Over the months leading up to this speech, Gillard had been criticised by parts of the Australian media and some members of the opposition Liberal–National coalition based on her status as an unmarried and childless woman.
[1] One Liberal MP, Bill Heffernan, said she "was unfit for leadership because she was deliberately barren"[2][1] and another, Sophie Mirabella, said "You won't need his [ex-PM Kevin Rudd's] taxpayer-funded nanny, will you?"
"[4] There were also several instances of "sexist and hateful attacks from anonymous critics" and "a plethora of pornographic and degrading images of the prime minister circulated on web sites, e-mail, and social media".
When another person present at this interview stated they wanted their daughter to have as much opportunity as their son, Abbott responded, "Yeah, I completely agree, but what if men are by physiology or temperament, more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command?".
Afterward, when I sat back in my chair, my deputy prime minister, Wayne Swan, had this odd expression on his face and said, "You can't give that kind of j'accuse speech and then sit down."
Expat Chloe Angyal wrote for Britain's The Guardian that the speech tackled "sexism head-on" and was a "masterful, righteous take-down"[16] and similar opinions were expressed by other expatriate Australian journalists.
[12][17][18] Britain's Daily Telegraph women's editor said that Gillard had cleverly shifted the focus of the news story with "an impressive set of insults".
[24][25] Gillard told media that she had been approached by world leaders who congratulated her on the speech at the 2012 Asia-Europe Meeting, including French President François Hollande and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
[29] Annabel Crabb reported on the misogyny speech in The Sydney Morning Herald at the time saying that "Sexism is everywhere in politics – you just have to count the examples that have cropped up this week once everyone suddenly started to care about it."
It's not a case I'd prosecute," but also that "you might feel sympathy for the Opposition Leader, if he hadn't spent the past two years calling the Prime Minister an inveterate, instinctive and pathological liar."
She also reported that a comedian made a joke the next night, about Tony Abbott and his female Chief of Staff, at a minister-attended Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union dinner at Australian Parliament House, but no complaints were raised till the next day when Julia Gillard later reprimanded the CFMEU Boss.
"[37] In Crikey, Shakira Hussein wrote "I will not be lectured on sexism or misogyny by Julia Gillard on the very day that she has driven so many women deeper into poverty.
[41] Australia-born Cornell University philosopher Kate Manne uses Gillard's speech as a central, clarifying example in her 2017 book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny.
[50][51] In November 2020, a song titled "Julia Gillard's Misogyny Speech" was released by Sydney punk rockers Scabz as a track on their debut album Pressure.
[52][53] In 2022, with Gillard's permission, singer Karen Jacobsen composed a pop orchestral work with the words of the speech set to music, titled "Better Standard Than This".