Not only had the army revealed it was investigating an email ring described as ''worse than the Skype matter'' but the political scene was beside itself over a menu that served up quail and gaspingly inappropriate descriptions of the Prime Minister's anatomy. To top it all off, in an interview on Fairfax Radio, presenter Howard Sattler asked the Prime Minister if her partner was gay.

Gillard dismissed the suggestion as ''absurd'', but Sattler pressed: ''Yeah, but you hear it, he must be gay, he's a hairdresser'' - thus managing to offend Tim Mathieson, Gillard, homosexuals and hairdressers all in one go.

The condemnation was fast and furious. Sattler was immediately suspended and later sacked, 6PR apologised to the first couple and Australia wondered what on earth things were coming to. It's a very good question. Notwithstanding the sexism and ridiculousness of Sattler's interview, there was the lack of basic respect it afforded to the office of prime minister.

Sattler - who is described on 6PR's website as ''opinionated, obstinate and ferocious'' - has been at pains to explain that Gillard's staff agreed to a ''candid'' interview. ''I asked those questions based on the fact that the Prime Minister's office had said to me that it could be a candid interview, we asked for a candid interview, and included personal activities of the Prime Minister and her personal life,'' he said.

But why couldn't ''candid'' simply translate into frankness about Labor's electoral chances, Kevin Rudd, or even, gods forbid, Gonski? And if the interview absolutely had to be about Gillard's personal life, why not stick to knitting and the cavoodle?

It has been somewhat lost in the general outrage over the ''is Tim gay?'' questions that Sattler also asked the Prime Minister why she is not married - as if he was some pushy dinner party guest out of Bridget Jones's Diary. To Gillard's credit, she calmly replied: ''Personal choice. And I think the fact that I'm not married shows obviously, I think, that you can have a relationship that's committed and full of love and full of significance in your life without being married.''

Unsatisfied with this, the opinionated, obstinate and ferocious Sattler pushed on: ''OK, but have you been proposed to at all? Come on, Tim, pull the ring out, son.''

As downright patronising and irrelevant as this is, what makes Sattler's interview truly concerning is that while it is an extreme example, it is not an isolated one. Criticism of Gillard's prime ministership has often taken a deeply personal tone that doesn't correspond with the fact that she is the leader of the country.

Take your pick from the ''Ditch the witch'' signs, Alan Jones' greatest hits (including ''Chaff Bag'' and ''Died of Shame''), Germaine Greer opining that Gillard had a ''big arse'' or the menu that ridiculed her as a cooked quail with a ''big red box''.

Brisbane restaurateur Joe Richards may have claimed responsibility for the ''in-house joke'' but that doesn't explain why he felt the need to make obscene anatomical references to the PM. Let alone the fact that he thought it could be funny.

Australia has always prided itself on the fact that it doesn't take itself or its political leaders too seriously. We have a long and healthy history of satirising MPs of all stripes. And almost without exception, all our prime ministers have weathered episodes or epochs of deep unpopularity (remember the Howard Haters?).

But something is out of whack when it comes to Gillard's time in The Lodge. This is not to argue that she is a saint. Or a great prime minister. But there is a real impertinence towards her position. Perhaps, as Anne Summers suggests in her new book The Misogyny Factor, this is because we are still uncomfortable with the idea of women in positions of political and financial power. Therefore, we can't respect the office of prime minister because it is not occupied by a ''genuine'' PM.

Gillard observed this week that there was ''always going to be something about being the first woman … to be prime minister, which was going to challenge people's images of leadership and take a while for the nation to settle in and think it through''.

''I think some things have happened to me, in terms of commentary about appearance and about gender, that won't happen in the same way for the next woman who does this job and happen less for the woman after that.''

We can only hope others are willing to follow her and find out.

Judith Ireland is a Fairfax Media journalist.