This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Today is the federal holiday that honors civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was born January 15, 1929, and was assassinated April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis at just 39 years old. We play an excerpt from King’s last speech, “I Have Been to the Mountaintop,” in which he spoke of the ongoing struggle for equal rights that he said would continue even without him. “I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land,” King said. He was killed one day later.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Dear beloved BroadAgenda readers,
Since I was headhunted for the role of BroadAgenda editor back in 2021, we’ve achieved so much! This blog has gone from having a handful of dedicated readers to hitting 249k impressions a month. Wow!
We couldn’t have done it without YOU—our incredible readers and contributors. For me personally, it’s been such a privilege to edit and publish such a diverse range of feminist voices and research over the last 3.5 years. Thank you for trusting me with your thoughts and your writing. Thanks for taking the time to read and believe in what we’ve published; we’ve really contributed to the sharing of vigorous ideas and discourse around gender-related topics.
I’m definitely raising a glass to a more equitable future! (And I hope you do too.)
All the best for the new year—especially to my colleagues at UC and around the country who have been made redundant and/or whose contracts have not been renewed. This will be a tough holiday season for many.
On that note, I’m also one of the many folks in Australian universities who have accepted a redundancy in response to financial pressures at the tertiary institutions we’re working for. So I will be leaving this role as of today (Friday, December 20, 2024). This selfie is of me feeling quite blue yesterday as I handed in my UC office keys, and other effects!
I met so many wonderful colleagues (you know who you are!) at UC, and it’s with great sadness that I will no longer be having lunches or corridor chats with them. A special shout out to BA’s founding editor, Dr Pia Rowe, who was my life raft when I first started at UC, and continues to be a dear friend.
With the warmest of wishes for the holiday season and solidarity in the feminist fight,
Ginger Gorman
PS: BroadAgenda is currently not taking submissions, and at this stage, I don’t have further information about its future while this enormous change process is underway.
PPS: If you’re wanting to get in touch with me personally, please do that via my website.
The post A sad goodbye from me! appeared first on BroadAgenda.
This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.
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In this exclusive Q&A, BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman, speaks with Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication at La Trobe University. She’s the lead researcher behind the 2024 Women for Media Report: ‘An Unfinished Story,’ the largest study to date on gender bias in Australian newsrooms. Using innovative machine-learning techniques, Carson and her team analysed over 200,000 articles to reveal critical insights into the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women in both the creation and sourcing of news.”
Your report emphasises the importance of supporting public interest journalism, particularly during tough economic times. What specific policy incentives do you believe governments should implement to help sustain gender-equitable workplaces in newsrooms?
The federal government has policy programs to support public interest journalism in rural and regional Australia and these could also include incentives that promote gender equitable workplaces.
The News Media Bargaining Code is also designed to support public interest journalism but at present Meta have withdrawn from participating in the Code, leaving a policy gap for government to address to ensure that Australian public interest journalism is adequately supported. If a replacement scheme is devised, it should also take into consideration policies that promote gender equality in news coverage.
Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, La Trobe University says: “On a positive note, many newsroom leaders are now women.” Picture: Supplied
Despite nearly equal numbers of male and female journalists, gender bias persists in coverage. What do you see as the most significant barriers that need to be addressed to achieve true gender parity in journalism?
Unconscious (or even conscious) gender bias in news needs to be addressed. Editors need to consciously think about who gets assigned to what story and why. This extends to front page coverage and the authors who are commissioned to write opinion pieces. At present we see horizontal segregation of topics, or pink ghettos – as they were once called – meaning that men more commonly report on “hard news” and women on “soft news”.
Politics is the hard news exception – with almost equal numbers of men and women journalists reporting in this domain now thanks to outlets like the Guardian that have really lifted the profile of women political reporters over time. Hard news stories include business and the economy, science, foreign affairs and sport. Soft news is health, arts, celebrity and gossip.
Given that women predominantly cover “soft news,” what strategies can newsrooms employ to encourage female journalists to take on roles in reporting areas like sports and politics?
Teaching journalism at La Trobe shows me that there are many women who want to report on sport. I don’t think the problem is supply, but more newsroom demand. Editors need to ensure there are equal opportunities for men and women to report on different topics but also to ensure they have visibility on these topics – meaning that women have the same opportunity as men to report on big events in sport, politics and so forth and not just stories on the periphery that make it to a few paragraphs on the inside pages or few words in the broadcast bulletin.
On a positive note, many newsroom leaders are now women. This may lead to a rethink of how we define news and broadening of the news agenda and its framing to topics that in the past have been ignored outside the health and well-being pages such as menopause and childcare.
Men in the media remain the default quoted experts. Image: Women for Media Report
How can news organisations better ensure the representation of women from diverse backgrounds in both reporting and as expert sources, and why is this important for gender equity in journalism?
Diversity in reporters and sources is a positive for journalism but also for democracy and for the media outlet’s economic survival. If we want news about our society to be accurate and holistic, we need to properly represent all groups in society.
Newspapers have names such as The Mirror, because they were thought to mirror society. This is not the case if only a small section of society such as middle-class white men are over-represented.
Moreover, women are turning off news and are among the largest news avoiders according to the annual Digital News Report. One reason for this is because they do not see stories of interest to them or that reflects their experiences. Given news outlets are losing audiences to other forms of storytelling such as TikTok and social media, it is in their economic interests to engage a wider audience that includes 50 per cent of the population: women.
With the rise of online abuse targeting women journalists, what collaborative efforts do you recommend between media organisations and digital rights groups to establish and enforce effective digital safety standards? What can bystanders do?
Media organisations need to work closely with authorities such as the E-Safety Commissioner to develop best practice guidelines. This might include mechanisms such as turning off comments on sensitive stories so that journalists, particularly women and minorities, do not bear the brunt of incivility and gender abuse in reaction to such stories.
How do you think the current economic challenges facing media organisations affect gender representation in newsrooms, and what can be done to mitigate these impacts?
Not directly. I think most newsrooms already have similar numbers of men and women, so new hires to even up numbers is less of a problem. The issue is enabling women and men journalists in those newsrooms equal opportunities to report on stories across the topic mix to end horizontal segregation.
What practical steps should newsroom leaders take to create a culture of accountability around gender equity and support female journalists in high-visibility roles?
The first step of accountability is measurement. Newsrooms can easily keep track of who dominates the front pages and opinion pages and the reasons for this. Regular reporting to the editorial floor will generate awareness of existing inequalities. Leaders can also encourage their journalists to rethink their dependencies on established sources that are easy to access but sometimes overpromoted.
Instead, they could be encouraged to look for women experts on the topics that they are reporting on to ensure women are also heard in the media and not just the same (male) sources.
There are lists to help with this such as the Women for Media database. Other resources are universities that have comprehensive lists of their experts and can supply names of women experts.
Is there anything else you want to say?
Studying news is particularly difficult and expensive in the digital age in a fragmented media environment with predominantly proprietary data. Governments can play an important role in directing social media companies and newsrooms to share non-sensitive story data with researchers to ensure up-to-date research on these important topics and to measure improvements over time.
- Please note: picture at top is a stock image
The post Addressing gender bias: Why newsroom equality matters appeared first on BroadAgenda.
This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.
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In this exclusive Q&A, BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman, speaks with Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication at La Trobe University. She’s the lead researcher behind the 2024 Women for Media Report: ‘An Unfinished Story,’ the largest study to date on gender bias in Australian newsrooms. Using innovative machine-learning techniques, Carson and her team analysed over 200,000 articles to reveal critical insights into the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women in both the creation and sourcing of news.”
Your report emphasises the importance of supporting public interest journalism, particularly during tough economic times. What specific policy incentives do you believe governments should implement to help sustain gender-equitable workplaces in newsrooms?
The federal government has policy programs to support public interest journalism in rural and regional Australia and these could also include incentives that promote gender equitable workplaces.
The News Media Bargaining Code is also designed to support public interest journalism but at present Meta have withdrawn from participating in the Code, leaving a policy gap for government to address to ensure that Australian public interest journalism is adequately supported. If a replacement scheme is devised, it should also take into consideration policies that promote gender equality in news coverage.
Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, La Trobe University says: “On a positive note, many newsroom leaders are now women.” Picture: Supplied
Despite nearly equal numbers of male and female journalists, gender bias persists in coverage. What do you see as the most significant barriers that need to be addressed to achieve true gender parity in journalism?
Unconscious (or even conscious) gender bias in news needs to be addressed. Editors need to consciously think about who gets assigned to what story and why. This extends to front page coverage and the authors who are commissioned to write opinion pieces. At present we see horizontal segregation of topics, or pink ghettos – as they were once called – meaning that men more commonly report on “hard news” and women on “soft news”.
Politics is the hard news exception – with almost equal numbers of men and women journalists reporting in this domain now thanks to outlets like the Guardian that have really lifted the profile of women political reporters over time. Hard news stories include business and the economy, science, foreign affairs and sport. Soft news is health, arts, celebrity and gossip.
Given that women predominantly cover “soft news,” what strategies can newsrooms employ to encourage female journalists to take on roles in reporting areas like sports and politics?
Teaching journalism at La Trobe shows me that there are many women who want to report on sport. I don’t think the problem is supply, but more newsroom demand. Editors need to ensure there are equal opportunities for men and women to report on different topics but also to ensure they have visibility on these topics – meaning that women have the same opportunity as men to report on big events in sport, politics and so forth and not just stories on the periphery that make it to a few paragraphs on the inside pages or few words in the broadcast bulletin.
On a positive note, many newsroom leaders are now women. This may lead to a rethink of how we define news and broadening of the news agenda and its framing to topics that in the past have been ignored outside the health and well-being pages such as menopause and childcare.
Men in the media remain the default quoted experts. Image: Women for Media Report
How can news organisations better ensure the representation of women from diverse backgrounds in both reporting and as expert sources, and why is this important for gender equity in journalism?
Diversity in reporters and sources is a positive for journalism but also for democracy and for the media outlet’s economic survival. If we want news about our society to be accurate and holistic, we need to properly represent all groups in society.
Newspapers have names such as The Mirror, because they were thought to mirror society. This is not the case if only a small section of society such as middle-class white men are over-represented.
Moreover, women are turning off news and are among the largest news avoiders according to the annual Digital News Report. One reason for this is because they do not see stories of interest to them or that reflects their experiences. Given news outlets are losing audiences to other forms of storytelling such as TikTok and social media, it is in their economic interests to engage a wider audience that includes 50 per cent of the population: women.
With the rise of online abuse targeting women journalists, what collaborative efforts do you recommend between media organisations and digital rights groups to establish and enforce effective digital safety standards? What can bystanders do?
Media organisations need to work closely with authorities such as the E-Safety Commissioner to develop best practice guidelines. This might include mechanisms such as turning off comments on sensitive stories so that journalists, particularly women and minorities, do not bear the brunt of incivility and gender abuse in reaction to such stories.
How do you think the current economic challenges facing media organisations affect gender representation in newsrooms, and what can be done to mitigate these impacts?
Not directly. I think most newsrooms already have similar numbers of men and women, so new hires to even up numbers is less of a problem. The issue is enabling women and men journalists in those newsrooms equal opportunities to report on stories across the topic mix to end horizontal segregation.
What practical steps should newsroom leaders take to create a culture of accountability around gender equity and support female journalists in high-visibility roles?
The first step of accountability is measurement. Newsrooms can easily keep track of who dominates the front pages and opinion pages and the reasons for this. Regular reporting to the editorial floor will generate awareness of existing inequalities. Leaders can also encourage their journalists to rethink their dependencies on established sources that are easy to access but sometimes overpromoted.
Instead, they could be encouraged to look for women experts on the topics that they are reporting on to ensure women are also heard in the media and not just the same (male) sources.
There are lists to help with this such as the Women for Media database. Other resources are universities that have comprehensive lists of their experts and can supply names of women experts.
Is there anything else you want to say?
Studying news is particularly difficult and expensive in the digital age in a fragmented media environment with predominantly proprietary data. Governments can play an important role in directing social media companies and newsrooms to share non-sensitive story data with researchers to ensure up-to-date research on these important topics and to measure improvements over time.
- Please note: picture at top is a stock image
The post Addressing gender bias: Why newsroom equality matters appeared first on BroadAgenda.
This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.
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Two women from Melbourne – Lucy Bradlow and Bronwen Bock – want to job-share in Federal parliament.
The University of Canberra’s Professor Kim Rubenstein is a constitutional law and citizenship expert. For years, Kim has argued federal parliament should allow for this. I asked her a few questions about this exciting development.
Why is this a news story? And why does it matter?
This is news because it is a new initiative in Australia – no two people have ever announced they are planning to nominate to run for Parliament as a job-sharing candidate in Australia before!
According to my research, this matters for two main reasons. These are:
- Representative democracy
- The way power is and should be exercised in parliament.
Job sharing broadens the pool of people who would consider running for Parliament, who may not have before because their lives do not enable them to work full time, or because they have other commitments that mean they don’t want to be a full time politician, but could do an excellent job in joining with another person in doing that role and bringing their own lived experiences into Parliament and being a representative.
This includes people with a disability, whose disability precludes them working full time and people with caring commitments that preclude them working full time.
The statistics are clear that the greatest percentage of people who work part time because of caring commitments are women, so this would open up the possibility of more women putting their hands up to represent their communities.
Also, more men who we want to encourage in a gender equal world to be sharing those caring commitments, and we want those men to also be able to bring that experience into Parliament).
It also includes people who want to live healthier balanced lives, and in that balance want to be contributors to representative democracy.
Indeed, the possibility of nominating to job-share the role of a representative in Parliament would enhance Australia’s constitutionally guaranteed system of representative democracy. Ultimately, the electorate still has to choose or vote for that job-sharing candidate – so like all other candidates this job-sharing candidate must be voted in.
Second, I think job-sharing would assist Parliament and society more broadly re-think how power should be exercised in society. We know that Parliament has not been a healthy institution and while there are excellent steps being taken to improve that culture, another important step would be modelling better forms of leadership and responsibility for exercising power on behalf of a community – whether it be an electorate in the House of Representatives or an entire State or Territory in the Senate.
Lucy Bradlow (left), Professor Kim Rubenstein (centre) and Bronwen Bock (right). Picture: Supplied
You’ve been a supporter of this concept for a long time (long before this story broke!). Can you elaborate on your view that job-sharing candidates are “entirely consistent” with the Australian Constitution? What specific provisions support this perspective?
Yes! I encourage your readers to spend a few minutes after reading this article, to look at my online published piece and the earlier BA piece!
The High Court of Australia has looked at the meaning of Representative Democracy in The Australian Constitution – and sections 7 and 24 have been relied on by the Court to say that the Constitution protects representative democracy, through the words of those sections that confirm that the people must ‘directly choose’ their representatives.
Job-sharing the role of a representative in the House of Representatives or Senator in the Senate fits entirely within and affirms those sections. Indeed, to prevent ‘the people’ from voting for a candidate running as a job-sharing candidate, would be inconsistent with those sections.
Moreover, the Constitution does not prescribe that people vote for a person – they vote for a representative, the office of Senator. You have to be a person to nominate – and each of the parts of the job-sharing candidate would need to fulfil the requirements in the Constitution – including not falling foul of section 44 (they can’t be dual citizens), like any other person deciding whether to nominate to be a representative in Parliament.
What specific changes to the electoral act would you advocate for to facilitate the nomination of joint candidates?
In principle, in my view and from my research, a job-sharing candidate could and can apply now as the Act stands. But practically, the nomination form to run for Parliament doesn’t provide a lot of space for the candidate to fill in their details – indeed, any person with a very long name, or multiple surnames would have difficulty filling in that nomination form.
That practical challenge doesn’t mean they can’t nominate – but it would be more straight forward and indeed a statement of affirmation of the value add of allowing people to consider nominating to run, to provide more space on the nomination form, which is part of the Electoral Act.
Are there any legal precedents or international examples that might inform the feasibility of job-sharing in political roles?
Yes! The idea itself is not new in the world – there has been a lot of attention to job-sharing in Parliament in the UK – in England in Wales, Northern Ireland and in Scotland – but this is a first in Australia.
For a few examples, you can check out what’s being done overseas here and here and here.
How do you think the introduction of job-sharing candidates could impact public trust and engagement in politics, especially in the context of voter disillusionment with major parties?
I think this would be significant in that regard. We have seen such a rise in distrust of politicians, and of those exercising power. There is a growing sense that the main motivation of those in power is to stay in power – and that it is all about those individuals and the parties maintaining their hold – having power over, rather than enabling power.
This initiative conceptually is reminding people more broadly that it is good to share power – and that much good comes from sharing power.
How would you address concerns that allowing job-sharing MPs could lead to “double representation” or confusion within the electorate?
I think this is all about communication – and indeed the current job-sharing candidate is paying attention to those issues in their Frequently Asked Questions about job sharing.
How important is it for job-sharing candidates to have a pre-written conflict resolution strategy? Can you elaborate on how this might work in practice?
Yes, this is something many people ask the job-sharing candidate! What if you don’t agree on everything. Again, this is a good example of broadening people’s thinking about decision making and coming to the best decision – the current job-sharing candidate has been very clear about how they will do this – and their elaboration is one way – but ultimately the electorate will need to be told this to convince them to vote for the job-sharing candidate!
In your opinion, how might the success or failure of job-sharing candidates influence future innovations in Australian political structures and practices?
I think as a society, we must think about the structures that are foundational and influence how we act towards one another, and how our rules are made that govern us in our everyday lives – ie they really do impact on us every day in so many ways.
Our constitutional system was set up in the 1800s for an Australia that is very different to the society we are living in now. Those structures may have provided us with some key democratic principles, but they need to be expressed in the here and now, with expectations from the lives of the people who they govern that are different to those in the 1800s.
I have written about this more broadly in constitutional terms about our multicultural society, about Australia’s relationship with First Nations, and indeed with the Monarchy.
I think enabling voters to think about and decide whether to choose to vote for a job-sharing candidate is the first step in helping all Australians to be active citizens – thinking about the best way to live together in a more harmonious society, and in thinking through the best ways to make the best decisions for our society as a whole.
The post Pioneering job-share candidates: A feminist leap in politics appeared first on BroadAgenda.
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Currently there’s an ambitious exhibition on at the Pride Centre in Melbourne called TransTrans. The show delves into the history of gender-diverse communities and scientists in Berlin, America and Australia and explores the transnational networks between trans communities between the 1900s–1970s. BroadAgenda editor Ginger Gorman had a chat with curators Professor Birgit Lang and Associate Professor Katie Sutton.
Let’s go back to the start. Where did the idea for this exhibition come from?
So this exhibition first showed in earlier versions in Canada and Germany, and the original idea was to tell a history of trans networks in the 20th century, especially across the Atlantic between Germany and the US, but for the Victorian Pride Centre we redeveloped it to a much more transnational story that brought in a lot more Australian voices, in a way that went against the grain of medicalized histories.
Doctors involved in early trans medicine like Magnus Hirschfeld in 1920s Berlin, Harry Benjamin in 1950s/60s San Franciso and Herbert Bower in 1950s and 1960s Melbourne are part of this story.
But what the exhibition really foregrounds are the trans networks and activists who drove new forms of gender-diverse community-making across these decades, and how they worked with and sometimes pushed back against medicalized ways of understanding nonconforming gender identities.
If you were explaining the idea behind the show to a stranger – and what story it’s telling – what would you say?
The exhibition tells a history of expanding trans networks, communities, medical developments and activism across the early to mid-20th century, finishing before the era of Stonewall and the new wave of global LGBTQ liberation politics that the 1970s brought. It starts with the early days of trans medicine and politics in the 1900s-1910s, when new labels that were the precursor to contemporary trans and gender-diverse identity were being coined and debated and hormone research was just starting to take off, with a particular focus on the boom in queer and trans community, politics and sexual science in 1920s Berlin and Germany, centred on places like sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science in interwar Berlin (there’s a great picture of a costume party at the Institute at the start of the exhibition).
It then takes visitors to the post-World War II United States, when trans politics and medicine saw a new era of flourishing and increasing media attention around famous figures like Christine Jorgensen – even though this also a very difficult period for many people to be gender-nonconforming – and to Australia and other parts of the world, with a “network wall” tracing some of the connections between activists, doctors, and organizations across these different times and spaces.
Why does the show have such an international scope? How and where did you research TransTrans?
For this show we worked closely with materials brought together by the original curators: Annette Timm, Michael Thomas Taylor, Rainer Herrn and Alex Bakker, who had organized the German and Canadian shows and focused on transatlantic connections. In building on these materials, we drew on our own research on early 20th-century Germany, and we also worked closely with the Australian Queer Archives, particularly archivist Nick Henderson, and with an Advisory Board that included Michelle McNamara and Son Vivienne from Transgender Victoria, Greer McGearey, a longstanding member of one of the oldest local trans organizations, Seahorse Victoria, and Noah Riseman, author of Transgender Australia.
Of course, while we changed the exhibition title to become “transnational” histories, it still focuses on a relatively small number of countries and networks, which was necessary to tell a coherent story, which focuses on overturning medical histories and telling these from a trans perspectives. There are so many stories of trans and gender-diverse lives that TransTrans does not touch on, particularly intersectional histories of People of Colour, First Nations, disabled and working-class class trans people. We were very conscious of this, and thematize these omissions in the section “What we see and what we don’t,” which encourages visitors to join us in critical reflection on the limits of our archives and sources.
Curators Birgit Lang (left) and Katie Sutton (right) at the TransTrans exhibition. Picture: Supplied
The show tracks the evolution of trans affirming health care today. Tell us more about that.
The exhibition foregrounds different stories. Maybe most importantly, how crucial early community support was for trans people to obtain a sense of self and belonging.
This community formation sometimes included doctors such as Hirschfeld and Benjamin who reached out to communities to better understand gender diversity, often through quite immersive, anthropological ways of creating knowledge.
We know of a Weimar-era Berlin song by singer and comedian Otto Reutter, titled “Here comes Hirschfeld” (“Der Hirschfeld kommt!” in German) which teased Hirschfeld about being overtly happy to interpret any quirkiness in terms of gender diversity. It is a good example of how this early community was well aware of the role the gay activist doctor played in advocating for LGBTQ people while they could also take the mickey out of these medical approaches at the same time.
The exhibition also shows how the road for gender affirming surgery was particularly hard. Trans people often had to travel abroad to obtain rather experimental and new surgeries (which was obviously not possible for everyone for financial and other reasons).
Some, in desperation, took to drastic measures of self-harm to push for surgery. This is quite confronting to read about.
Medical doctors also faced push back from the ranks of their own profession, as for example in the case of Dutch sexologist and psychiatrist, Coen van Emde Boas, who was prevented by an outraged hospital director from undertaking further gender affirming surgeries.
The exhibition recognises some key figures. Who is your favourite or the person who you find most interesting?
A person whose story we keep finding ourselves being drawn back to is Gerd Katter, whose “transvestite pass” from 1928 appears in the show. Katter was an 18-year-old apprentice carpenter working in Berlin, Germany at the time, and had to go to the city police to get this document, after first going to sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science to get medical certification of his trans status – that he was “known to be wearing men’s clothing.” This document was one that Katter was to carry around on his person and allowed him to go about his daily life in Berlin without worrying about getting arrested for causing a “public mischief.”
We’re really interested in how Katter’s photograph, as he gazes boldly past the camera in his short back and sides haircut and smart suit, can give us some insight into the assertive way he bore his gender nonconformity at a time of rapid social change, and how he entered into these exchanges with doctors and police In order to go about his daily life – a tale of forced negotiations and constraint but also of tolerance and a degree of freedom for gender-diverse people in 1920s society that was a strong contrast to what would happen once the Nazis took power in 1933.
Sometimes you see ill-informed folks questioning whether being trans is a “new” thing. However we know that trans and gender queer folks have been documented in history for hundreds of years. How does your show complement, or add to the historical evidence we already have on this issue?
Our show brings out of the archives sources that have rarely been shown and are difficult to access, like some of the early LGBTQ publications that were starting to appear in 1920s Berlin and Germany featuring scene figures like transmasculine scene leader Lotte/Lothar Hahm, known for organizing both lesbian and trans club nights and fighting against censorship of the queer media. For example, the first documented trans magazine from Germany, Das 3. Geschlecht (The 3rd Sex), which ran from 1930-1932, isn’t available in any public library worldwide. It also shines a light on materials from the 1950s and 1960s where so much of trans life needed to play out in private, domestic spaces.
The living room installation in the exhibition is inspired by Louise Lawrence’s living room in San Francisco, which was a hub of transfeminine community in the 1950s, helping connect transpeople across the Bay Area and the US. Lawrence also worked as a research associate of Harry Benjamin’s, she is a great example of how medical and activist and social networks around gender diversity were intersecting during these decades, often in quite productive ways.
We also worked closely with the Australian Queer Archives to bring in materials about Australian gender-diverse trailblazers, like First Nations activist Phyllis McGuinness who was involved in a key court case in 1982, sociologist and sex worker advocate Roberta Perkins, or the early newsletters of Seahorse Victoria, one of the first local trans organization founded in 1975.
What’s the most surprising or exciting thing you discovered while putting the show together?
Katie: One of the joys of putting this show together for me was learning more about Australian and Aotearoan trans histories. I love the film clip we show in the living room installation of an interview with cheeky New Zealand-born trans man Peter Alexander from 1937. The journalist talks to Alexander after he has returned from London for gender-affirming surgery about his dreams for the future, and his flirtatious humour really shines through – he talks about how he no longer wears lipstick and powder as that would be “ridiculous” what with needing to shave every day but adds that “I don’t blame the modern girl for using it.”
He ends by reflecting that, while he has suffered from the media harassment of having his story so widely known, he has the advantage of knowing “both sides to every ordinary little story” – a line that connects to a theme of many much more contemporary transmasculine memoirs.
Birgit: The exhibition opening was a blast. We had such wonderful speakers, from Victorian Minister for Equality Harriet Shing, and Human Rights Commissioner Ro Allen, to Gaby Cohen, the great-niece of Magnus Hirschfeld, as well as the trans community organisations we worked closely: Son Vivienne, President of TGV (Transgender Victoria) and Greer McGearey, President of Seahorse Victoria, the oldest trans organisation in Australia. For me, the opening brought together the many worlds I am moving in in a poignant and moving way.
- Picture at top: © Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft eV, Berlin
The post TransTrans exhibition unveils global histories of gender diversity appeared first on BroadAgenda.
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Tracey Holmes was Australia’s first female host of a national sports program. She’s also host of ‘The Sports Ambassador’ podcast and a Professorial Fellow in Sport at the University of Canberra. A little over a month since the Paris Olympics drew to a close, BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman, asked Tracey to reflect on progress we’ve made when it comes to gender equality in sport – and why women remain underrepresented in the media coverage of this event.
For people who might not know you (unlikely, but anyway!) tell us who you are and how you very first got interested in sport?
I am a journalist and broadcaster, currently host of The Sports Ambassador podcast and Professorial Fellow in Sport at UC. I sit on a couple of boards – Indigenous Football Australia and the Oceania Australia Foundation, am Ambassador for the Australian Museum and the Chappell Foundation for Youth Homelessness. I am a jury member for the International Sports Press Association media awards and Rugby League’s Hall of Fame. Currently I mentor dozens of up-and-coming reporters around the world through the IOC’s Young Reporters program.
I had no alternative except to be involved in sport. My mum and dad were young surfers (and young parents) who were also part of the rise of the early days of surfing fashion and the professionalisation of the sport. We travelled the world so they could surf (it was the cheap, hippy era, not the sponsor-paid, mega prize money era of today’s professional athletes). Most weekends while my younger sister and I were at school we spent at the beach either watching adult surf contests or competing in junior events ourselves. Any sport breeds an interest in other sports, so almost sixty years later, here I still am – observing the interaction of sport, politics and society.
What barriers might you have faced as a female kid or young person with these interests?
Other people’s hang-ups have never bothered me. If I thought I could do something, or wanted to do something, I would do it. I never worried about people telling me I couldn’t. I think it helped having a mother and father who both competed. I never saw them as different to each other because of gender.
Professionally, I don’t like to describe ‘barriers’, I prefer the word ‘challenges’. Everybody faces hurdles in their lives, but it’s how you overcome them. When I started as an ABC Specialist Commentator trainee back in 1989 I was the only female. I remember listening to the ABC Sports program (all day Saturday and all day Sunday) giving wall to wall coverage of sport – all of it played by men.
I took it upon myself to put together a mini-program called (creatively) ‘Women in Sport’. I’d record a few interviews with movers and shakers, do a little results wrap and put a couple of snippets of other information into it. I gave it to the producer the first week I did it and said, ‘here’s something else you can run, I’ll give you a new episode each week’. They ran it each week until it wasn’t necessary anymore because women started featuring more prominently in the overall coverage.
The first time I was sent to cover an NRL State of Origin match the (losing) Queensland dressing room wouldn’t let me in to interview the players, even though all the other reporters (all male) had been.
They told me I couldn’t go in because I was female, for a good half hour or more I repeatedly knocked on the door, finally convincing the team minder that I was not female, I was a reporter – the same as all the other reporters who had been let in to the job they were sent to do.
They let me in. Another female reporter at the time (we all knew each other, there were so few of us) was Jaquelin Magnay. She covered a lot of rugby league and at one stage took the Balmain Club to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Tribunal arguing for equal access to dressing rooms. She won. Every female rugby league reporter who has ever done a dressing room interview can thank Jacquelin.
You were Australia’s first female host of a national sports program (ABC’s Grandstand). Cast your mind back to that time (I can nearly smell the testosterone!). What was that experience like? How have things changed since then?
When it was announced I would be hosting Grandstand it was pretty significant. Credit has to be given to the men I worked with who had taught me a lot about the job, and in the end were responsible for appointing me. As I had done with a lot of my work, I tried to take sport down a different road – looking at governance, the impact of internal and external politics, interviewing academics and sporting luminaries from around the world, in the hope of getting a much broader picture of the sports environment and Australia’s place in it.
Quite a few blokes called in after the announcement complaining they wouldn’t be able to listen to a woman’s voice all weekend (lol), and the usual, ‘what would she know, anyway’ type comments. What the ABC found was that we didn’t lose listeners at all, we picked up a whole lot of new ones.
A lot of women who felt comfortable hearing someone who was female, and a lot of other men who weren’t rusted on sports fans but were interested in some of the conversations I was having that viewed sport through a different prism.
In 2023 Tracey won Lifetime Achievement Award at the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) Media Awards. This footage compilation includes ABC archival footage of Tracey on ABC Grandstand.This was an incredible Olympics because, as you wrote in Harper’s Bazaar, “the first time, the number of women athletes selected from around the world is exactly equal to the number of men.” But you found the media who is reporting on the event didn’t echo that gender equity. Why is that an issue?
It’s bizarre, isn’t it, that the media does stories all the time about the rise of women’s sport and how fantastic it is – the birth of AFLW, NRLW, growth in cricket, football, any sport you like – but the media itself is still lagging. Isentia’s Women in Media Gender Scorecard shows sport, the largest sector in the media, ranks last for gender equity.
While we are seeing more women on our screens or hearing them reporting on sport more often, when it comes to industry-wide gender equity, sports media remains amongst the worst. It is still rare to find a female head of a sports department in any major paper/radio/television network.
There are several consequences to this. Women who work in the industry note they are often ‘sidelined’, only rostered on to cover lower profile women’s events and not ever given roles in the higher profile events which, sadly, are still mostly men’s events. Breaking old-fashioned habits, such as male sport always taking precedence over female sport in news bulletins, is a tradition that largely remains intact as decisions about coverage continue to be made by the men who occupy the top office. Men have established how sport is covered, a style which has largely remained unchanged over decades. There is an opportunity for innovation to occur, for coverage to be done differently through the inclusion of more women who bring different observations and life-experiences to the commentary/reporting/journalism table.
While the numbers aren’t yet published for Paris, at the last summer Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021, of the thousands accredited journalists only 27 percent were female, it was worse for accredited photographers with only 13 percent being female. There is still a long way to go.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, is it? What positive signs are there that the sports industry and related media coverage is changing when it comes to gender?
The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup showed that sport contested by women can be popular. Australian television ratings records were broken during the Cup with millions of Australians tuning in to watch Australia and several other nations competing in the global event. Crowds are growing internationally, and women players are now recognised as individual stars in their own right. This leads to greater commercial interest in women and the sports they play. As each cog in the wheel turns, media has no choice but to reflect that interest and support.
Tracey Holmes at the 2023 ASC Media Awards. Picture: The Australian Sports Commission
The value of women’s sport globally is expected to pass $1.5 billion for the first time by the end of 2024, that’s a 300 percent increase on Deloitte’s 2021 prediction. The company also warns sport played by women needs to create its own path, and not simply copy what the men have done. This becomes difficult when sports themselves are overwhelmingly run by men whose experience to date has been almost entirely in men’s sport.
So, bring in the women! This is something the Australian federal government has recognised, only recently mandating the need for sports boards to meet gender equity targets or risk losing government funding. By July 1, 2027, board directors must be 50-50 gender diverse, and 50 percent of any board sub-committees must be women and/or gender diverse.
“We need more women making decisions for more women,” Federal Sports Minister Anika Wells said. “Our sporting systems are not equal, and this policy will help address the gender imbalances prevalent in sports leadership.”
Sometimes following the money is a good indicator. How does the money talk here?
When global giants such as the International Olympic Committee and FIFA, the governing body for the most popular sport in the world – football, have been vocal and active in striving for gender equity you know that there is big money involved. Money talks in sport as it does elsewhere. Fifty percent of the population is a huge chunk of the market, anyone in business would be mad to ignore them.
In Paris this year, the Olympics reached athlete gender parity. FIFA says by the time of the next men’s and women’s World Cup’s (in 2026 and 2027 respectively) the ‘ultimate aim’ is for pay equality. Prizemoney for women in 2023 was $227 million shared amongst the 32 competing nations. That was three times more than the previous World Cup in 2019, and ten times more than the Cup before that in 2015. The trajectory is steep.
Anything else you want to say?
Australian women have been playing sport for decades. On the opposite end of the scale there is Afghanistan, where women are banned from playing any sport at all. Elsewhere in the world, there are significant shifts taking place. In Saudi Arabia an entirely new sports industry is being established for men and women – they are thinking innovatively and independently. If we want to maintain our healthy reputation as a nation that punches above its weight in sport, we need to get creative too with new thinking and modern techniques, to guarantee future generations of sporting champions.
Read more about when Tracey Holmes received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Australian Sports Commission (sportaus.gov.au)
- Picture at top: Tracey Holmes at the 2023 ASC Media Awards. Picture: The Australian Sports Commission
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Declan and Sara have three young kids, including a newborn. A lot of caring happens in their household, often when other things, such as housework, are also being done. The care work in this household is gendered, although less so than it was in many earlier households. For example, on many nights Declan sleeps on while Sara takes responsibility for attending to the children’s needs, if they are sick, wakeful, or crying, and she bears the added burden of tiredness the next day.
Key policies and government initiatives, including those on gender equality, are now acknowledging the importance of the unwaged care that occurs in households such as this one, which is great. These developments show that positive change can be achieved through strenuous and patient feminist action.
What we need now is to ‘bed down’ the focus on care and the care economy. But to do this we first need the government to adopt better measures of care, grounded in evidence from the activities of people’s everyday lives, such as those outlined in the above example.
Currently, policy relies on poor measures of care. For example, the Women’s Budget Statement, a key part of the Federal government’s gender equality reporting framework, relies on data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. HILDA is a household-based panel study that collects valuable information about economic and personal well-being, labour market dynamics and family life. But HILDA provides, at best, only a broad indication of the extent and gendered distribution of unwaged care work.
Once a year, HILDA asks people to recall how much time they spend in a typical week on child and other familial care. For the survey to generate reliable measures of care, Declan and Sara in the above vignette would need to accurately recall their uses of time in their busy and complex lives. But people’s recall ability is notoriously fraught, even when they’re not sleep deprived. Thus, HILDA only yields imprecise estimates of care.
The set activities included in HILDA’s definition of care is also quite narrow. Childcare is described as “playing with your children, helping them with personal care, teaching, coaching or actively supervising them, or getting them to childcare, school and other activities”. Many of the activities associated with nursing a newborn, for example, are missing here.
Activities associated with nursing a newborn are not included in HILDA. Picture: Nicholas Felix/Adobe Stock
A planned new ABS Time Use Survey (TUS) will improve the measurement of care. It will be less affected by recall problems because it will get people, over a 2-day period, to keep a diary that records all their main activities (including providing care).
However, a big problem with the planned TUS is that it will not collect accurate information on ‘secondary’ care, which is the care provided while people are ‘mainly’ doing other things, such as housework.
People will be asked to record if any child or other person was in their care during each main activity. However, the times when a child or other person was present will not be noted. Thus, we won’t know if, for example, children were in Declan’s and Sara’s care for all of the time they were doing housework on a particular day, or for only the first few minutes.
A further problem with the planned TUS is that it will fail to capture key details on the intra-household division of secondary care. In the above example, for instance, both Declan and Sara are likely to report that there was a child in their care during a family outing, when their main activity was leisure. The survey would thus record both partners providing the same amount of secondary care even if only one of them takes responsibility for monitoring the children’s interactions and safety, stepping in where necessary. This further limits the accuracy and usefulness of the data on care likely to be generated by the new TUS.
Finally, the details on the co-presence of others won’t be captured by the new TUS. Thus, it won’t generate measures that distinguish, for example, between situations where Declan is solely responsible for the care of his kids and where he engages with childcare when Sara is present. This is a limitation because a key signifier of changing gender responsibilities is whether men are engaging in care on their own or together with their partner.
Australia can and should do better in measuring care. We used to have a world leading TUS and we can achieve this again. New technologies exist to collect time use data on both primary and secondary care, on the time when care occurs, and on the presence of other people when care is being provided. What we need now is a commitment to collecting the data needed for a truly evidence-based policy on care.
- Please note: Picture at top is a stock photo
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In a recent paper published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization (WHO), we argued that women’s unpaid work needs better recognition through decent time use statistics as well as by counting investments in breastfeeding.
A gender budgeting perspective on the Australian Breastfeeding Strategy highlights that while successive governments are happy to spend money on consultants and the formula industry, they are less willing to invest in the measures to help women with breastfeeding such as better maternity care, longer paid maternity leave, and full implementation of the Code of Marketing on Breastmilk Substitutes. This has implications for planetary health, as well as human health.
It is well known that both women and children’s health benefits from breastfeeding. What is less understood is its importance for environmental health. In a recent special issue of the WHO Bulletin on the economics of health for all, we argued that the lack of visibility of unpaid work such as breastfeeding contributes to gender-blind policies on the environment, as well as a misguided view of what is valuable economically.
A rethink on the global economy and health inequities
Reflecting on the inequities and failures of global governance on the COVID19 pandemic, the Director-General of the World Health Organization commissioned an all-female team to examine the economics of health for all. The WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All included one of the pioneers of feminist economics, Dame Professor Marilyn Waring, as well as UCL professor Mariana Mazzucato an expert in ‘financialisation’ and investment flows. Dr Tedros called for a ‘rethink of what matters’.
During the pandemic, gross inequities in health policy responses became apparent. Women who were pregnant or breastfeeding were not included in COVID-19 vaccine research.
Putting ‘women and children last’ likely harmed their health. Maternity care practices and policies, including in Australia, were poorly aligned with WHO recommendations on breastfeeding during the pandemic emergency.
The WHO efforts to ensure global equity in access to protections and treatments for COVID19 were also undermined by ‘vaccine protectionism’ as high income countries and pharmaceutical companies prioritised populations in countries while using international investor protection and intellectual property laws to block the equitable sharing of research on COVID19 vaccines and treatments.
Meanwhile, the pandemic was overlaid on multiple crises including the glacial response to climate change and related issues including escalating problems of malnutrition and food insecurity and antibiotic resistance.
Maternity care chaos
Early in the pandemic, WHO issued guidance for health professionals indicating that breastfeeding should be protected in maternity care and mothers and newborns should not be separated. Instead, there were egregious violations of women’s and children’s human rights, as health care protocols ignored this advice to prioritise resources away from maternity care and breastfeeding support. In some locations, caesarean section was mandated, and breastfeeding was not permitted. This resulted in needless distress and disruption for new mothers and newborns.
Since that time, research has reinforced the value of breastfeeding in strengthening children’s immune systems, and demonstrating its role in protecting against coronavirus disease. In 2022 WHO and UNICEF leaders emphasised that breastfeeding is the first immunisation, following a study demonstrating that more babies were likely to die from lack of breastfeeding than from COVID19.
While poor data collections mean that the effects of pandemic responses on breastfeeding, infant and child health are not clear, lack of time use data also hinders assessment of the economic burdens of the COVID19 pandemic. Women’s unpaid workloads soared as childcare and schools closed, and healthcare systems came under strain.
The increased productivity of women juggling these additional roles remains unmeasured and invisible to economic policymakers, who missed the opportunity to ‘rethink what matters’, and instead exhorted the importance of ‘back to work’ and ‘return to normal’.
Measuring what matters
At the foundation of measuring what matters is collecting adequate data, and the WHO Council recommendations were built on a call for better time use statistics as the basis for measuring economic burdens and economic productivity. Our proposal for considering breastfeeding investments as a carbon offset is founded in the need for full recognition and appropriate measurement of women’s unpaid work including breastfeeding.
Although it is well established that excluding mothers’ milk production from measures of food production biases policy priorities, most countries (other than Norway) continue to do so. When breastfeeding declines, the economy, as currently measured, expands, because only commercial baby food sales are counted in GDP. The Mothers Milk Tool developed at ANU with Alive & Thrive Southeast Asia Pacific demonstrates the large magnitude of this omission: if women’s production of milk for babies were counted as economically valuable, its monetary value in Australia would exceed $5 billion a year, compared to less than a billion dollars of commercial milk formula.
Our proposal also calls for better time use data, so that who does the work provides the foundation for valuing the economy and for more appropriate distribution of income and wealth.
Investing in what matters – sustainable food systems
Central to our proposal that investments in enabling breastfeeding should count as a carbon offset is the science on the huge environmental impacts of the global dairy industry, of which commercial milk formula products are part. Only quite recently has it been acknowledged that the global food system, and particularly meat and dairy, is a key contributor to environmental damage, through pressures for land clearing, as well as emissions associated with production, distribution and consumption. Recent discussion of sustainable food systems asks whether impacts on animal welfare should also be part of the equation.
Research has shown that as much as 11-14 kilograms of greenhouse gases are emitted during the product life cycle of commercial milk formula. This includes during the production of raw milk with huge methane gas production of cows, through the processing, packaging and transportation of powdered milk, and the emissions and waste during the consumption and disposal phases of the product life cycle.
Globally, production and use of CMF by infants under 6 months results in annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of between 5.9 and 7.5 billion kg CO2 eq. and consumes 2,562.5 billion liters of water. If populous countries like China and India were to adopt western feeding practices, the effects on the environment as well as population health would be dire. An infant that is not breastfed generates around a quarter of a tonne of greenhouse gas emissions during the first six months of life, as it requires around 20-21 kilograms of milk powder. Breastfeeding a baby by contrast involves minimal ‘food miles’, even after accounting for ensuring mothers diets are adequate.
This harm to planetary health and early nutrition is avoidable through investments in better maternity care, such as programs which implement the WHO/UNICEF Ten Steps to Succecsful Bresatfeeding, as well as through longer paid maternity leave. These are well evidenced ways of enabling women to breastfeed. Countries like Brazil have shown that integrated packages of breastfeeding support – including community milk banking replacing use of commercial milk formula – can increase breastfeeding rates at country level.
The dairy industry is adept at adapting to new challenges, and the growing phenomenon of ‘greenwashing’ is used to convince consumers that technology can fix the problem by feeding cows seaweed in their diets, or using renewable energy in baby formula factories.
However, this doesn’t help the environment or human health if CMF sales continue to rise. A recent series on breastfeeding in the top medical journal The Lancet documented industry marketing practices which exploit the vulnerabilities and anxieties of new mothers and their families, as well as targeting health professionals and health facilities – seen in the baby food industry as ‘category entry points’. Another study has demonstrated that more than half of CMF sales in the Asia Pacific region are of ‘toddler formula’, which the WHO has stated is unnecessary and possibly harmful to children’s nutrition and health.
Researchers from Ireland, a major dairy exporting country, have shown that achieving global nutrition targets for breastfeeding – for 70% of infants to be exclusively breastfed for the first six months, and for 80% to continue breastfeeding to 2 years and beyond – would do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than improving the energy efficiency of CMF production.
Young mother choosing baby formula for her newborn. (Please note: Stock photo)
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change
Global public policy addresses climate change through three policy pillars, mitigation, adaptation and resilience. That is, preventing climate change, getting used to it, and coping with the resulting adversities. Breastfeeding assists all three, through minimising environmental harms, delivering good nutrition and clean fluids and strengthening the immune system, and via its potential to ameliorate the care, nutritional and health vulnerability of infants and young children in emergencies and disasters when usual infrastructure is unavailable. Australia, like other high income countries, has been poorly prepared to protect mothers and babies during such crisis. Ukraine is another tragic example.
Although progress is glacial and inadequate, global agreements for a ‘clean development mechanism’ including a recent ‘loss and damage fund’ have potential to redistribute global development financing to low and middle income countries to tackle climate change challenges.
Our proposal is that countries’ investments in breastfeeding, such as through better paid maternity leave, should be eligible for such funding.
Using the Green Feeding Tool, the impact of such measures on greenhouse gas emissions and water use can be estimated, based on data on infant feeding practices. Maternity care services investments could also contribute. Recognition of the economic and environmental importance of breastfeeding would also help generate improvements in support for women and gender equity.
The transition to a sustainable food system and health for all must be equitable, including for women. Advancing the proposal for investments to better enable women to breastfeed is one important way that will be achieved.
- Julie would like to fully acknowledge her co-authors on the aforementioned academic paper titled A proposal to recognize investment in breastfeeding as a carbon offset: Phillip Baker, Roger Mathisen, Aoife Long, Nigel Rollins, Marilyn Waring
Picture at top: Nicholas Felix/Adobe Stock
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Working for an organisation about to shut down is a pretty good prompt to start thinking about what it means to work in your sector.
For over two decades, Equality Rights Alliance (ERA) has been a site for feminist collaboration and policy engagement. As one of the National Women’s Alliances we represent over 70 organisations working on gender equality in Federal policy from all around the country, each bringing their own specialist expertise. By the time this article is published, I will be both Acting Convenor and the only remaining staff member at ERA. ERA itself will close its doors at the end of the year.
When I joined ERA, I was looking for a way to turn my frustration at the slow pace of change into a meaningful career. I was tired of working in jobs that felt disconnected from the rest of the world, or that felt like distractions from the social issues I saw in my own life. Like many of us who work in advocacy, my professional passion was fuelled by my personal experiences.
After growing up in an environment where acts of violence were minimised and dismissed, I felt deeply drawn to spaces which ask you to name the problems. Entering a field that tells you to speak up after a lifetime of being told to keep quiet seemed incredibly empowering.
The end of ERA feels both significant and predictable, the cost of doing business in a sector categorised by instability and insecurity. Working in the gender equality space can be a source of real joy, but it can also be isolating. The most common response I get from other women in the sector when I ask how they’re doing at work is something along the lines of “oh you know, I’m hanging in there.”
Is it really any surprise that it has been difficult to fill front line positions? One colleague recently recounted to me the important life events she missed after months of endless work with little support, and another shared the frustration she felt at being routinely pushed to burnout as though it were normal. The passion that helps us excel also encourages us to pretend exhaustion is simply to be expected. As ERA wraps up, I have found myself reflecting on what a different version of the sector could look like. Surely we can all do better than just hanging in there.
ERA recently hosted a Gender Equality Symposium – three days of robust feminist discussion at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, featuring contributors working on gender equality from across government, the community sector, academia, the corporate world and more. In many ways this was our early going away party, attended either in person or online by over one hundred participants from around the country.
What stood out as the Symposium wrapped up was not just the quality of discussions, but just how many people thanked us for creating a sense of community. It was the common theme in almost every conversation I had after the event. One activist privately remarked that it felt like a place “for us to exhale.”
Multiple people said they had found new friends, others new collaborators, and one contributor said it had reminded her of what it felt like to be part of a feminist community again. Watching these connections form made me wonder – what happens to this sense of community when movements are professionalised?
We have made incredible gains during ERA’s tenure – decades of achievement from dedicated feminists working through political landscapes steeped in structural and cultural misogyny. The efforts of our many member organisations, their individual representatives, and the ongoing support of YWCA Australia is evidence of advocates’ willingness to keep showing up and doing the work.
But what happens to those sites of friendship, collaboration and strategizing as feminism slowly shifts from outsider political resistance to clusters of formal workplaces? Of course, in some ways we are still outsiders, and unpaid advocacy is very much alive – but how has this professionalisation of our work changed how we relate to each other? When does that interpersonal element of a movement get left behind?
We have never had feminist spaces without tensions and inequities – and so much of our progress has been won by the most stigmatised and marginalised advocates. But a moment of transition is the time to reflect on what could be different. As I wrote this, a statement from one of our panellists, Elena Rosenman, kept returning to my mind. She said: “it is hard to think of an idea that is further from my day-to-day experience and those of my colleagues than the [idea] of sustainability.”
So many of the connections we witnessed being made at the Symposium were between people who should have already met. How many examples are there of people working on the same problems who don’t even know the other was out there? After every panel I heard someone say that some aspect of a discussion had changed how they think about their work, their organisation, or their role in a broader feminist community.
There is a hunger for common meeting places, for shared ground where we can gather in person and grow together. Where we can challenge each other and begin to bridge gaps we might not have known existed.
Even with the knowledge that ERA was ending, as we closed out the event the first thing I thought was “how do we make this happen again?” So much of the most critical work ERA has performed has been relationship building – work that was never fully recognised by government contracts. How often do the informal meetings, coffees, and chats at events that lead to critical reflections end up in our annual reports? At ERA we have often talked about the need to “bring people in” to challenging conversations – to sit down and work through complex (or just new) issues with grace and time.
Our staff time is often split between our formally recognised advocacy (government submissions, senate evidence, meetings with parliamentary staff and so on) and quiet but critical conversations that we cannot quantify. Even when we value this interpersonal work as part of feminist practice, our principles do not translate into bureaucratic recognition and funding. I wonder if finding more opportunities to foster community might be one pathway to rebuilding both individual and sectoral resilience. How much easier would it be to find solutions to problems if we had more spaces to talk through them as a community? It doesn’t fix everything, but it at least gives us somewhere to talk about that.
When ERA closes its doors this November it will leave a gap, but it will also leave space for something new. I hope we can keep finding places to meet each other in our advocacy, to find time to experience the joys of community alongside all our hard work. I believe we will all be better off for it.
- Please note: Picture at top is a stock image (Adobe)
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The following text is a lightly edited version of the wonderful, heartfelt speech given by Dame Quentin Bryce at the launch of the Susan Ryan AO sculpture in the Old Parliament House Senate Rose Gardens on Thursday, August 1, 2024. The sculpture is titled: titled ‘Senator Ryan Addresses the Rally.’
Susan was the first female Senator for the ACT and a women’s rights trailblazer. The unveiling of the sculpture – created by artist Lis Johnson – occurred on the 40th anniversary of The Sex Discrimination Act. Susan was a key figure in the Act’s passage in 1984. Quentin’s speech is posted with full permission.
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I pay my respect to the traditional keepers, and I acknowledge the debt of gratitude that I owe to wise Indigenous women who’ve taught me across my life what it means to be an elder; sharing language, country, culture.
Loved – and loving – family, distinguished guests all, Tara Cheyne, Member of the Legislative Assembly, Minister for the Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Minister for City Services, Minister for Government Service and Regulatory Reform, Minister for Human Rights, dux and head girl of Rockhampton Girls Grammar School 20 years ago, when I presented her with a huge stack of trophies that she handled with the dexterity and skill that she does now, an incredible range of government portfolios. Susan would be so proud of her!
My friends, how thrilled and delighted I am to celebrate the unveiling of this magnificent work of art. They always start off at an unveiling such a funny shape, don’t they? (Editor’s note: At this stage of proceedings the sculpture was wrapped in a large cloth and tied up with a ribbon.)
But it was commissioned by the ACT government to recognize the contribution to our community, to our country, of the honorable Susan Ryan AO. What a splendidly appropriate accolade for a truly great Australian!
The art and beauty of sculpture! Susan would love this occasion. Oh, how much it would mean to her. This place, our parliament, the heart of our democracy, this much-loved rose garden where she played with her little ones, where she came to reflect, for moments of respite, for quietness, for calm, for going inside herself.
Dame Quentin Bryce speaking at the launch of the Susan Ryan sculpture, created by artist Lis Johnson. Picture: Michael Jackson-Rand
This glorious day, the 1st of August 2024, the 40th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act – her proudest reforms. Dear, dear friends – many of us indulging in affectionate nostalgia, admiration, respect, happiness, and our young women, for whom she held the highest hopes and to whom she tended, wise, thoughtful advice – yes, she would be pleased with this recognition, something she never sought.
Recognition was something Susan never sought, not an iota of self-interest; not for her celebrity or ego. Indeed, she described herself as restrained, prudish – a person for whom the inner life was a private one. Only in her later years did she speak of the tough gullies.
Across her years of service, selflessness, and accomplishment, Susan translated altruism and ambition into action to make the world a better place through a reformist agenda, policy, legislation, persuasion, reform demands, courage, intellectual rigour, perseverance, endurance, and faith.
What was it that set her aside? I’m always drawn to the early years by how deeply we are shaped by where we grow up. Susan called Sydney “the city of her heart’s desire.” She was born there in the darkest year of the war. In her autobiography is a very dear photo of her dad, Captain Arthur Francis Aloysius Ryan, holding her in his arms on leave from service in New Guinea. How she loved him.
Florence, her mother, the disciplinarian, ran the household, but with the Brigidine sisters in Maroubra, for 12 influential years, Susan was exposed to an ethos of social justice. Character mattered to the nuns. A girl of strong character stood up straight, spoke clearly, firmly, and looked you straight in the eye – and Susan did.
In Grade Two, aged eight, Mother Liguori told her, “Susan Ryan, you are not merely bold as brass – you are brass personified!”
Susan, like so many of our generation, was the first from her family and her school to go to university. Her teachers’ college scholarship paid fees and a good living allowance. She never forgot the power of university entry policy based on merit; the inspiration for her fiery defense in cabinet of the no fee policy in 1985.
Sydney Uni was where real life started for her; those halcyon days of sages and would-be-novelists; English, history, philosophy, exploring ideas, stretching intellect, opening doors to the culture that defines us as a nation.
Susan and Richard Butler married at 20 and Justine was born in April 1954 – Susan completely engrossed in the exquisite creature. Early motherhood gave her a defining self-assurance that helped her take on big issues later.
Richard joined External Affairs – a posting to Vienna – Benedict was born there soon after.
Susan said that her role as a young, conscientious wife and mother attracted more social approval than any other she held subsequently. Those years were lessons for her in politics and government and a firm commitment to democratic socialism. Ever since her most heartfelt advice to any leader, political party reform movement, to any man or woman diving into politics, was to test their actions against the touchstone of democracy.
Next post – New York! Every woman she met was on fire with enthusiasm for the social revolution sweeping the world; the women’s movement – feminism. She seized upon The Female Eunuch, the seminal work of her friend, Germaine Greer. Her engagement with feminist issues had begun.
In 1971 she came home to Australia with her children: pain, guilt, loneliness, all held close. Canberra? Right place, right time, a transition to a new world.
The heady days of 1972! The beginning of WEL, the Women’s Electoral Lobby – famous for their interrogation of every candidate for the coming election. Oh, the strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it!
On a summer’s afternoon in 1973, several hundred women met in Canberra on the lake’s edge; Australia’s political feminists, exotic new creatures in the electoral landscape. Over the weekend, the meeting became fractious. Edna Ryan quietly instructed Susan to take the chair and “get some sense into them”, and she did. The session ended on a high note, a turning point for her.
“I decided then,” she said, “I would get right inside the political action.”
She threw herself into this – WEL, the ALP lectures at ANU, her job at ACSO [Australian Community Support Organisation], her masters degree …
When Mr. Whitlam called a double dissolution, she ran for pre-selection for Fraser, the new House of Representatives seat in the ACT. Feminist pals gathered to campaign. Susan came in third. Her reputation and influence flourished.
The next year, she ran for the ACT Senate. She won, but Labor lost in a landslide. As ever, in dramatic downturn, she told herself, “I got into this, so I just have to deal with it.”
Stoicism in spades!
In 1977, Susan backed Hayden against Whitlam. She went into shadow cabinet and on to every speaking list, providing powerful advocacy on the poor representation of women in parliament and everywhere else where power resides and decisions are made.
I well remember my first meeting with her when I was appointed to the National Women’s Advisory Council, set up by the Fraser Government in August 1978. Already, she carried an air of authority, a commanding presence that became more so. Tall, slight, green eyes, chestnut hair, Irish face – little could I have known that across the years we would form a friendship formed in common purpose and founded in trust that would enrich my life in myriad ways.
As Shadow Minister for Women, Susan established a Women’s Policy Committee and embarked on preparation for what would become her grand reform, the Commonwealth sex discrimination legislation. The historical significance of Susan’s entry in 1983 as the first woman ever in a Labor cabinet, escaped just about everybody.
But her appointment as Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women did not. The office had clout, a minister impatient to get on with a feminist agenda developed by women’s groups across decades, and Anne Summers, its chief. The Sex Discrimination Act was top of the list – “The Ryan juggernaut” it was called. I can never resist repeating that mad term. (I bet you remember who created it, too, and a lot of other things as well.)
Dame Quentin Bryce (left) sits with Dr Anne Summers (right) at the base of the Susan Ryan sculpture, created by artist Lis Johnson. Picture: Michael Jackson-Rand
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I look back on the claims made about what the Act would do to society. Some hilarious, actually loony, but others vicious and abusive. It seems unbelievable the hostile opposition to a law that simply required that women wouldn’t be sacked; refused education, loans, or leases, because they were female, pregnant, married or unmarried; and that they would be protected from sexual harassment. Australia was the first jurisdiction in the world to take the measure.
Debate raged on and on, compromises were made. The Bill passed with more than 50 exemptions. Some feminists and lawyers criticized it, and the Minister, for conceding way too much to secure its passage.
“An imperfect law is worse than no law,” they opined.
Susan took the pragmatic view that it was preferable to get legislation in place and work overtime to remove exemptions.
“Parliament must ‘seize the day’, use its powers and deliver what it can of value to the people,” she said.
“Where reform is urgently needed, it is not an acceptable strategy to wait for complete consensus, or to defer a Bill until its drafting is beyond any criticism. Such pursuit of the perfect,” she said, “constitutes the failure of representative democracy.”
She was right. As soon as the Act was passed, work began towards withdrawing Australia’s reservations to the Convention [on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women – CEDAW] and to limiting and removing exemptions. Reviews, inquiries, strong leadership, built step-by-step on the firm foundations of Susan’s SDA [Sex Discrimination Act] and the sister Affirmative Action Act.
Again and again across my life, I have learnt that reform must never be taken for granted. It must continue to be implemented, administered, reviewed, and celebrated – with rigour.
My friend, Susan Ryan, changed Australia. Dr Summers has written from the heart about the battles Susan endured, her fighting capacity, how often the odds were against her, (including from her own Cabinet colleagues). There on her own, around the table – alone.
Susan used to say, “If only they knew, criticism stirred me on.”
I believe it was commitment and commitment and commitment.
In March 1985 she spent long hours embattled before the ERC [Expenditure Review Committee] to keep university education free. Each session was more combative. The last, the most grueling.
She said, “I’d worn out my welcome and become an obstacle to the grand plan of fee-funded universities, rather than the foot-soldier they used to admire.”
Her belief in herself, her belief in what she was doing, kept her going.
In 1988, she resigned from Parliament – her Sydney pals, glad to have her back for the lovely things in life: the bread and the roses, music, art, parties, theatre. She loved the arts. I recall with affection, precious time scattered around the piano in her family circle, singing those sentimental songs – I know every word – about Galway Bay, Taking Kathleen Home Again, When Irish Eyes are Smiling …
Wendy McCarthy decided we should take up yoga so, off we went to early Saturday classes, Kings Cross, Lindsay Connors [a member of the former Commonwealth Schools Commission and Deputy Chair of the Board of the ABC]. Then, café conversations that lingered until lunchtime – about books we were reading, the writing. we were doing, the wild ideas we had, the brainstorming we needed, our travel plans; reassurance, togetherness.
And next, the inspired appointment of Susan as Age Discrimination Commissioner – her forté, promoting and protecting the human rights of vulnerable people.
As you get older, you don’t have more time, as some assume, you have less. So, you keep it for the most important things. You distill those things that really matter. You think about things more deeply, love more deeply, feel more deeply – art, poetry (especially Edna O’Brien’s), scarlet roses, soft evening shadows, beauty that reaches into heart and mind and into every emotion.
As I contemplate this tribute to Susan, this beautiful sculpture cast in bronze, I can feel the vitality, the energy, the spirit; those qualities, that temperament – impatient, passionate, pragmatic – that made her our heroine.
I want to congratulate all involved in this brilliant, creative remembrance that will ensure that Susan’s legacy endures; a legacy that signifies the finest human values of courage and kindness and the solidarity of sisterhood.
From left: Dame Quentin Bryce, artist Lis Johnson, Susan’s daughter Justine Butler, Tara Cheyne MLA, ACT minister for the Arts. Picture: Michael Jackson-Rand
- Picture at top: Lis Johnson’s sculpture is titled ‘Senator Ryan Addresses the Rally’. Picture: Michael Jackson-Rand
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Understanding and raising awareness about the obstacles and disparities faced by trans and gender-diverse employees in Australia can help managers access a larger talent pool by implementing inclusive initiatives.
Manager’s knowledge should include the awareness of discriminatory challenges of a decent proportion of employees (approx. 11% LGBTQIA+) to demonstrate sensible actions concerning the International Day Against LGBTQIA+ Discrimination (IDAHOBIT) or throughout Pride Month. Unlike rainbow washing, inclusive initiatives can result in an increasingly positive work culture and equitable customer engagement.
Towards the end of this year, the Australian Human Rights Commission will publish a project mapping current and emerging threats to trans and gender-diverse human rights. I provided a submission that encourages organisations to rethink their workplaces that must uphold human rights to unlock the immense value of diverse talent.
As a non-binary academic researcher, I have had the privilege of consulting with trans and gender-diverse individuals about their experiences in Australian workplaces. The stories I have heard paint a sobering picture of systemic discrimination, exclusion, and denial of fundamental human rights throughout the employee lifecycle.
Workplace cultures and processes – we can do better
From the very start during recruitment and selection processes, trans and gender-diverse applicants face significant hurdles. Starting with job application forms often force them to misgender themselves by requiring a binary gender selection. Followed by selection panels harbouring unconscious biases that can discriminate against trans and gender-diverse candidates. Additionally, there is the dilemma for trans and gender-diverse applicants of whether to risk outing themselves by providing documentation like prior certificates listing former names and incorrect gender markers.
Securing employment does not mean the challenges end. The onboarding experience alone can be traumatic, such as introducing new trans and gender-diverse hires to colleagues using incorrect names and pronouns. A lack of transparency around inclusive policies on matters like gender affirmation leave can leave trans and gender-diverse employees feeling unsupported and vulnerable.
The workplace itself is often rife with ignorance and hostility. Co-workers and managers lacking LGBTQIA+ education perpetuate an unwelcoming environment, while gaps in anti-discrimination policies fail to protect trans and gender-diverse employees from harassment and abuse, even from customers. Abuse by customers towards trans and gender-diverse employees is often not addressed.
Robin’s research shows that “…from the very start during recruitment and selection processes, trans and gender-diverse applicants face significant hurdles.” Picture: Adobe Stock
It takes a toll
Such chronic discrimination and minority stress take a heavy mental toll, undermining trans and gender-diverse employees’ ability to perform and develop professionally. Even when adequately performing, they are frequently overlooked for career advancement opportunities or promotions due to stigma and bias against their gender identity. Many feel forced to work “twice as hard” and conform to outdated gender norms, just to avoid being targeted.
Consequently, the impacts extend into areas like performance reviews, where trans and gender-diverse employees may be graded poorly not due to merit, but because of a manager’s prejudice. Or learning and development programs, which can be minefields without LGBTQIA+ knowledgeable trainers and safe travel policies for trans and gender-diverse staff overseas. Even participating in an “inclusive” event can become an exercise in tokenism rather than an authentic growth opportunity.
Faced with these relentless headwinds, it is no wonder many trans and gender-diverse employees opt to leave hostile work environments, knowingly sacrificing future job prospects because they can no longer get supportive employment references. Those who do pursue exit interviews often avoid them, fearing re-traumatisation from recounting their negative experiences.
The cumulative effects are staggering higher unemployment, job dissatisfaction, and economic disadvantages for Australia’s trans and gender-diverse community as they are systematically excluded from opportunities and robbed of dignity in the workplace.
In my view, protecting the rights of trans and gender-diverse employees is both a moral imperative and an economic necessity. Beyond the ethical obligation, organisational cultures that marginalise trans and gender-diverse talent severely undermine their diversity, innovation, and competitiveness. No workplace today can afford to ignore such a glaring inclusion failure.
How can we go forward?
Initiatives or organisational changes are outlined to offer organisations practical recommendations translatable to their daily business, such as utilising employee resource groups, reviewing best practice recommendations by the Diversity Council Australia, or establishing clarity about organisational values. Concluding by highlighting the organisational duty and responsibility for the employee’s psychological safety in the workplace.
The way forward requires a comprehensive reckoning by Australian employers. At every stage – recruitment, onboarding, development, retention – proactive measures must be implemented to combat discrimination, educate staff on allyship, enforce inclusive policies and practices, and ultimately create safe, empowering environments where trans and gender-diverse employees can thrive authentically. Only then can we realise workplaces that fully uphold human rights and unlock the immense value of diverse, liberated talent.
Five key takeaways for employers
- Putting gender inclusive and/or gender-neutral language into practice in all organisational communication
- Providing comprehensive LGBTQIA+ education and training for managers and team leaders
- Establishing and enforcing a gender affirmation policy to support trans and gender-diverse employees
- Championing the formation of an Employee Resource Group or staff-led Pride Network to foster inclusivity and support within the organisation
- Creating diverse platforms and channels for employees to express their perspectives and have their voices heard within the company
Picture at top: The Progress pride flag/Shutterstock
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In this Q&A, Catherine Fox discusses her new book, Breaking the Boss Bias, with BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman. Fox highlights the urgent need for gender equity in leadership. She addresses the stagnation of women in power roles and the systemic barriers they face, while emphasising the importance of diverse leadership styles. She offers hope and insight into how we can work together to create a more equitable future.
Why did you see the need to write your book “Breaking the Boss Bias”? What was the urgency, in your view?
I was alarmed to see the fragile progress made towards better gender equity actually plateauing or going backwards particularly in critical decision making roles. There is still only a handful of women running governments worldwide, in powerful CEO jobs, and they are lucky to make up 30% of senior ranks.
Even though there are more women in Australia’s federal parliament and in cabinet, men are over-represented in many influential roles across party lines and in the bureaucracy. The Global Economic Forum tracks leadership progress which has increased about 1% a year until last year when it went backwards. Yet instead of taking this seriously many signs suggest organisations are taking their eye off the ball or lapsing into complacency.
Let’s address the basics first. Why does it matter how many women are in charge? Some might argue it doesn’t actually help women at the other end of the scale – those in low-paid jobs like childcare or cleaning roles. How would you respond to that?
It does matter. Aside from being fundamentally unfair to marginalise half the population of a well-educated country from power jobs, the evidence shows it makes a difference to outcomes for all women.
When women run governments there’s usually more chance of gender legislation getting passed (I interviewed UTS law academic Ramona Vijeyarasa about this which was the focus of her book, (The Woman President: Leadership, Law and Legacy for Women’), the gender pay gap narrows and more women progress.
Not to mention that when there are more women on decision making bodies (not just one but two or more) the nature and scope of the discussion changes and so do the priorities. It’s not because women wave a magic wand or are ‘better’ than men. But they bring different experience and focus to the table, they are role models and their presence encourages more efforts to close the gap. Many also realise they have a vested interest in seeing things change.
Join Catherine in conversation with Professor Michelle Ryan about her new book ‘Breaking the Boss Bias’ at the ANU in Canberra. Tue 27 Aug 2024, 6:30 pm-7:30 pm. Register for the event here.You argue there’s a lot of talk about female leadership, but the numbers of women in those roles remains stubbornly low. Arguably the data you set out actually points to a decline. Why is this?
Power systems are very good at recycling themselves and so the cohort in charge has minimised the problem, or pointed to examples of women in top jobs as proof there is plenty of momentum underway. This is often accompanied by gender washing – painting a much rosier picture than the reality particularly with tokenism like celebrations of International Women’s Day.
This over-optimistic and compliance driven messaging has been disturbingly successful – not just in organisations but across society (nearly 60% of Australians think we are near or already have gender equity according to 2023 Gender Compass research). It’s supported by claiming workplaces are meritocracies, pointing to limited examples of change, misleading statistics (‘half our employees are women’) and corporate value statements as credentials.
But this is becoming increasingly risky. Some of Australia’s largest employers had significant gender pay gaps which were published for the first time earlier this year. The data showed that despite the rhetoric, men dominated higher paid senior jobs from banks to retailers and supermarkets. Far from solving the problem, there’s been lots of convenient denial and very little effective action.
Why are women generally given “glass cliff” leadership positions where the likelihood of them succeeding is extremely low?
There’s a lot of glass cliffs about – I think Qantas may be an example with constant pressure on Vanessa Hudson to turn around the damage done to the brand in very difficult circumstances. QU academic Alex Haslam, who was one of the original glass cliff researchers (with Michelle Ryan, now the head of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at ANU) described the dynamic as a line of potential male candidates looking at the mess they would be inheriting and all taking a step back leaving the only woman contender in the hot seat – a last resort choice.
Happens in politics often – former PMs Julia Gillard and Theresa May are examples. Stereotypes about women being good at tidying up a mess and settling things down also tend to play into this dynamic. When women then struggle in these tricky situations they also get less time to prove themselves – women CEOs have a much shorter tenure on average than men.
Author Catherine Fox says she “…was alarmed to see the fragile progress made towards better gender equity actually plateauing or going backwards.” Picture: Shurtterstock
What structural issues still prevent or act as barriers for women aspiring to leadership?
Many workplaces reward employees who can work set hours over continuous years without breaks and accrue experience to then progress. This clearly penalises care givers who are mostly women and this burden hasn’t shifted much, while caring carries a stigma too. Men who take parenting leave are also now finding they are judged as less serious workers and less likely to progress.
Most of the accepted leadership models have a masculine skills held up as models are overtly masculine, inaccessible and expensive childcare is a massive deterrent to women’s workforce participation and hours, while superannuation is still structured around a primary earner with unbroken tenure.
On top of this set of issues, women from further marginalised groups – racially diverse, LGBTQ+, disabled – are facing a double whammy and are far less likely to get the same opportunities as other women or men. We don’t have
Increasingly around the world we’re’ seeing a backlash against gender equity. How does that play into the situation with female bosses? How do we tackle this?
Backlash about the ‘unfairness’ of programs supporting women means there’s more reliance on stereotypes and workplace myths about meritocracies so women are even less likely to get the opportunity to succeed. The small number of women leaders stand out and are over-scrutinised, with their failings often attributed to their gender. The bar is set much higher for women – US research looking at women leaders in four female-dominated sectors which I quoted found that women are seen as ‘never quite right’ for leadership.
The reasons include age, race, parental status and attractiveness – many of which are usually not applied to men. The excuses are used as a red herring to avoid confronting inherent gender bias and the researchers dubbed it ‘we want what you aren’t’ discrimination. Progression assessment and promotion decisions need to be carefully vetted to avoid these traps and ensure decision making is not biased consciously or unconsciously.
Cover image: Breaking the Boss Bias. Picture: Supplied
Women lead in ways that are proven to be different from men. And also proven to be more collaborative, productive and effective. How do we make way for these leadership styles to be accepted in businesses and organisations (and celebrated)?
As a management writer and journalist I saw much lip service paid to a more collaborative style of leadership (which is also peddled by many management consultants). But the reality is a heroic, masculine, command and control style is still common in many workplaces, and reflected in business media profiles and even in case studies used in business schools where 90% feature male leaders (as I examined in the book).
I don’t think women are naturally more and men less collaborative but women are encouraged to be collegiate and likeable and penalised if they are not. I think the only way to broaden the idea of successful leading has to be intentionally elevating evidence showing different leadership examples. For years I heard that a new generation of younger leaders would change the dynamics of what leadership looks like, particularly in sectors such as IT, but in fact it has barely shifted.
That’s why we need more women in decision making to show a different approach and keep up pressure to shift the parameters – such as former NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who spoke about kindness as a strength.
Is there anything else you want to say?
So much. But there’s plenty more in the book about what we can all do to break the bias and see fairer outcomes right now.
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Editor’s note: The author of this piece has requested to publish anonymously due to concerns about her safety and welfare. We know that victims who come forward – in Australia and around the world – often face relentless unwarranted public attack and criticism. BroadAgenda supports the writer and came to the considered judgement that it’s important to publish anyway.
I have a particular, personal interest in the topic of toxic parliaments and in the work that is underway to detoxify them. More on that in a second. But first to something that’s happening right now.
On 17 July 2024 I attended the launch of the new book Toxic Parliaments And What Can Be Done About Them by Marian Sawer and Maria Maley, both from the Australian National University (ANU). The event was hosted by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, with the keynote speech delivered by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, followed by a panel discussion. You can listen to the discussion on YouTube.
Toxic Parliaments grew out of the workshop Parliament as a gendered workplace: Towards a new code of conduct, held at ANU in July 2021. The workshop also developed a model code of conduct which fed into the code of conduct eventually adopted by the Australian Parliament. Toxic Parliaments examines how the #MeToo movement and revelations of sexual harassment and bullying resulted in reform of parliamentary workplaces in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The book is open access and you can download it for free here.
Over mocktails and canapes after the launch, I chatted with people I knew and people I had just met. Some of the latter group asked me where I worked. I explained I’d previously worked at Parliament House, but don’t anymore. When they asked why not, I referred them back to the book’s title.
The entire story is long, complicated, and traumatic. I won’t go into it in any detail here because nobody wants a defamation lawsuit.
Let’s just say that I have experienced the most toxic elements of toxic parliaments. By that I mean rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination. Yes, I’ve managed to collect the full set of toxic parliamentary workplace experiences.
I realise that no one is giving out any medals for winning the Parliamentary Workplace Trauma Olympics, but if they were I would be among the frontrunners for a podium position.
For readers who may not have been following quite as closely as I have, I will backtrack a bit …
Set the Standard
In her keynote speech Kate Jenkins described her work on Set the Standard: Report of the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces as a ‘privilege’ and a ‘career highlight.’ The Set the Standard report, tabled in November 2021, followed her March 2020 report Respect@Work, which examined sexual harassment in workplaces throughout Australia.
Kate Jenkins AO was the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner. Picture: UC
Set the Standard was effectively a more focused version of Respect@Work, targeted at the nation’s seat of power. It was initiated following media reports of sexual assault, sexual harassment and bullying in federal parliament, including former political staffer Brittany Higgins’s television interview in which she described her experience of being raped by a colleague at Parliament House.
Over 1700 people participated in the review. I was among them. The report included the headline figure that 51 per cent of all people in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces had experienced at least one incident of bullying, sexual harassment or actual or attempted sexual assault.
Upon its release, the Set the Standard report made news headlines not just in Australia, but around the world.
The report made 28 recommendations. Recommendation 2 was the establishment of a leadership taskforce to oversee the implementation of the other recommendations, ensuring ownership and accountability.
The Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce (PLT) was established in the 46th Parliament, and re-established in the current (47th) Parliament. It is made up of politicians from across the Parliament and has an independent chair. Following its initial establishment, the PLT implemented Recommendation 1, a Statement of Acknowledgement that included an apology for ‘the unacceptable history of workplace bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault’ in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces.
The Statement of Acknowledgement also contained the words: ‘We are fully committed to working across the Parliament to implement all of these recommendations within the timeframes proposed by Commissioner Jenkins.’
Progress on implementing Set the Standard
It has now been more than two-and-a-half years since Set the Standard was tabled, and more than two years since that commitment was made. The Parliament has not, as it turns out, implemented all the recommendations ‘within the timeframes proposed by Commissioner Jenkins.’
The delays have been criticised by the Greens and by some independent parliamentarians. By February 2024, less than half the 28 recommendations had been fully implemented. The explanation given for the delays by the responsible minister, Katy Gallagher, (who is also a member of the PLT) has been that ‘we are working hard to get it right.’
Kate Jenkins herself appears to be satisfied with this explanation. She praised the leadership shown by the PLT and the Presiding Officers, adding that she ‘disagrees vehemently’ with any media reporting that there has been no change in parliament since Set the Standard.
This may have been a reference to recent comments by independent senator Lidia Thorpe. Senator Thorpe has been a vocal critic of the toxic culture in Parliament House and claims there are people walking the corridors who have not been made accountable for their bad behaviour. While the government delays legislating the body that will investigate such issue and enforce penalties for perpetrators, I’d argue that her frustration is entirely understandable.
The long tail of trauma and the silencing of survivor voices
It is important to remember that the Set the Standard report only exists because brave people spoke out about their traumatic experiences in Australia’s parliament.
Those people demanded a safer workplace and genuine reform. The Australian public was outraged by the stories that emerged from the report and called on politicians to act.
Kate Jenkins and her team at the Australian Human Rights Commission can be justifiably proud of their work on Set the Standard. The report was comprehensive, thorough and trauma informed. Most importantly, it listened to the voices of people in parliamentary workplaces.
Unfortunately, the listening seems to have largely ended with the tabling of the report. While I have taken every available opportunity to be consulted on Set the Standard implementation, such opportunities have been rare. Disappointingly, Set the Standard did not include a recommendation for ongoing staff consultation.
While the PLT did eventually set up a staff consultation group, no mechanism has been established for ongoing consultation with people who have had traumatic experiences in parliamentary workplaces, but who — often for very that reason — no longer work there. Nor does the PLT appear to have engaged meaningfully with survivor advocates while undertaking its work.
People discussing Set the Standard often refer, as Kate Jenkins did in her speech, to ‘the long tail’ of trauma. What the report’s recommendations and their implementation have failed to do is to provide much in the way of solutions for the people who have been traumatised.
Apparently, contributing experiences and suggestions for the purpose of creating a safer workplace for other people – a workplace we may now be too traumatised (and not even welcome) to work in ourselves – is meant to be enough for us.
Well, that … an apology most of us were not invited to attend in person, and free counselling from the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service (PWSS). When sexual and other abuse was uncovered in the Australian Defence Force, the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce was established.
Complainants were able to access reparation payments and to participate in restorative engagement conferences. I have no way of knowing if a similar scheme was ever considered as part of Set the Standard. All I know is that no redress mechanism made it into the report recommendations.
In addition, the tendency of the media to turn the issue of workplace misconduct in federal parliament into a soap opera revolving around Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann has not done anyone any favours.
As Kate Jenkins noted in her keynote speech, the intense media focus on a single case runs the risk of people assuming the problem in parliamentary workplaces is confined to ‘a few bad apples’, rather than being a systemic issue. Public attention has been on the ‘omnishambles’ rather than on fixing the broader problems.
Also, the focus on politicians and political staffers has allowed the long-disregarded problems in the parliamentary departments that support them continue to fly under the radar. The ‘toxic workplace culture’ at the Department of Parliamentary Services, for example, has reached the point where Greens Senator David Shoebridge suggested during a recent Senate Estimates hearing that a new independent review should be considered – only two-and-a-half years after that same culture was examined as part of the Jenkins Review.
Survivors believe Parliament “…is very much a boys’ club and if you don’t adhere to or agree with the boys’ club unfortunately you are cast out.” Picture: Stock image
Listening to lived experience
The tone of Kate Jenkins’s speech and of the panel’s conversation as they discussed the implementation of the Set the Standard recommendations to date was overwhelmingly positive, indicating there has been significant progress.
But for many of us who have experienced the dark side of parliamentary workplaces, both before and after Set the Standard, this narrative feels disconnected from our lived experiences.
As I wrote this article, I asked some of the people I know who currently work at Parliament House, or who worked there until recently, how they feel about the progress so far. Many of these people have experienced burnout, bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment, or sexual assault during their time in parliamentary workplaces.
Here are some of the things they told me, speaking anonymously:
On the pace of change:
‘The Set the Standard recommendations have taken way too long to be implemented.’
‘Progress has been very slow, and things haven’t moved much in practice.’
‘There is a lot of publicity on the progress of the Set the Standard recommendations but not much tangible change in the workplace. People are still being bullied and required to work unreasonable hours.’
On whether Parliament House is a safe working environment:
‘I don’t feel that Parliament House is a safe workplace … I was still bullied post-Jenkins and didn’t feel supported at all. So many people I talk to had similar experiences and a lot of exceptional people have now left the parliamentary workplace to seek safer environments.’
‘Within the parliamentary departments, it is well known that there are members’ offices to which you never send female staff alone for any reason. While the number of these offices has been reduced by the demographic change that happened at the 2022 election, many remain. It seems redundant to argue that the building is safer for the Set the Standard recommendations when staff are still adjusting their business processes to account for the possibility of harassment, or worse.’
‘The place is toxic [but] senior management have done a good job in presenting a very different viewpoint.’
‘There is real abuse of power and people are too scared to speak up due to the real possibility of losing their jobs.’
‘There is no respect or genuine care for people [at Parliament House].’
On diversity and inclusion:
‘The place is very much a boys’ club and if you don’t adhere to or agree with the boys’ club unfortunately you are cast out.’
‘Accessibility is considered too hard and too expensive and therefore those issues are completely ignored.’
‘It’s evident from the recent treatment of Senator Payman that the Parliament is still struggling to accept diversity. Parliaments will remain unsafe to work in until diversity is fully embraced, not just for the photo shoots and quotas but for all that diversity brings to the table in life experiences.’
On the treatment of parliamentary department staff:
‘Implementation has not been accompanied by meaningful change within the three major parliamentary departments. The fragmented implementation has been very concerning for staff, with DPS, House of Representatives and Senate staff initially excluded from the PWSS process. This has led to a lack of trust in the process and the new structures from non-political building occupants.’
‘The non-political staffers at Parliament House have been wrongly assumed to have better and safer working conditions than political staffers. In comparison to political staff, non-political staff … enjoy less power and safety.’
‘[These] staff do not seem to have mattered as much to this government, which has been particularly detrimental to the efforts of such staff to obtain timely and proper justice in relation to very significant and permanent workplace injuries they have suffered, including sexual assault injuries.’
These are the voices that the Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce doesn’t seem to want to listen to. The people who won’t be featured on any discussion panels.
In the lead up to the book launch, I had been particularly interested to hear Kate Jenkins’s thoughts on the reforms that have been undertaken so far. But on reflection, it occurred to me that the real question is not whether Kate Jenkins — or an academic expert in the field, or a member of the Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce — is satisfied with Set the Standard implementation. The real question is whether the people the Statement of Acknowledgement was directed towards are satisfied.
And, like the people I’ve quoted above, I am not satisfied. Two-and-a-half years after the report was released, I feel used and discarded, disregarded and powerless, much as I did after being raped and assaulted.
Once more I am left behind, collateral damage, while others move onwards and upwards, free to build impressive careers. While people with higher profiles than mine congratulate each other on the positive changes they’ve made to parliamentary workplaces, I’m consoling former colleagues over the unjust and preventable collapse of their once promising careers and trying to talk them out of suicide.
If we want to make real and lasting changes to parliamentary workplaces, we can’t observe them through rose-coloured glasses. We must examine them unflinchingly, acknowledge uncomfortable realities, and confront problems head on. Until our leaders are willing to do that, our parliament will remain toxic.
This is really tricky because we are effectively defaming David Van, even though I’m sure he did actually assault her. (Because it’s not a proven allegation via a court.) I think we need to vague this up so we don’t get sued. Just say something along the lines of Senator Thorpe has been a vocal critic of the toxic culture in Parliament House and claims there are people walking the corridors who have not been made accountable for their bad behaviour. (We can link to external articles – I just don’t want to actually publish the allegation myself.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The appointment of prominent businesswoman Sam Mostyn as Australia’s 28th Governor-General was met with backlash from some quarters of the media who questioned her suitability for the role and seemed to imply Mostyn was only selected for the position because of her gender.
While such a reaction is unfortunately not surprising it asks an incredibly important question: who gets to represent Australia and why are there still such negative reactions to women being in prominent leadership roles?
This question is at the centre of the new book, ‘The Face of the Nation: Gendered Institutions in International Affairs’ by Elsie Stephenson who takes a look at female representation in both the domestic and international political sphere.
Elise Stephenson is Deputy Director of the Australian National University Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and spent hundreds of hours interviewing prominent female political leaders and diplomats over the course of 30 years.
The image that a country portrays to the rest of the world often occurs through the various diplomats that come to foster relationships with other nations. However the people that make up these representative positions often aren’t accurate reflections of a country’s demographics.
When the US-based Australian embassy was asked to create a list of ‘true Australians’ that embodied values of respect, friendship and collaboration they issued a list made up of exclusively men who were predominantly older, white and heterosexual.
And this is certainly not an isolated incident with the realm of international diplomacy being guided by what Stephenson calls “the rules of masculinity.”
At an event hosted by the ANU last month, Stephenson spoke with former Foreign Affairs Minister and current Chancellor of the Australian National University about her research and the broader implications lack of gender diversity has on world affairs. (Watch the whole event in the video below.)
“Although we are all able to name several high-profile women in positions of power, they still remain a novelty in political spaces and come to face unique challenges compared to their male counterparts,” Stephenson said.
“There remains a lack of understanding of women’s pathways, their experiences, as well as some of the gender challenges that continue to exist and evolve.”
And while Stephenson notes that Australia’s international agencies fare better than many other countries – with 58% of all our diplomats being women – barriers to equality remain that go deeper than surface level numbers.
“Although we are now seeing places like DFAT reach parity or near parity when it comes to women’s representation, we know that across all of our international affairs’ institutions we can’t rest when we do get that representation,” she said.
Dr Elise Stephenson (left) sat down with Australia’s first female foreign minister, and Chancellor of the Australian National University, the Hon. Julie Bishop (centre) to discuss the lack of gender representation and diversity in international affairs. The event was facilitated by Professor Susan Harris-Rimmer (right). Picture: Supplied
One of the key findings of Stephenson’s research was that Australia is still significantly lacking in gender representation in the Defence and policing sphere which has ramifications for women due to the increasing securitisation of international affairs.
This only causes more issues for women’s representation as Australia’s diplomatic role in the world appears to be shrinking.
“What I found in essence was that women are only now gaining parity in diplomacy right at the point in time when Australian diplomacy has been at its lowest point…our international footprint is decreasing,” she said.
“This is particularly concerning because we often think of diplomacy as our first line of defence but when we see this underfunding and under-resourcing a lot of issues begin to emerge.”
“Women’s role in leadership is ultimately constrained by the status of the institution in which they occupy – women still face a glass cliff.”
Julie Bishop also heavily pressed on the reality that gender representation and equality greatly impact the diversity of opinions present in diplomatic engagements and political decisions, ultimately determining what Australia cares about.
“Normalising women in these positions is crucial,” Bishop said.
“I certainly observed the securitisation of our foreign policy and the rise of border force being built under male ministers and I can say that it goes against every fibre of my being to spend less money on diplomacy and more on defence.”
“As Australia’s first female foreign minister I remember walking through the halls of DFAT and seeing 37 men who all looked remarkably similar along the walls…from then on I saw it as my responsibility that if I was the first woman to take on a role I should do everything I can to make it easier for the next woman to follow me.”
Dr Elise Stephenson speaking at the event. Picture: Supplied
And the need for women in leadership roles is certainly crucial with gender representation in international affairs being correlated to everything from lower levels of interstate violence to higher levels of collaboration and consensus between core international partners.
Women even bring unique styles of leadership to crisis moments that in some instances outweigh the performances of male leaders.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic there was much discussion about which countries performed better and the roles different state leaders played in reducing the spread of the virus.
One interesting pattern that emerged quite early on during the crisis was that female leaders were seen to have handled the health emergency remarkably well.
Countries led by women were found to have performed better than those led by men, especially in terms of death rates. Female-led nations locked down significantly earlier and more decisively than male-led countries .
Studies suggest that men are more likely to lead in a “task-oriented” way while women tend to lead in an “interpersonally-oriented” manner. As a result, women tend to adopt a more democratic style of leadership and even tend to have better communication skills than their male counterparts.
Women leaders also tend to place more emphasis on developing positive relationships with others and are less likely to avoid making decisions or exercising authority.
Referring back to the negative reactions to Sam Mostyn’s appointment as Governor General, Stephenson also spoke about the necessity to address the uptick in right-wing extremism and online misogyny in recent years.
“There are a lot of ways in which backlash occurs and it is a really classic way of delegitimising someone’s background and the fact that they could be in positions like this,” she said.
“We are well past the point of the myth of the meritocracy – it doesn’t exist.”
“Was she the best person? In this case absolutely. But we have to recognise the system of meritocracy was broken in the first place otherwise we would already have a far more diverse cohort represented in all forms of leadership.”
“And really, haven’t all of the men that have come before her only gotten the position because of their gender?”
Bishop added that she had seen the impacts the exclusion of women can have on a nation during her time as Australia’s first female foreign affairs minister.
“When women are part of the discussion on how we’re going to resolve a crisis…you simply get a better outcome,” she said.
“When women are excluded, there is a fundamental part missing.”
- Picture at top: Julie Bishop speaking at the launch of ‘The Face of the Nation: Gendered Institutions in International Affairs’ by Elise Stephenson. Picture: Supplied
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As I step down from my role at Meridian – Canberra’s leading LGBTIQA+ organisation – after 12 years, I reflect on how we can priorities lived experience in policy, research and service delivery.
How we talk about lived experience is critical. It defines how we engage with and prioritise the development of lived experience in policy, research, and service delivery.
Meridian is an organisation with lived experience at its heart. The importance of peer leadership in LGBTIQA+ community organisations like Meridian is increasingly intersectional. This means that leaders within these groups are not only addressing issues specific to sexual orientation and gender identity but are also navigating and integrating other significant aspects of identity and experience, such as disability, mental health, and homelessness, to name a few. I had always assumed that these intersecting lived experiences were static phenomena: a person was either disabled or they weren’t, a person was either homeless or they weren’t.
However, I have come to understand that these experiences are far more fluid and dynamic. For instance, someone might struggle with mental health issues at one point in their life and experience homelessness at another, or they might be managing a disability while also facing challenges related to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
This evolving understanding highlights the necessity for peer leaders to be adaptable and empathetic, as they support community members whose needs and circumstances can change over time. Peer leaders with lived experience in these intersecting areas can offer unique insights and support, fostering a more inclusive and responsive community organization that better serves its diverse members.
While I am a privileged white woman, you might wonder how I can comment on these issues—I am queer and I have lived experience of disability – am I an imposter? This is a question I often grapple with. The concept of imposter syndrome is not uncommon, especially when addressing issues that intersect with identities and experiences different from our own. However, acknowledging my privilege and the limitations it may impose on my understanding is crucial. It compels me to approach these topics with humility and a willingness to listen and learn from those directly impacted by them.
Engaging in these discussions isn’t about speaking for others but about amplifying the voices of those who might not have the same platform. It’s about leveraging my privilege to support and advocate for a more inclusive and equitable community. By recognizing my positionality, I strive to be a better ally, continuously educating myself and working alongside those who face these challenges firsthand. This process is ongoing and requires a commitment to self-reflection and growth, ensuring that my involvement is both respectful and constructive.
Phillippa, centre rear, is passionate about working alongside peer leaders with lived experience. Picture: Supplied
Meridian employs staff who have lived experience and use this openly, appropriately, and effectively to build professional relationships with the people they work with. Lived experience is used to inform and contribute to staff culture and encourage community understanding and reduction of stigma and discrimination for all affected communities.
Without lived experience, there may be a lack of deep empathy and understanding of the challenges and nuances faced by the community. Services and supports may be less effective when both designed and delivered. Without the perspective of lived experience, there is a risk of inadvertently reinforcing stigma and discrimination.
Staff may unknowingly perpetuate harmful stereotypes or fail to challenge societal biases, leading to environments that are not fully inclusive or supportive. An absence of lived experience can lead to a homogeneity of perspectives within the organisation. Diverse experiences bring diverse solutions and innovations. Without this diversity, the organisation may become stagnant, relying on outdated or ineffective practices.
Policymakers cannot speak for other people when they have never walked in their shoes. Without lived experience decisions are informed by assumptions and, in some cases, bias and stereotyping. Truly effective initiatives must be based on the real lives of those they aim to serve Lived experience enriches an organisations approach, making it more empathetic, effective, inclusive and capable of fostering trust and driving change.
I would like to see the narrative change – Lived experience is what people personally know and understand from experiencing specific situations or events themselves. It includes the insights, perspectives, and emotions gained and felt from firsthand encounters with different aspects of life. This might include health issues, living with disability, experiences of drug use, homelessness, cultural dynamics, or any other lived reality.
For example, someone with a mental health condition can share insights about the challenges of dealing with the mental healthcare system, the stigma around mental illness, and the everyday struggles of managing their well-being.
Similarly, someone who has experienced homelessness can provide firsthand perspectives on the barriers to accessing housing, the impact of socioeconomic factors, and the need for supportive services.
This lived experience is authentic and rich. It’s a powerful resource with depth that captures the nuances and intricacies of individual journeys. Incorporating lessons learned from lived experience into policymaking, research, and service delivery is crucial to more empathetic, inclusive, practical, and effective outcomes. It ensures decision-makers understand the realities faced by those directly affected by the issues.
In the research space, for example, lived experience enriches the quality and relevance of studies. Quantitative data provides valuable insights but often fails to capture the full spectrum of humanity. By using qualitative methods and including people with firsthand experience, researchers can better understand their subjects’ real lives. This helps create more relevant interventions and ensures that the findings connect with the individuals and communities they aim to understand.
It’s our collective responsibility to create space for all individuals’ voices—especially those from marginalised communities—to be heard and valued.
This is a call to action, but it doesn’t exist in isolation. The ongoing discussion about how lived experience should inform public policy, research, and service delivery has a long way to go. We have many challenges to overcome, including representation, power dynamics, and the need for support and compensation for individuals sharing their experiences.
But only by embracing the full diversity of human experience can we create policies, conduct research, and deliver services that genuinely meet the needs of all individuals and communities.
*Picture at top: Supplied
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Women’s rising educational achievements, greater workforce participation, stronger economic independence, and growing voices in leadership are all positive steps forward for society. Right?
Well, maybe not in everyone’s view.
Optimists among us have reason to believe that steps forward in women’s economic empowerment go hand in hand with greater support for gender equality and more egalitarian attitudes.
But the reality is starkly growing that encouraging women to be “fearless”, and step into roles that are traditionally the domain of men, is not just a challenging path for many women – it could be a dangerous one.
There are signs emerging that efforts to support women’s empowerment, and narrow gender gaps in economic outcomes, could be triggering resistance, retaliation and harm.
According to the Gender Compass Survey conducted in 2023, one in four Australians believe that “when it comes to making things fairer for women, things have gone too far”.
And one in six Australians believe that women outearning men is a problem for relationships. In other words, gender equality is far from an aspiration. Instead, it has become a threat.
These impacts of these attitudes are borne out in women’s experiences.
A recent economic study of Australian couples discovered when a woman begins to earn more than her male partner, her risk of partner violence and emotional abuse increases.
The rate at which men are killing women, despite a declining long-term trend, accelerated in the past year. In 2021-22, we learnt of the chilling statistic that one woman in Australia had been killed by her current or former male partner every 14 days. In 2022-23, this statistic tragically worsened to one woman every 11 days. This year’s numbers are on a trajectory to worsen further.
Having a voice in a public space – such as in the media, politics, and online forums – is igniting greater hostility, harassment and bullying against women. Research by the Australian e-Safety Commissioner affirmed “many women face online abuse simply because they have an active online presence as part of their working life”. The result is a silencing of women’s voices and a reversal of empowerment:
“Many of these women took a backward step professionally, avoided leadership positions, … retreated from online spaces and lowered their public profiles because of online abuse.”
Australian schoolgirls are sitting in classrooms now knowing their male peers are rating them in a sexually objectifying and violating way, and circulating this sickening information for all to see on social media. Instances recently surfaced at Yarra Valley Private School in Victoria and Foxwell State Secondary School in Queensland. These boys’ behaviours are in the same vein as the aggressively intimidating “chant” about the treatment of women that schoolboys from St Kevins College proudly belted out onboard a public tram in Melbourne.
These are dynamics experienced by women and girls globally.
In countries where the links between women’s empowerment and violence have been closely researched (including India, Pacific Island nations, Rwanda and Cameroon) efforts to boost women’s financial independence – such as microfinancing for women to start their own businesses and initiatives to encourage more women into education and paid work – have been found to trigger a higher rates of intimate partner violence and assault against women in the wider community.
It’s even happening countries considered to be global front-runners in gender equality.
Coined the “Nordic Paradox”, Norway’s world-leading outcomes on women’s economic advancement are at odds with its high rates of intimate partner violence relative to other European nations. In Sweden, improvements in women’s workforce participation and earnings have been linked to higher rates of assaults against women and destructive behaviour by men.
These retaliatory backlash effects are pushing us in the opposite direction to the liberating outcomes that women’s economic progress is meant to bring.
Picture: Adobe Stock
What explains these attitudes?
Research suggests that a big part of it is men feeling left out while women’s opportunities expand. According to the Gender Compass survey, over one in three Australians believe that “men have been forgotten in the struggle for gender equality”.
Men’s responses to gender equality initiatives reveals the sense of injustice and unfairness that some men report experiencing. For example, when asked about equality, this male participant in this US survey expressed: “I am worried that diversity efforts going too far become discrimination by another name.”
We need to treat these feelings and responses from men seriously if we are to make any progress on gender equality.
Psychological research suggests that men’s resistance to equality initiatives can stem from feeling that their own opportunities to achieve their pursuits and fulfil their purpose, are being stripped away.
These responses can help us to understand how gender equality initiatives – by breaking down the gender norms that prescribe distinct roles and traits for men and women – can leave some men unsure of their role and identity, or searching for other ways to assert it.
The traditional “male-breadwinner/female-caregiver” norm of society has long prescribed a role for men in leadership, decision-making, control and authority. And an expectation to hold back their emotions and fears.
These cultural norms still strongly shape people’s ideas about the behaviours and roles men are expected to take in their relationships, household, workplace and community. Popular culture, sports and entertainment media all still convey a clear image of what it is “to be a man”.
Gender equality initiatives can, for some men, destabilise their opportunity to fulfil this role and demonstrate their sense of masculinity. Their acts of violence, intimidation and dominance over women can be interpreted as their attempt to reclaim a sense of masculine identity and assert control.
Gender equality means fearlessness among all
This all points to a drastically missing piece in our approach to gender equality: If we are going to economically empower women, we need to nurture a society that is not afraid of women being empowered.
If we’re going to tell women to be “fearless”, we need for men to not fear women being their equal.
We need for men to admit to their fears. And learn not to fear the changes that would make our world a more gender equitable place.
Gender equality policy, understandably, has focused intensively on women, especially to support women in crisis circumstances. This year’s Budget brought together an extensive set of measures to address women’s safety, the centrepiece of which was $925.2 million for the Leaving Violence Program.
These are vitally important initiatives that form part of the Australian Government’s National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children. This sits alongside the government’s new national strategy for gender equality, titled Working for Women.
But the next chapters of gender equality will need policy, and our mindset, to do more.
Firstly, policy has not focused enough on how men fit into the gender equality picture.
This is where we need to expand opportunities for men and boys to step into non-traditional roles. To be more involved in caregiving. To find fulfilment and purpose beyond the narrow script of authority and power.
This is why the expansion of paid parental leave policy to fathers – as a lever to dismantle traditional norms and legitimises caregiving among men – is crucial.
There is a vital need to invest more in initiatives to support men and boys to develop healthy, holistic ideals of masculinity and support men in care. Excellent programs exist, such as The Man Box, The Fathering Project and Equimundo, and Australia has expert researchers informing these issues such as the work of Professor Michael Flood. But these healthy masculinities initiatives are mostly small-scale in Australia and reliant on philanthropic or community funding. The opportunity, and desperate need, is there for governments to uplift and upscale.
By awakening men and boys to many other wider ways to achieve purpose and fulfilment, beyond the narrow traditional template of masculinity, women’s economic empowerment becomes less of competitive threat.
These initiatives are also vital investment in men’s health and wellbeing. Research published by Our Watch has found that men who ascribe to traditional ideals of masculinity have worse rates of depression, suicide, risk-taking behaviours and poor mental health.
The announcement by the Victorian Government to create a Parliamentary position dedicated to supporting men’s and boys’ behavioural change exemplifies a government that is brave enough to embrace this approach.
The other big limitation on progress is the funding amount. Many people in the women’s safety sector attest that the dollars – a total spend of $3.4 billion on women’s safety since the Albanese Government came into office – fall short of the magnitude of the crisis.
Contrast this, for instance, to the additional $50.3 billion allocated to defence over the next decade. This will see defence spending reach an annual $100 billion by 2033-34.
This is where a gender lens matters
Conventional policy thinking considers “defence” a matter of safeguarding our national borders against foreign threats.
Statistically for a woman in Australia, it is not an enemy on the national border who poses the greatest threat to her wellbeing, freedom and life. It’s more likely to be the stalkers, trolls, abusers, former or current partners, the men looking to intimidate and claim control, who have intruded into her neighbourhood, her streets, her phone, her bedroom, her own home, her own private space.
Defence does not come in the form of long-range missiles. It comes from extinguishing the threats that loom on home ground.
Like the Defence Budget, eliminating men’s violence against women needs be elevated to non-negotiable priority. Metrics on women’s safety – and, for that matter, men’s suicide rates – need to sit firmly alongside other benchmark measures of national prosperity such as economic growth.
Australians are now counting on our governments, community leaders, and men themelves, to be fearless in this next step.
- This is an extended version of the article that was first published by Financy in its Finance Women’s Index March 2024 Edition “Fearless For All”. Read the original here.
Please note: picture at top is a stock image
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Sport has a role to play in creating a culture of respect, yet women in sport are often seen as “less than” on almost every measure: salaries, sponsorship, broadcasting, leadership, access, media, coaching, officiating, uniforms and support.
Research shows three out of four Australian men are gender equality supporters, but very few (17%) prioritise taking any action.
As Australia grapples with a “national crisis” of violence against women, what can men in sport do to help?
What does the research tell us?
Rigid gender norms can play a part in fuelling male violence against women and children. And sport is an arena, excuse the pun, where rigid gender norms flourish.
When it comes to sport and gendered violence, a special level of toxic attack and misogyny is reserved for women who “dare” to play, watch and work in sport, and this is particularly heightened for women of colour and/or presumed to be from the LGBTQI+ community, whether identifying or not.
Sport also regularly promotes alcohol and gambling, with evident impacts on women and children – whenever there are big sporting events, violence against women by spectators increases.
Players, coaches, commentators and officials repeatedly avoid sanctions, or get a slap on the wrist, and go on to secure leadership roles in sport, sometimes despite allegations of serious gender-based offences.
The message this sends to younger players and fans is that misogyny is acceptable and that “heroes” are beyond reproach. This green-lights sexism, and completely undermines any messages around equality.
Tracey Gaudry has held a trifecta of roles relevant to this discussion. Not only was she previously a former champion cyclist, and former CEO of Hawthorn Football Club, she has also been Respect Victoria’s CEO.
Back in 2020 she nailed the confluence of issues:
“Gender inequality is a driver of violence against women and it can start out small. Because sport comes from a male-dominant origin, those things build up over time and become a natural part of the sporting system and an assumed part.”
What are sports codes and teams doing?
Professional sport organisations and clubs have been trying to address abusive behaviour towards women for decades. Both the AFL and NRL began developing respect and responsibility programs and policies 20 years ago, yet the abuse, and the headlines, continue – against both women in the game, and at home.
The NRL partnered with Our Watch to try to reduce violence against women and children in Australia. There are also opportunities for clubs to take action even if their governing bodies don’t. Semi-professional rugby league club the Redfern All Blacks, for example, are showing leadership: players who are alleged to be perpetrators are banned from playing until they’re prepared to talk about it openly, and prove they are committed to changing their behaviour.
Education is also vital.
At the elite level, most codes are trying to educate those within their sports – the NRL’s Voice Against Violence program, led by Our Watch, is the same organisation the AFL has recently partnered with.
The NRL also implements the “Change the Story” framework in partnership with ANROWS and VicHealth, which includes a zero tolerance education program for juniors transitioning into seniors.
What more should be done?
The AFL’s recent minute silence gesture to support women affected by violence does not go far enough.
“When it comes to violence against women, the only acceptable figure is zero.”
The coaches, players, umpires and spectators pay silent tribute to the women who have lost their lives to gender-based violence. pic.twitter.com/jNUPw1wHc0
— 7AFL (@7AFL) May 2, 2024
Men, especially those in leadership positions, can take action by actively dishonouring the men who have abused women.
Some of the men we celebrate around the country for their service as players, presidents, life members and coaches have been abusive towards women and children.
Recently, the AFL demanded Wayne Carey – who has a long history of domestic violence allegations and assault convictions – be denied his NSW Hall of Fame Legend status. The next step is to see Carey struck off his club and AFL honour rolls.
The same treatment should apply to other convicted abusers such as Jarrod Hayne and Ben Cousins – the list goes on.
To take a stand on violence against women, award winners who have been convicted for, or admitted to, abuse against women should be explicitly called out with an asterisk next to their names – “dishonoured for abuse against women”.
And current and future awards must be ineligible to abusers. Serious crimes should mean a life ban for all roles in sport.
If there is a criminal conviction, or an admission of disrespectful behaviour (abuse, sexism, racism, ableism or homophobia), then action must immediately be taken to strip them of their privileges.
What about the grey area of allegations?
One tricky challenge for sport organisations is how to deal with allegations that don’t result in criminal convictions.
The legal system has systematically failed to protect women from sexual predators, so we can’t rely solely on a conviction to act.
In 2019, the NRL introduced a discretionary “no fault, stand down” rule for players charged with serious criminal offences, and/or offences involving women and children. Under this rule, players must stand down from matches until the matter is resolved.
All sports should, as a baseline starting point, be following suit.
Where to from here?
It’s time sport organisations and fans acknowledged two things can be true: good, even great, athletes, coaches or administrators can be bad humans.
Sporting codes need a zero-tolerance approach for abuse of women which should apply to fans, players, coaches, umpires, referees and administrators.
All codes should strongly consider implementing the “no fault, stand down” rule similar to the NRL. Perpetrators should not be allowed back into high-profile roles. Supporters must also be held to account – if fans can be banned for racism, they can be banned for sexism.
At all levels and across all sports, we must send the message from the ground up: misogyny is unacceptable and the consequence for your bad behaviour is that you are no longer welcome.
- This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Please note: picture at top is a stock image. Panoramic view of Melbourne Cricket Ground on ANZAC Day 2015 By OliverFoerstner/Adobe Stock
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The upcoming Federal Budget will spark much talk of surpluses and deficits, costs of living and inflation, taxes and jobs.
Beyond the headline announcements and standard statistics, get ready to look for the finer details of a gender analysis on all new policy proposals.
The 2024-25 Budget will be the next iteration of the Australian Government’s steps to apply a gender lens to policymaking through Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB).
As with most gender equality initiatives, GRB is often clouded by scepticism and misperceptions.
Here are five facts to help demystify what GRB is:
Gender Responsive Budgeting is not the same as a conventional “Women’s Budget Statement”
In attempt to close gender gaps in economic outcomes, Budgets over past decades have commonly contained a list of initiatives specifically aimed to help women.
Such policy packages – which tend to focus on issues like women’s safety, health and childcare – are crucial for addressing the particular needs of women. They are often a response to the urgent needs expressed by community groups who deal directly with the crisis circumstances women are facing.
But these initiatives amount to only a small slither of the billions of dollars of total expenditure that fill the Budget ledger. A list of “policies for women” is not what is meant by Gender Responsive Budgeting.
Now that we’ve ruled out what it’s not, what exactly is it?
Gender Responsive Budgeting applies a gender lens across the whole of the budget
Beyond a list of women-specific policies, GRB is a process that casts a gender lens more widely across the whole of the budget. It can apply to not just government spending, but also taxes, subsidies and transfers such as welfare payments.
It’s designed to detect policies that seem “gender neutral” but actually affect men and women in different ways.
These different impacts arise due to the different jobs, household roles, incomes, and patterns of economic participation and power, that men and women tend to experience throughout their lives.
Take, as a first example, Stage 3 tax cuts. The legislation doesn’t mention gender, but a gender-based analysis detected that men, on average, were the main beneficiaries.
This analysis was requested of the Parliamentary Budget Office by Greens Senator Adam Bandt. If GRB were in place, such analysis would be conducted automatically and available to policymakers before legislation is decided on.
A second fresh example is the contrast between the paid apprenticeship system that financially supports trade apprentices and the unpaid practical placements required in many care-oriented and other female-concentrated courses. The Budget’s proposed “prac placement” for students in social work, teaching, nursing and midwifery directly addresses this gender-patterned discrepancy.
As a third example, GRB was sorely needed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the impacts of the pandemic, as well as the government’s policy response, were starkly gender-patterned. Jobs in male-dominated industries were propped by the HomeBuilder scheme, while childcare workers were singled out at the only occupation to lose eligibility for JobKeeper ahead of all others.
Disaster response and climate change is a further example of policy space that’s assumed to be gender neutral, but a gender lens shows it’s not:
- After disaster events, violence against women spikes.
- Government spending tends to focus on rebuilding physical infrastructure like roads and bridges, which boosts male-concentrated jobs. Meanwhile, additional demand on welfare, mental health and community support services, mainly delivered by women, are generally expected to be provided voluntarily and altruistically.
- The industry leaders debating the economy’s transition to green energy – from the sectors of agriculture, resources, utilities and transport – have predominantly been male voices.
These gender-based insights empower policymakers with richer information to re-evaluate their budget priorities. To expand or modify existing policies where gender inequities are detected. And to ensure that their efforts to close gender gaps aren’t being offset by other measures elsewhere in the Budget.
Gender-based insights empower policymakers with richer information to re-evaluate their budget priorities, writes Dr Leonora Risse. Image: Adobe Stock.
Gender Responsive Budgeting is recognised as best practice policymaking globally
While some policymakers have dismissed the need to place a gender lens on policy – then Treasurer Scott Morrison scoffed that “you don’t fill out pink forms and blue forms on your tax return” – this critique doesn’t stack up against the fact that GRB is endorsed as best practice by key economic agencies worldwide.
This includes the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
A 2017 audit found that 80 countries worldwide had some form of gender-based budgeting in place.
Many, such as Canada’s ‘Gender-based Analysis-Plus’ approach, are applying an ‘intersectional’ gender lens that recognises the compounding effect of other factors, such as women’s socioeconomic background.
Until the Federal Government’s recent uptake, Australia was not one of these countries.
Which brings us to our next key fact…
Australia used to be a world leader in Gender Responsive Budgeting
In the 1980s, Australia led the way globally in applying a gender lens to the budget. This practice was undertaken by the Hawke Government’s Office for the Status of Women, under the helm of Anne Summers.
The process was diluted over time, and eventually abolished in 2014 under the self-appointed Minister for Women Tony Abbott.
The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) stepped in to salvage the cause, and voluntarily produced a Gender Lens on the Budget report each year.
Meanwhile, several states have since stepped up to apply GRB at state government level: Victoria established a Gender Budgeting Unit in 2021 and now requires all public entities to conduct a gender impact assessment of their programs and services; Tasmania legislated GRB in 2022 and produced its first Gender Budget Snapshot in 2023-24; Queensland began a process of assessing the gender impact of all budget bids in 2023-24; and New South Wales is now rolling out gender impact assessments across its government policies.
Australia has now seen a resurgence of GRB at federal level, driven by the Minister for Finance, Minister for Women and Minister for the Public Service Katy Gallagher and, importantly, with support from the Prime Minister and Treasurer.
Australia’s volatile legacy of GRB highlights the importance of permanently embedding the practice, through mandates or legislation, to prevent another potential unravelling. Victoria has now taken this step and embedded GRB into law in its most recent 2024-25 State Budget.
The volatility of GRB over time also points to the need for treasury and finance departments to develop an authentic appreciation of GRB, as well technical capacity, as part of their departmental culture and practice of responsible policymaking.
Gender Responsive Budgeting isn’t just about policies for women
The process of gender lensing opens up policymakers’ eyes to the ways that policy settings can disadvantage men and boys, and people of all genders, too.
A vivid example is paid parental leave. Applying a gender lens makes it clear that former policy settings, that gave a mere two weeks to fathers, entrenched traditional roles and squeezed men out of the caregiving picture.
Policy changes that expanded the amount of leave available to fathers make it more socially and professionally acceptable for men to step into caregiving roles. And ultimately help men develop a healthier sense of masculinity that we know influences their behaviours, and treatment of women, across many other settings.
A promising opportunity
The wide applicability of gender lensing means there is greater scope to improve gender equity through policymaking than we might realise.
And for Australia to proudly reclaim its place as a global leader on gender equitable policymaking.
On Tuesday’s night reveal of this year’s Budget papers, it’s the GRB pages I’ll be keenly turning to first.
- Please note: Picture at top is a stock image/Adobe Stock
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After reporting a male co-worker who had sexually harassed her while working in Papua New Guinea, Stephanie Copus-Campbell found herself a social pariah.
“Nothing happened to him, and everything happened to me,” she said.
“Every time I’d walk into a room, people were talking to him and giving me funny looks. It was my reputation that was affected.”
“It’s this that makes gender equality personal for me.”
Copus-Campbell, Australia’s Ambassador for Gender Equality, made the comments as part of the 2024 Pamela Denoon lecture at the Australian National University last month.
Along with her own experiences, Copus-Campbell finds her passion for gender equality in the stories of the she meets women around the world. Oftentimes obstacles like climate change, poverty and access to basic sanitation have gendered implications that are borne out in the lives of women in the Global South.
Copus-Campbell talked about the impact that a group of women she met in Laos had on her perspective.
“The women in the village where we were staying would get up at 4AM every morning and start pounding rice for the day,” she said.
“They then got their children ready for school, cleaned the house, cooked, hauled heavy buckets of water, then the kids came home. They took care of the kids, fed them dinner, got them to bed, the women collapsed, and then the next day they started it all over again.”
“They had no time for leisure and recreation, for education, to learn how to read, to work and get an income. This is what an uneven care burden means.”
While Copus-Campbell notes that an example like this may seem extreme to people in Australia, many similarities can be drawn between the limited amount of free time women have compared to men.
In Australia, despite progress over the past few decade’s women are still doing more unpaid care work than men, completing over an hour more unpaid labour than men every day.
This translates into less free time for women to devote to leisure and personal development, or even education.
A long road ahead
The path to achieving gender equality both in Australia and overseas is riddled with obstacles. The World Economic Forum estimates that if we continue on our current trajectory, it will take over 130 years to reach full gender parity across the world.
In her address, Copus-Campbell outlined the myriad of challenges involved in achieving gender equality both domestically and internationally. She said of particular note was the fact that not a single country is on track to meet UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 on Gender Equality by 2030.
The annual Pamela Denoon Lecture is delivered in honour of the trailblazing feminist and women’s rights activist who spent much of her life advancing access to reproductive health services, promoting female political participation and working towards women’s economic empowerment.
The lecture is delivered in partnership between the Denoon Family, the National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) and the ANU Gender Institute who invite a leading figure in the women’s rights movement to deliver the lecture every year.
Stephanie Copus Campbell. Picture: Supplied/DFAT
This year’s speaker, Stephanie Copus-Campbell is certainly no stranger to the barriers faced by women when it comes to achieving gender parity, particularly in the Global South. A leading international advocate for the advancement of the rights of women and girls, Copus-Campbell has spent most of her professional life working in Papua New Guinea and the wider Pacific region promoting gender equality, working to eradicate sexual and gender-based violence and ensuring better educational outcomes for women.
During her time in Papua New Guinea, she worked as Founding Director of Femili PNG, an NGO that works to improve resources and responses to family and sexual-based violence against women and children in the country. Since opening its doors in 2014, the organisation has assisted over 5,000 survivors of family and sexual violence and connected over 1,100 people with access to safe accommodation.
In her speech, Copus-Campbell spoke of the personal nature that issues of family-based violence had on her as a young girl.
“Growing up in Alaska, I was exposed to violence,” she said.
“Alaska has six times the rate of child abuse than the rest of the United States and twice the rate of violence against women.”
“I experienced violence in terms of just living in a community with violence.”
So many current world issues disproportionately affect women
In her address, Copus-Campbell pointed out how an issue like climate change may not look like a feminist issue on its face its effects are still disproportionately felt by women compared to men.
Copus-Campbell recalled her time spent in Malawi visiting a community that had experienced a succession of mudslides due to increasingly changing climate factors.
“The mudslides had wiped out much of the homes and facilities in the village…the men left to find work elsewhere and the women were left behind,” she said.
“Then the traffickers came and they offered to exchange a bit of money for the girls so the women could eat.”
“That’s what a disproportional effect of climate change has on women.”
Again we can look to Australia to see how this uneven outcome plays out.
After the Black Saturday Bushfires, Gender and Disaster found evidence that 16 women experienced new or exacerbated instances of intimate-partner violence that linked directly to the fires.
It was also found that women were seven times more likely than their peers to have experienced violence in communities severely impacted by the Black Saturday bushfires compared to low-impacted communities.
“The reason why these issues are so important and why I spend my life dedicated to them is that women are very much part of the solution,” Copus-Campbell said.
“When women are involved in solutions and can reach their full potential, everything’s better.”
“We know when women have income, they typically invest a higher proportion of their earnings in their family and communities. When we see income in the hands of women, child nutrition, health and education improves.”
“When women are involved in economies and gender employment gaps are closed, it means trillions of dollars for the world economy. If women had the same access to agricultural resources as men, we would reduce the number of hungry people around the world by 20%.”
The key to addressing these issues is getting more women involved in decisions that oftentimes disproportionately impact them says Copus-Campbell.
“If women are involved in decision-making they bring their lived experience to the table, and when we’re designing a world that’s meant for everyone, we need everyone in the room,” she says.
Even some of the smaller things in life can contribute to or detract from achieving gender equality for women in certain spaces and that’s why its so important that we see a strong continuation of the feminist movement amongst the younger generations of women.
“The solutions are many and part of it is all of us working together. It’s all of us being aware,” she says.
Gender equality is not only a woman’s issue
“Gender equality is for everyone, including men.”
“Addressing gendered social norms is part of the solution and it starts with us all being aware of what they are and the fact that we all have these unconscious biases.”
“It starts from when we’re kids. We’re telling little girls to play nicely and we’re encouraging little boys to make more risks.”
“When we get into the workforce, we expect women to still play nice and take care. We expect men to take risk and take charge. In doing so, when these roles are switched up, none of us are very comfortable at times.”
Indeed, 1 in 7 Australians do not agree that women are as capable as men in politics and in the workplace.
And, 1 in 3 of us believe it is natural for a man to want to appear in control of his partner in front of his male friends.
It’s these statistics than manifest from these gendered norms, that negatively and disproportionately impact women.
“We’re not comfortable when a woman might be aggressive,” says Copus-Campbell.
“We may not be comfortable when a man cries or shows emotion.”
Stephanie Copus Campbell. Picture: Supplied/DFAT
While realities like these can be disheartening, Copus-Campbell says there are many women around the world that give her hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
To conclude her lecture, Copus-Campbell spoke of those women that inspire her own advocacy.
She talked of a midwife in Papua New Guinea who works tirelessly through the night to deliver babies despite living in an area with no electricity or running water; a transgender woman in Mexico who opened a safe house for trans women and others who needed it after seeing her friend murdered for her identity, and a tailor in India who opened a sewing centre which allowed all the women in her community to make their own income.
“These are just individual women, but there are millions of people like this all over the world,” she said.
“Individually they’re powerful, but when they come together, they’re a force of nature and that’s why investing in these movements is the answer.”
“It’s drawing on all of our passion to live in a world that is full of respect, love and humanity; a world that we want to leave for our children and future generations.”
“Think about what you’re going to do. How are you going to make a difference? How are you going to make sure your voice is heard?”
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This morning we woke to the news that Sam Mostyn will be the next Governor General of Australia. Since the announcement, I’ve been wading through emails and social media posts celebrating the appointment. I agree with all of them, but I’ve been struggling to articulate the ‘why’. It obviously goes beyond ‘yay, a second women in the role – Quentin wasn’t just a blip’, but why else is it important that Sam Mostyn has been appointed? Then I remembered a photo.
I first saw the image in October 2011. It showed Canberra’s Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher, standing next to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Governor General, Quentin Bryce, as they greeted Queen Elizabeth II on her arrival in Canberra. I remember being stunned by the image of those four women exchanging pleasantries as though they were just doing their jobs, rather than changing our world. In that moment I believed that gender equality was a forgone conclusion – it would just be a matter of time.
Twelve years later, I have just returned from the Commission on the Status of Women in New York. CSW is the UN’s only forum for discussing gender equality. I have been participating in CSW for 11 years – almost the entire time since that photo of four women was taken at Fairbairn airport. In that decade we have seen the promise of 2011 stumble badly.
This year, I spent my time at CSW defending women’s right to choose what happens to their own bodies, their right to say no to sex, their right to live lives free from violence and gendered poverty. There is a global push back against women’s human rights, and I can confidently say it’s growing in strength. It turns out gender equality is not inevitable.
Helen Dalley-Fisher says she has spent her time at the UN defending women’s right to choose what happens to their own bodies. Picture: Adobe/Antonio Rodriguez
On the other hand, at CSW I had the opportunity to work alongside a group of Australian business leaders who are members of the Champions of Change Coalition. These men and women have embraced the idea that gender equality requires both commitment and action. They have taken creative and sometimes counterintuitive steps to reduce gender wage gaps and build women’s leadership in their organisations.
They have put real resources behind these efforts and have provided leadership to others. It’s unusual to see business represented at CSW, and it was instructive to watch the surprised reactions of leaders and advocates from other countries as they listened to the Champions of Change describe their successes.
Sam Mostyn is the former President of Chief Executive Women. In that role she worked collaboratively and effectively to promote exactly the approach taken by the Champions of Change. She demonstrated that she understands that words will only get us so far and action to achieve gender equality is not something which can be left to politicians and activists.
In her position as Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce (WEET) chair, Sam painted a picture of a world where women were not routinely sidelined in the economy. She said: “We talk about a world in which care is shared by men and women, where flexible work is available to all, where governments put a gender lens on every single policy outcome, every Budget measure.”
Putting forward a report full of ambitious recommendations, she further suggested Australia could be transformed: “We’d have a place where women were a powerhouse within that economy. We’d be respected, we’d be equal and we would be celebrated as part of an economy, not seen as outside it.”
We’ve all heard the line ‘if you can’t see it, you can’t be it’. It’s a true statement, but it doesn’t quite tell the whole story. It’s not just a matter of having occasional women providing inspiration to individuals.
Ultimately, appointing women to positions of leadership matters both because of the inspiration they provide, but also because we are what we do.
Australians may have all the best intentions in the world to achieve gender equality, but until we are doing gender equality, intentions don’t mean a thing. In a way it’s not the first or second woman in a role that matters. It’s the nineth or maybe the 20th. The appointment which really matters is the one we don’t think to comment on, because it’s become normal. That’s what Sam Mostyn and the Champions of Change understand: gender equality needs to be business as usual for everyone.
Sam Mostyn, Chair of ANROWS – NPC Address, Wed 02 September 2020. Picture: National Press Club
Sam Mostyn is a clever and subtle operator; a highly intelligent woman with energy to burn who understands the importance of gender equality and is ambitious in the scope of her thinking and actions. Sam is an excellent appointment because of who she is. She’s an excellent appointment because she will do the job well. But most of all, she’s an excellent appointment because the act of appointing her is a sign that we are walking the talk.
Unbelievably, I can’t find that photo. It doesn’t seem to be archived anywhere online, despite being a monumental moment in Australian history. That alone tells me it’s important for us to keep pushing to normalise gender equality, and to celebrate and cherish those who do the same. Congratulations, Sam and thanks.
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UC program paving the way to greater female political representation
It’s 2023 and nineteen women find themselves standing on the steps of Old Parliament House.
They don’t share a cultural background or come from the same age bracket. They don’t even share the same political ideas.
But they all have one thing in common – they are on a pathway to political life.
They are also all graduates of the University of Canberra’s inaugural intake of the Pathways to Politics for Women program.
Pathways to Politics for Women is a non-partisan national initiative that delivers practical training to participants that help them to develop the skills and confidence to become strong political leaders.
An initiative of the Trawalla Foundation, Women’s Leadership Institute Australia and the University of Melbourne, the program was launched at the University of Melbourne in 2016 and has since expanded to every state and territory across the country.
Applications for the 2024 University of Canberra program are open to all female residents of the ACT and Southern New South Wales.
“It was more than I ever expected”
As well as being the second year the program is being run by the University of Canberra, 2024 expects to see more than 50 alums to run in state and local elections nationally.
Among their ranks is Heidi Prowse OAM who graduated from the University of Canberra’s inaugural Pathways to Politics program in 2023.
Heidi’s journey into community advocacy started when she met her late husband Andrew who lived with cystic fibrosis.
“It hadn’t really been something of interest before meeting Andy” she says.
Heidi Prowse OAM says Pathways to Politics helped her hone her skills to run for election. Picture: Supplied/UC
As Heidi came to learn more about the barriers to accessing healthcare for those living with the disease, she decided she wanted to make a change.
“I became very interested in the whole political system and how the decisions of leaders drive policy to the betterment or detriment of the people on the ground.”
Heidi says she stumbled upon the program by accident.
She says she ended up being a “seat filler” at the launch of the ACT program and walked out ready to apply.
“I had thought about it deeply and had a plan to run in the ACT 2024 Territory Election. I saw this as a great opportunity and being in the right place at the right time.”
While going into the program with hopes that it would provide her with some tips for her upcoming election campaign, she had no idea what kind of effect it would have on her life.
“It was more than I ever expected,” she said.
“The program had a wonderful combination of lived experience stories from current and former females in politics [and] an equal amount of practical skills from political media, writing speeches and even viewing policy from a gendered lens – which was fascinating.”
“It was so interesting and thought provoking, by the time it was over I wanted to start all over again!”
Heidi says one of the highlights was getting to hear multi-partisan panels of women who had experience with political life.
“Technically politics was left at the door with everyone coming to the table open and ready to share their experiences.”
Since graduating from the program, Heidi has been putting her skills to work and is the Labor Candidate for Ginninderra in the 2024 ACT Election.
Apply here for the Pathways to Politics for Women Program at the University of Canberra. Applications close on 24 April 2024.“I now understand how to make a difference in the world”
In a very similar vein, accessibility to quality healthcare is something that fellow program graduate Nicole McMahon has long been passionate about.
With an extensive resume involving cancer research, HIV gene therapy and years working as a health journalist, Nicole says her experience working in the health industry inspired her to make a difference.
Nicole also cites her personal journey through the healthcare sector as a patient had a profound impact on drive to make change.
Nicole McMahon’s experience working in the healthcare sector inspired her to make change. Picture: Supplied/UC
“I have recently survived breast cancer, and through this harrowing journey of the health system alongside many others from all walks of life – and some who sadly did not survive – has highlighted to me that we need to ensure Australia’s health system survives the rising cost pressures.”
While browsing social media in 2023, Nicole stumbled upon an advertisement for Pathways to Politics for Women and saw an exciting opportunity.
“I have always wanted to change the world and make a difference, so thought I would put my hand up,” she said.
Like Heidi, Nicole was surprised at how much she came to learn through the program.
“I thought I knew a bit about politics. Turns out I was wrong,” she said.
“The program highlighted to me the unknowns. Campaigning, nailing your pitch. Knowing what you would stand for.”
This is where the program addresses a key issue that keeps untold numbers of women out of politics: lack of resources.
As Nicole says, “You could have a world changing view and the potential to be successful, but if you don’t consider all aspects of running for office…you would never be successful.”
This kind of accessibility to resources is particularly important for women, as they often face stigmas and barriers in their professional life that men doing the same job simply don’t have to deal with.
This is something that Nicole is all too familiar with.
“As a working mother I have been told I didn’t belong in the workplace,” she says.
“We still have a way to go to get to equality, diversity and inclusion [in politics].”
Discouragement remains an issue
Despite gains in female parliamentary representation in recent years, there are still significant hurdles to overcome in the quest to achieve gender parity in the political arena.
Since former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s exit from politics, Australia hasn’t gone to a single federal election with a woman leading a major political party.
And with the exception of the Senate where women occupy just over half of all seats, the number of female faces among the ranks of successive parliaments hasn’t exactly skyrocketed.
Women are under-represented in seven of Australia’s nine parliaments, with the ACT holding position as the only jurisdiction where women make up the majority.
The picture is quite bleak in the Queensland Parliament, where women are outnumbered by men more than two to one.
It is this lack of visible female representation in the halls of power that discourage women from following their political aspirations.
According to 2022 research, only 24% of women aspiring to engage in politics could see themselves running for office.
It is this landscape that women are met with from that outset that involves them diving headfirst into a world that was not built with them in mind, which sees them cop far more criticism and judgement than their male counterparts.
This was the case for Mijica Lus, who joined the Pathways to Politics program in 2023.
“I grew up as a young girl from Papua New Guinea who viewed politics as a man’s place and not really for me,” she said.
“I had seen how my parliament reflected a majority of male leaders, while female leaders led more grassroot level movements.”
Despite these realities, Mijica recalls how her lifelong interest in politics gave her the push to pursue her dreams of community advocacy.
Growing up with a migrant background has given Mijica a unique perspective on community advocacy. Picture: Supplied/UC
“I grew up a very curious girl, always wondering why things were the way they were and hearing about the decisions my local MPs made, which of course made me wonder how it got to that point,” she said.
Undeterred by what she saw as a male-dominated sphere, the 2022 Young Canberra Citizen of the year has carved out her mark as a strong community advocate for multicultural communities in Canberra, particularly those from a refugee background.
“I am determined to make and see a change in my generation and future generations for women to be encouraged to run for elections” she says.
She was motivated to apply for the program to learn more about the political system in which she was advocating for change.
The program connected her with other aspiring female leaders who continue to encourage her on her own political journey.
“I can confidently say I have gained strength in my wings to one day venture into politics to represent my family, the ACT, Australia and the Pacific Islands.”
Applications for the Pathways to Politics for Women program are now open in every state and territory. Applications close on 24 April 2024. Prospective applicants can find out more and apply online at pathwaystopolitics.org.au.
- Picture at top: 2023 UC Pathways to Politics graduates on the steps of Old Parliament House, Canberra. Picture: Supplied/UC
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The term “gender pay gap” has not exactly been shooting the lights out, according to Google, but could WGEA’s pay transparency campaign be the approach that changes all that?
Mary Wooldridge, head of Australian government group Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), has been leading an historic push to make gender pay gap transparency a topic that goes beyond female altruism and uses social awareness to compel a largely male-led business landscape into progressive action.
“The objective of publishing gender pay gaps is for employers to have an extra incentive, in terms of having a plan, taking action and improving their gender equality,”Ms Wooldridge said.
On February 27 this year, WGEA took the highly anticipated step of publishing the gender pay gaps of nearly 5000 private companies with 100 or more employees.
These companies have had nearly 12 months to spruce up their gender pay gap efforts following amendments to the Gender Equality Act. That includes media employers; the gender pay gap is a key concern for Women in Media members, with 85% calling for gender pay gap audits, according to the 2023 Industry Insight Report.
To help fuel interest in what has been revealed about the gender pay gap, and to grow public engagement with WGEA’s Data Explorer website, media coverage is paramount.
The publication of employer gender pay gaps in late February brought significant media attention and made the issue front page news.
It also highlighted excuses companies gave for the gender pay gap, including paying men more overtime, and having a shortage of women within workplaces.
We also saw underperforming companies pledge to act, which helped shift the overall conversation from ‘what is the gender pay gap’? to ‘what are companies doing about it’?
“The media is absolutely critical because of the scrutiny that follows and the public accountability that’s associated with it,” Ms Wooldridge said.“We certainly hope that’s the catalyst for continued action internally, to improve the experience of employees on a day-to-day basis,” she said.
Companies within industries that typically paid high overtime, allowances and bonuses, for example construction and financial services, had the biggest gender pay gaps.
The justification, which for some was contained in supplementary employer statements attached to their data, was that the results were partly driven by men being more likely to be able to hold the roles that attracted those payments.
Standout laggards highlighted included Morgan Stanley, with total media pay for men 48.2% higher than for women, while the gap was 42.7% at UBS; 42.5% at Barrenjoey; and 41.8% at Bank of America.
Image Source: WGEA
Publication of the data is part of a long-term plan, necessary because the outlook for gender equality isn’t great.
Economic equality scorecard, the Financy Women’s Index, estimates our best case scenario for achieving workplace gender equality in Australia is sitting around 27 years.
WGEA’s gender pay gap transparency push was inspired by the UK Government’s Equalities Office UK program, which has for many years been unashamedly motivating companies to salary report or be named and shamed on their gender pay gaps.
The UK’s approach to salary reporting has helped ensure 100% compliance in its first two years of program implementation and is credited with stimulating public debate on the gender pay gap.
As it stands, WGEA has a 7% non-compliance rate on gender pay gap reporting according to a 2024 gender pay gap report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Despite this Wooldridge – a former Liberal government minister – has perceptively reframed the media narrative away from being a witch hunt, to encouraging media to inspire action and drive positive change.
The tactic is strategically important for Wooldridge, as she balances the need to peak and grow public awareness, allay employer fears about providing the Agency with sensitive data and ultimately improve gender equality in the workforce.
As it stands, the term, “gender pay gap”, attracts 1-10,000 average monthly Google Planner searches in Australia, compared to “job search” at 100,000 plus. The hope is that by increasing public interest, the two might one day go hand in hand for anyone – but women in particular – researching their next career move.
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- This article was originally commissioned and published by Women in Media. Read the original here.
Picture at top: Mary Wooldridge, CEO of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).
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Large businesses that miss gender equality targets will soon be barred from winning government work, as the Albanese government seeks to improve the equity of its suppliers and emerging industries in a new national gender equality strategy. The ‘Working for Women’ strategy was released by Minister for Women and for Finance Katy Gallagher at the…
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The Women Reservation Bill is a substantial piece of legislation aimed at bolstering gender equality in Indian politics. It has undergone a long and intricate journey to reach its current state. While acknowledging the bill’s intent to promote gender equality, Gurmeet Kaur expresses concern about its timing and lack of provisions for OBC women.
A survey by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) reports that the OBC population in India is 40.94%.
Reading multiple perspectives in the news articles and Op-Eds on the Women Reservation Bill, my thoughts take me back to a lecture delivered by Dr Ameer Sultana on Women and Politics at the Department Cum Centre for Women’s Studies & Development, Panjab University, in 2016. During this lecture, fellow students, both men and women, engaged in a debate on the necessity of such legislation. This legislative initiative was initially introduced in the Lok Sabha by HD Deve Gowda nearly three decades ago (81st Amendment Bill). It was later re-introduced by PM Manmohan Singh’s government through the 108th Amendment Bill in the upper chamber of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha. Now, under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Women Reservation Bill has finally transformed from an aspiration into a legal enactment through the 128th Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha.
Feminists all over India have a deep appreciation for the bill’s intent. However, as an engaged citizen and fervent advocate for gender equality, my appreciation is tinged with concern about the timing of its reintroduction and subsequent passage. The promise to foster the well-being of ‘Behen and Beti’ (sisters and daughters) from minority communities has regrettably remained unfulfilled over the past nine years whether it is Hathras Gang Rape and Murder or recent atrocities in Manipur. More concerning is the no particular provision for OBC (Other Backward Classes) women from the bill’s provisions. It is imperative to clarify that this concern transcends the boundaries of any particular government; it is instead indicative of a collective disregard exhibited by those in power, as well as within opposition parties, spanning several decades. This apprehension is compounded by the possible formulation of a sub-quota once the constitution is amended to provide political reservation to OBCs.
A closer look at the past reveals recommendations made by joint parliamentary committees led by Geeta Mukherjee in 1996 and Jayanthi Natarajan in 2009. These reports strongly recommended that the government should contemplate the possibility of extending reservation benefits to OBCs in due course, thereby ensuring that women from OBC backgrounds can also avail of these reservation benefits.
This prompts an inquiry into the rationale behind the omission of these recommendations in the legislative process leading to the bill’s passage. Was it driven by haste or a selective exclusion of certain groups? What awaits OBC women in the realm of Indian politics? These questions, I contend, are pivotal to comprehending the multifaceted implications of the Women’s Reservation Bill and the critical mass it may or may not usher into the political landscape.
It is essential to recognise that this concern is not specific to any single government but represents a more pervasive problem of oversight and inaction that has persisted for decades. The suggestions made by parliamentary committees led by Geeta Mukherjee and Jayanthi Natarajan emphasise the necessity of expanding reservation benefits to include women from OBCs. Unfortunately, these recommendations were disregarded during the legislative process, resulting in a situation where OBC women find themselves in a state of political uncertainty. If the present government continues to foster divisive inclinations, it may undermine the progress achieved by feminists working towards gender equality.
The Women Reservation Bill’s journey in India has been protracted, marked by promises, delays, and a significant oversight regarding the inclusion of OBC women. To address this issue, the Women Reservation Bill must be amended to explicitly include provisions for the representation of OBC women. This should involve consultations with OBC communities to ensure that their specific needs and challenges are adequately addressed in the legislation. The amendment should aim to provide equitable political representation for women from all backgrounds. Further, to understand the far-reaching implications, the government should conduct a nationwide, inclusive consultative process involving representatives from OBC communities, women’s organisations, and civil society. This process must gather feedback on the Women’s Reservation Bill, especially about the inclusion of OBC women. Engaging in a participatory and democratic dialogue ensures that the legislation reflects the diverse voices and concerns of the population it aims to serve.
Inclusive Action: A Necessity
In summary, the Women’s Reservation Bill represents a commendable effort to advance gender equality within the realm of Indian politics. However, its effectiveness in achieving these goals, as mandated by Article 15 of the Constitution of India, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5), hinges on addressing inclusivity. Furthermore, the potential emergence of a sub-quota necessitates thorough examination and proactive measures by policymakers. This holistic approach is imperative to ensure that the legislative agenda aligns with the broader objectives of fostering gender parity and uplifting marginalised groups, particularly OBC women, within the political landscape.
Note
*The term “Other Backward Classes” (OBCs) constitutes an official classification within India, encompassing social groups distinct from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Typically, the population encompass Hindu lower castes positioned above the “untouchable” scheduled castes, and may also include analogous lower-caste groups within other religious communities like Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and Buddhists.
This post was originally published on LSE Human Rights.