Julie Bishop, the most senior woman in the Abbott government, has refused to describe herself as a feminist, saying she is a politician first and foremost.

When explicitly asked: “Do you describe yourself as a feminist?” by a journalist, the foreign minister replied: “[Feminist] is not a term that I find particularly useful these days. I recognise the role it has played. I certainly recognise the women’s movement and the barriers they faced and the challenges they had to overcome.”

“It’s not something that I describe myself as. I’m not saying I’m not a feminist, I don’t reject the term, I’m just saying it’s not a way I describe myself. First and foremost I’m a parliamentarian, a minister. I don’t find the need to self-describe in that way,” Bishop said in her Women in Media address at the National Press Club.

She rejected claims women on the conservative side of politics shunned the term “feminist” because it was associated with progressive ideology.

“I self-describe in many ways. I just don’t use the term … It’s not part of my lexicon. It just isn’t. And I don’t think anybody should take offence of that or read anything more than that into it. I’m a female politician. I’m a female foreign minister. Get over it!” Bishop said, to laughter from the majority female audience.

Tony Abbott has been criticised for the lack of female representation in his government. Bishop is the only woman in cabinet. Four others – Sussan Ley, Fiona Nash, Marise Payne and Michaelia Cash – are in junior roles while Bronwyn Bishop holds the coveted position of Speaker of the House.

Julie Bishop denied Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, was the target of sexism and misogyny.

“I recognise that there was an extraordinary outpouring of goodwill towards Julia Gillard as our first female prime minister. But then, as should be the case, she was judged on her competence. And that’s where she was found wanting. She then turned herself into a victim and portrayed herself as a victim. That was her choice. But as far as I’m concerned she was being judged on her competence, her honesty, her performance as prime minister.”

Bishop, who is the first female deputy leader of the Liberal party and the first woman to serve as foreign minister, refused to blame gender for roadblocks in her career.

“I’m not saying there is no glass ceiling. But you’re not going to get me saying that my career has been stymied because of a glass ceiling. That would be inappropriate for somebody in my position to suggest.”

“I’m not going to blame the fact that I’m a woman for it not working. I might look at whether I was competent enough or I worked hard enough or did the breaks go my way but I’m not going to see life through the prism of gender,” she said.

The prime minister adopted the term feminist in an event for international women’s day earlier this year, crediting his daughters with turning him into a “reconstructed bloke”.

He adopted the women’s affairs portfolio after winning office, a move critics said was intended to raise his profile among female voters.