Julia Gillard is a bad influence. Apparently.

So the newspapers, radio, television and magazines have all made it very clear that our new Prime Minister Julia Gillard isn't married but is in a defacto relationship. We all know it. Do we care?                                                                

I certainly don't. 

Bettina Ardnt has published an opinion piece this morning through Fairfax Media, in which she suggests that Gillard could be a bad influence on women because she's not married.

"It's fine for Gillard - a 48-year-old woman - to live with her bloke. Yet as a popular role model for women, her lifestyle choice may influence other women into making big mistakes about their lives."

 "If Gillard chooses to play house with Tim Mathieson in the Lodge, this choice sends a strong message to the huge numbers of women who rightly admire her and seek to follow her example. A lifestyle suited to her particular needs may be riskier for many women and their children." 

 Sorry, I wasn't aware that we were still living in the 1950's.  

“Women's tiny reproductive window means they pay a high price for wasting precious breeding time in such uncertain relationships.”

This is assuming that all women want to get married and have lots of babies. Ms Gillard has made it clear that she does not want children, so if she doesn’t then maybe there’s other people that don’t too! Imagine that.

“Politicians today rarely question social trends, even when all the evidence is they are having negative social consequences. John Howard was the rare exception, when he went into bat for a child's rights to a father in the debate over single mothers and IVF.”

Yes, but John Howard’s view was that if you don’t have a married mother and father with three perfect children born inside wedlock, then you deserve to be locked up and have the key thrown away. His views were prejudice and he appealed to the highest form of snobbery and ignorance installed in today’s society. Howard is one of the people that refuse to accept the fact that times are changing and shock horror, we don't live in a world where Jane Austen novels shape our lives.

In addition to this, we are talking about Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister that doesn’t believe in a ‘big Australia’. If she really is ‘influencing’ people in their choice to not get married and have children, as Ardnt claims, then it sounds Gillard could be on to something here.

It’s no secret that I really admire and have a lot of respect for Julia Gillard. I may or may not choose to get married and have children one day, but if I were to put this down to being influenced by Gillard’s situation, in no way would I believe this to be a ‘bad influence’. Bettina Arndt seems to be suggesting in a very non subtle way TIM MATHIESON, YOU MUST MARRY JULIA GILLARD AT THIS INSTANT BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T, THEN AUSTRALIA IS DOOMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where do you stand? Are you influenced by Julia's decision to be in a defacto relationship or to have children? Do you think that she's a 'bad influence' on women?