I hope my girls haven't in any way acquired the unpleasant, vindictive fight-club persona that needles-Gillard says she hopes she has "done" for the image of women.  Here you have it.   Always the fight, and it's not the substance, it's what she's done for the "image" of women.

"If there is something I hope I have done for the image of women in public life (it) is that we can go into an adversarial environment like parliament and we can dominate it and make it our own, and conquer it".

Children, I hope you enjoy a life that's as free of fighting as it can be.   Try to put yourself in the other person's shoes.   You get many more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, and constant fighting does terrible things to your face.

Some yarn: Julia Gillard knits a royal roo

 

SHE is both a republican and a trail-blazing feminist, but Julia Gillard has chosen to portray "a different" side of herself to the electorate, revealing she is knitting a toy kangaroo for the royal baby, due next month.

In a candid interview to be published tomorrow, the Prime Minister reflects on what she hopes will be her legacy. She posed with her knitting needles and her dog Reuben in a shoot for The Australian Women's Weekly, admitting that the experience felt "slightly absurd".

"My life is full of the engagements that politics brings and some of them are quite combative engagements," Ms Gillard told the Weekly.

"I don't shy away from that. If there is something I hope I have done for the image of women in public life (it) is that we can go into an adversarial environment like parliament and we can dominate it and make it our own, and conquer it. I don't shy away from that. But that's not all of me."

The Prime Minister said pulling out her knitting needles offered an opportunity to show another side of her personality.

"I can't imagine Laurie Oakes saying 'hmmm, knitting patterns'," she said. "What are you working on at the moment?"

Her spin doctors agree: the request to be photographed purling and knitting came from her office.

"It was a no-brainer," communications director John McTernan said of the decision.

Her previous shoots with the Weekly have presented a far less domestic image, with tailored suits and corporate style gracing the magazine's cover. This photo shoot and interview are published on an inside page.

Although she is knitting a gift for the child of Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge, Ms Gillard is a republican. However, she has been cool on revisiting the question of whether Australia should become a republic.

Ms Gillard yesterday told the Weekly's associate editor Caroline Overington she would look back on her time as Australia's first female prime minister with "a sense of pride and achievement".

"I think I'll be really comfortable with the choices I've made," Ms Gillard said.

She hoped she would be able "to go to a local school and say, 'gee, things are different here because of things I did so many years ago', go to a local hospital and say the same".

"Dad was incredibly proud of me becoming Prime Minister, and incredibly proud, I think, that it was him that sparked the interest in values, politics, current affairs, and particularly education," Ms Gillard said.