"People weren’t used to the prospect of a woman becoming prime minister so there were attacks about my appearance, my voice and even my clothing. But I found that there was little point dwelling on such criticism. I just had to look straight ahead and get on with the task at hand and, by and large, that strategy worked for me. I think women politicians today are more confident in being able to call out such behaviour than I was at a time when it was very rare to have many women in parliament."