By Hamish Spence
Julia Gillard has revealed she regrets not calling out sexism and misogyny earlier during her time in office as Australia’s first female prime minister.
Sunday marked 10 years since Ms Gillard delivered her now iconic misogyny speech in parliament where she grilled then opposition leader Tony Abbott in a passionate 15-minute long monologue.
The speech came 2½ years into her tenure as prime minister after she had experienced numerous gendered attacks from members of the public, the media and fellow politicians.
“I tried to do as much as I could as prime minister in the sense that every day was precious, every day we were trying to drive big reforms forward," Ms Gillard said, "On sexism and misogyny, I specifically regret not calling it out earlier.”
Ms Gillard believed at the time the sexism and misogyny she initially experienced would die down and not get worse.
“I had thought when I first became prime minister that the maximum reaction to me being the first woman would be in the early days and it would wash its way through the system and normalise. I was clearly wrong on that,” she said.