The woman who wouldn’t smile is called Grace Tame. The 27-year-old is something of a figurehead in the fight against underage sexual abuse in Australia. As a teenager, she herself became a victim of sexualized violence and in 2018 she helped start an internet movement of those affected, comparable to the global #MeToo, #LetHerSpeak. Tame gives interviews and organizes protests. In 2021 she was named Australian of the Year for this.
The beginning and end of each term of office is the national holiday and thus a pompous, patriotic ceremony: speeches, champagne, tea ceremony with Prime Minister Scott Morrison from the Liberal Party. And, of course, a photo op with him and his wife. The Morrisons are standing in front of their mansion in Canberra with big grins, next to them is Grace Tame, face immobile, click. The message is clear: this woman would like to be somewhere else. And the Australian press swoops down on them.
Most daily newspapers belong to the conservative Murdoch empire
“Ungrateful, rude and childish. The pictures (…) are embarrassing for them,” commented journalist Peter van Onselen in TheAustralian, the country’s largest daily newspaper. Moderators argue in television debates, in the major newspapers journalists and politicians from Morrison’s Liberal Party sharply criticize the activist: She shouldn’t have accepted the title, some are demanding that she give it back.
The story of the absent smile tells a lot about gender stereotypes, about women having to smile kindly. But she also tells a lot about the press landscape in Australia. Hardly any other country in the world has such a concentration of media. The News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s international media empire, owns around two-thirds of the city’s daily newspapers. In the US, Murdoch runs the Trump-affiliated Fox News channel, among other things, and the controversial tabloid in the UK The Sun. For Australia, this means: clear reluctance to criticize Morrison’s conservative government.
“Why would she smile?”
After the first wave of criticism, Tame also received encouragement in the few other newspapers, but above all on social media: many women, activists and progressive politicians defended her. Writer and activist Sally Rugg writes that women don’t have to smile for cameras next to men they can’t stand: “She’s an activist who’s watched Morrison neglect, belittle and ignore those affected all year. Why should They smile?”
Rugg is referring to one of the biggest scandals in Australian politics in the past year: Former government official Brittany Higgins accused a colleague of raping her in Parliament buildings. He denies that, the trial is scheduled for June. The Morrison government was subsequently accused by many activists of wanting to sweep the case under the rug. One of the loudest voices among them: Grace Tame.