The speed with which supposedly adult men have feverishly rushed to turn into braying schoolboys has been astonishing; they are no longer even bothering to conceal the enjoyment they take from making it known to their female colleagues just how little they respect their presence in public life, telling them instead to "settle down" (as O'Sullivan pompously did to Senator Penny Wong) and quipping with each other to be careful what they say lest they be "accused of sexism", presumably by the silly biddies who overreact to everything and can't take a joke. But this is no great surprise given the general disdain foisted upon the women here who dare to put their heads above the parapets. The fact is, Australia has long struggled with the idea of embracing women in power. Naysayers are fond of pointing to the Prime Ministership of Julia Gillard in an attempt to disprove this – after all, if the Australian people are willing to elect a woman to lead them, we can't really be the unreconstructed, sexist buffoons that those pesky feminists make us out to be. Right? Wrong. Entire books have been written about the appalling misogyny that undermined Gillard's governance, not least of which was inflicted by the current Prime Minister. As Opposition leader, Tony Abbott had no problem aligning himself with protesters holding signs saying: "Ditch the Witch"and "Bob Brown's Bitch". He was so proud of the allegiance that he allowed himself to be photographed standing in front of the signs. His time in opposition was dogged by accusations of sexism, prompted perhaps by a series of gaffes so ridiculous and constant that he can only have been speaking from the heart and not merely revealing his embarrassing lack of political nous. But the accusations only saw him double down on his desire to put women in their place. Appointing himself Minister for Women after the LNP's election to government wasn't an example of his total lack of self-awareness. Rather, it served as a deliberate and final f... you to the woman who had unapologetically called out his misogyny in Parliament, and who received great fanfare from the countless Australian women who had identified so strongly with the moment.

Of course, it's not only prime ministers who are subjected to the wrath of men angry at having to answer to a woman. You might recall the night Kate Ellis appeared on the ABC's Q & A program alongside former Labor Minister Lindsay Tanner, Liberal MP Christopher Pyne and Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman. Ellis – who was at that stage the Federal Minister for Education – was interrupted a staggering 36 times by her co-panellists. As she tried to answer a question about misogyny in Australian life, Tanner and Pyne gleefully and repeatedly interrupted her to have a sotto voce conversation about the pleasures of Downton Abbey. But this isn't a problem reserved solely for women on the Left. The Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, Peta Credlin, has recently been cast as the scapegoat for all of Abbott's failings. She's been accused of having too much influence and power. She is being reimagined as the quintessential Lady Macbeth, ambitious and terrifying with a singular determination to succeed that will cause the entire government to come crashing down around her. Like Triggs, her resignation has also been called for albeit for different reasons. While Triggs has apparently lost the faith of the government (the same government that admonished the ABC for "not being on Team Australia" as its journalists just attempted to do their jobs), Credlin has evidently lost the faith of a Murdoch press finding it suddenly difficult to champion the behaviour of the Prime Minister, but reluctant to admit their own complicity in having him elected. Why must the sins of the man rain down upon her? This sort of sexist buffoonery isn't just limited to conservative governments or even individuals. As Tanner and Pyne demonstrated to Ellis, the bonds of patriarchy often bind tighter than those of political allegiance or loyalty. Some men simply do not want women working alongside them; it makes them feel their naturally ordained spaces are being suddenly invaded by people whose existence they don't really understand, other than within the realm of being mothers and wives. And so they make jibes and jeer, the bravado and entitlement growing alongside the gang of merry men willing to join them in it. The speed with which supposedly adult men have feverishly rushed to turn into braying schoolboys has been astonishing. The recent treatment of Triggs has been disgraceful. But it is par for the course in a society that not only turns a blind eye to sexism but fiercely holds on to its right to reserve positions of power for men. Men who will be given political portfolios, cabinet positions, Senate seats and unfettered access to decision making – but who will almost never be made to fall on their swords when there is a woman around to do it for them.

And when her carcass has been dragged from public life, those men, suddenly reassured that order has been restored and their positions no longer challenged by this brave new world in which women appear to threaten their power, will look around, breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Isn't it nice to hear a man's voice?" Clementine Ford is a Fairfax Media columnist.