This story contains sexual references
When a kind man helped push her broken-down car off a major road in Brisbane, Labor councillor Kara Cook took her gratitude online, thanking the stranger who helped her along.
Posting to her official social media pages last week, she shared a smiley photo with a message of appreciation.
But in the comments, one man had a jarring response: “Did you give him a BJ as a thank you??” he said, asking if she had repaid him with a sexual favour.
Usually, her approach to such comments was to block and delete. But this time, she replied.
“Really? Come on Jason. Be better.”
Sharing a screenshot of the comment to her social media pages, she was determined to offer a glimpse into the messages hurled at female politicians in the public eye.
“You put your hand up for public life. You don’t put your hand up for that. But it seems that is a theme, particularly for women in politics,” she said.
The former domestic violence lawyer, who established her own firm and was the principal solicitor at the Women’s Legal Service in Brisbane before moving into politics, is now used to comments like this one.
In her five-and-a-half-year political career as a local councillor for Morningside ward in Brisbane City Council, she feels unsolicited online sexual comments from strangers have been a regular feature of being a female politician.
Labor MPs Ged Kearney and Anne Aly, and LNP MP Michelle Landry all agree, with the raft of female parliamentarians coming forward to recount the gendered abuse they had received online in the past few years.
The comment left on Councillor Kara Cook’s Facebook page.
As the manager of her own social media pages, she’d see all the comments aimed her way. Comments on her appearance would come weekly and she knew most rogue comments lurked in her direct messages, where no one else could see.
Last April, the London-based Center for Countering Digital Hate released a study exposing the “misogynistic hate” that hides in direct messages.
They used five public figures with profiles of varying sizes, including actor Amber Heard, to log the proportion of abuse and harassment hidden in DMs. They found one in every 15 DMs (6.7 per cent) broke Instagram’s rules on abuse and harassment.
“But for some reason, this one just really got me,” Ms Cook told The Feed.
“I think it was how mundane my post had been, and to have that level of response really shocked me.”
After drawing attention to the person in her comments, other members of the public joined her in criticising his remark. And not long after, he deleted the comment.
“I’m lucky that I haven’t had anything that’s been violent like at the federal level, but even as a local councillor in Brisbane, Queensland, you still cop it.”
Local female councillors not exempt from sexual harassment
When Ms Cook announced she was running as a council candidate, one of the first messages left on her public Facebook profile was abusive.
“Oh yeah, I know that Kara Cook. She’s just a S-L-U-T,” Ms Cook told The Feed.
“I just thought, what is it about me that invites that? I really just don’t get it.
“Without me having any track record, not even being an elected representative, for simply putting myself forward, that was the comment that was made.”
A third of Australian working women with an online presence have been targeted by gendered abuse, according to the .
“When abuse takes such a high emotional toll, it is no wonder that nearly a quarter of the women abused online said they were reluctant to move into leadership positions that would require them to be in the media or online,” eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement at the time of the report’s release.
And it’s not just harassment from the public either. In 2018, Ms Cook lodged an official complaint with the Council CEO after someone made cat noises to her in the council chamber while she was speaking.
Councillor Kara Cook, who previously worked as a domestic violence lawyer, says it’s disappointing it was consistent throughout her entire political career. Credit: Richard Walker
“For anyone else in that chamber, it’s okay to raise their voice. When a woman raises her voice, suddenly, you get catcalled,” she said.
“The response from the other side of politics at that time was just to deny it, that it never happened, even though there was video footage and you could clearly hear it.
“What does that say when people can’t even admit and accept their own behaviour caught out on camera?
“How do we expect the general population to respond when that’s the standard at a political level?”
In a 2019 letter to Ms Cook seen by The Feed, The CEO of Brisbane City Council said it was not up to the “CEO nor Council to regulate the behaviour of Councillors”. They said councillors are accountable for their own behaviour and the chair had apologised for the “alleged behaviour”.
As the only female Labor councillor in Queensland, she said the support of her male colleagues helped lift her up. At Brisbane City Council, nine of the Liberal-National party’s 20 councillors are female, one is an Independent.
“I’ve always appreciated that level of support because it can be a bit of a lonely race at times.”
Councillor Kara Cook said online abuse is one part of her political career which she is hoping to leave behind. Source: Supplied
Ms Cook is now in the final weeks of her job, announcing on New Year’s Day that she’d be finishing up in March. The harassment is not a side she’s sad to see go.
“It’s a bit of a full circle moment. I’ve certainly learned a lot on the journey. But it’s incredibly disappointing to think that as a society, we haven’t moved all that far over the last five and a half years.”
Sexual harassment of all women at all levels of politics
After former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins came forward with an allegation of rape in Parliament House, the Australian Human Rights Commission undertook a review into parliamentary culture.
The trial of Bruce Lehrmann over the alleged rape of Ms Higgins was aborted last year after juror misconduct. The ACT Director of Public Prosecutions then confirmed a second trial would not be pursued due to concern for Ms Higgins’s health and charges against Mr Lehrmann were dropped.
Mr Lehrmann has consistently maintained his innocence, saying no sexual interactions between the pair occurred.
The landmark report from sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins revealed in November 2021 that harassment ran rife in Australia’s highest governmental offices.
One in three people working for parliamentary offices in the country has been sexually harassed, the report found.
For women in parliament, they experienced sexual harassment at a higher rate (40 per cent) compared with men (26 per cent). And for female parliamentarians it was even worse, with 63 per cent reporting sexual harassment, compared 24 per cent of their male counterparts.
About one in ten reported their experience of being sexually harassed, with two in five believing nothing would come of speaking out.
“It’s a horrible truth that women in politics at all levels cop sexist attacks for simply doing our jobs, having an opinion and daring to speak,” Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young told The Feed in a statement.
“Too often women are subjected to sexualised barbs and taunts in the absence of actual political or policy debate. Play the issue, not the woman.”
Last year, former Senator David Leyonhjelm lost a bid to overturn a court decision ordering him to pay $120,000 in damages for defaming Senator Hanson-Young for his sexist comments.
The Greens senator sued Mr Leyonhjelm after a feud in the Senate in 2018 that started during a debate about women’s safety. In parliament, he told Senator Hanson-Young to “stop shagging men”.
She later filed defamation proceedings against Mr Leyonhjelm after he refused to apologise for the comments in a series of interviews discussing the comments.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young won a defamation case against former senator David Leyonhjelm after he made “sexist” comments in 2018. Source: AAP
Senator Hanson-Young said calling out the sexist slurs and sexualised bullying is crucial to making it stop. And it is a responsibility she says is shared by men and other women, too.
“Good on her. We need more women and decent men standing up and calling BS on this nasty sexist harassment,” Senator Hanson-Young told The Feed, reacting to Councillor Cook’s shutdown.
Now stepping away from politics, Ms Cook said she’s excited to return to the not-for-profit sector.
“I always wondered when I was at the Women’s Legal Service whether or not there was more power on the inside of politics or on the outside,” she began.
“I think there’s a lot of power on the outside, even in some of the women’s movements that we’ve seen over the last couple of years, and particularly what’s going on in Canberra with Brittany Higgins, I just think there is a lot of power in a collective voice.”
If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636. For help in a crisis call 000.
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