As always, issue-specific interest groups are pointing to the election results as evidence for popular endorsement of their favoured policies. Noting the wave of female “teal independents” now elected to office, Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media at the University of Notre Dame, has been quick to say that this means “the things that really matter to women and their communities matter at the ballot box, too”. This might be perfectly true, so far as it goes. The more elusive question is what are “the things that matter to women”?

During the second leaders debate on Sunday night, 2GB presenter Deborah Knight, asked Prime Minister Scott Morrison and opposition leader Anthony Albanese to define a ‘woman’.