(IsraelNN.com) Kadima leader Tzipi Livni said over the weekend that men work inefficiently to tally up extra hours at work. "Women don't work inefficiently and tally up extra hours, while men are inefficient, they have time, and a lot of extra hours. They make more money, and I fought to change that,” she said in a speech at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo.

The attack on men's work habits was an attempt by Livni to explain the difference between the average salaries of men and women in public service, a gap which studies have shown is largely caused by the fact that the average male worker clocks up more extra hours than the average female worker.

In a Ha'aretz interview, Livni said that women are less “ego-stricken” than men and that “our dialog is deeper and less extroverted.”

"I have come to the conclusion that we are more efficient and to-the-point. Maybe because we are mothers. We don't let ourselves waste time at work because we have guilt over leaving the children at home,” she explained.

She agreed with the interviewer that the Gaza war has made the public mood and discourse more military and “male”, thus hurting her chances of winning the election. “I am paying a political price that I knew I would pay,” she said. “There is a problem of chauvinism... I am happy that at the end of the operation the nation of Israel is happy and the Israel Defense Force is proud and the self confidence is back. But I know that because of the social stigmas I pay a price for all of that.”

'I don't make coffee'
Livni attacked what she called “the crooked logic that says that security belongs to men.” She added: “Decision-making involves the ability to look ahead, to be able to ask the Chief of Staff what to do, to receive plans and understand the regional situation, and to recruit the world [to our side]. No man has an advantage over me in any of these things.”

Livni complained that part of the public is unable to accept the fact that she is part of the trio that makes security-diplomatic decisions, along with the Prime Minister and Defense Minister. “I make decisions, I don't make coffee,” she said.

Livni came under fire last week in a Likud propaganda video repeatedly aired on television which cited the fact that she voted against certain items of legislation which are seen as pro-women, such as an enlargement of child support benefits for divorced women.

Kadima's propaganda spots, meanwhile, argued that if Livni had been a man, with the same credentials and experience she has, no one would have doubted her ability to lead.

'The women's party'
She admitted in her speech that she did not enter politics because of women's issues but claimed that she became increasingly aware of these over time, after seeing that “half of the population is only represented in three percent of company directorates.”

“I appointed women to top jobs whenever I could: a director in my ministry, [and] a United Nations ambassador, who is a very talented woman,” she said.

The party Livni heads was dubbed “the women's party” by Yediot Acharonot newspaper after it chose four women to the top ten spots in its list. The party has been warmly endorsed by some feminist columnists – like Esther Herzog in Ynet and Yael Paz-Melamed in Ma'ariv – while others claimed Livni's credentials as a feminist were insufficient.

Columnist Yuval Elbashan in Ma'ariv/NRG said that it was wrong to “let the genie of gender out of the bottle,” in a twist on a phrase usually used to refer to tensions between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews.