Macquarie's defining moment feeds into misogyny frenzy

Either way, misogyny's grab for more definitional territory this week caused a grand old fuss (''display of unnecessary or excessive interest''). After it was revealed on Wednesday that misogyny now had two meanings (''hatred of women'' + ''entrenched prejudices against women''), accusations of linguistic skulduggery abounded.

As Nationals MP and Coalition frontbencher Barnaby Joyce put it: ''How wonderfully convenient, Macquarie Dictionary changes definition [of] 'misogyny' to suit PM Gillard's misuse of term.'' The slightly less sexy truth was that, although Macquarie certainly broadened its definition after Gillard's parliamentary speech and the ensuring ''misogyny debate'', it didn't do so to endorse her use of it.

The speech was simply a catalyst to go back and look at the record and realise that actually, the term had been evolving since the 1980s.

According to the Macquarie's slightly bemused editor, Susan Butler, the definition only made the media because a journo happened to call (asking about the term) on the very day the dictionary made its decision.

''In a sense it was a sheer accident,'' Butler said.

But if the dictionary unwittingly leapt into the political spotlight this week, the same could not be said about Kevin Rudd. Nothing Rudd does can ever be seen as an accident, sheer or otherwise.

This week, the Rudd family cat Jasper was back at the cat clinic with kidney problems. We know this because Rudd has been tweeting all about it: ''The deal is to rehydrate and try and stabilise.''

Rudd also made a hustings-esque appearance with his mate Daryl Melham in Melham's marginal seat and issued a United Nations Security Council victory statement, congratulating the diplomatic corps, the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister for implementing his idea. In other words: ''I'm still here, still.''

To put the cherry on top, the Member for Griffith went on Lateline and ABC radio in Brisbane, piously calling for an end to personal attacks in politics, rousing on Labor for the slow pace of party reforms and remembering June 2010: ''One day I was there and the next day I wasn't.''

With the PM out of the country it was only natural that someone in the Labor Party stepped up to fill the void. Who's to say that someone had to be the acting prime minister? Couldn't it also be the person acting like they were the prime minister?

As the cat drama unfolded from Brisbane and the misogyny opera played in Canberra, Bronwyn Bishop made a mushroom lasagne in Sydney.

Cooking lunch for Annabel Crabb on the wonderful ABC TV program Kitchen Cabinet, Bishop spoke about her decades-long political career and the sheer tenacity it has taken. ''There wasn't room for girls then,'' she said. ''It was very much blokes first.''

When we think of female pioneers in federal Parliament we often think of those on the leftish side of politics: the Gillards, the Haines, the Stott Despojas. But while operating under a different definition of female politician, Bishop broke moulds of her own.

The Member for Mackellar explained her firm belief that affirmative action makes one a ''permanent second-class citizen'' because it means you can't make it on your own. She told Crabb that contrary to what many young women think, the most important thing in life is not to be liked: ''You want respect. And aim to do your best.''

For a time there in the early 1990s, there was a ''Perfumed Steamroller for PM'' buzz that ultimately came to nought.

This week, Bishop recalled the moment when she moved her support from Alexander Downer to John Howard in the 1995 Liberal leadership vote, effectively scuttling her own chances once and for all. As she told it, this was the best thing for the party: ''It didn't matter how I felt about it.''

And clearly she did feel something.

When asked if she ever reconsiders 1995, Bishop laughed. ''Yes, of course''. If things had gone differently, does she think she might have got there? ''Could well have,'' came the more subdued reply.

Bishop, now spokeswoman on seniors, , went on to various roles, decidedly less glamorous than she may have imagined (although she did get to fly in an F-111). The rest, as they say, was almost history.

But the ladies lunch - apart from providing a lesson in mushroom cuisine - was a reminder that there's more to the MP than stern, pedantic points of order in question time. It is also a reminder that there is more than one MP in Canberra suffering from thwarted leadership ambitions. That and the definition of ''thwarted leader'' does not have to be ''someone who is constantly agitating for another crack''.

Judith Ireland is a Canberra Times journalist.