Who would be a woman in politics?

There are moments that force us to stop and ask ourselves, how did we get here?

This week has been one of those moments.

First, we saw independent Senator Jacqui Lambie publicly mocked over a vaginal prolapse, a serious women's health condition that affects many Australian women. Senator Lambie courageously disclosed the condition to raise awareness and challenge the stigma around it. Then a cartoon turned a deeply personal medical experience into a punchline.

Then, we witnessed the shocking attack on independent MP Helen Haines, who remains critically injured after what police and the Prime Minister have described as a deliberate act outside her electorate office in regional Victoria. My thoughts, and those of many Australians, are with Helen, her family, friends, staff and community as they navigate an unimaginable period of uncertainty and distress.

These are two very different events.  But both should make us deeply uncomfortable.

Both events speak to a broader question about how women in public life are treated, and what message we send to current and future generations of women considering leadership.

None of us should have to be overtly brave simply to do our job. Yet for many women in leadership or positions of influence, bravery remains a daily requirement.

Women in politics are expected to withstand scrutiny; it comes with the territory of public office. Policies should be challenged. Decisions should be debated. Leaders should be held accountable.

But somewhere along the way, the public discourse has become less interested in debating ideas and more interested in attacking people.

And women are disproportionately impacted.

Women's bodies become fair game. Women's appearance is the subject of commentary. Women's health becomes comedy material. Women's safety becomes conditional.

I keep thinking about the message being absorbed by a young woman watching these events unfold. What does she see?

She sees a woman speaking honestly about a medical condition and being publicly mocked for it. She sees another woman serving her community and ending up fighting for her life after an alleged attack.

She considers these moments alongside the backdrop of recent headlines about sexual violence, misogynist comedians, powerful institutions failing to meet community expectations, and bystanders staying silent in the chat rooms.

None of these messages land in isolation. Together, they contribute to a cultural story about safety, respect and power, and about the way women are valued.

Then we ask why there aren't more women putting their hand up for leadership.

Perhaps the better question is, why would they?

We need to be honest about something uncomfortable. This experience of threats, abuse and misogyny is not confined to women from the same political party, ideology or worldview. It’s a common experience and what links these incidents is not politics. It is gender. Too often, women in public life are subjected to forms of ridicule, harassment and hostility that their male counterparts simply do not experience in the same way, or at the same scale.

When we normalise contempt, we create conditions where disrespect flourishes. When we treat women as ready targets of humiliation, we lower the standard of public conversation and behaviour. When we excuse cruelty as "just satire" or dismiss abuse as something that "comes with the territory", we fail to recognise the cumulative impact such behaviour has on participation, representation and ultimately on democracy.

I challenge the idea that this is simply the inevitable rough and tumble of political life. There is nothing inevitable about it.

As human beings, we are capable of reason, we can disagree without dehumanising. We can challenge policy without attacking a person's dignity. We can engage in robust political debate while maintaining basic levels of human decency and respect.

But we don't all make that choice.

The evidence is clear that better decision-making happens when leadership includes diverse voices and experiences. Communities are stronger when women participate fully in civic and political life - organisations are stronger, governments are stronger, and countries are stronger.

We're all better off when women are part of leadership, policy making and decision-making.

To realise these benefits, we need more women stepping into leadership, not fewer.  More women feeling confident that they can contribute, challenge, lead and remain safe while doing so. More women believing they will be judged by their ideas rather than their bodies, their health, their appearance or their gender.

The question facing us now is not whether we support women in leadership in principle.  Most people would say they do.

The real question of this moment is whether we are prepared to create the conditions that make leadership genuinely safe and accessible for women.

That means challenging misogyny and disrespect when we see it. It means refusing to laugh at jokes that rely on humiliation. It means rejecting language that diminishes women. It means demanding more and better from the organisations that touch our lives. It means standing together against threats, intimidation and violence directed at women, and at public figures, regardless of political persuasion.

Most importantly, it means actively supporting women to stand and to lead.

Leadership should not require extraordinary resilience just to survive. Women should be able to bring their rich and valuable expertise, passion, intelligence and lived experience to public life without fearing ridicule, abuse or harm.

And if we want a future where women feel safe, strong and supported in positions of influence, then we have an obligation to be active in building that future.

The alternative is a public square that becomes poorer, narrower and less representative of the community it claims to serve.

I started this article posing the question, who would be a woman in politics? The real question is probably, what kind of society makes women wonder whether it is worth it?

Because when capable women decide the cost is too high, all of us lose.

None of us should be willing to accept that.