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At the height of Australia’s employment boom in the past decade, Federal Treasurer Peter Costello (2006) urged the nation’s women to take advantage of new communications technologies to combine work in the paid market with work in the home. In a formulation that combined economic optimism with an appetite for demographic growth, middle-class women, in particular, were urged to improve the fertility rate by having “one for mum, one for dad and one for the country.” ¹ Such patriotic thinking would ensure the right kind of forward momentum for a country that appeared acutely conscious of the decline in the procreating preferences of its white Anglo-Australian majority. ² The Treasurer’s visions, which found resonance in a range of advertisements for new media devices over a similar period, turned an Internet connection into a post-feminist tool, empowering female users to exercise new opportunities for “work-life balance.” Mobile media were feted as putting an end to women’s alienation from career success in the public sphere and the culture of long hours necessary to achieve it (Melissa Gregg 2007). Four years later, these high hopes appeared to reach a pinnacle as a female politician took the role of Prime Minister for the first time. Australian Labor Party leader Julia Gillard assumed the nation’s top job through a party-room coup rather than a democratic vote, but her rise to high office provided momentary optimism for feminists looking for evidence of change. To overcome negative perceptions of the factional deal behind her leadership ascension, in mid-July 2010 Gillard called an election for 20 August in the hope of securing a public mandate for her agenda. What happened next dampened any expectations that her time as leader would be easy. A series of damaging press leaks early in the campaign indicated her tenuous position as head of the party. From the outside, a chorus of more personal attacks grew in volume. Gillard’s suitability for office was questioned primarily on the grounds of her childless and unwed state. Previously serving female politicians asked whether Gillard had the “perspective” leadership demanded without the experience of having and raising children. Meanwhile, it was female journalists who were primarily raising questions regarding Gillard’s appearance, clothing, and accent, ³ and whether she planned to marry her partner upon moving in to the official Prime Ministerial residence (Tim Leslie 2010).