 

media consumption. There is a lot of emotion and back stories in feisty women demanding to be heard 

(red headed or coiffed expensively and aggressive) or those that leave the home and hearth for a 

political stage. The questions from community must now be if not How Dare They? But How come it 

has taken so long to be heard?  

How were the media persuaded by Trump and his team? 

It would appear that in general the media have been mesmerised by the Trump phenomenon as he 

appears to be so unpredictable and use the social media platform Twitter as a public forum in which to 

express his often-controversial views and beliefs. To some extent he has embodied the idea of 

infotainment to a large degree in which the media cannot wait to see what he is going to say or do next!  

Postscript 2017 issues for consideration by future discourse analysis 

Since the election of November 2016 there is much to consider if women are to gain their proper 

position in public life.  

• Mr Trump has backed away from elements of the investigation of Mrs Clinton for her 

“crooked behaviour”  

• He has made overtures that the CIA after first declaring that their intelligence was 

wrong in suggesting that the notion of hacking into the US networks by Russian agencies 

was completely false 

• A young and charismatic new Prime Minister of New Zealand has been elected and in 

recent times has announced she is pregnant and expecting a child later in 2018. Since 

then has been actively a working mothers and is highly respected both here and abroad 

in western democracies as a socially progressive woman. Already questions are being 



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raised about her having a “stay at home husband” and juggling baby formula and world 

politics” 

In light of the Trump phenomenon in winning the USA Presidential Election there has been much 

speculation as to why a certain University and its students appeared to feature prominently in a an 

article entitled “PC Monsters” in which the difficult and strained relations between ethnic and minority 

groups students has escalated to the point where a bulk of some of the students at Oberlin University in 

Ohio apparently voted for Mr Trump.  

The article went on to claim that many students literally only will consider information and social 

media input from their own echo chamber where there view and only their views are passed on and 

discussed. In a school where students have asked for “trigger warnings’ for such classical theatrical and 

literary works such as The Great Gatsby and Antigone there is a chance that the notion of Trumpist 

Discourse will prevail as the community becomes scared to offend and distress minority groups. This 

was in response to perceived traumatising content.  

“The relationship my students have with the world is constantly mediated. They only 

have access to it through their I Phone screens and through their social networks. They 

have joined what we would call the ‘virtual reality’ what is the real world for them. What 

occurs is that a filtered reality is suddenly finding a discourse of grievance [a reality 

suspended]”. It could be said that it may allow the Trumpisms of recent memory to 

flourish in a world of language gone awry. Professor Roger Copeland cited by Phillip 

Oehmke in the Australian Financial Review Weekly p 36  

Postscript October 2022:  

In recent weeks the turnaround of Prime Ministers in Britain has been punctuated with the appearance 

of yet another female leader after Teresa May was ousted by Boris Johnston over the failures of the 

Brexit implementations. Ms Liz Truss has also been subjected to humiliating descriptors and to regular 

input of the topoi of a power-hungry woman. For example the website which clearly identifies her as 

incapable and dangerous to Britain outlines the problems that need fixing by a proper leader who 

knows how to placate the community and the stock market… in fact in one media outlet The Toronto 

Star she was described as the “human hand grenade” and as bringing about “popular discontent”. In 

another outlet she is described as defeated and gutted by the bond market’s disapproval of her. She is 

also accused of putting the market on edge and failing to bring about stability. Latterly some other 

descriptions refer to her mode of dress and has in fact made headlines and several forum sites on her 

choice of hosiery and her supposed love affairs. Meanwhile Mr Sunak the new Prime Minister of the 

UK has been spared such scrutiny.  

In contrast the newly selected PM Rishi Sunak a billionaire is said to provide a safe pair of hands and 

that the UK can now “deliver on the promises made by others” and that indeed he was” anointed” for 



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the position by his colleagues. This clearly identifies a male preference for political leadership, and I 

will leave it to others to analyse his future and political prowess. 

 

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Notes 

Note 1. Across the ditch is an affectionate term used by Australians to denote a trip across the Tasman 

Sea to New Zealand. 

Note 2. Another red headed politician (Senator Pauline Hanson) in Australia who is seen as a far right 

(at times extremist) also received a great deal of attention and often her red hair was considered in 

stories and media commentary. 


