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Category: equality

  • Pay gap transparency is only the beginning

     February 27 2024 could be a turning point for gender equality in Australia. That’s the day the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) will publish gender pay gaps for Australian private sector employers with 100 or more employees. For the first time, large organisations will have their gender pay gap data exposed, allowing stakeholders to take action. 

    In 2023, WGEA reported that the average total remuneration gender pay gap was 21.7%. This means that women in Australia are earning, on average, $26,393 less than men a year. But pay gaps vary tremendously across states, sectors and employers. 

    Pay gaps emerge at the very start of people’s careers. Researchers have documented small but consistent pay gaps between men and women graduating from the same university programs in the same year. Those gaps widen over time, as employers administer pay rises as a percentage of an employee’s current salary.

    The gaps widen further when women take extended career breaks to accommodate family responsibilities. And finally, women retire with a superannuation nest egg that’s only about two thirds the size of men’s. 

    More transparency in pay gaps is a great first step, but its impact will depend on stakeholder pressure, and how organisations respond to it.

    Are stakeholders ready to step up?

    Thanks to WGEA’s impending publication of gender pay gaps, stakeholders won’t have to ask employers about the size of their gaps. But it remains to be seen whether the stakeholder-on-the-street will care. The complexity of causal factors driving gender pay gaps makes it difficult to generate a sense of moral outrage among public observers.

    People usually agree that men and women should get the same pay for doing the same job, but when they learn that women’s lower pay is in part a result of being in low pay occupations or taking time out for their caring responsibilities, they see pay gaps as resulting from women’s choices – and are less likely to hold employers accountable.

    Researchers have documented the public’s lack of concern in the UK, where employers have been publicly reporting pay gap data since 2018. Employers reporting narrow pay gaps enjoy a reputational boost in their Glassdoor reviews, but the boost is short-lived, lasting only a month. Even more discouraging, employers reporting pay gaps – even very large pay gaps – experience no reputational damage. Unless stakeholders show employers that they care about pay gaps, and that their pay gaps influence stakeholder behaviour, employers are unlikely to make the changes needed to narrow pay gaps. 

    And pay gaps that are published once a year are easily forgotten. In an effort to keep pay gaps on the public’s mind, a UK team developed a clever bot. Every time a UK company tweets about their International Women’s Day activities, the bot re-tweets it with the company’s gender pay gap information (along with data about whether the gap is widening or narrowing relative to the previous year). What actions will organisations take?

    In Australia’s history, we’ve seen that stakeholder pressures can have unintended consequences. From 2010, when the ASX Corporate Governance Council started requiring ASX-listed entities to report the gender composition of their boards and executive teams, we saw a huge spike in female appointments to senior roles. Our own research demonstrates the trickle-down effect of these senior appointments. But we also documented a gender pay gap at the executive level. That’s bad news for female executives, but it’s also bad news for their employers.

    When firms had pay gaps in their executive teams, they experienced lower financial performance as they appointed more women into executive positions. Pay is an important signal about an employee’s value, and when firms pay female executives less than male executives, they create two-tier executive teams that fail to leverage the team’s diversity. 

    Elsewhere in the world, we’ve seen similar unintended consequences of gender pay gap transparency. Since 2006, firms in Denmark are required to make pay information available on request to relevant parties (e.g., unions). This legislative change has narrowed the gender pay gap but employers responded by compressing salary distributions.  Women weren’t getting paid more, men were being paid less. That’s a risky move because pay is an important motivator of employee performance. A smart employer will close pay gaps by allocating separate funds to that purpose, rather than drawing funds from its rewards budget.

    Mind the pay gap graffiti

    Professor Carol T. Kulik notes: “When firms had pay gaps in their executive teams, they experienced lower financial performance as they appointed more women into executive positions.” Picture is a stock image.

    Where do we go from here?

    More transparency in pay gaps is a good start, but it’s only the first step toward closing the gaps. There is a window of opportunity for well-organised bodies (policymakers, professional organisations, trade unions, the Australian Institute of Company Directors) to leverage public pay gap information to generate positive change. These bodies are best positioned to recognize the complexity of gender pay gaps, and help employers address the root causes.  

    At the same time, any stakeholder (employee, job applicant, consumer) can start asking employers better, and more informed, questions:

    • In what roles and at what levels are your pay gaps most prevalent?
    • How are you supporting employees’ caring responsibilities?
    • What are you doing to ensure women move into roles where they are paid more? How long will it take you to close your pay gap?

    Once these questions are routinised, we might finally start to see some progress toward closing gender pay gaps.

    • Please note: picture at top is a stock image 

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  • Summer profile series – inspiring women: Selen Ayirtman Ercan

    Over summer, BroadAgenda is featuring a short series of profiles on amazing women and LGBTIQ + folks. You’re about to meet Professor Selen Ayirtman Ercan, Director of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She’s also the Research Lead of Centre’s  Building Democratic Resilience cluster.

    If you were sitting next to someone at a dinner party, how would you explain your work and research in a nutshell?

    I guess it depends on who the person I am sitting next to is and where the dinner party is at. I would say that I am conducting research on democracy —what it is, where it takes place, and how it can be improved. When I say democracy to people the first thing that comes to their mind is elections of course and things like voting, and parliament house etc. (although this also depends on who is sitting next to me. I have been able to sit next to many fascinating people at dinner parties, especially here in Canberra).  In a nutshell, my research goes beyond the conventional spaces and practices of democracy.

    I am particularly intrigued by the concept of deliberative democracy. What is it? It is often defined as a ‘talk-centric’ as opposed to a ‘vote-centric’ approach to democracy.

    In practice, this means creating spaces where people come together to discuss their disagreements, listen to each other and find common ground.

    This may sound very simple and like common sense, right (unless you are an advocate of an authoritarian rule)? However, our democracies are far from realizing this supposedly straightforward idea. Sometimes, adversarial politics hinders us from finding common ground; at other times, power dynamics between different groups and individuals or an unwillingness to address historical injustices steer us away from practicing this simple democratic idea.

    My work seeks to develop the conditions under which democracies can become more inclusive, more deliberative as well as more resilient.

    Selen A. Ercan, speaking at “Democracy in crisis? Democratic innovations and future of politics’” panel hosted at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, 2019.

    Selen A. Ercan, speaking at “Democracy in crisis? Democratic innovations and future of politics’” panel hosted at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, 2019. Picture: Supplied

    What are you currently working on that’s making you excited or that has legs?

    I am currently involved in several projects, one of which explores how democracies can become more resilient in the aftermath of extremist attacks that were aimed at instilling fear and fostering polarisation. This is a Discovery project funded by the Australian Research Council. It is inspired by Jacinda Ardern’s remarkable response to the Christchurch mass shootings.

    Ardern was an extraordinary political leader. For me, what set her apart from other political leaders is that she was decisive yet compassionate at the same time—a rare combination.

    Right after this attack, Ardern managed to formulate an authentic, victim-centric and compassionate response to this tragic attack. She refused to name the terrorist and took sides with the families of the victims. Our project compares this response to the responses to other similar attacks in different countries and draw lessons on democratic resilience. Australia is also one of our case studies, with a specific focus on its response to the 2002 Bali Bombings.

    Another inspiring resource for my project on democratic resilience was Leigh Sales’ amazing book, Any Ordinary Day. From the moment I delved into this book, I found myself captivated and unable to put it down. I strongly recommend this book to everyone. Now, you might be wondering about the connection between Leigh Sales, an outstanding journalist, and my focus on extremist attacks and democratic resilience. There is a profound link between what Sales does in this book and what I focus on in my democratic resilience project.

    In her book, Sales asks a fundamental question:  When the worst happens, what comes next’? Each chapter unveils different stories of ordinary individuals navigating and overcoming life-altering events, discovering hope, and building strength and resilience after their darkest days.  My project asks similar kind of questions but applies them to democracies rather than individuals. I am interested in understanding how democracies can recover from major shocks, how they become more resilient and what kind of institutions, practices and leadership is needed to nurture democratic resilience.

    Let’s wind back the clock a bit. Why did you go into this field?  What was compelling about it?

    I am originally from Turkey. I grew up and lived in Turkey until I finished my undergraduate studies in Political Science. Since then, I have been living overseas, first in Germany for about 8 years, and then in Australia for the past 18 years. The experience of living in diverse countries, navigating various languages, and immersing myself in distinct cultural contexts has profoundly shaped both my personality and intellectual pursuits.

    Being a migrant naturally sparks curiosity about the essence of a truly inclusive society and the conditions necessary for societies to embrace and accommodate differences. When you move from one country to another, you learn to question your taken-for-granted assumptions.

    What feels normal or unquestionable in one country maybe approached differently in another country. When I first moved from Germany to Australia, for example, I was amazed by the motto of one Sydney council, which read ‘one community, many cultures’.

    In Germany, community is something that is inherently homogenous. You could have many separate communities, but each community has one culture/ethnicity mainly.  I was also amazed by the hybrid use of identities here, such as ‘Australian Muslims’. It is things like these we take for granted in Australia, but which are hard to imagine in other contexts. This does not mean that everything is perfect in Australia, but observations like these have strengthened my interest in the questions of inclusion and democracy.

    What impact do you hope your work has? 

    I hope that my work has both scholarly and practical impact. I am trying to bring deliberative thinking in contexts that are deemed unsuitable for this approach, for example for resolving deep disagreements, or addressing the threat of violent extremism. I do hope that this is useful in the field and encourages fresh thinking. I also hope that my work has a practical impact.

    One other project I am leading at the moment is developing a ‘Deliberative Democracy Toolkit for Public Servants’. Together with a brilliant group of researchers at the University of Canberra, I am working on translating our scholarly knowledge on deliberative practices into an actionable resource book for public servants in Australia. This is exciting. I hope that my work inspires people who are looking for innovative ways of doing things.

    Selen A. Ercan, Fieldwork in Lismore, with the members of the Knitting Nannas against Gas, 2018

    Selen A. Ercan, Fieldwork in Lismore, with the members of the Knitting Nannas against Gas, 2018. Picture: Supplied

    Do you view yourself as feminist researcher? Why? Why not? What does the word mean to you in the context of your own values and also your work?

    Of course I view myself as a feminist researcher. ‘Feminism is for everybody’ as bell hooks famously put it. In terms of my work, feminism means being attuned to gender and gender asymmetries and exclusions, trying to advance the empowerment of women and other marginalized groups as much as I can.  Research informed by feminism cannot just be a pure scholarly exercise. It should have a political purpose and seek to identify and address inequalities and marginalisation.

    Apart from these, feminism is also key for me for the kind of research methods I use in my work.  I mainly use qualitative research methods and work with text and talk as my data.Feminist researchers have played a crucial role in the development of qualitative research methods. They have criticised and reconfigured mainstream scientific and positivist methods, requiring researchers to be detached from what they study in the name of producing ‘objective’ knowledge.

    Feminists have emphasised the need for qualitative methods to prioritise women’s voices and “lived experiences” in the process of knowledge production. I have written about this recently– about the contribution of feminism to the qualitative research in political science, together with Prof Ariadne Vromen.

    What have you discovered in your work that has most surprised or enchanted you? This is a chance to give us some stories!

    There are many things that surprise and inspire me in my work. I enjoy conducting fieldwork and bridging abstract ideas with on-the-ground practices, constantly asking what we can learn from these experiences. The creativity and agency exhibited by ordinary citizens in unlikely places or under challenging conditions continue to fascinate me. Numerous examples come to mind, such as the 2014 Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, where we witnessed some of the most intelligent and creative forms of political participation and resistance.

    But let me give an example from Australia. A couple of years ago, I conducted research on the coal seam gas controversy in New South Wales. During this project, I encountered the social protest group known as the Knitting Nannas Against Gas (KNAG) and had the privilege of interviewing various members in different towns across New South Wales, including Lismore, where the group originated. KNAG members regularly gather in public places, often in front of their representatives’ offices, where they sit and knit yellow scarves, beanies, toys, and puppets as a form of protest against mining in their communities. These meetings involve much more than sharing wool and knitting patterns.

    By coming together to knit and persistently ‘being present,’ they aim to send a political message to their local politicians and broader public that they are vigilant against undesirable mining activities. It was fascinating to observe how these women subvert their traditional soft and sweet ‘nanna roles’ to not only make a political statement but also to mend broken relations in communities polarized by the coal seam gas controversy. KNAG is one of the case studies in my recent book, Mending Democracy: Democratic Repair in Disconnected Times (with Hendriks and Boswell). I have also published other work drawing on this inspiring case, exploring the role of knitting and non-verbal expression in democracy.

    Is there anything else you want to say?

    Politics does not have to be boring and adversarial. It can be fun, creative and engaging. Through my research, I’ve discovered that everyday individuals possess remarkable capabilities to envision and actualize transformative changes in our democratic systems. Let’s dispel the notion that politics is dull; instead, let’s embrace its potential for excitement, innovation, and meaningful engagement, so that we can redefine and invigorate the very essence of democracy.

     

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  • Summer profile series – inspiring women: Riyana Miranti

    Over summer, BroadAgenda is featuring a short series of profiles on amazing women and LGBTIQ + folks. You’re about to meet Professor Riyana (Mira) Miranti. She’s a socio-economist and development economist who is Convenor of the Indonesian Program at the University of Canberra’s  Faculty of Business, Government and Law.

    If you were sitting next to someone at a dinner party, how would you explain your work and research in a nutshell?

    My work focuses on social equity, disadvantage and wellbeing. 

    What are you currently working on that’s making you excited or that has legs?

    Teaching and doing research have always enticed me.

    Teaching helps others to develop, learn and build a positive influence on future generations. All careers and knowledge begin with an education. Being a teacher also means that I always have the opportunity to learn which is a privilege.

    I am currently working on a research project that analyses multidimensional disadvantage among children. Cumulative factors of disadvantage over time are associated with adverse outcomes in later life. So, it is essential to identify the protective factors from an early age. I’ve been working in this space for a while now.

    Our previous work has been published here and here. 

    In addition, I’ve just recently published an article on women’s role during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing lessons from the developing country of Indonesia.

    Many women bear the triple burden of productive, reproductive and community roles, with the weight of the reproductive and productive burdens increasing in recent times owing to the impacts of the pandemic. Many of the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic are those where women are more likely to work (low-skilled or informal sector), and so many women had their hours of work reduced or were fired.

    Unlike previous crises that tended to produce the added-worker effect (a short-term increase in the labour supply of women whose husbands have become unemployed), the Covid-19 pandemic may have produced both the discouraged-worker and added-worker effects. The data also show the pandemic has had heterogeneous effects on women, especially between highly skilled and less-skilled women.

    Digitalisation brings new opportunities for female entrepreneurship, not necessarily for less-skilled women, and the divide between genders in both urban and rural areas still needs to be bridged.

    Many households, particularly female-headed households, are at high risk of falling into poverty during such crises. The long-term impacts of the pandemic will also put women’s lifetime earnings and mental health at risk, something that is still considered taboo to be discussed in the case of developing countries. If the impacts of the pandemic are not addressed properly, gender inequality will worsen in the long run as existing structural social and economic inequalities deepen.

    Let’s wind back the clock a bit. Why did you go into this field?  What was compelling about it? 

    I am an economist, but I did not plan to be. My first degree was in accounting from Indonesia, and I wanted a postgraduate degree in finance. However, faith and scholarship opportunities brought me to learn and fall in love with economics, particularly regarding human capital and poverty. Then, when I graduated with my PhD at the ANU and decided to stay in Australia, my job search brought me to a former research centre at UC (NATSEM).

    Coming from a developing country of Indonesia, I naively thought there was no poverty like in my first country. How wrong I was! Since then, I’ve been researching the issue of disadvantage in Australia. There are so many diversities and issues I can learn within this field. At the same time, I am also still researching Indonesian economic development. I am grateful that I have been developing expertise in both countries. 

    What impact do you hope your work has? 

    As a teacher/lecturer, I would be delighted to see if my students understand what I teach, graduate and contribute well to society. In research, our collaborators often provide positive feedback on how they use or cite my work as part of their practices, so hopefully, that means that my work has an impact.

    Recently, I was promoted as a full Professor, having climbed the academic ladder from Level A to Level E in 16 years.

    I was very touched when people came to me and said this had inspired others, mainly as I am a migrant Muslim woman. Hopefully, this also means that I have made some impacts, and I’ll use the Professorial position to give back to our communities better. 

    Do you view yourself as a feminist researcher? Why? Why not? What does the word mean to you in the context of your own values and also your work?

    That is an interesting question. Within my ‘disadvantage’ research, I did research on gender differences in the labour market, the division of labour and the role of unpaid market labour in households. I am not sure whether those work define me as a feminist researcher. My work has always been broader than looking at gender issues. However, reflecting on these words, all of my work will always start with gender analysis. This shows the importance of intersectionality of gender research with other fields. 

    What have you discovered in your work that has most surprised or enchanted you? 

    I love collaboration and engagements. I love meeting people. Through work, I am grateful to have the opportunity to collaborate with many people from Australia and other countries. Many of my collaborators are long-term collaborators, which shows how important trust, respect and collegiality are to ensure the sustainability of our academic activities.

    I am sure this also applies outside academia, we collaborate with other people all the time, even with our children!

    Is there anything else you want to say? 

    Follow your passions, and do what you love. When you do what you love, you will likely feel motivated and that you’re learning and contributing in your chosen field. You will be happier and believed that your efforts matter. So, have courage to do what you love and always be kind.

     

     

     

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  • Waltzing Matildas: How is Australia Faring on Gender Equality?

    The following is a shortened, lightly edited excerpt of a speech given by Australian politician, diplomat, gender equality advocate and author Natasha Stott Despoja AO, at the National Foundation for Australian Women annual dinner, 2023. Natasha is currently a Professor in the Practice of Politics at the ANU. She’s also an elected member of the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

    What an honor to address this dinner with some reflections on the state of gender equality in Australia and globally.

    I use the reference to the Matildas during this difficult time globally, as one of the great highlights of this year has been the successful Women’s World Cup which brought our nation together and highlighted women’s leadership and prowess.

    Tonight, I pay particular tribute to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women tonight, especially those who championed The Voice.

    It was a profound experience to be on the Prime Minister’s Referendum Council and see the painstaking work and collaboration that went into the Uluru Statement from the Heart and – like many of you – I express my despair at the result.

    From an international perspective, it was concerning to see how my UN colleagues reacted. The specificity of the referendum was lost, but the general message of the rejection of the rights and recognition of Indigenous Australians is a narrative that understandably has currency in some multilateral spaces.

    My not-for-profit work these days involves protecting and advancing the rights of women and girls in UN Member States as a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). I have just returned from State Party dialogues with countries ranging from Uruguay to France, Albania to Malawi.

    Regardless of the differences, no country has achieved gender equality, including Australia.

    Yet, no country or community, regardless of its circumstances, can reach its full potential while drawing on the skills of only half its population.

    This session was particularly daunting: I spoke with families of the hostages in Israel as well as Palestinian and Israeli feminist NGOs terrified about the welfare of their friends and people as well as the disproportionate impact of war and terror on women and girls.

    We continue to see examples of the deterioration of women’s human rights globally: and the impact and prevalence of Conflict Related Sexual Violence in conflicts such as the Middle East, Afghanistan, DRC, Sudan, Ukraine.

    Despite the crises occurring globally, and the backlash against women and girls, our seat at the table is still missing, especially in peace negotiations.

    This is in spite of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and subsequent resolutions on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ which acknowledge “the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peace-building” and insisted on the increased participation of women in all stages of a peace process, including peace negotiations. 

    We know there is a strong correlation between peace agreements signed by female delegates and durable peace and yet, seven out of every ten peace processes do not involve women mediators or signatories.

    In the multilateral sphere, we are not only dealing with countries which have been slow to advance gender equality, we are now confronted by countries actively backtracking.

    The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has warned about the “pushback and backsliding”, the “systematic countering of women’s rights and gender equality”.

    On IWD, the UNSG Antonio Gutteres said, “the patriarchy is fighting back”, warning it would take 300 years to achieve gender equality at the current pace.

    The covid pandemic also exacerbated existing inequalities and made the lives of those already marginalised — including the poor, people with disabilities, and women and girls, much worse.

    Before COVID, approximately 244 million children were out of school, mostly girls.  Now, the education of almost 1.5 billion young people is at risk.

    As a result of the pandemic, over the next decade, up to 10 million more girls will be at risk of becoming child brides.

    These examples remind us that everything is relative and of course Australia is doing comparatively well. But, the enduring comment I get from my UN colleagues about Australia is that they are surprised that we are not doing better!

    The reality remains that when it comes to gender parity in Australia: women are still paid less for the same work, are more likely to engage in part-time and casual work, carry the primary responsibility for care-giving, for both children and parents, and retire with less superannuation.

    These situations are compounded for women from poorer, diverse and Indigenous backgrounds and for women with disabilities.

    Women represent less than 36% of board positions, there are only 10 female CEOs of ASX 200 companies; women comprise 20% of the ADF workforce and until recently, Australia had fewer women in its highest ranks of government than nearly every OECD country.

    Yet, we know that an increased number of women in leadership roles leads to improved distribution of resources, better maintenance of public infrastructure, better natural resource management, and actually has a positive effect – right down to measures as simple as profit and loss.

    Companies with more women in senior management teams have about 30% higher profit margins than those with lower gender diversity.

    The business case is compelling. As Sam Mostyn and the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce has made clear, a tax system that eliminates “negative gender biases” could unlock $128 billion lost annually to inequality.

    Apart from this being the fair thing to do, increasing women’s leadership and voice are the right thing to do.

    Research also shows women in leadership positions changes perceptions regarding the roles and aspirations of girls (including reducing the time girls spend on household chores in developing countries), results in more girls attending school and becoming equipped, themselves, to play leadership roles, including in conflict prevention.

    We can’t be what we can’t see.

    When I became a Senator, so many messages came from young women, saying that “if I could do it so could they”.

    That was more than 27 years ago, and the federal parliament was around 14% female, and I was sure that we’d have gender parity long before now.

    I take heart in recent changes: there are more women than ever before, 4% of MPs are of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, and we have more diverse cultures and backgrounds reflected and represented. The Senate is now 53% female.

    I was serious about changing public perceptions around who was a politician (male, white, privileged, older) and worked with others to change the policy landscape for women generally, and the culture of the parliament specifically. I dealt with ridiculous stereotypes, unsolicited comments and touching, double standards and discrimination.

    Being a younger woman underscored these experiences, but no woman is exempt, and these experiences are compounded for women of color, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, lesbian and trans-women and for women with disabilities.

    All of whom have been profoundly under-represented in our decision-making institutions and whose injustices deserve bolder attention. Along with those of older women, the fastest growing group moving into poverty.

    But, as my CEDAW colleague, Nicole Ameline reminds us, it is not just about numbers – and of course reflecting the difference and diversity in our population – but we need serious ‘disruption’ when it comes to decision-making institutions and ‘systems’.

    Left to right, Jane Madden, President of NFAW, Zali Steggall MP, Natasha Stott Despoja, Aunty Violet Sheridan, Ngunnawal elder, Stephanie Copus Campbell, Ambassador for Gender Equality, Zoe Daniel MP, Sally Moyle, Vice President of NFAW and Mary Atkinson, Ngunnawal elder. Picture: Supplied

    Left to right, Jane Madden, President of NFAW, Zali Steggall MP, Natasha Stott Despoja, Aunty Violet Sheridan, Ngunnawal elder, Stephanie Copus Campbell, Ambassador for Gender Equality, Zoe Daniel MP, Sally Moyle, Vice President of NFAW and Mary Atkinson, Ngunnawal elder. Picture: Supplied

    This is the rationale behind Madam Ameline’s GR 40 which calls for a “paradigm shift towards parity as a key norm in support of the realisation of women’s rights to equal inclusive and meaningful representation in decision making systems at all levels of the CEDAW Convention”.

    These changes are those that the National Foundation for Australian Women has been calling for since its inception.

    Your admirable goal of advancing and protecting the interests of Australian women in all spheres, including intellectual, cultural, political, social, economic, legal, industrial and domestic has been pioneering.

    And, importantly, you goal is to ensure that the aims and ideals of the women’s movement, and its collective wisdom, are handed on to new generations of women.

    It is an honor to be the dinner speaker for this pioneering feminist organisation which I have watched and been honored to connect with since it began. I have admired its founders, including the late Pamela Denoon, and its members. NFAW is one of the most important bodies in contemporary feminist herstory.

    Your work on a gender-lens on budgeting and social policy, the women’s archives and other projects have made Australian women’s lives better and have guided and held accountable governments of all persuasions. I thank you.

    We still have a long way to go before we have a more gender equal future. 300 years is shameful statistic.

    But it is not easy when 59% Australians believe that gender equality has mostly or already been achieved.

    Only 26% disagreed that women are more naturally suited to be the main carer of children and elderly parents – 37% agree with this statement, and 37% are ‘on the fence’.

    Just 53% agree that it is important for Australians to stand up for gender equality in other countries. I am particularly proud of the work that Australia does, especially in partnership in the Pacific.

    We have to tackle the historically-entrenched beliefs and behaviours that drive gender inequality, and the social political and economic structures, practices and systems that support this inequality.

    That means we have to make changes in all the areas in which we live, love, learn work and play!

    Speaking of play… it brings me to sport, and my initial comments. A feature of our State Party dialogues has been the increasing acknowledgement of the role of women in sport. In many areas it has undergone some of the most exciting gender revolutions in recent times.

    I cried on the inaugural night of the AFLW back in 2017.  And has the same feelings as I watched the opening night of the WWC2023. The WWC 2023 was the biggest women’s single-sporting event in the world with ticket sales smashing the previous Women’s World Cup ticket record.

    As a consequence, we have seen greater investment in women’s football and an emphasis on gender equality. And we may be sceptical about some countries. In 2018 women couldn’t enter a stadium in Saudi Arabia and now there’s investment in a national women’s team.

    I loved watching young girls and boys, mostly in their Sam Kerr shirts, at the game and clamouring for photos and autographs.

    I loved this Matilda effect.

    I do note that there is an actual Matilda effect: it is a bias against acknowledging the achievements of women scientists whose work is attributed to their male colleagues.

    Australia celebrates a goal during the International Friendly Match between Australia and Canada at Allianz Stadium on September 6, 2022 in Sydney, Australia

    Australia celebrates a goal during the International Friendly Match between Australia and Canada at Allianz Stadium on September 6, 2022 in Sydney, Australia. Picture: Shutterstock

    And who would have thought the actions of a man would overshadow the greatness of this event?  Football boss Luis Rubiales’ forcible kiss of Women’s World Cup player Jennifer Hermosa — was an abuse of authority and reminded us how women – even in the highest echelons of their sectors or professions – can be subject to inappropriate and abusive actions.

    But these actions were called out and condemned globally. Increasingly, I take great heart from the brave young and diverse women calling out bad behaviour and holding perpetrators to account.

    I think NFAW’s mission to ensure that the aims and ideals of the women’s movement and its collective wisdom are handed on to new generations of women is in good hands.

    But the price of feminism is eternal vigilance, something NFAW has been aware of for decades.

    There are many hard won rights that we must protect and advance, in spite of the global backlash.

    Friends, this is not a women’s problem: this is everybody’s business.

    And I thank you all for being a part of this mission!

    • Picture at top: Natasha Stott Despoja during a welcome reception at ANU, in Canberra, ACT, Australia, 05 September, 2022. Photo: Tracey Nearmy/ANU

     

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  • Actually, body positivism is empowering women to live

    ‘Get out of the way, you fat fuck’. These are the words a young bloke yelled at me from his moving car as I walked across a carpark in suburban Canberra. He swerved his car toward me, I assume to scare me. I was scared. His words still make me feel like I have less rights to exist, to occupy space, because I’m fat. This was over ten years and twenty kilograms ago. Unsurprisingly, this guy’s insult and near miss didn’t motivate me to lose weight. Being called a fat fuck only served to reinforce a deep shame I feel about myself.

    I am fat, he’s right. But I’m not alone in my fatness. And body positivity helps empower me to live a life worth living.

    That’s exactly why it made me boil with rage when I read MP Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah quoted in the media a few days ago saying body positivity is “…normalising weight gain in young women and then this can lead to cascading problems.” (If you can’t access that article linked directly above because of the paywall, try this one.)

    Most adult Australians are overweight. In fact, fatness is now so common that 75% of blokes and 60% of women have a body mass index exceeding what is considered healthy. You read that right, more men are overweight than women – you wouldn’t know this from the depiction and disgust heaped on women’s fatness in popular media, though.

    The proportion of Aussies considered fat is only set to increase, because as we age the propensity for being overweight increases. And Australia is an ageing population. Excess weight peaks for men around mid-later life and for women after menopause, but the rate of fatness is highest across all age groups in adulthood for Aussie men.

    I deliberately say fat. I once hated the word. I have come to appreciate the importance of disarming the pain that comes from being called fat by reclaiming the word.

    Women experience fat shaming even when not overweight. The social construction of what constitutes fatness is highly gendered, leading to incongruent notions of what we might consider overweight. Men perceive their weight to be in the normal range even when fat, but the reverse is true for women who tend to believe they’re overweight even when not. In other words, women have been taught to hate their bodies…of any size.

    Fat stigma stops people from seeking needed health care, and prevents impacted individuals from engaging in practices that might promote things like physical activity. Overweight people experience, on average, just over 11 instances of fat stigma every two weeks. Hate about one’s body from partners, loved ones, media, and strangers. It’s stigma that’s harming fat bodies, not the self-esteem building that comes with body positivity. Fat stigma actually encourages binge eating and demotivates people from being physically active. Being in a fat body is even associated with income penalties.

    Disordered eating and body dysmorphia plague young Aussies. I’ve personally known two young women who died because of restrictive eating disorders. Eating disorders run in my family and I have seen first-hand the way anorexia and bulimia take hold and wreak lifelong havoc among young girls. I’ve also had a loved one die from obesity-related issues. Fat or thin we all just want to feel good about ourselves and live a good life. Fat shaming harms us all.

    Body positivity doesn’t promote fatness, it’s not toxic positivity. Body positivism recognises the complex contributions to being overweight and is a counter-to and a calling-out of fat stigma.

    I haven’t always lived in a fat body. Throughout my primary school and early teen years I had a very athletic figure. I had never struggled with weight and was one of those kids that could eat whatever and never put on weight, in fact sometimes I was underweight. I played representative netball and competed in regional athletics competitions for sprinting. I still recall the last time I competed in a race. I was around 13 and preparing to run when an older boy approached me and told me he was excited to see my breasts move as I ran. I never competed again.

    Excess weight accumulation is not an easy as the simplistic mathematic lie we’re told: surplus calories in over too few calories expended in physical activity. Sure, food and exercise are part of the equation, but it’s more complicated than this. Poverty, geography, culture, stress, and food scarcity are all associated with excess weight.

    My weight gain started following traumatic experiences of child sexual abuse and the experiences of severe adversity associated with poverty and homelessness. My fat body is a testament of survival.

    Plus size woman smiling at surfing.

    Dr Liz Allen believes it’s structural inequalities – not body positivity – that’s harming us. Picture: Adobe Stock 

    Australians, like the rest of the world, are leading increasingly harried lives. We’re busy. We rely on convenience; whether it’s cars or meals. Stress and time poverty collide in the perfect storm of weight gain. But weight gain isn’t a sign of personal weakness of failing, it reflects wider social trends that point to structural issues. Contemporary society is making us fat.

    Medical specialists tend to see only fatness in clients, overlooking the person within. You might go to a doctor about a neurological or gynaecological life-threatening issue only to be dismissed and told you’re fat. This has happened to me. Medical professionals overlooked my humanity (and my health) because their hate of fat bodies blinded them from seeing me.

    Body positivity isn’t killing women; poverty, gender inequality, and discrimination are.

    Body positivism isn’t about seeking to be fat or normalising fatness, it’s about not perpetuating harms unto oneself. Society provides enough hate towards fat bodies as it is. And, no, body positivism isn’t a sexual feederism fetish.

    So why don’t I just lose weight? I’ve tried. Diets, pills, exercise – been there done that. No weight loss, but I learned to hate myself more alongside debilitating headaches, kidney issues, and homicidal agitation. At a recent GP appointment my doctor looked me square in the eye and said ‘trying to lose weight now is causing you more harm, let’s put this off for another time’.

    Every day I have to reassure myself I’m worthy and that my fatness isn’t all there is to me. Body positivity grants people like me the self-esteem to cope with stigma. And, no, body positivism isn’t keeping me fat – life is keeping me fat. Give me the time, financial opportunities, and access to the right resources then maybe the fatness might budge.

    It’s beyond time action to support – rather than condemn – fat bodies is normalised by investing in policies that address the core issues that give rise to fatness. Fat stigma is a good place to start.

    • Please note: Picture at top is a stock photo. 

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  • We’re making progress in preventing gender-based violence

    On Friday, as around 5,000 people took to the streets of Melbourne for the Walk Against Family Violence, which every year kicks off the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, I found myself stuck at home marking student assessments. As I browsed through my social media feeds, I felt disappointed that I couldn’t attend. But, as I began reading the assessments, I felt less disappointed and surprisingly optimistic. This is not something that usually happens when I am marking.

    The 16 Days of Activism is an annual international campaign, beginning on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and running until 10 December, Human Rights Day. The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women began in Latin America to commemorate the murders of the Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa, political activists who were clubbed to death in 1960 by the Trujillo dictatorship’s secret police in the Dominican Republic.

    The 16 Days of Activism became a global campaign in 1991. Since then, every year, feminists, survivors and those working in the area of gender-based violence take to the streets, write opinion pieces like this and call for more action and investment to end the scourge that is gender-based violence. I say this not to diminish this activism. The work of feminist organising and women’s movements has been critical to holding governments accountable and driving change.

    However, this year has felt different because I feel more hopeful than before. I feel that there is, at last, some progress underway in preventing violence against women, and my own research and work have also given me hope. Not a passive kind of ‘wishing on a star’ hope but an active, Rebecca Solnit kind of hope “is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency”.

    What is there to be hopeful about?

    Community understanding of gender-based violence is improving. Worldwide, population-level data confirms that domestic violence is predominantly gendered. Women are overwhelmingly the victims of violence in intimate relationships and sexual violence, and men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of this violence. In Australia, as in other parts of the world, attitudes and understanding regarding violence against women are beginning to reflect the evidence, with more and more Australians rejecting violence against women and gender inequality.

    Australia has a comprehensive plan to end violence against women in one generation, the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2023.

    The Plan’s vision may be ambitious, but when it comes to the lives of countless women and children, can we afford to be anything but ambitious?

    We also have the First Action Plan that provides a roadmap for the first 5-year effort towards achieving that vision and the Outcomes Framework, which includes clear targets (something the last National Plan sadly lacked).

    There is also a dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plan. The Government has committed $2.3 billion over two years (2022-2024) towards implementing the National Plan and supporting the delivery of the action plans. While leading academics in gender-based violence have reasonably criticised this investment as not being commensurate with the scale of the problem, it is an unprecedented investment in fiscally constrained times.

    People and organisations from across disciplines, sectors and causes are coming together to address the issue. Researchers, governments, and community and private sector organisations, including social media platforms, banks and Indigenous organisations, are coming together to address gender-based violence through innovative partnerships such as the Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

    There are also indications that rates of gender-based violence are decreasing, with rates of lifetime physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence dropping by 31 per cent globally between 2000 and 2018. In Australia, we have seen a 31 per cent reduction in rates of intimate partner homicide (from 36 females killed to 25) over one year, from 2019-2020 to 2020-2021. While it is likely that COVID-19 and its associated effects (e.g. preventing women from leaving) will have had some impact on both of these rates of violence, they are still positive signs. Ultimately, although any preventable deaths are too many and the lasting trauma inflicted on women and children has devastating consequences and costs, we must consider signs of progress and learn from them.

    As my PhD research on Rosie Batty and the ‘Batty effect’ confirmed, much of this progress is thanks to the tireless advocacy work of survivors of gender-based violence and their loved ones, who have shone a light on what had previously been seen as a private issue and demanded change. Policymakers have, over time, recognised the value of engaging victim-survivors in developing policy and service reforms. While findings from my study examining the first three years of the Victorian Government’s Victim Survivor’s Advisory Council, recently published in the Journal of Gender-Based Violence, uncovered numerous challenges to meaningful engagement with survivors in the co-production of public policy, ultimately, I found that survivors were determined to persist.

    Policymakers were determined to share what they had learned, including their mistakes, to ensure practices are improved. Central to what policymakers had learned was, put simply, that we need to be the change we want to see. Preventing gender-based violence requires the transformation of institutions, systems and structures to rewrite formal and informal rules, which support power imbalances and gender inequality, and embed gender equality.

    What more needs to be done?

    While we must recognise that there are signs of progress in preventing gender-based violence, it is critical to acknowledge that more needs to be done, and it needs to be done urgently. The United Nations (UN) recently conceded that “without dedicated investment in scaling up prevention programmes, implementing effective policies and providing support services to address violence”, the world will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goal target of eliminating violence against women and girls by 2030.

    Although this is incredibly disappointing, the UN also released a report on the science for accelerating transformations, which explains that following the emergence phase, when innovation, piloting and the application of new knowledge take place, the next step to achieving successful transformations is accelerating and institutionalising change. This requires decisive action by governments, investing in infrastructure and capabilities, and overcoming resistance and barriers to reform. In other words, we have the foundations for transformation and know what works; now, we need to fast-track action and investment and embed the change we want to see in our institutions and ourselves.

    While others marched, I felt hopeful as I marked those student assessments because they had written about the growing international evidence on what works to prevent violence against women and developed their own intervention programs. They had fantastic proposals for programs in early childhood centres, local sporting clubs and newsrooms, and they were all realistic, affordable and intersectional (taking into consideration the multiple forms of violence experienced by many and compounding factors such as disability, poverty and race). Ultimately, that filled me with enormous hope for the future.

    Before you go…

    Please note: picture at top is a stock image. Adobe Stock/CWA 

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  • Taliban’s gender apartheid tightens, suppressing women’s rights,

    Today is the International Day to End Violence Against Women. The Taliban’s regime of gender apartheidcontinues to stifle women’s rights and voices. The Australian Government has removed human rights defenders from their list of criteria for priority processing from the country our military and aid workers spent decades working to improve alongside their Afghan allies and friends.

    Recent reports confirm the arrest of at least two young women advocates championing the rights of their fellow women in Afghanistan. Additional cases likely exist involving activists who have disappeared without any public attention.

    Parisa Azada, an active member of the Afghanistan Women’s Movement for Justice and Freedom, left home at 7am to join another protest with women from Bamiyan Province.

    For two days before her arrest, Parisa had been receiving concerning calls from unknown numbers. She sensed what was coming and asked her friends and circle of activists to raise a voice for her in case she went missing.

    Photo: Zolfa Behnia from 8 am Daily. Posted with permission. 

    Parisa Azada at a protest. The text says: “Detaining protestor women is suffocating free speech”. Photo: Zolfa Behnia from 8 am Daily. Posted with permission.

    Around 9am, after printing the banners for the day’s protest in a shop in Kabul, she called her friends and told them that she thought she was being followed by a black car. She was in Sarkariz, in Kabul’s Police District 3. Fear spread through the group of protestors as Prisa did not show up at the protest, and that night she did not come home. Her brother received a short call from the Taliban, who told him they had his sister but didn’t even specify where she was being held.

    Parisa has been missing since the 15th of November. Her family has been unresponsive to her friends and is under the Taliban’s surveillance. She’s a 24-year-old woman from Bamiyan in central Afghanistan whose friends describe her as funny, smart, and kind.  Parisa had been involved with the Afghanistan Women’s Movement for Justice and Freedom for several years. She attended many public protests, including against the Taliban’s strict dress code for Afghan women and the detention of journalists and human rights activists.

    The Afghanistan Women’s Movement for Justice and Freedom works on a range of women’s rights issues, including violence against women and free speech. The organisation has over 150 members from different provinces of Afghanistan. They’ve managed more than 70 protests and lawsuits for women’s rights since January 2022.

    Arghawan Farahmand* reported on the arrest of Parisa and other women’s rights issues. Like other female journalists in Afghanistan, she works in hiding. She’s been working with the 8am Newspaper (Hashte Sobh Daily) for over two years now. Arghawan explained, “I have shared so much with Parisa and I am afraid that my work will be held against me”

    Arghawan and Rahila went to university with Parisa. They know her well. Rahila was once a cheerful, motivated leader who started an organisation called GirlUp, an NGO in Kabul that actively worked against gender-based and sexual violence by raising awareness and advocating for women’s right to education and equal access to opportunities. She is now spending her days in hiding and in constant fear of being arrested, just like her friends.

    The circles of women activists and protestors are closely connected; concerns are increasingly haunting all women who have advocated for gender equality in any way. “I am worried that they will torture her, and she will lead them to us,” Rahila said.

    There are other brave women like Parisa, Arghawan and Rahila with significant ties to Australia who have applied for humanitarian visas.

    Azadi-e Zan works with a range of women’s rights defenders who have been fleeing the Taliban. The Australian Government refuses to grant visas to people who are inside Afghanistan. Many families flee to neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Iran, where the authorities also abuse their human rights. They exhaust any savings they may have had waiting for visas to come for places like Australia.

    It is likely, if they arrived on medical visas, they won’t be able to have their visas renewed after changes to Pakistan Government policies. Other visa categories are also difficult to get and incredibly expensive. They can wait indefinitely for registration with UNHCR and still receive no material or practical assistance.

    Now, the interim military Government of Pakistan is undertaking widespread deportation operations, sending incredibly high-risk women’s rights defenders back to Afghanistan without a second thought.

    Two such families who have been waiting for Australian humanitarian visas for years include Benafsha Bahar* and Zainab Hussaini*.

    Benafsha was a law professor at Al-Bironi University and ran a pro bono family law clinic helping women escape domestic violence. She experienced specific direct threats from the Taliban when she helped a woman escape an abusive marriage to a Talib. Now she, her husband and children are waiting for the Pakistan police to return to their door and send them back to the Taliban.

     

    Zainab, 18, is a young activist involved in the Australian Sisterhood Program, connecting young Australian and Afghan women for cross cultural exchange and to discuss the advancement of women’s rights. Zainab worked in her school as an environmental activist since 2016 and attended street rallies protesting the Taliban and the Hazara genocide. She has participated in a range of workshops, including with the Afghan Women’s Network, on gender equality and girl’s education.

    • Picture at top: Parisa Azadeh holds a sign that says: “Stop violence against women”. Photo: Zolfa Behnia from 8 am Daily. Posted with permission. 

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  • Periods are “actually kind of weirdly cool”

    Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an individual’s period as useless, and some doctors still believe it’s unsafe for a menstruating person to swim in the ocean wearing a tampon.

    A new book called “Period” by Kate Clancy counters the false theories that have long defined the study of the uterus, exposing the eugenic history of gynecology while providing an intersectional feminist perspective on menstruation science.

    Why did you want to research and write about periods? 

    I’ve been studying menstrual cycles and periods for over twenty years. What first drew me to them in college was the idea that you really could do research on something that you personally find interesting. I didn’t know anyone in academia or research – I didn’t know you really could study just about anything. And up to this point my exposure to periods was what I learned from my doctor and from sex ed in grade school.

    The scholarly study of periods opened up a whole different way of understanding the body – we can look to the historical study of the body, we can look to different ways of measuring things, we can understand variation not just pathology. It was the beginning of my love of biological anthropology and human biology more broadly.

    I wanted to write about periods for the same reason – I want more people to know what I know, that menstrual cycles are variable, responsive to environment, not inherently gross, and actually kind of weirdly cool.

    It’s 2023. Why do you think periods are still misunderstood? Are they wilfully misunderstood? 

    Some of the misunderstanding is wilful and some is not. I think when people make jokes about “blood coming out of her eyes or wherever” (Trump) or giving a cis man a tampon as a way of saying he is weak (Tiger Woods) – two things that have happened in recent years among famous men in the US at least – then yes, it’s wilful.

    Equating menstruation with weakness or emotional instability is such a tiresome, tired way of conceptualizing the uterus. I mean, if you’re going to be sexist, at least try to be clever about it.

    Another wilful misconception, to my mind, is in evolutionary psychology, where they seem to want to make everything about fertility detection. Humans are often said to be “concealed ovulators,” which isn’t exactly accurate but means we don’t have really obvious changes in behavior, or sexual swellings, or other ways of indicating our fertile period. Bros who want to know exactly when menstruating people are most fertile are obsessed with “detecting fertile periods” and with knowing our sexual preferences at different phases of the menstrual cycle to avoid getting cuckolded (the venn diagram of incels and certain fields in evolutionary psychology is a near circle).

    They are convinced there is some sort of intentional strategy that women and other menstruating people participate in that they can game to increase their own chances of getting a girlfriend, or something.

    The cover of "Period: The Real Story of Menstruation". Picture: Supplied

    The cover of “Period: The Real Story of Menstruation”. Picture: Supplied

    But I have also encountered so very many people who fundamentally misunderstand what a period is, why we have them, and what is going on in their or their loved ones’ bodies. When I was a kid I remember a friend’s boyfriend who thought menstrual blood came out of the belly button. More recently, I interviewed a high school biology teacher who has had students who thought periods were more like bowel movements, where you could hold them until you went to the toilet.

    Almost every man who has learned I study menstrual periods (and many women) have asked me if they synchronize among people who spend a lot of time together (they don’t). And something I’ve heard from many people as they’ve been reading my book is that they had no idea how much variation in menstrual cycles and periods was in fact quite normal – adaptive even, as we are supposed to be responsive to environment. It’s been a relief to them to know they are not “irregular” but in fact typical menstruating people.

    Why do you say gynaecology has a “eugenic” history? How does racism play into this discussion? 

    I say it has a eugenic history because it has a eugenic history. Gynaecology was founded on a number of things:

    1) Pushing out midwives with massive experiential knowledge, most of whom were Black and brown, criminalizing their work, and shaming them out of the profession – maternal mortality increased when they did this.

    2) Many of the procedures and practices we have today came from the unanesthetized and nonconsensual experimentation on enslaved people

    3) Gynaecology is founded on the idea that we need to preserve the fertility of white women while limiting the fertility of “undesirables” – people of color, disabled people, incarcerated people. As late as 2010 we were still sterilizing incarcerated people (mostly people of color) after pressuring them repeatedly to consent.

    Racism is central to the conversation on the history of gynaecology and the ethics of the discipline and its practitioners because the race of the patient is so often central to the type of care they receive.

    Why do you challenge the notion of a “normal” menstrual cycle? 

    Because the idea that there can be one “normal” menstrual cycle is just bad science. Research shows that ovarian hormones are incredibly variable, even among ovulatory cycles that are fecundable (meaning, that person is likely able to get pregnant that cycle if they try). And we’ve known this for at least forty years. My lab shows it’s not just that the overall quantities are variable, but that the pattern of expression through the cycle is variable.

    So that picture you saw when you were learning about what a menstrual cycle is in grade school is really not accurate. In fact, in our samples we see that pattern in less than a third of ovulatory cycles.

    What this means is that when we think we are weird, or not normal, or there is something wrong with our cycles… a lot of the time that isn’t true. Of course if a person is experiencing pain, infertility, or other symptoms it is crucial they get seen by a doctor. It is also important, though, to recognize that some amount of variability we experience just means our systems are functioning as they should.

    Vulvani Gallery: Free stock photos around menstruation

    Picture: Vulvani Gallery: Free stock photos around menstruation

    You talk about “medical betrayal” Can you unpick this for us? 

    Medical betrayal is a subset of a larger concept developed by Dr. Jennifer Freyd and others called “institutional betrayal.” Freyd defines institutional betrayal as “wrongdoings perpetrated by an institution upon individuals dependent on that institution, including failure to prevent or respond supportively to wrongdoings by individuals (e.g. sexual assault) committed within the context of the institution.”

    Medical betrayal is the kind of betrayal experienced by medical institutions: both at the provider-level and system-level. When people are not believed, when they have to advocate for themselves for a decade or more to receive a diagnosis, when their ailments are understudied, when dealing with insurance is a full time job – that’s medical betrayal.

    People with uteruses have a lot of betraying experiences in the medical system, and over time that can lead to a real loss of trust in science and in medicine. Sometimes this leads them towards treatments or methods that end up helping them a lot, other times they end up in the arms of charlatans. While I think there are limitations to Western medicine, it has many incredible uses and I find it really sad not only that the limitations are so centered around gonadal health, autoimmune and chronic diseases, and stigmatizing of fat people, but that this means that times when people with uteruses could really use health care, they may stop trying to get it.

    How can we change these age-old notions of periods (and women’s bodies more broadly) as being dirty and taboo?  

    Periods are a fascinating case study for biology: instead of relegating the menstrual cycle to a short mention in sex ed it really should be featured in high school biology classes. I mean, you have tissue remodeling, you have immune regulation, you have the uterus itself which is basically the original 3D printer! Why don’t we study why and how humans menstruate, and how the uterus works, at this time?

    I think if we bring back some of the wonder and curiosity it works better to reduce stigma than some efforts I’ve seen to normalize period blood (some of which, in my opinion, backfires because all it does is stimulate a disgust reaction in all the people who are already in the stigma camp). Whenever I talk to doctor friends I am appalled at how little they learn about the typical menstrual cycle or how or why periods do what they do (or, though this is a topic for another time, how they learn next to nothing about perimenopause and menopause). If the people who treat menstruating bodies don’t themselves know anything about periods I don’t know how we can get to a point where they are less stigmatized.

    What’s the most surprising thing you learned while writing the book? 

    When I was a very junior scholar, I expressed interest in studying endocrine disrupting chemicals and how they might affect menstrual cycles. I was immediately told by someone very senior that “they don’t do anything” and that I should look elsewhere in my research.

    Well, now we know that EDCs are everywhere, they are intensely harmful, and they do directly influence menstrual cycles, egg development, possibly even period pain or endometriosis. There are EDCs in tampons, pads, period underwear – but also in our drinking water, our food, and the air we breathe. A lot of this is due to fossil fuel extraction, plastic production, and exposure to plastics themselves.

    These data were surprising to me not just because they contradicted what an expert once said to me, but because I couldn’t figure out why this wasn’t a bigger deal. Plastics, disinfecting our water, particulate matter in the air – as we completely destroy our planet we are destroying human health. I cannot imagine a more important thing to sound the alarm on, and there are decades of incredible work showing in every way we can imagine that human damage to our planet is also damage to humans themselves – damage we can’t individual-solution our way out of. We need to fundamentally rethink the way we engage with the world and the obligations we have to each other and the planet.

    While I only put a little of this in the book, I ended up writing a separate article on this for American Scientist and have continued to follow this research both in collaborations in my lab as well as my next writing project.

    What do you hope your readers go away with? What impact do you hope the book will have?

    I hope talking about periods opens up bigger conversations for them around disability justice and what it means to create a true public where all humans can participate. Right now we have publics that are not fully accessible to children, caregivers, disabled people, immune compromised people, people of color, and menstruating people…to name just a few, and of course, these identities all can intersect.

    It’s not safe to be a Black person driving on the highway; it’s not safe to go to a crowded indoor space as an immune compromised person; it’s not safe to breathe the air some days as a pregnant person.To participate in public life, too many people have to take risks for their physical and mental and emotional health – risks that we could reduce through reduction of fossil fuels, slowing of climate change, better ventilation and filtration of indoor air, an end to racist policing as well as abolition from the perceived need for policing at all.

    I also want people to feel hopeful at the end of the book. The future is not inevitable, it’s not already set in stone. The future is up to us: what we imagine, what we work for, what we fight for.

    Maybe the piece I imagine is about having better ways of having periods in public, and being able to suppress periods as needed with fewer side effects.

    But maybe this gets you started imagining better air in your workplace, or an end to natural gas use in your home – and from there you dream bigger and bigger and bigger, working with coalitions of interested groups towards something brighter and ever more exciting.

    Is there anything else you want to say? 

    I think that’s it! Thank you for the chance to talk about my book – I do hope people buy it, and read it, and use it to enjoy cool science and dream of a better world.

    Period: The Real Story of Menstruation, out now

    • Picture at top is from Vulvani Gallery: Free stock photos around menstruation

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  • New research: Gender and Race in Australian workplaces

    “The sense of otherness is there ALL the time – everyday. I sometimes feel it very acutely. And I don’t think that shifts with time or experience…. The sense of otherness is always there.”

    This is what one senior woman leader told Intersection and Chief Executive Women during our research into the experiences of culturally and racially diverse women in leadership in corporate Australia.

    Her reflections were common.

    Almost everyone we interviewed relayed their experience of discrimination, barriers, and racism resulting from the way leaders and peers reacted to their colour, accent, name, cultural practices, their dress or hair reflective of their culture or race or their different career trajectories.

    They told us they felt the constant need to adapt and fit in with western models of leadership. All this in addition to the barriers they face as women in the workplace.

    Yet our research points squarely to the fact that, while the discussion of gender in the workplace is advancing, race is rarely mentioned, and racism remains a taboo word.

    “They almost don’t care what the women look like – but I do, as we’re just replacing old white men with slightly younger White women.”

    Australian workplaces are well behind international counterparts and need to get serious about cultural and racial diversity.

    If we do not explicitly address structural inequality, we will inevitably make these worse. We need to understand the intersectional differences that all of us experience and how they have been used to create inequalities between us. We all have a cultural and racial identity. If we fail to recognise how these shape our lives, and how they disadvantage some of us, the benefits of gender equality initiatives will flow largely to White women. Certainly, that is what the data shows. It is the same with class, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, and (dis)ability.

    If we are to make progress, we need to have honest and open conversations about who we are.

    Yet, for many of the women leaders we spoke to, this was the first time in their career that they had been asked to reflect on how their gender and race may have impacted their career trajectories. Our conversations revealed that race was hardly ever discussed in the workplace.

    Most of the women we spoke to considered that now is the time to change up the conversation and talk about gender AND race in corporate Australia.

    To have an effective conversation, we need to be able to name the issues. But the language we use in Australia, most often, “cultural and linguistical diversity”, is neither accurate nor sufficient.

    The language of ‘diversity’ is problematic, bringing with it a comparison to an invisible norm that remains unscrutinised or uncritiqued. Just as most cis men are able to walk through life rarely thinking about their sex or gender, Whiteness is generally an invisible characteristic, and White people are rarely asked to consider how their race has privileged their careers. In our report we wanted to name this privilege. The language of Whiteness sometimes makes White people uncomfortable or defensive, but that is exactly why it is important to name it.

    It is good to see the Australian Government is working on the weaknesses in our terminology and data collection. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency is working to assist workplaces to capture consistent diversity demographic information and the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Giles, has committed the Government to improving data collection on race, culture, and ethnicity more broadly.

    Our research revealed some pathways forward for Australian workplaces. Put simply they come down to good leadership and active allyship.

    Our interviewees spoke of the critical importance of sponsors, mentors and the need for leaders to provide access to networks. High potential women are often over-mentored and under-sponsored, compared to men, but it is sponsorship – the act of advocating for people who may not otherwise have access to leadership – that is the most effective.

    Many of the leaders we spoke to in our research were conscious they were carrying the ‘cultural load’ of raising awareness of race and addressing issues of racism in their workplaces. Sometimes this was seen as rewarding, but it was often also exhausting and difficult. Many of the women we spoke to told us how important it is when White colleagues step in as allies.

    Leaders can help staff build the courage and space to be effective allies by demonstrating this behaviour, while recognising and rewarding others who do the same. Leaders should communicate their expectation that staff should support their colleagues and that it is safe for them to do so.

    Leaders cast a long shadow on workplace cultures, and often it is difficult for them to receive genuine feedback on their impact. We call on leaders to engage in deliberate self-reflection about cultural assumptions and biases, acknowledge mistakes, and commit to self-improvement.

    They must make sure there is always space for people to talk about their different experiences, and to create safe working environments for everyone. These conversations will not help, however, if people do not feel safe to raise these issues. As one senior woman leader told us:

    “Fortunately, I’m at leadership level where I’m like: here I am! But it’s taken me probably until the role before this one where I could – I still remember almost feeling like I could just exhale and let my shoulders down and I was just like… I’m going to be me. But it took a lot. I had to be quite senior before I felt that way. And even to this day, there’s still stuff I need to be a little mindful of, depending on my audience.”

    The need to feel safe applies to culturally and racially diverse women as well as to White colleagues. Leaders need to assess their organisation’s culture, set goals and measure progress. And they need to take action in response.

    The next step is to take a more nuanced and sophisticated approach to dealing with difference in our workplaces. We must recognise how gender and race intersect, along with all the multiple other facets of our identities, to create different lived experiences in the workplace for each of us.

    “Having more diversity will attract more diversity. There is something in numbers.”

    Few policies will be able to encompass the differences between us all. This is why it is a matter of leadership and of allyship, of engaging with all our colleagues, making sure our workplaces are welcoming for us all and holding ourselves and each other to account.

     

    Please note: photo at top is a stock image 

     

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  • Gender equality made central to development policy

    This week the Australian government released its long awaited new international development policy, the first rethink in ten years. The policy places gender equality at the heart of development:

    Placing gender equality at the centre of development creates opportunities for people to thrive, making our countries stronger, more secure and more inclusive. Australia is developing a new international gender equality strategy to guide the breadth of Australia’s engagement, including how we integrate gender equality throughout our development partnerships and programs.

    We will continue to support specific gender equality initiatives and ensure all development programs contribute to gender equality. We have reinstated a target for 80 per cent of all development investments to address gender equality effectively and the new requirement for new investments of more than $3 million to include gender equality objectives.

    Importantly, a Civil Society Partnerships Fund has been created. This fund has been described as part of a commitment to locally-led development and is a welcome development in the recognition, continuation and growth of support and resources for spaces for organising and connecting civil society. The Civil Society Partnerships Fund can counteract the situation of shrinking civil society spaces and will sustain spaces for mobilising and advocating for change.

    Civil society organisations and diverse alliances hold dialogue with the intention of all voices contributing to the ultimate outcome, and with space to hear different positions. The sharing of ideas and lessons transparently and building capacity can aid the growth of a larger supportive cohort to amplify voices for gender equality at the regional and global level.

    This tangible action provides resources but the design detail is yet to come. Investment in supporting a diversity of civil society is still required to ensure that all feel included and heard and that the spaces makes room for intersectional activism and difference. It will also be important that access to this Fund manages the risks and perceptions of co-optation and a reluctance to be critical of the hand that feeds it.

    Giving resources and time to hear the voices of the full diversity of civil society will help organise and amplify organisations’ and individuals’ engagement. Spaces must be created to be heard directly; not spoken about by donors, governments and regional organisations but rather being able to tell their own stories.

    The best pathway to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and delivering on gender equality is through broad-based and inclusive regional fora and discussions that provide space for inclusive civil society. Only then will there be a full leveraging of the ‘leave no one behind principle’ from the SDGs.

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  • Referendum vote: Women from history can help us

    The upcoming 2023 Constitutional Referendum on enshrining a First Nations Voice in the Australian constitution seeks a change to a document drafted by white male colonial politicians through a series of constitutional conventions in the 1890s. What in many ways is an inspired amendment to a document stranded in antiquated notions of white Australia and colonial privilege has become something other — a free-for-all about a document few have read and fewer understand.

    This scrapping about a document shrouded in ignorance, easy to misrepresent and a source of such confusion and partisan mischief-making is one of the many reasons my colleague James Blackwell and I developed an 8-part podcast series, It’s not just the vibe, It’s the Constitution to help people understand what our Constitution actually has in it – and why we are being asked to change it.

    In all of this, history is important and perhaps none more seminal and enlightening than the struggle women’s voices have had to be heard as they move from the constitutional fringes of our governance to something more approaching a mainstream consensus, although still with a long way to go.

    At the time of drafting the Constitution there were many absent voices — female and indigenous voices led a long line of exclusions and with telling results.

    They were unrepresented as delegates in the 1890s Constitutional Conventions and their voices and votes largely didn’t count when the colonies bounded together into what we now call the Commonwealth of Australia.

    There was a spark of inspiration in South Australia where by 1894 women had successfully campaigned for the right to vote and to be members of the Parliament. This left an imprint on the Australian Constitution as the drafters scrambled to fit the anomaly of female suffrage in one state into a document covering a unified nation.

    Women outside of South Australia, of course, wanted the vote and went to great lengths to get it. In Victoria in 1891 they gathered the Monster Petition, 260 metres in length with 30,000 signatures and the largest known petition of the 19th Century. It petitioned for a women’s vote but they were unsuccessful and women didn’t get to vote in Victorian elections until 1908.

    Jumping back across the border, female suffrage in South Australia provided the legislative opening for the remarkable Catherine Helen Spence to run as the first women federal political candidate in Australia.  Nominating to be a member of the 1897 Constitutional Convention drafting the Constitution held in her hometown of Adelaide, she was identified as one of the ten best ‘men’ in the running.  The accolade was not enough to get her elected although her legacy of active citizenship paved the way for those following in her footsteps. And, hugely significant, women voting in South Australia were able to convince their representatives to guarantee women who had the vote that their vote would continue — Section 41 figures in the Constitution as a result.

    There are residues of South Australian female suffrage too in Section 128 which sets out the machinery for changing the Constitution.  We are hearing a lot about this section in the run up to the Voice Referendum. The proposed change must be approved by a ‘double majority’. There needs to be a majority of voters in favour of change throughout Australia (and voters in the ACT and NT have only been counted since 1977 and, a majority of electors in a majority of the states (i.e. at least four out of six states have to vote yes — the territories don’t count in that part).

    Portrait of Catherine Helen Spence in the 1890s.

    Portrait of Catherine Helen Spence in the 1890s. Picture: Public domain/Wikimedia Commons

    The wording of that section also uncovers the struggle for suffrage by women in the 1890s.   The framers realised that in those states where women did have the right to vote — votes guaranteed to continue by section 41 — those states would garner more votes and that might skew the result. Wouldn’t that be unfair to those states that had not yet given women the right to vote?

    At this point the convention debates record a bizarre discussion about whether women should put their votes in on pink ballot forms and men in blue!   In the end, they determined another way, as seen in the words of the third paragraph of section 128.   Until universal suffrage was achieved, ‘only one-half the electors voting for and against the proposed law shall be counted in any State in which adult suffrage prevails.’

    As it turned out, this protection was never used because the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 granted Australian women the right to vote and to stand in federal elections, and the first referendum was held in 1906.  But the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 also specifically disqualified ‘natives of Australia, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands (except New Zealand Māori)’ from voting in federal elections, unless they were entitled under section 41 of the constitution. It was not until 1962 that Indigenous Australians were included in the Commonwealth Electoral Act and included as voters in Australian federal elections.

    Growing knowledge of indigenous exclusion and the constitutional forms it has taken may help clarify the importance of the “yes” case without overblowing its claims.  The exclusion of indigenous Australians and the history of discrimination against them is certainly relevant to this year’s proposed change to the Constitution.

    The proposed section 129 of the Constitution, will recognise ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia’, and set up ‘a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice’; which will ‘may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’.  The section also guarantees that ‘Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws’ about the ‘composition, functions, powers and procedures’ of the Voice.

    In all this, knowing what is in the Constitution, and the history behind it, is key to understanding this year’s referendum.  In order to change something, you really need to know what is in it in the first place.  And in knowing something about the constitution and its history, you may unearth inspirational stories of what others have done before you and what is at stake. For example, people voting in this year’s referendum may well be inspired by the women of the 1890s and there unremitting struggle for female suffrage. They are an edifying example of the importance of active citizenship.

    With that I encourage you to tune into our 8-part podcast series, It’s not just the vibe, It’s the Constitution available on all podcast platforms to help and inspire you when you come to vote in this year’s referendum!

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  • Female umpires encountering a culture of abuse, misogyny

    “I wouldn’t know any woman who’s been in umpiring who hasn’t experienced something negative,” says Carly*, a former AFL umpire.

    She’s commenting on a recent study, conducted by former umpire Victoria Rawlings and former umpiring manager Damian Anderson, which examined the experience of female AFL umpires. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with community and state level female umpires, finding misogyny to be rife within officiating environments.

    The data overwhelmingly reflected a “culture of exclusion, discrimination, and hostility,” as a result of both intentional and unintentional behaviours and systems. “The experiences of girls and women in this paper point towards the need to prioritise cultural change within umpiring groups,” the study concludes.

    This is familiar to Carly, who umpired as a teenager into her twenties. Over the course of those years, she had many experiences of misogyny from other officials, and was constantly reminded that she stood out:

    “I think there’s aspects about the environment that are just hostile, just because of the system that you’re in, without any ill intention.”

    Remembering when another umpire said they wished she would be more involved in the wider group, Carly described the frustration she felt, knowing the exclusivity she was up against. “You’re not a member of [the boys] club, but you’re still punished for not being a part of it. You have to try to be in it.”

    Carly consistently felt like she had to be “more competent than the majority” just to be seen as equally competent. “I think people’s models of what makes a good umpire is based on the ones they’ve seen. And so they expect you to look like the men.”

    Only 10.8% of AFL umpires were female in 2019, the last time the Australian Football League released umpiring statistics. Since then, covid-19, among other factors, appears to have lowered those numbers even further, although no official statistics have been confirmed.

    These issues are not unique to AFL. I asked 25 year-old Meredith* about their experience as a female football referee. “Experiencing misogyny as a referee takes many forms,” she told me. 

    “On some level you become ‘used’ to the comments.”

    Meredith has experienced misogynistic remarks being made about her many times, including being asked “if I’m on my period” after making a decision on the field. She has found it exhausting. “It builds up, and eventually you begin to question your place in sport.”

    Talking about how it affects her, Meredith says, “The comments at times that can come from the broader community of referees that is prevalent across all codes (AFL and beyond) is in my experience the most disheartening.” There are times when Meredith, seeing the success of other female referees, has witnessed “other people finding subtle comments to devalue their accomplishments.”

    Umpires such as Carly and Meredith are often facing misogyny from outside umpiring environments too. Internationally accredited hockey umpire and researcher Stirling Sharpe has witnessed spectator abuse towards umpires many times. “The unfortunate reality of being a match official is that you are likely to be abused. Most people accept that this is a (unacceptable) part of the job…where abuse becomes a more significant issue is when it stops being about decisions on field and starts becoming about the person – the way they look, their gender, etc.”

    In cases where the abuse is misogynistic, Stirling says, “Often, I think this is related to an unconscious (or even deliberate) thought that women don’t have the skills to…manage a game (particularly a men’s game).” Participants in Rawlings’ and Anderson’s study experienced this behaviour – one was even told, “You can’t umpire because you’re a girl.”

    Sexism and sexual harassment are also prevalent within umpiring environments. “A pattern that kept coming up, which I think might be a general phenomenon, is basically unwanted sexual attention…you hear how the boys and men talk about women and objectify them,” Carly told me. These experiences are not singular occurrences either, as Rawlings’ and Anderson’s study discussed.

    Participants outlined experiences where other umpires, coaches, and spectators displayed inappropriate behaviours, including sending nude photos, sexist comments, and the objectification of women’s bodies.

    In some cases, harassment was a reason to leave. “That’s what made me quit that level of umpiring,” one participant said. Another stopped showing up to training because one of the coaches was acting inappropriately. 

    Associate Professor Catherine Ordway. Picture: supplied

    Meredith understands this all too well. “The often subtly pervasive nature of the misogyny is exhausting and quickly compiles…When you start to experience it from all sides, and don’t necessarily receive support from the broader community, it’s very easy to consider walking away.” 

    Catherine Ordway, associate professor in sports and exercise science at the University of Canberra, is no stranger to misogyny and abuse within sporting environments. I asked her about how this abuse might reflect on Australia on a wider scale. “I think it reflects the situation that women find themselves in sport, where sport is designed by and for men…there [is a] small percentage of the male population and actually some of the female population that believe that women have no place in sport.” 

    The popularity and visibility of AFL and football makes these sports important platforms for change (AFL’s grand final last year had 2.97 million viewers, and the FIFA Women’s World Cup is already breaking attendance records). When potential strategies to combat misogyny are raised, they often come down to the same things.

    I asked Carly what she thought, and her response was, “…having better coaches, coaches who actually believe in diversity, that would be my biggest change.”Stirling voiced the same concern. “Unsupportive people in high positions can have the ability to block progression, create inharmonious environments, and generally ruin the officiating experience.” 

    Catherine elaborated on these ideas, saying, “We also need to see it normalised that women are part of sports, so that we see women in broadcasting, in journalism, commentating, women coaches, referees, officials – all the way through.” This goal is already being vocalised and addressed in some sports. AFL’s 2022 Women and Girls Game Development Action Plan targets participation and engagement issues, and hockey’s #EquallyAmazing campaign has seen results across at least 19 European nations.

    Whether umpiring will change remains to be seen. “Shifting to a model whereby officials are treated equally, based on their ability to umpire or referee, is something all sports should be moving toward, if they are not there already,” Stirling told me. 

    It seems there’s still a long way to go. According to Catherine, however, “Once we see that it just becomes normal…Nobody is concerned about gender in a negative way. They just celebrate the differences between men’s and women’s sport. And that’s exactly how it should be.”

    *Names have been changed at the request of the interviewees for both professional, safety and privacy reasons.

    Feature image at top is a stock photo.

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  • When women get demonised for speaking out

    Is it worse to commit the act, or to say that the act was done?

    I grew up with a Mum who was a family law solicitor in a medium-sized country town. As you would expect, she had to keep her lips tightly sealed about the things she had seen and heard about what goes on behind closed doors in a small community, but occasionally I would hear her say something I’ve never forgotten: “Is it worse to do it, or to say it was done?”

    Lately, Mum’s words have been echoing in my head, as I have watched a succession of women being publicly pilloried for daring to complain about the behaviour of their male colleagues.

    For a while it seemed to be going so well. Back in March 2021, the then-PM Scott Morrison responded to allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct and sexual assault in parliament by saying: “Women are too afraid to call out bad behaviour for fear of losing a job or being intimidated in their workplace. That is not OK, and it’s not their fault, it’s the environment we have allowed to be created.” He added (apparently unironically): “This has been a very traumatic month.”

    By February 2022, Parliament had made a public apology to victim-survivors. The apology was the work of a bipartisan committee and an important first step in building a culture where people are safe to report workplace violence and harassment. The apology boasted of a ‘trauma informed support for people who have experienced serious incidents’.

    The subsequently established Parliamentary Workplace Support Service is at pains to emphasise the importance of confidentiality in its complaints processes, in order to provide an environment in which complainants are not victimised or bullied for speaking out. Put together, this sounded like a good step towards a world where a complaint of harassment is no longer considered a worse offence than the actual harassment itself.

    Fast forward to July 2023. After more than two years of work, have we reached a point where ‘saying it was done’ is no longer a punishable offence? At the end of May, the Minister for Women, Senator Katy Gallagher, spent the best part of two weeks under what can only be described as a political attack over the timing of a complaint of sexual assault.

    Over the course of the fortnight, it became clear that her crime was to have respected a complainant’s request for confidentiality.

    The questioning was relentless and aggressive and made the very clear point that a complaint of sexual assault will not only leave you open to attack but may also expose anyone who supports you to harassment and aggressive questioning. In any context other than Parliament, the Opposition’s behaviour towards Senator Gallagher would have been seen as harassment and stopped. In Parliament, it was considered to be situation normal.

    By mid-June, Senator Lidia Thorpe had raised an allegation of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching by another Senator. In subsequent days she was publicly accused of lying by the Senator and several news outlets took the time to note that the accused Senator had been ‘visibly shaken’ by the allegations, which he described as ‘untrue, outrageous, disgusting’.

    None of the media I saw made any mention of Senator Thorpe’s obvious distress in the Senate chamber as she made the allegation, despite her agitated gestures and the tremor in her voice being clearly apparent in the recording. Speaking to Radio National later that week, Senator Thorpe said: “It’s been horrible. I became the perpetrator. I became the person that was demonised for speaking truth.”

    She also noted that ‘it wasn’t until a white woman stood up and said: yeah, this happened to me too, that the media took notice. And I think that’s a great example of the …systemic racism in this country. I was not believed… and you wonder why women don’t speak out.”

    This week we have seen a former Federal MP ‘outed’ as the source of a complaint about harassing emails from a Liberal party figure. Sydney radio station, 2GB publicly identified the complainant, despite the confidential nature of the complaint and the complaint process being made clear by party figures in earlier media reporting. The complainant has issued a press release in response, which describes her distress at being named.

    If you were a young woman watching this, would you report a workplace sexual assault? What has our hypothetical young female complainant learned over the past three months?

    Lesson one: people who attempt to apply basic rules of confidentiality to your complaint may be publicly attacked for doing so. Lesson two: if you are Black you won’t be believed unless you are supported by a white woman. Lesson three: even if the process in place to deal with your complaint is confidential, random media figures may take it into their heads to publish your name.

    Kate Jenkins‘ Set the Standard report into parliamentary culture has not yet been fully implemented, although I know lots of people have been diligently working on the project. It’s critical that all people working in parliament feel safe to report sexual assault and gender-related violence. We need all parliamentarians and the media to respect the Set the Standard findings and strive for a world where reports of violence are taken seriously and treated with respect, not used to score political points or ratings. Everyone in Parliament has clearly memorised the talking points – we hear a lot about how harassment in the House on the Hill needs to stop, and yet the scapegoating of complainants continues.

    It’s clear that, despite good intentions and fine words, we have not made substantial headway in accepting that women have a right to complain about inappropriate behaviour by their male colleagues. Indeed, when a woman stands up to recount an assault or other inappropriate behaviour, she is doing a service to others in her workplace – recounting her own difficult or traumatic experience in order to improve the culture of her workplace. Surely that is exactly the sort of person who should be supported and encouraged?

    The reality is that the #Metoo movement rattled a lot of cages. There are a significant number of people out there who would very much prefer it if women would just shut up about their experiences. Who would prefer that approach so strongly, that they are prepared to harass and victimise those complainants and their supporters in the hope of putting them back in their box. In the last three months we have seen the backlash in full swing, and it’s really not pretty.

    Sorry Mum. Apparently, it is still very much worse to ‘say it was done’.

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  • Aussie girls smash skateboarding championships in the US

    Two Australian girls, Chloe Covell (aged 13) and Arisa Trew (also 13) have just won gold in the Street and Park divisions at the latest X-Games competitions in California. The X-Games is, to skateboarding, what Wimbledon is to tennis in terms of its prestige and world class competitors.

    Such achievements are all the more remarkable for a sport that has a tradition of being dominated by men and where women’s competitions have had to overcome many serious barriers. This includes with the X-Games once cancelling the women’s vert division in LA less than ten years ago in July 2011 due to the organisers lack of faith in both the audience potential and more importantly, the talent.

    Over the years however, as the just-released co-authored book ‘Skateboarding, Power and Change’ (by Willing and Pappalardo, Palgrave Macmillan) highlights, there have also been hard-won leaps forward. This includes calls for better pay and visibility by elite women skateboarders such as Cara-beth Burnside and Mimi Knoop whose actions included boycotting the X-Games in 2005.

    There is also plenty of behind the scenes advocacy by people such as Kim Woozy who helped testify and bring in the ‘Equal Pay for Equal Play’ bill in California. Today’s generation of women and non-binary skaters have been able to build up their sport on the foundations of a history of women and LGBTIAQ+ led advocacy and the results are speaking for themselves.

    Photo of Arisa Trew receiving Gold at X-Games California, supplied by the Trew family.

    Arisa Trew (centre) receiving Gold at X-Games California. Picture: Supplied/Trew family.

    Both Chloe Covell and Arisa Trew are also Olympic contenders for Paris 2024 as confirmed by Skate Australia, the national sport organisation for the sport. There are expectations both girls will also be a part of the Games in LA 2028 and back home in Australia for 2032. Last month on 24 June Chloe Covell, from northern NSW) won silver at the World Skate Skateboarding Street World Tour event in Rome, Italy, where skateboarders earn world ranking through points to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

    Continuing the Australian skateboarder’s run of capturing the world’s attention, on 25 June Arisa Trew, from the Gold Coast, QLD set a world record in Salt Lake City, Utah USA as the first skater in a woman’s division to land a 720 trickon a vert ramp. A story by the Olympics News also emphasised that this was achieved in front of Tony Hawk who not only invented the trick but is also the world’s most famous skateboarder. Trew performed the same 720 trick at the X-Games in California this month, making her the first ever to win a competition in the women’s division doing so.

    Each girl has their own style and brings something remarkable to skateboarding, with Covell’s street runs including highly difficult switch tricks (using the opposite stance one usually skates) and Trew’s world-record breaking ‘never been done’ (NBD in skaters’ terms) moments in park and vert competitions.

    The future of skateboarding is not only looking more inclusive but also pushing aside old stereotypes that ‘girls can’t skate’ with a barrage of never seen before technical skills by both Covell and Trew. These girls are joined by other talented young girls and women skateboarders from Australia such as Ruby Trew, Haylie Powell, Liv Lovelace, and Felicity Turner.

    At the same time, both nationally and on the international stage, there remain rules and categories in competitive skating that can exclude and misrecognise skaters’ authentic selves and erase their presence and achievements. This includes within the Olympic Games where research (such as by Willing and Barbier, 2021) on the gender binary highlights pressures placed on non-binary and transgender skaters to conform to unrealistic and unscientifically proven parameters of gender.

    In Tokyo Games in 2021, Outsports highlighted how non-binary competitor Alana Smith was misgendered by sport commentators, who has since used the occasion to educate press on pronouns. In the documentary Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story (2022), a former USA Skateboarding team member and elite professional skater Leo Baker also talks about how he withdrew before the Tokyo 2020 Games during his gender affirmation due to not wanting to compete within such narrow frameworks of gender.

    In the skateboarding research article ‘Before the Gold’ by Dr Neftalie Williams it is also pointed out that skateboarding, like other sports, is also not immune to issues such as racism. More broadly, as Professor Belinda Wheaton and Dr Holly Thorpe also outline in their book on Action Sport and the Olympic Games(Routledge, 2022), there are various structural conditions that also demand attention to make skating competitions such as the Olympics accessible to skaters from a variety of disadvantaged backgrounds. And as a recent panel at The Stoked Sessions Conference at San Diego State University that focused on looking at skating through an intersectional lens, this includes across issues connected to income, class, age, gender, sexuality, race, colonialism, conflict zones and geographies.

    The panel was chaired by myself and Anthony Pappalardo and featured Dine, Navajo Nation artist and skate educator Di’orr Greenwood; The Skatepark Project BIPOC Fellow L Brew; FUBU action sport agent Yulin Olliver; and the founder of Exposure Skate and Olympian skater Amelia Brodka. While skating may be global, the panellists emphasized that it is not rolled out on an equal playing field. And while skating is also local, it is, as Douglas Miles Senior from Apache Skateboards, on Native/Indigenous Land.

    Photo features panellists Yulin Olliver, Di’orr Greenwood, L Brew and Amelia Brodka with Dr Indigo Willing and other speakers at The Stoked Sessions San Diego State University conference, taken by Alec Beck.

    Photo features panellists Yulin Olliver, Di’orr Greenwood, L Brew and Amelia Brodka with Dr Indigo Willing and other speakers at The Stoked Sessions San Diego State University conference. Picture: Alec Beck

    In skateboarding campaigns such as by the women’s run network Poseidon Foundation, skaters are also joining calls for the inclusion of WCMX and adaptive skateboarding to be included in the Olympics. Over a four day span at World Skate’s San Juan event in May 2023, interviews were conducted with competing skateboarders such as Tokyo Olympic medal winner Sky Brown advocating for adaptive skateboarding to have its place in the Olympics and Paralympic Games.

    As Poseidon Foundation’s President Micaela Ramirez states, “adaptive skaters themselves are requesting their demo take place in Switzerland for the upcoming September competition.” She adds, “the high calibre of folks advocating for this cause is a clear indicator of the passion, significance and importance of providing an opportunity for adaptive skaters to showcase their amazing talents.” World-ranking and professional level WCMX and adaptive women skateboarders leading efforts to draw attention to their sports internationally include Tia Pearl and Kanya Esser in the US and Lily Rice in the UK. In Australia, Timothy Lachlan who openly identifies as a Queer skater also runs workshops to increase the participation of all genders through his network and coaching initiative WCMX and Adaptive Skateboarding Australia.

    Another pathway that is far less talked about but requires urgent attention is how to ensure safety, respect, and a culture of consent in skateboarding as it continues to grow in popularity and status.

    Many of the star skateboarders from Australia and internationally are also girls who are still under 16, and this demands assurances at all levels that they are well looked after as athletes, but also emotionally and psychologically. Furthermore, issues of sport integrity and abuse also affect all sports, and skateboarding needs to fasten its strategies for keeping everyone safe.

    Currently, skateboarding may be way behind other sports too in this regard, as it has emerged from a subculture and youth culture that has not been restricted by rules, regulations and being an incorporated sport. While its comparative lack of structure allows for its social dimensions, spontaneity, fun, creative flair, and artistic side to thrive, there can be troubling gaps in support and protection of its participants too.

    Current initiatives include the ‘Win Well 2032’ campaign, whose website emphasises values such as “how we win is just as important as when we win” and that participating sports including Skate Australia commit to “prioritising and focusing on the physical, mental, emotional, and cultural wellbeing of our athletes, coaches, staff, and sport as a whole, we will unlock our full potential and Win Well.”

    The campaign is part of Australia’s High Performance 2032+ Sport Strategy and recognised by The Australian Institute of Sport and eight State/Territory Institutes and Academies of Sport, representing Federal, State and Territory Governments. National Sporting Organizations, including Skate Australia, are also now making a commitment to the objectives of and working with Sport Integrity Australia, where members can make formal complaints on issues from bullying to sexual misconduct.

    Both initiatives are relatively new with Win Well 2032 having been launched this year and Sport Integrity Australia in 2020, so the overall impact they can make has not had much time to be measured in the world of skateboarding. Moreover, not all skateboarders are members of Skate Australia, making it difficult for complaints to be investigated. The impact of existing protection and support mechanisms for skateboarders at an elite competitive level, and especially athletes aged under 16, remains a critical area for more research as well as the gaps.

    The "Consent is Rad" logo. Picture: Supplied

    The “Consent is Rad” logo. Picture: Supplied

    There are more ‘on the ground’ and community-led campaigns such as Consent is Rad, which I launched as a co-founder in 2019 at Pushing Boarders in Malmo, Sweden. Consent is Rad is an internationally focused community initiative co-founded by a team based in Australia and has an international focus.

    Despite being volunteer run, its simple “no naming, no shaming or blaming” educational messages about challenging a macho ‘rape culture’ that has been long been a hushed up but harmful element in skating and embracing consent cultures in skateboarding has resonated worldwide. It has also received 2nd place in the Skate Rising Social Projects category in the Exposure Skate Awards in 2021, and that won equal first place in the Social Project of the Year Award in 2023 from Skate Like A Girl. Consent is Rad has collaborated with groups from Europe, the US and Australia and produced a range of educational resources.

    Photo of Dr Indigo Willing holding a sign at the launch of Consent is Rad at the ‘Support Your Local Academic’ panel at Pushing Boarders, Malmo, Sweden 2019, taken by artist ‘Star Buttons Spark.’ Other panelists include Dr Sander Holsgens, Stuart Maclure, Dr Luke Cianciotto, Dr Adelina Ong and Sophie Friedel.

    Photo of Dr Indigo Willing holding a sign at the launch of Consent is Rad at the ‘Support Your Local Academic’ panel at Pushing Boarders, Malmo, Sweden 2019, taken by artist ‘Star Buttons Spark.’ Other panelists include Dr Sander Holsgens, Stuart Maclure, Dr Luke Cianciotto, Dr Adelina Ong and Sophie Friedel. Picture: Supplied

    However, with women and non-binary led campaigns such as Consent is Rad, there is a risk that the information is only reaching those who are affected by sexual violence or are already allies and not ‘getting through’ to populations who need to be educated the most. In response to this, Consent is Rad has also worked in collaboration with a facilitator and team of overseas skaters on projects like the Break the Cyclecampaign that ran in magazines such as Thrasher that reaches a huge audience of boys and men.

    There has also been the ‘Red Flags, Banter and Blurred Lines: Exploring Consent is Sport’ project by a research team from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research and Sport and Gender Equity HubGriffith University including myself and Dr Adele Pavlidis, Professor Simone Fullagar, Professor Molly Dragiewicz and Dr Justine Hotten where we examined how men leaders in various types of sport (from tennis to rugby) talk about consent. The findings will be discussed in an upcoming seminar on 27 July for the Gender Equality Research Network who also provided seed funding for the project. More ongoing support and funding however is needed for such campaigns to achieve more impact and for research projects to keep on examining their effectiveness.

    In summary, skateboarding for girls, women and non-binary skaters has come a long way in providing opportunities for everyone to be able to participate at whatever level they want, including at the high-performance level of elite competitions.

    The future will no doubt see many more switching up of traditions and NBDs. We should all get on board and support this trajectory and do so with more than just cheers from the stadiums and ‘heart’ emoji and ‘thumbs up’ clicks on social media. We need also need to bring in policies, safeguards and both community-led and institutional level strategies to ensure skaters can be safe from physical, emotional, and psychological abuse, free from discrimination, and able to just do what they love and have fun, which is the reason skateboarders started doing what they do in the first place.

    • Picture at top: Chloe Covell with her X-Games gold medal. Photo: Colin Bane.

       

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  • Walkley awards: bold move to even up gender imbalance

    Recognition and reward. It’s all we’re after isn’t it? That our hard work is noticed and that we’re paid fairly for it.

    Right now Australia’s media industry has a chronic problem with both of these concepts. 

    I’m the Deputy Chair of the Board of the Walkleys, the foundation which celebrates this country’s finest journalism and journalists. Except as a board we’ve discovered we actually haven’t fully recognised our highest-achieving colleagues.

    Over the past year or so, the Walkley Foundation has undertaken a comprehensive and consultative review of its awards to ensure they are meeting industry expectations, the changing nature of our industry and reflect the work being done. The board was not part of that process, but we did take a look at the one award that is our purview, the Outstanding Contribution to Journalism award.

    And what we noticed was that over 30 years, only seven women have received that honour. In contrast, 21 men were recipients. THREE TIMES the number of women. Two organisations have been honoured.

    We hired a senior journalist to identify our industry’s great women. We called it Project Faustine, named in honour of 19th-century journalist Eliza Ann Ashton who often used Faustine as a byline for her stories published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph.

    The project identified dozens of women – some well-known, others pioneers, but all making outstanding contributions to our media industry.

    I have been a journalist for 36 years, starting well before this award was first handed out in 1992. I know there have been incredible high-achieving women in our industry, who have given so much. Where are they? Why aren’t they on this list?

    Karen Percy speaking at the Walkley awards last year about ethics. Picture: Supplied

    Karen Percy speaking at the Walkley awards last year about ethics. Picture: Supplied

    The Walkley board is currently dominated by women. It wasn’t planned that way, it just happened. But we cannot unsee what we have now seen.

    And so as a board, we have decided to act. This year we are opening the Outstanding Contribution to Journalism award to women nominees only.

    Nominate a female journalist for the Outstanding Contribution to Journalism award here.

    As Chair – and high-flying journalist! – Adele Ferguson noted in our press release when nominations opened, “as a board, we have realised that in giving one of our industry’s highest accolades, we have not considered all of those who have contributed. The numbers speak for themselves.

    “This won’t change unless we are proactive as an industry,” she said.

    And there’s little doubt the media sector has a serious ‘woman’ problem.

    Our industry is more than 50 percent women, and we have all of the issues now of a ‘feminised’ workforce. The gender pay gap is about 16% in the media/communications sector, well above the national average of 13%.

    The Industry Insight 2023 report from Women In Media reveals that as many as one third of women are considering leaving their jobs in the next year. More than half rated as ‘weak/very weak’ the industry’s commitment to gender equality. They cited bias and discrimination in the industry and a lack of support from employers.

    And importantly they noted poor pay and a lack of career pathways.

    It’s interesting isn’t it that they have identified that they are not being recognised, nor are they being rewarded for their efforts. Sounds familiar hey?

    So we at the Walkley board are determined to do our bit to recognise our female colleagues.

    The late journalist and WiM patron, Caroline Jones.

    The late journalist and WiM patron, Caroline Jones. Picture: Women in Media

    The late and great Caroline Jones – a patron of Women in Media – used to say “there’s a special place in heaven for women who help other women.”

    The pioneering ABC reporter helped plenty. And she is – rightly – already amongst our Outstanding Contribution to Journalism winners.

    While we’re not relying on a place in Caroline’s celestial corner, we will make multiple awards this year, to redress the gender imbalance.

    This is not to undermine previous winners – who are an esteemed bunch. Nor to criticise previous board decisions. It’s simply an understanding that we too have the entrenched biases of our industry and it will take brave and bold action to overcome.

    I proudly stand with my fellow directors in urging you to recognise and reward your female colleagues this year. Nominate early, nominate often!

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  • The Roe v Wade fallout. What can Australia do?

    A few days ago, the President and CEO of global reproductive justice organization, IPAS, Dr Anu Kumar was in conversation with Honorary Associate Professor Sally Moyle from the ANU’s Gender Institute. The pair discussed the impact of Roe v. Wade on the gains of 50 years and the assault on women’s and girls’ rights today.
    Dr Kumar penned her reflections on the issues discussed at the event for BroadAgenda. She throws down the gauntlet, calling on Australia to “…step onto the world stage to champion abortion rights and access for all.” 

     

    I am a reproductive justice warrior. I have been for nearly all my adult life, and for the past 21 years, I’ve been in a leadership role at Ipas, a global reproductive justice organization that works to increase access to abortion care, contraception, and sexual and reproductive rights around the world. I’ve seen a lot of success in this area — since the 1970s, over 100 countries have liberalized their abortion laws including Ireland, Benin, Nepal, and Argentina.

    Ipas, working with partners, has been a part of many of these victories and, importantly, translating those legal changes into actual services. There is one very notable exception to this progressive trend: the United States.

    I came to Australia to see how the progressive, human rights-oriented Australian government was reacting to a “new world order” on reproductive justice.

    While here for two weeks, I met with a range of government officials and members of civil society. I found an eagerness to understand the global ramifications of a post-Roe world, coupled with uncertainty on what Australia’s role in this new landscape should be. Some described a foreign affairs apparatus that was suffering from PTSD from a previous regime of anti-rights politicians. Others said that health security was of paramount importance in a post-Covid world, while still others felt that Australia does its share by supporting several sexual and reproductive health and rights groups already.

    What I did not hear was anyone grappling with what the demise of abortion access in a global superpower means for the world. Admittedly, the United States has not been a leader in this area for decades with foreign policies like the Helms amendment firmly in place since 1973, and the Global Gag Rule swinging back and forth depending on which political party is in power. And yet the U.S. government remains the largest family planning donor globally and hugely influential in humanitarian relief work, global health, multilateral organizations, and more.

    At Ipas, we are seeing the impact of the overturning of Roe v Wade around the world, particularly the strong wind in the sails of U.S.-sponsored anti-rights groups.

    India, which has had legal abortion since the 1970s, saw its first ever anti-choice march in New Delhi. In Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, anti-abortion groups point to the fall of Roe as justification for their activities. And in Ethiopia and Kenya, some health professionals have stopped providing abortion care.

    Dr Anu Kumar is a a reproductive justice warrior.

    Dr Anu Kumar is a a reproductive justice warrior. Picture: Supplied

    In the face of such an aggressive anti-rights movement, we need all the help we can get, including from the richest country in the Pacific and one of the richest countries in the world. As Australia has decriminalized abortion across the country and is looking to bridge gaps in access, the time is ripe to step onto the world stage to champion abortion rights and access for all.

    I heard that a new international development policy will be released soon and yet no one expects it to mention sexual and reproductive health, much less contraception and abortion.  Let me clear: there is ample data to show that family planning is an excellent investment, as well as critical to enabling women and girls to pursue education, employment, and healthy lives. It is a cornerstone of development.

    Reproductive rights are also foundational to gender equality, a theme that is expected to be part of future Australian aid efforts, though so far it has not included sexual and reproductive health and rights.

    What should Australia do?
    • Say the word abortion in official documents and speeches. President Biden used the word once in a press statement 224 days into his term when the abortion ban in the state of Texas went into effect and then said it again after 468 days in office when the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe was leaked. People noticed. Words matter and hiding behind vague language about rights just leaves the matter unresolved.
    • Create space in the aid apparatus to address this issue head on. There are many who would assist and support the Australian government in this. You are not alone.
    • Direct Australia’s diplomats around the world, including those in charge of bilateral aid programs, to include sexual and reproductive health and rights, including abortion, in their programs and dialogs with governments. There is widespread fear that this will be perceived as a “Western agenda.” In fact, there are local feminist organizations everywhere that need to be nurtured and supported.
    • Be part of the global movement for reproductive justice—align efforts to broaden access to abortion domestically and globally. A major flaw in the U.S. reproductive rights movement is how insular it is. Australia can learn from the experience of other countries and contribute to important global lessons.
    • Assert Australian values. On multiple occasions, Minister Penny Wong has affirmed Australia’s commitment to gender equality including through the new international development policy. There can be no gender equality if women cannot control their bodies.
    • Connect the dots on what anti-rights groups are doing. It’s not just about abortion or LGBTQI+ rights or comprehensive sexuality education; it’s about all human rights—the core of democracy itself. We can’t cower in the face of bullies. Let’s stand strong and united and push back.

    At Ipas, we have been working on abortion access for 50 years because it is a matter of public health and human rights. Sadly, women and girls continue to die needlessly from unsafe abortion and millions are injured.  It doesn’t have to be this way. I urge all Australians to join us in the fight for reproductive justice.

    • Picture at top: Washington, DC USA May 3 2022: Protesters gather at the US Supreme Court after a report that the count will overturn Roe vs Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion. Picture: Drew Petrimoulx/Shutterstock

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  • Just imagine: What would a feminist city look like?

    Who designs cities? And who are they made for? In her book, ‘Trophy Cities:’A feminist perspective on new capitals,’ Associate Professor Dorina Pojani from the University of Queensland offers a fresh perspective on socio-cultural and physical production of planned capital cities through the theoretical lens of feminism.

    She evaluates the historical, spatial and symbolic manifestations of new capital cities, as well as the everyday experiences of those living there, to shed light on planning processes, outcomes and contemporary planning issues. BroadAgenda editor Ginger Gorman asked Dorina. a few quesitons. 

    In a nutshell, what’s your book “Trophy Cities” about? 

    This book evaluates the planning processes and outcomes of seven new capital cities, spread across time and cultures: Canberra, Australia; Chandigarh, India; Brasília, Brazil; Abuja, Nigeria; Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan; Naypyidaw, Myanmar; and Sejong, South Korea. I have approached my research from a feminist perspective, considering the role of gender in these cities. I am a hard critic of these dystopian megaprojects. I argue that they have been, for the most part, great planning disasters.

    Why do we need to look at cities through a feminist lens? 

    Because the patriarchy is the common thread that connects these megaprojects in their shortcomings. All the other connections are tenuous. Major failures are evident in both democratic and authoritarian settings; in post-colonial nations and places that had long been independent by the time they created their new capitals; in places with a socialist legacy and those who were always capitalist; in countries where the population majority is Black, White, or Asian; in poorer countries and wealthier ones; in national or regional capitals; in early capitals and very recent ones; in capitals built in greenfield locations and those created as extensions to existing settlements; in capitals built during the modern and post-modern eras, and so on.

    What are the (everyday) consequences if we don’t? 

    If we keep building cities that embody the patriarchy, we’ll end up with dreary, overpowering, underserviced, wasteful, and unaffordable places.

    Instead of friendly, usable streets, we’ll have large, monumental spaces. Instead of public transportation and neighbourhood services, we’ll have cars and highways. Instead of bringing people together, our cities will exacerbate social and ethnic inequalities.

    You’re not just asking questions through a feminist lens, but also questions about class, race, ethnicity and religion and how these things intersect. Why? 

    That’s correct. Not only does the patriarchal city oppress women as a broad group but it also pitches women against one another on the basis of class, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, disability, marital status, motherhood, occupation, political opinion, and other systems of exclusion and segregation.

    Without a united global sisterhood, it is much harder to chip away at the patriarchy and the cities planning models it produces.

    What are the patriarchal and colonial themes you’re exploring? (Why is it men who want to found new capitals)?

    There are so many reasons. For one, new capital cities have been a key component in grand nation-building projects, and independence and nation-building have been, for the most part, male endeavours rather than inclusive ventures. Moreover, some new capitals have been built based on a militaristic and bellicose image of nationhood, which at times has veered on paranoia. For example, Naypyidaw and Abuja were the pet projects of army generals.

    In championing the construction of new capitals, male politicians or government bureaucrats have cast themselves as benevolent patriarchs. And they have given free rein to a few handpicked male architects and planners to design these cities. This has resulted in cities that are, first and foremost, expressions of egomania.

    One of Nur-Sultan monuments I visited contained the solid gold imprint of President Nazarbayev’s right hand, and visitors were invited to place their hand on to be granted a wish!

    Associate Professor Dorina Pojani

    Associate Professor Dorina Pojani

    Some motivations have also been economic. In the last three or four decades, the dominant economic order has been neoliberal globalization. Most of its front-runners have been well-educated, upper-class, wealthy men, leaving little space for women. The “new economy” is led by notoriously male-dominated sectors including finance and real estate.

    Capitals cities have joined the international race to produce shiny urban design and architecture. For example, Sejong is aiming to become a prototype of the ‘ubiquitous eco-city’ (u-eco-city). However, this is really a marketing term that seeks to reinforce South Korea’s image as an international technology hub. Overall, there is little evidence that creating a new capital has been more economically beneficial to a nation than investing in the existing capital or peripheral cities would have been.

    How do we throw all this off? What would cities look like if we planned them with a feminist lens? How would outlives be different?

    Much feminist advocacy has centred on affordable housing, living wages, accessible transport, safety and security provisions, free childcare, affordable health care and education, participatory budgeting, political representation, gender quotas, gender impact assessments, and gender mainstreaming. These aspects are important and undeniable gains have been made. However, cities around the world are still planned, built, and managed based on traditional gender roles. Capitals, as national showcases, are a prime example of a patriarchal approach in urban planning.

    I argue that technocratic fixes to gender issues in the city, applied within a patriarchal framework, are eventually bound to fail. At this point, we need much more radical solutions that transform the patriarchal state, society, and economy in conjunction with tangible urban space. Patriarchy, physically articulated into cities, is not the only way. In fact, its endurance is a failure of our collective imagination.

    Cover image: Trophy Cities - A feminist perspective on new capitals.

    Cover image: Trophy Cities – A feminist perspective on new capitals.

    Looking to the future, is there anything else you want to say? 

    Matriarchy is the future. By this I don’t mean a role reversal, in which women assume the status of men. That would be another dystopia.

    My conception of a matriarchy is a political and cultural model founded on what are commonly regarded as maternal values: caretaking, kindness, and nurturing. A matriarchy is gender-egalitarian, classless, peaceful, non-hierarchal, inclusive , ecological, healthy, and beautiful. It is based on economic need and reciprocity rather than greed, private property, and cutthroat competition. Hierarchic religions worshiping omnipotent male gods do not exist.

    Small communities practice a grassroots democracy based on the principle of consensus rather than negative public engagement like NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard), NOMS (Not On My Street), and 3N’s (No to New Neighbours). Totalizing planning, such as that prevailing in new capitals, is shunned.

    It sounds like John Lennon’s anarchic vision in ‘Imagine’, doesn’t it?

    We need to decide together what the spatial form of a matriarchal city should be.

    In the book, I refrain from proposing specific shapes or patterns. All urban utopias tend to turn authoritarian, and my book stands firmly against authoritarianism, aggression, hierarchy, and dominion.

    • Picture at top: An aerial view of Sejong City, South Korea near an observatory park. Photo: Shutterstock

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  • How sports became a battleground

    There has been a sharp increase in public resistance and backlash to the advancement of LGBTIQ+ inclusion and equality recently. The UK charity Stonewall reports that LGBTIQ+ recorded hate crimes in the UK have increased in recent years, and in Australia, there has been a large uptick in anti-LGBTIQ+ related events.

    Sports have become a flashpoint for these issues, too. Globally, international sports federations have introduced bans to exclude trans and gender diverse athletes from sporting competitions.

    FIFA even banned teams and players from wearing the “one love” armband. The armbands were to be worn by players in the men’s World Cup in 2022 to protest against the treatment of LGBTIQ+ people in Qatar, where it is illegal to be gay.

    A history of LGBTIQ+ people in sport

    Sports have a long history of exclusion and discrimination towards LGBTIQ+ people. In Australia, around 75% of LGBTIQ+ people have experienced or witnessed homophobia in sport.

    Professional athletes such as Megan Schutt and Moana Hope have spoken out against discrimination of LGBTIQ+ athletes.

    However, efforts have been made to address problems within the sporting world
    around homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Organisations like Proud2Play, of which the author of this piece is a co-founder, and Pride Cup aim to increase the visibility of LGBTIQ+ athletes. Celebrations such as pride rounds and games across sporting codes show targeted diversity work.

    LGBTIQ+ representation and diversity across sports is important because research shows that young people, in particular, need role models and to see themselves both represented and celebrated.

    There is still a lot of work to do across the Australian sporting world, though, and this work must be prioritised through appropriate funding and targeted action.

    With increased activity and visibility of LGBTIQ+ inclusion efforts, however, comes increased resistance from people and organisations who believe that LGBTIQ+ people are a threat to modern society. This resistance and activism against the advancement of LGBTIQ+ equality has been termed “heteroactivism”.

    What is ‘heteroactivism’?

    Heteroactivism was coined by queer scholars Kath Browne and Catherine J. Nash. It is defined as “a term to conceptualise oppositions to LGBTIQ+ equalities, in ways that seek to assert a particular form of heteronormative sexual and gender order”.

    It is a framework which positions heterosexuality and gender normativity (being cisgender) as superior, and the foundation of functioning western civilisation. Christianity is central to heteroactivism, with roots in the US Christian right.

    In Australian sport, heteroactivism has been bubbling away for many years.

    Sports seen as a key arena for heteroactivism

    Sports have become a key platform to mobilise and advance resistance to LGBTIQ+ equality. Some Australian sports organisations have banned transgender women from participating in elite competitions.

    Bills have also been drafted in parliament to “save women’s sport”, seeking to limit and exclude trans and gender diverse people from participating in both elite and community competitions.

    Heteroactivism has a history in Australian sports. Both NRL player Israel Folau and tennis star Margaret Court are high-profile heteroactivists, using their platforms in sports to vilify LGBTIQ+ people.

    More recently, players from a variety of sporting codes have refused to participate in pride rounds and wear pride jerseys.

    Often, arguments against supporting LGBTIQ+ inclusion efforts centre around LGBTIQ+ identities being at odds or going against a player’s religion. Court even once stated that transgender children were the work of the devil.

    The impact of ongoing heteroactivism in sport is profound, and has been very successful in halting progress for LGBTIQ+ people in that world.

    Ongoing efforts to resist advances in LGBTIQ+ equality in sports have included:

    • trolling on social media and abusive messages when sports organisations support LGBTIQ+ inclusion
    • allegations and abuse towards out lesbian athletes
    • abuse towards out gay male athletes
    • targeted campaigns and complaints towards sports that engage with LGBTIQ+ inclusive practices.

    For example, one group, Binary Australia, sent over 2,700 emails to Football Australia, protesting the inclusion of transgender football players in NSW.

    The targeted and coordinated activism directed at sports organisations stops administrators from enacting LGBTIQ+ inclusive policies and practices. It silences them in speaking out in support of LGBTIQ+ people. It makes LGBTIQ+ inclusion too difficult to engage with in comparison with other areas. It becomes too political or “not worth the pushback”.

    The mental health implications for LGBTIQ+ people are significant, too. Research shows
    that ongoing discrimination can lead to poor mental health, increased anxiety and depression and dropping out of sports.

    Sports for good or bad?

    Administrators in sports have an opportunity to stand up to and address growing resistance to LGBTIQ+ equality. This can happen through policy development, anti-vilification efforts and, more importantly, demonstrating support for LGBTIQ+ achievements and contributions in sport.

    By allowing heteroactivism to be mobilised through the medium of sports, administrators continue to alienate LGBTIQ+ players, fans and employees.

    There are both opportunities and challenges for the Australian sporting world and how it responds to heteroactivism. Australia can be a world leader in efforts to improve outcomes for LGBTIQ+ people and make meaningful steps forward in the fight against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, ensuring LGBTIQ+ people are represented and included across all levels of sports.The Conversation

    Picture at top: Proud2Play

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  • The Next Fight Over Women’s Equality In Sports


    This content originally appeared on VICE News and was authored by VICE News.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Women’s interest in news hits a record low

    This October will mark 11 years since Julia Gillard’s address to parliament calling out sexism and misogyny from then Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott. In reflecting on that period, Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy discussed the ‘toxicity’ of public discourse directed at Gillard, particularly from ‘some Neanderthal media figures’. In the years since, the press has struggled to get it right when covering women and women’s issues.

    Despite the passage of time, and considerable efforts on the part of women journalists, the news industry in Australia continues to flounder. A recent study found that only 47% of women say they think news covers women fairly and provides enough coverage of issues relevant to women.

    Released today, new findings from a survey of 2,025 Australians suggest that the industry may be facing something of a reckoning. The Digital News Report: Australia 2023 presents findings from a longitudinal study of Australian news consumers and is published annually by the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra.

    The data show that women’s interest in news has hit a record low.

    Only 43% of women say they are extremely or very interested in news compared to 62% of men. While women have over time expressed lower interest in news than men, the decline in women’s interest has been much more pronounced than for men. The proportion of women reporting high interest in news has fallen by 16 percentage points since 2017, compared to only 6 percentage points for men.

    Women are avoiding news more frequently, with 72% saying they often, sometimes, or occasionally avoid news compared to 67% of men. They are more likely than men to say they are avoiding topics such as sports and national politics. Findings from previous surveys suggest the top reasons women avoid news are because there is too much coverage of politics or coronavirus (51%), and that the news has a negative effect on their mood (47%).

    Perhaps women want more good news. When asked about what types of news they were interested in 55% of women say they prefer positive news stories, and 46% say they want news that suggests solutions rather than pointing out problems.

    Women’s trust in news is also in decline. This year only 39% say they trust the news in Australia generally, compared to 48% of men. While trust in news among men increased this year, women’s trust in news fell by 3 percentage points, creating a 9 percentage point gap. This gap is the widest globally, with the average trust among 33 countries surveyed being 41% for men and 40% for women.

    Troublingly, the reasons why women are switching off from news seem to have changed little over the years.

    News—particularly political news—can often seem relentlessly negative or fixated on outrage and scandal. In this context, women do not see themselves and their viewpoints as being fairly and adequately represented. As our previous research shows, only 40% of women say their interests are balanced with the interests of men in news, and only 39% say the news is impartial and unbiased when reporting on women.

    Some of this is possibly due to a failure within the industry to adequately support women journalists. In our survey of journalists, 58% of women journalists said there were barriers to career progression in their news organisation because of their gender. And 47% said they have faced discrimination in their newsroom because of their gender.

    Eleven years may have passed since Gillard’s misogyny speech, but newsrooms continue to be a toxic place for many—particularly young women journalists.

    In such an environment women talk about the difficulty of being heard and the pressure to stick to reporting from an impartial perspective that precludes their own insights as professional women. Senior leadership continues to be dominated by men, and the attitude that women journalists need to ‘put up or shut up’ appears to be pervasive.

    BroadAgenda editor Ginger Gorman asked her female Twitter followers why they were turning off the news. Here are a couple of responses below. 

    As the data from the Digital News report: Australia 2023 show, female audiences are abandoning news in droves. The industry desperately needs to change if it is to have any chance to win back those women who say they feel increasingly alienated from and uninterested in news.

    In an era where audiences are turning away from news, change is now a matter of survival. Whether they are ready for it or not, the news industry will need to find new ways to appeal to women audiences and win back some of that squandered trust. Unless, that is, they’d prefer to go the way of the real Neanderthals, into the pages of history.

    If you would like to read our article on last year’s Digital News report findings, click here.

    • Please note: picture at top is a stock image

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  • The power to take up space: unveiling Zelda D’Aprano

    A few days ago at Trades Hall Council on Lyon Street, Melbourne, the late feminist Zelda D’Aprano was immortalised in bronze statue created by artist Jennifer Mann. Zelda’s most famous act was chaining herself to the doors of the Commonwealth building in 1969 to call for equal pay for women. That was but one act, among many.
    Zelda’s statue didn’t pop up by accident. Historian Professor Clare Wright co-convenes of the group called A Monument of One’s Own – which aims to address the gender balance of statues. Clare helped campaign and fundraise for the statue.
    Professor Wright spoke at the statue’s unveiling. Her lightly edited speech follows. 

    I’d like to start by acknowledging that we gather today on the unceded stolen land of the Wurundjeri people, and paying my respects to their elders, past and present.  Vote Yes.

    I’d also like to thank Julie Gillard and Natalie Hutchins for their esteemed presence and fine words today, and to shout out to my co-convenor at A Monument of One’s Own, Kristine Ziwica, as well as our comrades at Trades Hall and of course the magnificent artistry of Jennifer Mann, as well as all the advocates, activists, artisans and donors who have made this day possible.

    The creation of this statue of Zelda D’Aprano is a critical act of commemorative justice in Australia, where less than 4% of statues depict women. [in Melbourne, only 11 of 582 statues are full bodied named – not allegorical – women.]

    Others today have spoken about why Zelda and her actions matter.

    Professor Clare Wright and the statue of activist Zelda D’Aprano at Trades Hall. Picture: Supplied

    Professor Clare Wright and the statue of activist Zelda D’Aprano at Trades Hall. Picture: Supplied

    I want to say something about why a statue – that stolid remnant of patriarchal colonial white supremacy – also matters.  And in particular, why this statue that Jenn [Mann] has rendered so beautifully, so meticulously, matters.

    I first met Zelda in 2017.  I was interviewing her for a Radio National history series I then presented about history and photography.  On this occasion, I was delving into the now iconic photograph of Zelda chained to the front of the Commonwealth Buildings in Melbourne in October 1969, co-incidentally the year of my birth.

    I learnt many things on that day.  I learnt about how the idea for her chain-up, as she called it, came into being; how she did it on her lunch break; how her mates in the maritime union bought her the heavy chain; how she was modelling her action after the Australian suffragist Muriel Matters, who had chained herself to the Grille of the Ladies Gallery at the British House of Commons in 1908, proclaiming Votes for Women.  [Now there’s a woman who deserves a statue; I’m looking at you Adelaide]

    I learnt how Zelda made the clothes she was wearing that day; how she didn’t have anything to drink for hours before the protest for fear she’d have to go to the loo while affixed to the front of a building.

    Importantly, I learnt how Zelda herself tipped off the press and made sure a photographer would be present to witness and capture her maverick action.  It is one of the reasons we were so keen to transform that photograph into bronze, literally, because that is how Zelda herself wanted to be remembered. For a woman to craft and stage manage her own media image is a rare act of sovereignty indeed.

    Zelda’s famous action in 1969 saw her occupying public space in a way that was counter to the prevailing norm of women as silent, demure and inconspicuous.  It is fitting that she will now occupy a permanent space in our civic landscape, a concrete – or at least bronze – reminder that women have always had to fight for the rights and freedoms we enjoy today.

    By honouring Zelda’s work in this way, we honour all women who collectively have struggled for equal pay, wage justice and the entitlement to be heard.

    Zelda’s statue will also provide a timely reminder that the fight is not over, that as a nation we must continue to address the unfinished business of the gender pay gap and the sexism women still face in the workplace and society more broadly.

    We hope the statue will motivate people to go back to the barricades to achieve wage justice for women.  Women’s economic security – and therefore their power, their freedom – depends on it.

    At a Monument of One’s Own, we believe that who we remember and how we remember them matters.  Who we put on a pedestal matters, because for all their flawed legacy as tools of colonialism, we know how to read figurative statuary.  We know statues symbolise power.  That’s why we deface them and pull them down.

    The power to take up space.

    The power to leave a permanent record of achievement and enterprise.

    Monumental change in the visibility, credibility and civic recognition of women is happening, one statue at a time.  Closing the commemorative gap will help us close the respect gap that we know leads to other forms of violence and discrimination against women.

    But you’ll also see that Zelda doesn’t tower above us, proclaiming and commandeering space. Her pedestal is culturally symbolic but not physically lofty.  She is down here with us, arms outstretched, unfurling her chains, welcoming all comers, welcoming the fight.

    At the base of the statue are engraved the response that Zelda gave to a man who said to her that ground-shifting day in 1969, ‘what can one woman hope to achieve’.  Zelda replied: Today it was me, tomorrow there will be two of us, the next day there will be three and it will go on and on and there won’t be any stopping it.

    Here’s an idea.

    Let’s join Zelda in the fight, eh?  Because together it WILL go on and on and there WON’T  be any stopping it.

     

     

     

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  • The 2023 Budget: here’s the gender scrutiny

    The National Foundation for Australian Women is an independent feminist organisation that carries a voice outside of party politics. As part of their advocacy work, NFAW publishes a Gender Lens Report that provides a comprehensive analysis of government policies and programs from a gender perspective. The report highlights areas where women may be disadvantaged or excluded and recommends strategies for policymakers to address these issues and promote gender equality.

    Below is an introduction to the Gender Lens on the May 2023 Budget. Read the full report here.

    The second Albanese Budget builds on the initiatives introduced in the “bread and butter” budget from October 2022. Women’s economic equality was a priority last year, with changes proposed to childcare and paid parental leave (PPL) to enable economic activity. These measures come into force in July 2023, although some of the design issues around the proposed extension of PPL are yet to be finalised. This year the concerns of women are recognised across portfolios and the Women’s Budget Paper presented a range of evidence to support the need for action.

    NFAW welcomes the welfare reforms that include support for single parents, the unemployed, energy fee relief, wage increases for aged care workers (the majority of whom are women), investment in Medicare for those on low-incomes, increased rent assistance, increased investment in housing and help to transition to clean energy. However we note that these changes amount to less than 2 per cent of the welfare budget and have only a small impact on living standards and poverty.

    But the opportunity to reform the Stage 3 Income Tax cuts and apply a gendered lens has not been taken. Our analysis of revenue shows that a disproportionate amount of the projected growth in tax receipts comes from women, who will receive a much lower share of the proposed tax cuts.

    NFAW believes that the Government should undertake gender analysis of the Stage 3 Tax cuts as a critical priority, in view of the scale of the reform to ensure a more equitable distribution of income in the Australian community. A gender analysis of the Stage 3 Tax cuts shows that :

    NFAW is positive about the Government’s women’s agenda but more needs to be done. The only way to ensure funding for the growing cost of essential services and to address poverty is to increase revenue. The Government needs to lead the public debate on tax reform, including reviewing the Stage 3 Tax cuts.

    Read the full Gender Lens on the May 2023 Budget report here.

     

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  • Stan Grant shows up a lack of media diversity

    Stan Grant, host of ABC’s Q+A, announced last Friday that he would be stepping away from his role for an unspecified period. Grant cited a need to take ‘a break from the media’ after receiving threats and racial abuse following his participation in the ABC’s coverage of the coronation of King Charles. 

    The abuse directed at Grant has been described by ABC news Chief Justin Stevens as a ‘relentless campaign’ prosecuted via social media trolls, but ultimately one directed by News Corp commentators’ intent on skewering Grant—and the ABC—for foregrounding the role of the monarchy and colonialism in violence committed against Indigenous Australians.

    However, in announcing his decision, Grant indicated his primary reason for leaving was not the threats and abuse. Rather, he highlighted the lack of support he had received from others at the ABC—calling it an ‘institutional failure’—as well as a failure of the media overall to foster respectful discussion of important issues.

    In recent years interest in news has fallen and more Australians are saying they avoid it. According to the Digital News Report: Australia 2022 – which both authors of this article worked on – those saying they often, sometimes, or occasionally avoid news increased from 57% in 2017 to 68% in 2022. 

    When asked why they avoided it, the top reasons given were that there was too much coverage of subjects like politics or coronavirus (49%) and that it had a negative effect on their mood (44%). 

    Notably, women are turning away from the news, citing exhaustion from its relentless negativity as a major cause. 

    So, what is the media’s role in this? Is Grant correct, that Australia’s news media are fostering a toxic space for public debate?

    Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers have found that journalist’s news values, combined with underlying racism and a colonial mindset, contribute to the negative portrayal of Indigenous people and issues. Most insidious is the framing and reinforcement of First Nations peoples as the cause of the conflict and division on which journalists report. This negativity feeds into the newsroom.

    Our research suggests that Grant is not the only journalist of the view that there are institutional problems with gender and race in the news industry. As outlined in the Valuing Diversity in News and Newsrooms report published by the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra, 87% of journalists we surveyed said the industry needed to improve diversity ‘somewhat’ or ‘a great deal’. 

    Less than a third (30%) said their news organisation had enough ethnic or cultural diversity, and less than half (49%) said everyone at their news organisation was treated equally regardless of their ethnic and cultural background. 

    Among those journalists who identified as non-Anglo, non-European or Indigenous Australian, 39% said they had experienced discrimination in their newsroom because of their ethnic or cultural background. A further 58% and 69% respectively said there were barriers to employment and advancement because of their ethnic or cultural background. 

    But importantly, journalists also say that discrimination is still a problem widely faced by women. Among women journalists, 47% said they had experienced discrimination, 27% said there were barriers when applying for a job, and 58% said there were barriers to progressing in their career because of their gender. 

    Women were also more acutely aware of the intersectional nature of discrimination. Most women journalists acknowledged there were barriers to employment (68%) and advancement (65%) because of someone’s ethnic or cultural background, compared to less than half of men (32% employment; 41% advancement).

    In both surveys and interviews, journalists pointed out that they felt more likely to experience discrimination if their senior leadership was not particularly diverse. As one interviewee noted, the feeling of not being listened to in majority white newsrooms was common for reporters from multicultural backgrounds. 

    Women journalists also told us they felt pressure to let things slide. News organisations often foster a competitive and fast-paced workplace culture that pays little heed to gender or cultural sensitivities. The pressure to beat deadlines while performing the model ideal of ‘disinterested observer’ is often at odds with a culture that respects difference. Journalists are expected to ‘put up and shut up’ rather than speak out. 

    Stan Grant has made the bold decision to speak out at a pivotal time in the national conversation. 

    In doing so, he is bringing broader attention to the lack of inclusivity that women and people of colour face while working in journalism—a fact that many in the public may not be particularly aware of.

    As we move towards The Voice referendum the Australian media industry has reasons to reflect on its own role in undermining the very cause it champions, through employment strategies and taken-for granted news values and routines.  

    • Picture at top: Four Corners/ABC 

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  • Mothers in higher ed, research need more support

    When I was doing my PhD research in Germany, the WZB – a social science research institute in Berlin – had a family room dedicated for after-hours childcare with an educator. While I was taking evening seminars, my kids would run up and down the hallway with their little buggy cars.

    But my experience in Australia has been vastly different.

    Like many women, my time as an early-career academic coincided with my childbearing years, and I encountered all sorts of barriers put up by norms and practices that couldn’t imagine a way to combine PhD research with caring for children.

    Having a child is often referred to as a “research career break” in the higher education sector. But the most common age for childbearing (between 30 and 34) also happens to align – almost perfectly – with the most common age to get a four-year PhD (32 to 36). It is not a break – it means becoming a parent when your career is starting, but if you want to be taken seriously, academic culture expects you to give your undivided attention to your research.

    My first child was four months old when I started my PhD. Before the birth I was teaching at a university in Australia – on a casual contract with no access to paid parental leave. It meant that my scholarship and casual teaching income were mostly used to cover childcare costs.

    This is a common story – the money available for early-career young mothers simply doesn’t stretch far enough. The average scholarship for PhD students is around $35,000 – for a single parent with one child, this only just scrapes in above the relevant poverty line at $34,751.

    It’s not any easier for undergraduate students. Western Sydney University researchers studied student mothers at WSU – mostly undergraduates – and identified a range of barriers they encountered. These included inconsistent support from lecturers, people making assumptions about what they can or cannot manage with a kid, tutorials that start at 5pm when childcare centres are closed; a lot of red tape to get extensions or special considerations even when it’s warranted; feeling socially isolated from other students without kids; and being torn between the need to study, care, and earn money.

    So, what must change? Free campus childcare in all workplaces is critical. Only three Australian universities currently offer childcare at all their worksites. In many places, staff and students miss out on childcare places because demand frequently exceeds supply, waitlists are long, and there are insufficient (or no) places reserved for staff and students.

    Increased financial support is also needed to close the gender pay gap. The government’s move to increase assistance to single parents by extending the cut-off age for the single parenting payment is a step in the right direction – as are recent increases to paid parental leave entitlements – but we can do more to support working parents.

    I know firsthand that education can change lives – in fact, I attribute much of my career success to the learnings from my PhD. Education and training are the foundation that allows us participate meaningfully, and equitably, in employment. But the latest ABS data shows that the main barrier for more than half of Australian women who are seeking employment continues to be the demands of caring for children.

    We need to do better for mothers and parents seeking education and training. Investments in childcare will increase the number of parents returning to the workforce – this is the best gift we could give women this Mother’s Day.

    • Please note: Picture at top is a stock photo

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  • How schoolyards became boy yards

    Many things mark the transition from primary to high school. New uniforms, larger canteens, different classroom structures and changing friendship groups are but a few of the many rites of passage when students move into high school. 

    But a big change is the secondary schoolyard. To the newly minted high schooler, graduating from the playground to the playing field is an exciting step away from childhood and a leap closer to L-plates.

    Secondary schoolyards fascinate me – which is why I’m writing a PhD about them.  For the past three years, I have interviewed and surveyed students, principals, and designers to understand whether these spaces are meeting the well-being needs of our older youth.  

    At a time when student mental health is declining, research indicates that spending time outside can do a body good. The schoolyard provides a daily dose of green space.  But it’s questionable whether their designs provide the types of outdoor spaces students want or need – particularly as its design brief has barely changed over the past forty years.

    And just as you won’t find me typing my thesis on a Remington typewriter while wearing bell-bottom trousers and listening to a disco record, outmoded design standards have no place in an era of Covid and climate change. 

    During my research, “There is nowhere to go” and “It’s boring” have been some of the more frequent schoolyard complaints students shared with me.  But what I didn’t expect were the parents’ reactions to girls entering high school. “My daughter stopped playing sport at recess,” shared one mother.  “Girls in dresses can’t do cartwheels,” said another.

    One Year 8 boy affirmed the parent concerns I was hearing. “All the boys play footy and handball and the girls don’t really do that.”

    Growing evidence indicates that as students age, differences emerge in how boys and girls engage with schoolyard space. Some attribute this to badly designed schoolyards, where a sport-dominated focus and lack of natural diversity create a lack of desire to use them.

    In their 2023 study looking at recess behaviours, Marcella Raney and co-authors found that in less diverse schoolyards, boys remain interested in the sports programming of ovals and ball courts while older girls lost interest, opting to be more social and sedentary.  Focus group discussions with girls reveal feelings of exclusion by boys and a lack of attraction to schoolyard elements. 

    Our own research affirms these trends. Our survey of 284 students in years 7 to 10 at one Canberra school revealed the schoolyard to be more aligned with the preferences of boys, but desired little by girls.  Between years 9 and 10 alone, girls recorded a 31 per cent decrease in schoolyard likeability (compared to a drop of 6.5 per cent for boys).  In fact, girls are more negative than boys in their perceptions of schoolyard accessibility, likeability and personal connection.     

    One of the submissions from the "The Schoolyard I’d Like" competition. Maze and fountain: Ellie (15), Jenna (16) and Sophia (15). Picture: Supplied

    One of the submissions from the “The Schoolyard I’d Like” competition. Maze and fountain: Ellie (15), Jenna (16) and Sophia (15). Picture: Supplied

    Adolescence plays a contributing role in some of these trends. Girls demonstrate worsening mental health compared to boys, with these disparities often continuing into adulthood.   Changes to body image and self-esteem during puberty are attributed to increasing student reluctance to participate in traditional sports programming due to a lack of physical skills and confidence. But this doesn’t mean that time outside is any less valued, as one female Year 9 student shared with me. “I don’t like school in general,” she said. “But if I went out for a bit, it changes my mood somewhat.  So I don’t disrespect anyone else.  I just disrespect myself.”

    Given the well-being benefits afforded by time outside, girls have potentially more to gain from improvements to schoolyard spaces.  But this means exploring alternatives to the sport-heavy models, where big money spent on big grass ovals may come at a big cost of minimizing schoolyard choices for girls.

    The question of how to best meet the schoolyard needs of girls is one that continues to stump designers, managers, and researchers.  The answers are there – but we need additional voices at the table.  Students are schoolyard experts, and their ideas are many.  

    Gazebo design: Amber (15) and Sabrina (14)

    One of the submissions from the “The Schoolyard I’d Like” competition. Gazebo design: Amber (15) and Sabrina (14). Picture: Supplied

    In 2021 my student ideas competition The Schoolyard I’d Like captured teenage visions of the ideal secondary schoolyard.  From Versailles-inspired mazes and oversized play structures to intimate landscape ‘pods’ and gazebos for hanging with friends, students sought spaces that promoted relaxation, imagination and meaningful connection with each other.  While all entrants desired spaces that were fun and exciting, entries from boys focused on active play while schemes from girls were more driven by comfort, respite, learning and nature.  The competition illustrated the need to further understand these differences in schoolyard perception and use.   

    Our surroundings teach us about society and how our lives fit within it.  The way in which we design, occupy, and use shared spaces such as the schoolyard teaches us about our relationship with the environment – and with each other.  When I asked older female students where they like to go in the schoolyard, I frequently heard a similar response to what one Year 9 student told me: “Me and my friends sit on the basketball court…just on the edge, so the boys can still play football.” 

    The time has come to move beyond the vintage schoolyard, its conventional play choices and social hierarchies. To a world where schoolyard choices are not about playing soccer or sitting on the sidelines but offering a broad range of environments and experiences to reflect and celebrate the rich diversity, skills, and interests of its students – both boys and girls. Are schoolyard designers ready? Game on.

    • Please note: Picture at top is a stock photo 

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  • Whitlam’s revolution and why it matters now

    This is a slightly revised version of a vote of thanks given after a panel to launch of the ‘Women and Whitlam’ book with contributors, Elizabeth Reid, Marie Coleman and Blair Williams in conversation with editor Michelle Arrow. This was part of the ANU Meet the Author series, organised by Colin Steele at Kambri Cultural Centre Cinema, April 18. The podcast is available at  Meet the author – Michelle Arrow, Marie Coleman, Elizabeth Reid and Blair Williams.

    If you’re interested to know more about the book itself, check out this Q and A Michelle Arrow did with BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman.

    As the Honorable Tanya Plibersek observes in her foreword in popular memory, “the Whitlam government can feel like a three-year blur of movement and change.” But those revolutionary changes took years of hard, detailed policy work, much of it in the “long, cold exile of opposition” for 23 years. Moreover, despite the parlous representation of women in Parliament, the judiciary and senior levels of the public service at the time, these changes were co-created in partnership with women who were directly affected by major policy changes. As Plibersek avows, as we now say, Nothing about us, without us.

    Women were brought into the governing apparatus, but were connected to large numbers of women beyond, mobilised through the Women’s Electoral Lobby and the wider congregation of the Women’s Liberation Movement, embracing vibrant, diverse, debating streams of feminists – liberal feminists, radical feminists, socialist feminists. I swam in the latter stream.

    Plibersek draws two great lessons from Gough Whitlam – first that governments must be brave and bold, and second that they must be practical. She quips: “You can buy Blue Poles and sewer Western Sydney.”

    The many contributors chart how expansive this revolution was for women. Legislation and policy changes initiated included:

    • Equal pay for work of equal value, extension of the minimum wage for women, early analyses of the gendered segmentation of the work force and of gaps in pay and superannuation
    • The establishment of paid maternity leave provisions for women working in the Commonwealth Public Service
    • No fault divorce and the establishment of the accessible Family Court system, moving marriage law away from the patriarchal precepts of medieval ecclesiastical courts and Christian notions of guilt
    • Support for women subject to domestic violence, and for divorced, widowed and unmarried mothers, through the Supporting Mothers’ Benefit
    • Provision of broad public health support through Medibank (pushed back under Fraser, but reanimated as Medicare under Hawke) and specific women’s services – cheap, accessible contraceptives, breast screening, pap smears and moves toward to the decriminalisation of abortion (although that was not effected across all states and territories until 2019)
    • Free tertiary education for women and men (precipitating a great wave of university enrolments including many working class and older women)
    • Robust support for the arts – leading to the establishment of the Australia Council, the Australian Film Commission and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School which afforded opportunities for women performers including Cate Blanchett, Margaret Roadknight and Patricia Amphlett (aka Little Pattie)

    And a range of other policy developments: support for the disabled, dedicated urban and regional planning, the end of conscription and the release of draft resisters from prison, all of which had positive effects for women.

    Born in 1949 into a working-class family in Sydney where I was involved in the anti-war movement, the women’s movement and students for a democratic society, I felt viscerally the effects of these revolutionary changes in Australian politics and society. They transformed, indeed revolutionised, my horizons for the future.

    This book consummately charts these revolutionary changes in Australian society – across diverse fields – women’s influence in politics, women and the law, women’s health, welfare, and social policy, women in arts and education. I was sad not to see the latter accompanied by a consideration of the revolutionary changes in higher education – not just in the numbers of women as students and staff but of the radical revolution in knowledge, challenging masculinist disciplines and misogynist practices.

    Still, the book shows the vital connections between these several fields across the broader terrain of Australian society. For example, the changes effected in family law (as remembered by Elizabeth Evatt and Camilla Nelson) were integrally connected with the broader changes in what was happening in socio-economic life and in social values.

    Authors contributing to this book combine moving personal memoir with consummate analysis of the processes they were engaged in and the changes they were precipitating. I especially relished Biff Ward’s evocation of sisterhood in the women’s movement in Canberra in the 1970s and her recollection of the party where the position of a Special Adviser to PM Whitlam was announced – a post awarded to Elizabeth Reid. Less rosy recollections pervade the chapter co-authored by Cathy Eatock and her late mother Pat – a woman who combined strong commitments to women’s rights and Aboriginal rights but who endured domestic abuse, difficulties with caring for a disabled child and homelessness.

    (L to R) Marian Sawer, Elizabeth Reid, Blair Williams, Mare Coleman, Michelle Arrow at the "Women and Whitlam" author event in Canberra. Picture: Supplied

    (L to R) Marian Sawer, Elizabeth Reid, Blair Williams, Mare Coleman, Michelle Arrow at the “Women and Whitlam” author event in Canberra. Picture: Supplied

    She lived for a while at the Women’s Liberation House on Bremmer Street (where she and her kids could only bed down when meetings were over) and with her friend Elizabeth Reid (who was her campaign manager when Pat ran as an Independent for parliament. Pat suffered racist interrogations and vilifications of her Indigenous identity. She eventually won a defamation case against Andrew Bolt.

    There are graphic accounts of media and popular misogyny in the period. There was the snide reporting of women appointed to new well-paid positions in the public service –  sexist jokes proliferated (e.g. to Margaret Reynolds that Chairlady sounded like Charlady). There was the infamous Canberra Times’ reportage on the Women and Politics conference in Canberra in 1975 which brought over 800 women to the capital.

    This occasioned a vigorous protest from many delegates who occupied the newspaper’s offices, demanding professional journalistic standards. Similarly in reports on the International Year of Women, and subsequently the large UN Conference in Mexico in 1975, divisions between women were often exaggerated and amplified. Yet, there were welcome signs of the popular penetration of new values – alongside the “Easy Summer Cooking” in The Women’s Weekly appeared an “Easy Guide to Family Law.”

    I focus finally on the key message for me about that revolutionary period and how this matters in our present feminist moment. Fundamentally, that is the need for sustaining an interaction between a large social movement and bold action at the heart of government. This is a potent double helix. As Elizabeth Reid and Biff Ward so eloquently show us, it was the mobilisation of women in small consciousness-raising groups, where the personal was political, in large meetings and conferences, and on the streets which put pressure on and legitimated this cascade of policy changes.

    The cover of "Women and Whitlam." Picture: Supplied

    The cover of “Women and Whitlam.” Picture: Supplied

    Moreover, in her work as Whitlam’s Special Adviser Elizabeth reached out through consultations with women right across Australia and they reached out to her in a flood of letters. Moreover, although women like her and a number of other women who authored chapters in this book might be recognised as ‘leaders’ in this period, there was a broader feminist ethos which stressed collectivity rather than individualist achievement.

    As Ranuka Tandan persuasively argues in her chapter – a grassroots women’s movement is vital. And a social movement relevant today and resilient in the face of future misogynist pushbacks must be one that embraces women in all their diversity, and that expressly and frankly confronts the entanglement of the oppressions of race and gender. Tandan celebrates First Nations women fighting on the street today.

    We might recall that when Elizabeth Reid made her famous speech at the UN Conference in Mexico she addressed that question, confronting how the feminist perspectives of women differed, diverging between what were then called ‘First World’ and ‘Third World’ (what we might now call minority and majority worlds). It was exciting to be part of that large crowd outside Parliament House in the March4 Justice in 2020 and to witness the incendiary intergenerational outrage which ignited there.

    It is gratifying to see the boldness of young white women like Grace Tame and Britanny Higgins. But, as Ranuka Tandan and Blair Williams argue it is important to work to redress intersecting oppressions and to build and sustain the energy of a large, inclusive social movement, beyond the bright spotlight of the media, and now the relentless spotlight of social and digital media, with its even greater potential for misogyny. As someone who has worked in universities for decades, I end by highlighting how important universities are as sites for transforming knowledge for revolutionary social change, as places where books like this can be created, launched and most importantly read for their insights for our shared feminist futures.

    • Elizabeth Reid was appointed the world’s first advisor on women’s affairs to a head of government by the Australian Labor Government of Gough Whitlam in 1973. Picture: Ginger Gorman  

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  • Women and Whitlam: “A mixture of radicalism and pragmatism”

    The Whitlam government of 1972–75 transformed Australia. And yet the scope and scale of the reforms for Australian women are often overlooked. A new book called Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the revolution. BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman, chatted to the book’s editor, Michelle Arrow.

    Why was Gough Whitlam – as a political figure – so interested in women’s rights?  

    Whitlam was part of a group of Labor figures in the 1960s who wanted to reform the Labor party to focus on human rights, not just worker’s rights, and to think about other kinds of inequality other than class. This meant he was much more open to action on Indigenous rights, on poverty and disadvantage, and of course, on improving women’s rights.

    Why did you personally want to revisit the Whitlam period, with this focus? 

    There were two reasons I wanted to revisit the Whitlam era. The first was that in 2019 I was lucky enough to be part of a conference organised by the Whitlam Institute called ‘Revisiting the Revolution’. The conference was the brainchild of the late, great Susan Ryan and Leanne Smith, then the director of the Whitlam Institute, and it was held in old Parliament House, a place filled with history and meaning. 

    To be there with all those women who had played such a crucial role in the social change of the 1970s was tremendously inspiring, and editing this book was my attempt to recreate the experience of being at that conference, and to amplify these women’s voices.

    The second reason is that since that conference in 2019, the impact of COVID, the March for Justice, and the impact of the Morrison government, we saw a feminist reawakening in Australia. I felt that Australia’s trailblazing feminist history had something to say to that moment.

    Among feminists, many of Whitlam’s achievements for women are well known. But can you summarise them for us? Why WAS this period so groundbreaking? 

    Michelle Arrow is a Professor of History at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Picture: Supplied

    Michelle Arrow is a Professor of History at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Picture: Supplied

    The Whitlam era was a period of significant reform in many aspects of life, but the scale and scope of reforms for women were remarkable. A few of the most significant reforms were:

    Expanded access to child care, equal pay for work of equal value, the introduction of the supporting mothers’ benefit, cheaper, more accessible contraception, government funding for women’s refuges and women’s health centres, no-fault divorce, free university education, which was of particular benefit to older women, and a grants program of more than $3m for groups around Australia to celebrate and commemorate International Women’s year in 1975.

    Much of this was spearheaded by Whitlam’s women’s affairs adviser, Elizabeth Reid (pictured at top), who was appointed in April 1973. She was the first women’s affairs advisor to a national leader anywhere in the world! She helped develop women’s policy machinery to make government more responsive to women’s needs. This was truly groundbreaking. Whitlam recognised women as a distinctive political group whose needs were not always met by policy settings that focused on men.

    Not long ago, I interviewed Elizabeth Reid regarding her role as women’s advisor to national government — a world first at the time. It was astounding to think of an Australia without women’s refuges or the single mother’s benefit and paid maternity leave.  It showed me how far we HAVE actually come when it comes to women’s equality. How has this book made you reflect on this historical period? 

    One of the lessons from the Whitlam era that I think is most important is that some of these significant policy changes – like the introduction of government-funded women’s refuges – were the product of radical activists and reforming governments working together, or at least working in mutually productive ways.

    Elsie Women’s Refuge, the first feminist-run women’s refuge in Australia, ran for nine months on volunteer labour and donations before it received its first injection of funding from the Whitlam government. What governments do is crucial. But what activists do – outside of government – is just as important for creating the conditions in which governments can make change.

    The cover of "Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the revolution." Published by NewSouth

    The cover of “Women and Whitlam.” Published by NewSouth

    One commentator suggested this book shows politics can be radical. How does this collection of essays reflect that? 

    I think it reflects it in a number of ways. The formation of the Women’s Electoral Lobby in 1972 was a radical move because it forced women’s political issues onto the national agenda in a way that they had never been there before, even though WEL was regarded as a reformist, rather than a revolutionary organisation. WEL interviewed every candidate running in the 1972 election and ranked them on their policy positions on women’s issues – the survey made a huge impact in the election campaign.

    Second, it shows that Women’s Liberation was able to secure a seat at the table of the Prime Minister, to advise on government policy. Elizabeth Reid, Whitlam’s women’s affairs adviser, was a member of women’s liberation before she took the role. She was an activist and a tutor in Philosophy at ANU – not a professional bureaucrat – and she approached her role in a radical way.

    She was just as concerned with changing the ways women thought about themselves as she was about providing better childcare.

    This mixture of radicalism and pragmatism was a hallmark of the era, I think.

    Third, Reid always spoke about how important it was to have allowed an active feminist movement outside government to shape decision-making inside government. There was a strong relationship between revolution and reform, and this book shows that.

    What are the lasting impacts of the policy reforms of the early 70s? 

    There were two key impacts worth noting. The first was many of these reforms challenged the deeply ingrained idea that women’s sole, lifelong role was to be a wife and mother, dependent on a male breadwinner. The introduction of the supporting mothers benefit, which meant women could be mothers without marrying, or they could leave abusive partners. Funding women’s refuges gave women alternatives, as did the passage of the Family Law Act. Free higher education and equal pay (in theory, if not always in practice) meant that many women had a much firmer foundation for their independence, if they wanted it.

    The second impact I think was Whitlam’s focus on women (and women’s increased political activism) established that women were a distinctive political constituency, especially for Labor. Over subsequent decades, we’ve seen working and middle class women shift more firmly into the Labor camp (when for much of the twentieth century many women were more likely to vote Liberal). In the most recent federal election, we have also seen that governments which ignore women, or fail to appeal to them, will pay an electoral price for that neglect.

    What’s your favourite story or anecdote in this book? What’s something that really surprised you? 

    I think one of my favourite stories in the book is about the late Pat Eatock. Pat was an indigenous activist who played a very important role in establishing and maintaining the Aboriginal Embassy in 1972. She later stood for Parliament in the 1972 election for the Black Liberation Party – and Elizabeth Reid was her campaign manager.

    Perhaps the detail of her story that I like the best was that Pat was the only candidate to achieve a perfect score on the Women’s Electoral Lobby survey – if only she’d been elected!

    Some believe feminist progress has stalled since this era. How would you respond to that? 

    Sara Dowse (one of the book’s contributors) was asked this question recently, and her answer was really striking. She said that one of the things that made her feel that feminist progress had been made was that when she was a girl she was raised with a pretty narrow set of expectations for her life. Her granddaughters, however, had no such limits on their imagination or ambitions. And that was one of the goals of women’s liberation, to expand women’s horizons. I think we could regard that as a success.

    However, there are still significant structural barriers in place for women. And we know those structural barriers are much more rigid for poor women, older women, CALD women and First Nations women.

    We know rates of violence against women remain unacceptable, especially Indigenous women. But there has been a change in the ways that we discuss these issues publicly. In the 1960s. Domestic violence was not really discussed in public because it was not regarded as a public problem.

    Feminism has transformed the ways we talk about violence against women and women’s rights but we don’t always have the best public policy responses. The new Labor government has taken some encouraging steps, especially on improving wages and conditions for female-dominated industries – again, as a result of years of feminist advocacy.

    If we think about looking forward to the future, what do you hope readers take from Women and Whitlam? 

    This book pays tribute to the feminist activists of the 1970s, and I hope that it might introduce some of these women to a new generation. And by placing their essays alongside writing by younger feminists, I hope it can open up productive intergenerational conversations.

    I also hope that the book shows us that there are many different ways to achieve reform, and that it a reminder that we need to use all the levers at our disposal if we’re going to make life better for all women – from radical protest to working with government. And most importantly, if you want a better world, you need to turn up and help make that change! These women are all fabulous role models for those who are trying to change our society, culture and politics for the better.

    • Picture at top: Prime Minister Gough Whitlam discusses International Women’s Year with two members of the National Advisory Committee, Ms. Elizabeth Reid and the Secretary of the Australian Government’s Department of the Media, Mr. James Oswin. Source: National Library of Australia obj-137047143

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  • Two daring Dames recognised at Parliament House

    My International Women’s Day was spent in Canberra, honouring my grandmother Dame Enid Lyons, along with fellow trailblazer Dame Dorothy Tangney.

    Eighty years after being elected as the first two women to Federal Parliament, these two daring Dames were finally being recognised in bronze statues.

    It was an incredibly proud moment to witness the unveiling, replicating the iconic 1943 photograph of the women entering Old Parliament House for the first time. The great shame however is that it has taken so long for women to feature in the Parliamentary Triangle. In fact, still today there are more statues in Canberra of dogs than women.

    To take eighty years to recognise these pioneers of politics is endemic of the lack of appreciation and sustained representation of women in politics. We can wait no longer to address the delay in honouring the two audacious Dames, and acknowledge the role of women across all workplaces, including Parliament House, in real-time.

    I often reflect on my grandmother’s time in politics through her words in her book, Among The Carrion Crows, where she described herself and Dame Dorothy as “firm believers in the rightness of women’s claim to an active share in government”.

    My grandmother and Dame Dorothy paved the way for women in politics, advocating for social justice, education, and women’s issues – stark outliers within the political landscape of their time. Surprisingly, despite their party differences they worked together to drive change.

    My grandmother was fully aware of the ‘burden of responsibility’ as a pioneer. Reflecting on her maiden speech to Parliament, she wrote ‘I felt as if I were drowning’. However, she felt reassured by the support she felt in the all-male chamber. She was in fact, just like us, at times unsure, anxious and nervous. But, with support, she helped to irrevocably change the role of women in life.

    Libby Lyons

    Libby Lyons says, “What needs to change is our culture.” Picture: Supplied

    Pleasingly, we have seen an increasing number of women in federal parliament, particularly since the May 2022 election, but we must not become complacent. The gender gap must stay front of mind, and we must continually acknowledge the importance of women in politics. It is time to increase both support and recognition of women in public life.

    Despite current thinking, women do not actually need more leadership training or workshops in self-confidence. As my grandmother, Dorothy Tangney and countless women subsequently have shown, we are already capable leaders. What needs to change is our culture. A culture that still normalises the picture of a CEO, scientist, engineer or politician as a man, and a nurse, cleaner, child carer and aged care worker as a woman.

    To help change these stereotypes across all workplaces, we need to normalise flexible work for women and men and provide and encourage men to take parental leave.

    It is time to ensure transparency in recruitment and promotion practices, and ensure employers are meeting legal obligations to pay employees the same remuneration for similar roles. Collecting and reporting on data is key as well. We must continually collect, monitor and act on the data in workplaces to address gender inequality and pay gaps.

    Safe, respectful workplaces are essential for all employees. Employers must take immediate action to address issues of bullying, racism and sexual harassment. This will hugely help in the attraction and retention of female workers, particularly in male-dominated industries.

    Like my grandmother, I am determined to challenge workplace culture, which I am proud to do each day by leading the cause across the nation as Chair of SAGE, an organisation striving to embed genuine and sustainable gender equity, diversity and inclusion across the Australian higher education and research sector.

    Seeing the two daring Dames recognised in the Parliamentary Triangle is a great step forward, but there is still much work to do. Let’s hope it does not take another eighty years for women to be provided the same opportunities as men in our homes, workplaces and communities.

    • Libby and her son, Enid’s great-grandson, Charlie Lyons Jones with the statues of Dame Enid Lyons, along with fellow trailblazer Dame Dorothy Tangney. Picture: Supplied

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  • Indigenous women yarning about finance

    Rich Blak Women is a truly unique podcast that follows stories from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women – “rich in culture, value and mindset.” The pod aims to deepen awareness about the unique economic inequities’ First Nations women face, explore success and connection to culture, empower financial wellbeing through shared experiences and learnings, and build community and allies. BroadAgenda’s editor, Ginger Gorman, had a chat with podcast host Larisha Jerome.

    Let’s start off by asking you to tell us a bit about who you are and where you come from. 

    I am a proud Jarowair, Wakka Wakka, and Wulli Wulli woman with strong family ties to Southeast Queensland who grew up on Darug Country in Western Sydney.

    I have an extensive background working in banking, health and government (Indigenous Affairs), and the not-for-profit sector, specialising in women’s health and women’s community legal services in financial abuse prevention.

    Larisha Jerome, host of the "Rich Blak Women" podcast. Picture: Tomorrow Money

    Larisha Jerome, host of the “Rich Blak Women” podcast. Picture: Tomorrow Money

    As the lead of First Nations Foundation’s Indigenous Women’s Financial Wellness initiative, I aim to redress the economic injustice that Indigenous women face, empowering them to achieve financial wellness and economic independence. This role has led to immense personal and professional growth, opening doors I only dreamt of as a child.

    Motivated by my family, community, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls and women, I find great reward in hearing their stories and being a part of their learning experience.

    My career highlight to date has been leading First Nations Foundation’s Indigenous Women’s Financial Wellness initiative, and hosting the Rich Blak Women podcast, developed with the vision of long-term financial prosperity for all Indigenous Australian women, and intergenerational wealth transformation across Indigenous families and communities.

    For people who haven’t heard your podcast, “Rich Blak Women”, what’s it all about?

    Rich Blak Women is a ‘modern day’ yarning circle to amplify the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women from across the country which aims to deepen the awareness about the unique economic inequities First Nations women face, to follow their stories of success, connection to culture and empower financial wellbeing through our lived experience and perspectives.

    It also highlights that all First Nations people have different lived experiences and different perspectives which is so inspiring to hear.

    When you say the word “rich” you’re using it in a way that is more than about money. For example, you discuss topics like: knowing your worth, setting boundaries and speaking up, and Indigenous representation. Tell me about how you interpret the word “rich.” 

    Being rich, is just a state of being and a state of mind. As First Nations people we have been rich in culture, wisdom, and community and our elders have demonstrated over 60,000 years of survival.

    The perception of wealth and the way we value money is very different and before colonisation there was no need for money whatsoever, we lived off the land and preserved it and didn’t accumulate beyond what’s necessary. There is more focus on the collective of family and community.

    Money is just energy. A very generous energy that allows us to provide for ourselves, our families, and communities. Not just the bare necessities but luxuries and experiences that make life a lot more fun. We have been in “survival” for way too long and abundance is our birthright and comes in many forms and supports us to thrive, build prosperity and generational wealth in all aspects of life.

    First Nations Foundation’s Larisha Jerome and Destiny Dewis delivering a women’s workshop in Darug Country Western Sydney in partnership with Real Future Women’s Second Chance Education Hub. Picture: Supplied

    First Nations Foundation’s Larisha Jerome and Destiny Dewis delivering a women’s workshop in Darug Country Western Sydney in partnership with Real Future Women’s Second Chance Education Hub. Picture: Supplied

    Why do Indigenous women need different types of discussions around money and finance?

    Due to many economic disadvantages that we face as First Nations people within this country which includes unemployment, financial problems, poverty, and economic exclusion it’s so important that we create trauma informed and strength-based practises through all the work that we do.

    Through the Indigenous Women’s Financial Wellness initiative, we always bring it back to our core focus of financial literacy education. We focus on financial wellness and your overall holistic financial health, and how that relates to our everyday life mentally, spiritually, and physically.

    Not because of lack of intelligence but lack of opportunities that have systemically affected the lives of First Nations women we are now finding more women stand in their power, release money shame, overcome self-limiting beliefs, and embody the abundant mindset that empowers our communities to economic independence.

    If you imagined a world where your work here was done, what would that look like?

    Land back, economic independence, generational wealth, and prosperity for all First Nations people. A world where we can experience abundance in all forms and not just surviving but thriving and ensure the safety and security for all our children, families, and communities.

    You’ve got such a variety of guests (from so many different ages and backgrounds.) How do you choose guests?

    Many of the guests have been an inspiration to me personally, I heal within community and by learning, listening, and hearing lived experiences from all different women across country it’s empowered me through all the work that I do now and continue to do.

    It’s also important to note there are women in all their respected fields of work, with so much knowledge, wisdom, and power within their respected communities so it’s truly an honour to be able to yarn with every single one of them. Every single First Nations woman’s story is sacred, important, and inspiring and I’m certain for everybody First Nations or not, will resonate with an episode in some capacity.

    This is your second season of Rich Blak Women. What have you learned so far? What moment has surprised you the most? 

    What I’ve learnt is that we don’t have to make talking about money complicated, bringing it back to spirituality and the way money makes us feel is so powerful.
    The number of women who have personally reached out to me and said that they’ve resonated with something we’ve spoken about on a podcast episode and for younger girls and women who hear these stories knowing that they too can achieve the unimaginable and that no dream is too big to achieve.

    It’s important to remember that for some of us, this is the first time ever we are having conversations about money, releasing money shame, and finding empowerment through sharing our lived experiences because empowered women empower others, and that knowledge is then passed through all our communities and generations.

    How is the podcast helping you build allies?

    Allies are incredibly important for social, economic, cultural, and political advancement for First Nations people and of course First Nations women. It’s so important that our allies can listen and learn from all our conversations from a grassroots First Nations perspective.

    • Picture at top: First Nations Foundation’s Larisha Jerome and Jordy Dwyer delivering a financial literacy workshop in Nhulunbuy NT in partnership with Laynhapuy Homelands Aboriginal Corporation. Photo: Supplied 

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  • What can we learn from sport governance challenges?

    FIFA’s threat to withdraw its recognition of its member federation, Football Australia, prompted gender equality measures to be adopted. This governance crisis led to the establishment of a Congress Review Working Group. (FIFA stands for The Fédération internationale de football association is the international governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal.)

    The Working Group recommendations led to significant structural change including mandated gender equality measures. A range of measures have been outlined in my recent research paper which is intended to be a roadmap for other sports to follow, including:

    1. Quota Percentages

    2. ‘Different Genders’ Mandated for Specified Positions

    3. Expanding the pie: Quotas by Numbers and/or Female Only Positions

    4. Graduated / Staggered Quotas

    5. Applying the ‘Rooney Rule’ to gender and the ‘Inclusion Rider’ to sport

    6. Transparency and Inclusive Language

    7. Other options including training and term lengths

     

    The report, Better Together: Increasing Male Engagement in Gender Equality Efforts in Australia, found that most men (76%) are gender equality supporters, but few (17%) prioritise taking action.  This serves to explain why the status quo, of ‘pale, male and stale’ [plus ‘able-bodied’ and ‘heterosexual’] has been very difficult to shift.  This report also recommended that male engagement could be achieved by ‘mak[ing] it easy’.  

    In the recent Football Australia governance crisis, advocacy group, Women Onside, sought to assist the Working Group established by the international federation, FIFA, through providing practical, ‘easy’ solutions.

    If you are also grappling with how to create structural changes to your organisation to achieve gender equality, particularly if your organisation exists within a federated model, then some of the following case studies and research presented by Women Onside may provide ideas and inspiration:

    1. Quota Percentages

    The Australian Sports Commission 40% target was tied to funding, but the threatened ‘stick’ was not ever implemented. Instead, while noting the challenges around quotas in a federated system, a 40:40:20 requirement was recommended for the entire football ecosystem.  This mechanism was successfully adopted by Paddling Australia.

    2. ‘Different Genders’ Mandated for Specified Positions

    It can be constitutionally required that, for example, the Chair and Deputy Chair roles are ‘different’ genders.  This is preferable to the ‘both genders’ binary format, but is insufficient as a standalone strategy to create gender equality (eg: the Australian Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission provision alone would only lead to a 30% outcome).  

    3. Expanding the pie: Quotas by Numbers and/or Female Only Positions

    Boards have traditionally been made up of representative positions, and in some cases each of the Standing Committee Chairs (including the Women’s Committee) have had a vote on the executive (eg: Capital Football).  Expanding the board to create ‘women only’ board positions, avoids the threat of an incumbent losing ‘his’ seat.  For example, the FIFA Statute requires that each of its six Confederations: ‘elect at least one female member to the Council’.  Any Confederation failing to elect a woman will have that seat ‘deemed forfeited’ until the next round of elections.  However, this ‘female member’ mechanism only guarantees that there will be a minimum of 16% female representation.  

    The idea of ‘expanding the pie’ has also been explored in the entertainment industry, where researchers promote the idea of ‘Just Add 5’ to address the finding that women have made up less than 30% of speaking roles in the top 100 US films each year for decades.  Achieving gender equality by 2020 would have required expanding the FFA Congress to twenty and adding five women each year.  To achieve this in a contested election requires a: ‘first past the post, provided you are a woman’ rule.  This is used by the AOC Athletes’ Commission.  Of the eight athletes elected at the Summer Olympic Games, it was mandated that there must be: ‘not less than three males and not less than three females’ and the Winter Olympic Games elected representatives: ‘must comprise one of each sex’.  This means that those athletes receiving the most votes may not necessarily be elected.  Where there is a tie, the youngest candidate wins; thereby also assisting with age diversity affirmative action. 

    4. Graduated / Staggered Quotas

    Following the major governance failures and corruption within the International Association of Athletics Federation [IAAF, now World Athletics], 95% of the IAAF Special Congress supported the recommended reforms.  Since 1 January 2019, the IAAF Council mandated a graduated gender balance.  Although still couched in binary terms (which is significant given the challenges in athletes for intersex athletes), the amended Constitution sets out the minimum number of women required to occupy the seats on the IAAF Council and the Executive Board.  Maria Clarke, IAAF governance reform Chair, hopes this created a ‘gender leadership’ environment.  At the 2023 Election, there will be a minimum of ten of each gender elected from amongst the total of twenty-six Council members.  At the 2027 Election, the Council will be 50-50, and the IAAF Executive Board (total of 9) must consist of three members of each gender.  (NOTE: A graduated approach, by adding one ‘female only’ position to the FFA Congress each year until the ideal of fifty-fifty is reached, would have taken a decade to achieve).

    5. Applying the ‘Rooney Rule’ to gender and the ‘Inclusion Rider’ to sport

    The Rooney Rule was designed as an equity measure for black and Latino men applying for coaching and team management positions in the US National Football League [NFL].  The Rooney Rule concept has effectively been applied to the corporate sphere to achieve gender equality, for example: then Australia Post CEO, Christine Holgate, required that head-hunters have a female on the short list for every role.  Going even further, Mirvac CEO, Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, required that every senior role short list be 50-50.

    Called the ‘Inclusion Rider’, entertainment industry ‘stars’ are encouraged to include a clause requiring broad race, gender and ability demographics in both onscreen and off-screen staff.  The idea of having influential people in positions of power stipulating express diversity requirements in their own contracts was given prominence at the 2018 Hollywood’s Oscars by Frances McDormand.  A similar call has been made for invited (male) speakers to refuse to attend male only conferences and panels [‘Manels’].  In sport, the players’ associations can use their leverage to negotiate with the national bodies and the clubs, not only for pay parity, but to demand that there be women in governance and in operational positions.  

    6. Transparency and Inclusive Language

    It was recommended that football stakeholders be required to include gender statistics in their annual reports on their websites.  For example, Basketball Australia publishes its Board Charter, a de-identified Director Position Profile and Skills Matrix, and female representation statistics.  Advertising all roles, including detailed job descriptions, should also be standard.  Research by Gaucher et al., (2011) found that to attract female candidates to positions, on an equal basis to men, requires inclusive language on websites and in recruitment documentation.  Inclusive language can be identified using tools, such as the Gender Decoder.

    7. Other options including training and term lengths

    Other change mechanisms include mandating term lengths (ASC 2015), ethical leadership (Ordway and Opie 2017) and ‘entitlement’ training, mentoring and sponsorship (ie: shepherding), pay parity and equal media representation.  World Athletics funds targeted recruitment and training programs and has established the Gender Leadership Taskforce to work with the IAAF Women’s Committee and male advocates to identify and upskill women with potential.  Changing structures, and influencing individual and institutional mindsets, rather than focusing only on changing women, is required.

    If you have come across other best practices that have worked, we’d love to hear them. Please email through to: catherine.ordway@canberra.edu.au

    • Please note image at top is a stock photo (Female Soccer player in action on a professional soccer stadium).

     

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