Years ago I had a 12 ft Brooker on a trailer with Yamaha outboard, in which I would take my son outside Sydney heads to go fishing. I used to catch buckets of ‘roughies’. They were those orange coloured fish with large sad looking eyes. Looking back, what a dangerous thing to do!  Still, the 4am drive to the ramp at Rozelle, and then the slow trip outside the Heads I am sure he remembers.

It all started from our regular camping trips at Bendalong on the South Coast, where scores of campers and their wives used to line up at the only ramp and take out their boats. In those days, the wives tried to be as much as their husbands to be part of the ‘fishing scene’. Both feet shod in thongs, feet firmly planted apart and tits flattened, fags dangling from waver thin lips; They tried to be as blokey as possible while pulling the rings on their husband beer cans. If they wanted to be accepted, their female-ness had to be hidden.

It was the only way then. It made one wonder if those males were not homosexuals disguised as fishermen. Perhaps I am unkind here or intolerant of the different cultural aspects of varying societies. It was at the same time when at social parties, mixing by men with women was sometimes also seen as having ‘poofter’ inclinations.

Reading the plethora of comments about Australia having the first female Prime Minister in Julia Gillard, I detect certain misogyny. Perhaps those old fishermen’s ideas of women should still be the notion of adherence and conforming to their maleness instead of blatant feminism. Be one of the boys, as it were. Did you read Bob Ellis article on the UL?

Still, those notions have failed in parliament, at least on the ALP side. Just have a look at the line-up of those glorious looking females. As feminine as one could possibly hope for.

 Certainly nothing like those fishermen’s wives.