‘Bullied’ Gillard under fire for knitting pose

Last year in Colombia there were 10 political assassinations. Routine targets include trade unionists and student activists. It is a country scourged by kidnappings and violence.

But one Columbian media outlet has looked abroad and expressed sympathy for Australia’s Julia Gillard, who it has anointed the “most bullied minister in the world”.

According to Semana (‘Week’) magazine, she is a “victim of machismo”.

“Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, has been criticised for the size of her breasts, hit by sandwiches and she has even been asked if her boyfriend is gay,” the magazine article begins.

“The comments and insults that she has received easily make her the most bullied minister in the world.”

One wonders what they make of the latest “scandal”.

Gillard has come under fire after photos of her knitting a kangaroo for the royal baby have been published in the Australian Woman’s Weekly.

The prime minister has come under fire and been widely ridiculed for the photos, which show her in an armchair surrounded by balls of yarn knitting a baby kangaroo for Prince William and Kate’s baby.

“We know the prime minister could spin a yarn,” said senior liberal Christopher Pyne. “But now we have a picture to prove it.”

The traditional feminine presentation of Gillard has been attacked for its incongruity with someone in her position, some even going as far as saying that it could be the photo that brings an end to her reign as Australia’s first female prime minister.

Yet there are others who have defended the photo.

Is Gillard herself likely to be worried about it? Not likely, if the accompanying interview published on Woman’s Weekly website is anything to go by.

“I am not a person who agonises,” Gillard says in the interview.

“You always look back over your life and say there are some things that you might have liked to have done [differently] ... but I think I’ll be really comfortable with the choices I’ve made.”