It has come to my attention that our fearless leader, Tones, and his LNP, will be celebrating International Women’s Day at a special luncheon today. The luncheon is being held at a club that- get this- excludes women from membership on basis of gender. If they are lucky enough to have a HUSBAND who is a member, they are entitled to a “Partner’s Card”, but that’s about as egalitarian as Tattersall’s gets.

What’s next, I cannot help but wonder? A Marriage Equality Summit at Fred Nile’s place? A conference on anaphylaxis at a peanut factory? An Anti-Whaling meeting in Taiji, Japan?

Apparently, the luncheon was organised by the party organisation LNP Women.

Oh my goodness, LNP Women!! Do you guys even feminist?

Oh sorry, my mistake! It turns out that giving what I can only assume will be a decent sum of money to an extremely expensive club (They charge $1000 for membership!) to host this parody of a celebration is actually quite revolutionary.

I mean, it’s not making them change the rules or anything CRAZY like that. It’s fighting the system from the inside, see?

It’s paying the club enough money to suffer the presence of a bunch of women for one single meal. Essentially, as I understand it, this is the LNP being just like Rosa Parks! You remember Rosa Parks? The African-American civil rights activist? She refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white person back in 1955. She was arrested for it. Dragged through the courts. She became an iconic figure in the civil rights movement. Yep, hosting an International Women’s Day lunch at Tattersall’s is just like that, according to the LNP Women Vice President, Peta Simpson.

Tones, our PM and (who could forget) self-appointed Minister for Women, responded to the controversy by proclaiming it- I can’t even make this stuff up- some kind of triumph for women.

“This is just how wonderful this broad church that I lead is … obviously they’ve just broken down the last barrier and they’ve made the men-only club admit women…Admit women! Isn’t that fantastic? At last, this bastion of chauvinism has admitted women and they’ve done it on International Women’s Day because of the Liberal National Party….Good on the Liberal National Party, smashing the glass ceiling yet again. I say congratulations and thank God that bastion of old-fashioned chauvinism has finally collapsed like the walls of Jericho at the trumpet cry of the Liberal National Party.”- Tony Abbott

Oh please! Could he be more patronising?

“Broad church”? Tony has forgotten that Australia is a secular democracy! And surely he remembers that he didn’t actually become a priest?

This men-only club is admitting women for ONE luncheon- not changing their patriarchal and sexist rules. Smashing the glass ceiling yet again? When exactly was the other time?

Under the LNP’s governance, the Gender Pay Gap is up to 18.8% which is the highest on record.

Under the Liberal state government here in NSW, funding has been removed, forcing women’s refuges and legal help centres to close. Awesome job, guys. So now there are many areas where women who are experiencing domestic violence literally have nowhere to go.

On a national level, the death toll of Australian women who have been killed as a result of domestic violence has doubled to 2 women every week. Yet it’s the Opposition leader, Bill Shorten, calling for action and a National Plan while Abbott dithers about with only the idea of essentially making protection orders valid across the whole country and not just the state of issue- it is a valid and good idea but is only one part of a huge societal problem.

He can cite nothing more than Carbon Tax repeal as his contribution to the women of Australia and we should all be just so pleased he’s having a fancy lunch at what might as well be a branch of the good old He-Man Woman Hater’s Club, because in doing so, he and his party have conquered the “last bastion” of sexism?!?!

Until you do something about all that, Tones, you know where you can shove that apparently wall-collapsing LNP trumpet of yours, don’t you?

On to something a bit more awesome to celebrate International Women’s Day.

I’m giving away this excellent and exclusive tee-shirt, custom designed for me by my arty husband whose work you can check out here. To win, follow the rafflecopter steps and visit me on facebook, drop a comment below and follow on twitter for an extra entry and remember- sharing is caring!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And linking up with Maxabella Loves for Weekend Rewind