CHEERS TO…Difficult Grace Tame.
Difficult Grace Tame.
“Difficult.”
Such a tidy word. Such a polite little muzzle.
Last week, Australia’s Prime Minister used it to describe Grace Tame - survivor, advocate, former Australian of the Year. Institutional pest. Patriarchal irritant.
It’s the word power reaches for when it means inconvenient. Disobedient. Untameable (see what I did there.)
If it means she won’t comply - is she difficult?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
She fights hard. Takes few prisoners. Doesn’t dilute herself for comfort.
An acceptance speech that triggered a national reckoning on sexual violence.
A single sideways glance at a prime minister that made headlines.
A profane T-shirt aimed at one of the world’s most powerful media moguls that became international news.
And that’s the point.
“Difficult” shifts the focus from what she’s saying to how she’s saying it. It invites us to critique tone instead of substance. It protects power while sounding almost casual.
It’s textbook.
But the women labelled difficult are very rarely wrong.
So this International Women's Day, cheers to Grace.
Because if being agreeable is the price of admission - may we all remain very, very difficult.
This piece first appeared in Excessive Consumption - a weekly dispatch on culture, branding, politics and whatever other modern internet brain rot the algorithm has emotionally assigned me that week.
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