From Annabel Crabb/the drum...

Let's get something straight; politicians of both sexes get ribbed about their looks.

Most of them are martyrs to the cartoonists, who never waste the opportunity provided by a pointy nose or big ears, whatever the gender of the affected person.

(In fact, I would even argue that having an aberrant body part actually helps you in politics. If you have a giant schnozz or silly hair, you are absolutely likely to be cartooned more often, thus contributing to the impression that you are more central to proceedings than you actually are. People like Wayne Swan, who are so unmarked by genetic oddity that cartoonists are forced to draw them carrying briefcases emblazoned with their name, often wind up plagued by the perception of under-relevance.)

Tony Abbott gets flack about his ears, John Howard about his eyebrows, and Julia Gillard about her red hair and sharp nose.

Fair enough. But there is a huge difference between good-natured teasing about a distinctive physical characteristic, and the sort of thing that is happening to Julia Gillard.

And the difference is that for women, somehow, appearance turns into a competency issue.

....

She has never been one for much makeup or fuss about clothes.

But now that she is Prime Minister, the popular gaze demands that she spend about an hour every working day being made-up, primped and polished.

This is an hour a day that her male colleagues and rivals don't have to spend, and which she - left to her own devices - probably would do almost anything to get out of. An hour a day which Kevin Rudd might have spent writing, or thinking, or phone-stalking Ban Ki-Moon.

An hour a day which could quite feasibly have been spent doing stuff that constitutes actual competence for a Prime Minister.

It must be uniquely frustrating to have to go through all that rigmarole and still be rubbished.

Especially in a week where she has managed to get a substantial piece of legislation through a nightmarish parliamentary system.

Especially when - truth be told - she actually looks just fine.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/26/3077671.htm?site=thedrum