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Category: equality

  • Census shows women are doing more housework. Again.

    The Australian Census numbers have been released, showing women typically do many more hours of unpaid housework per week compared to men.

    It’s not a new development. In 2016, the “typical” Australian man spent less than five hours a week on domestic work, while the “typical” Australian woman spent between five and 14 hours a week on domestic work. Before that, the 2006 census showed, again, that more of the domestic workload is shouldered by women.

    So, in the 15 years since the Australian Census started collecting unpaid housework time, women are shown to do more than men. Every. Single. Time.

    What is unique about these latest census numbers is Australians filled out their surveys during one of the greatest disruptors to work and home life – the COVID pandemic.

    In the 15 years since the Australian Census started collecting unpaid housework time in 2006, women are shown to do more than men. Source: Shutterstock

    Pandemic pressures

    We have a breadth of research showing the pandemic disrupted women’s – especially mothers’ – work and family lives, in catastrophic ways.

    Economic closures knocked women out of employment at higher rates to men, forcing them to rely more heavily on their savings and stimulus payments to make ends meet. All this while managing intensified housework, childcare and homeschooling.

    The transition to remote and hybrid learning meant mothers, not fathers, reduced their workloads to meet these newfound demands.

    Fathers picked up the slack in the home – doing more housework at the start of the pandemic and holding it over time.

    Yet, as my colleagues Brendan Churchill and Lyn Craig show, fathers increased their housework but so did mothers, meaning the gender gap in that time remained.

    So, while men should be applauded for doing more during the unique strains of the pandemic, we show mothers were the true heroes of the pandemic, stepping into added labour at the expense of their health and well-being.

    Quite simply, the pandemic placed unparalleled pressures on Australian families. So it is perhaps no surprise our surveys are showing Australians are burnt out.

    (As discussed in previous articles, the chore divide in same-sex relationships is generally found to be more equal. But some critiques suggests even then, equality may suffer once kids are involved.)

    In general, fathers increased their housework during the pandemic – but so did mothers, meaning the gender gap remained. Source: Shutterstock

    Time for action

    So, where to now?

    We pay upwards of $640 million dollars every five years to document Australia through the census.

    And, in each of these surveys we find the same result – women are doing more housework than men.

    This parallels decades of research showing women do more housework, even when they are employed full-time, earn more money and especially once kids hit the scene.

    Men have increased their housework and childcare contributions over time and younger men want to be more present, active and attentive in the home.

    Simply put: men want to step into greater care giving and women are suffering from “doing it all”.

    We have documented these trends for decades – enough. Now it is time for action.

    The pandemic intensified housework, childcare and homeschooling demands on women. Source: Shutterstock
    Creating a fair future

    These are the critical questions we are asking through The Future of Work Lab at the University of Melbourne – how do we create a future that is fair to everyone, including women and mothers?

    A few key projects illuminate some of the next steps towards clear interventions. The first is to provide Australian families with a comprehensive safety net to support their care-giving lives.

    All of us will be, at some point, called upon to care for a loved one, friend, family member or colleague. At these moments, work becomes difficult and housework demands soar.

    So, providing care-giving resources beyond just paid time off is critical. This underscores the need for

    • universal free high-quality childcare
    • paid caregiver leave, and/or
    • better and longer term cash payments for caregivers.

    Second, we need comprehensive policies that allow men to step into care-giving roles without fear of retribution and penalty at work.

    Australians work more annual hours, on average, than their Canadian and United Kingdom counterparts, working hours more similar to the overwork culture of the United States. And, only one in 20 Australian fathers take paid parental leave following childbirth, an abysmal rate relative to other high-income countries.

    We can do better.

    The pandemic created the space for many men to step into larger care-giving roles with great pleasure and showed workplaces that flexible work is feasible.

    Next, the Australian workplace must become more supportive of men’s right to care.

    Australian workplaces must become more supportive of men’s right to care. Source: Shutterstock

    Unpaid domestic work and the mental load

    Finally, we must redress the challenges of unpaid domestic work and the mental load on women’s physical, mental and economic health and well-being.

    Perhaps tech holds some solutions.

    The demand is clearly there with some super impressive women building out concrete tech solutions to reduce the mental load and unpaid domestic work – like Melo’s mental load app or Yohana’s virtual concierges.

    Others are using old tech solutions – like Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play cards – to help couples equalise the often unseen, and undervalued household chores. We are working on a research project to understand the impact of these different resources on families’ unpaid domestic loads and lives more broadly.

    The census is valuable in showing us we remain unchanged.

    But, now, is a time to invest in intervention and innovation to make us better versions of ourselves into the future.The Conversation

    Leah Ruppanner, Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of The Future of Work Lab, The University of Melbourne

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

     

    • Please note: Feature image is a stock photo. Source: Shutterstock 

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  • The myth of working-class men blocking gender equality

    As a kid, I was brought up in relative poverty on a working class council estate, and part of that upbringing involved experiencing and witnessing profound violence perpetrated by several working class ‘dads’. And yet, as a researcher of men, masculinities and social class, I have over the last decade or so been interested to challenge the ways that working class masculinity has been framed in popular, media and academic discussions.

    In terms of our everyday imagination, working class men are, perhaps, often the figure that comes to mind when many people think of the impediments to gender equality – a lower-educated man, maybe from a regional town or the ‘less desirable’ city suburbs, perhaps a tradie or factory worker.

    An adherent to regressive, traditional and harmful masculine ideals that perpetuate gender inequality in terms of divisions of domestic labour and enacting violence towards children, women and gender diverse people. In light of the recent revelations of the disgusting prevalence of sexual assault and harassment in Western Australian mining industry, this image might have been further underscored.

    I want to suggest, though, that the image of working-class masculinity operates as a convenient foil that works to obscure or minimise more privileged men’s significant contribution to gender inequalities.

    In a way, it’s strikingly obvious that powerful, wealthy, elite, professional-class men are also significant threats to the autonomy and safety of women and gender diverse people. Such men are the common thread in the evidence brought to light by the now global #metoo movement, 2016’s revelation that Donald Trump self-advocates for non-consensual ‘pussy grabbing’, and last week’s frankly grotesque US Supreme court decision to overturn the rights to abortion.

    Closer to home, we also need look no further than the accounts of misogyny and rape culture in our own seat of government as well as in some of Australia’s elite boys schools.

    Despite these attacks on the rights and bodies of women, as individual and collectives, by more privileged men, the negative stereotype of working-class masculinity remains stubbornly ingrained.

    My colleague, Karla Elliott, and I have recently attempted to illustrate how this remains the case in a lot of academic research, where violence, sexism, and homophobia are often understood as a response to relative (economic) powerlessness and status deficit that is inherent in the lives of working-class boys and men.

    Our individual previous research and collective ongoing studies centres the lives and voices of working class and other ‘men on the margins’.

    Our data has further undermined the idea that men in the margin somehow lag behind the real vanguard of progress: white, middle-class men.

    In particular, the interviews we have conducted in the UK and Australia in the last 18 months or so regularly reveal evidence of, among other things, what is sometimes called ‘caring masculinities’, i.e. ‘masculine identities that reject domination and its associated traits and embrace values of care such as positive emotion [and] interdependence’.

    This does not deny that problematic aspects of masculinity continue in the lives of working class or marginalised men – just as they do in the lives of more privileged men. Rather, the point to stress is that the biographical narratives we uncovered are replete with the commitments to egalitarian gender relations and other practices often passed off as being the domain of educated and/or otherwise privileged men.

    This includes what some academics call ‘lived egalitarianism’ – a significant if often understated contribution to household labour and childcare that is necessitated by the realities of working-class life that demands a dual-income.

    In contrast to working class men, middle class lives are often (though of course not always) characterised by ‘spoken egalitarianism’, where men can easily talk a good game on equality of household tasks, made all the more achievable when a proportion of the domestic and childcare duties are outsourced to poorly paid women domestic workers, often minority ethnic and immigrant women.

    To be clear here, oftentimes even a smaller gender gap in time allocated to childcare duties, or seeming evidence of ‘involved fatherhood’, is not a simple good that reflects middle class men’s commitment to equality, but is bound up with the problematic use of a marginalised workforce that are part of ‘the coloniality of labour’.

    Zooming back out from our own research, the picture of working-class masculinity as a key driver of a stalling gender revolution is complicated further when we factor in that studies repeatedly show that well-educated women, employed in high-earning professional occupations report higher levels of gender discrimination than their working-class peers.

    Coming back to a point above about a common thread: it’s the presence of professional-class men in such organisations!

    Feminism has, in the words of the esteemed cultural theorist Angela McRobbie, become ‘a ubiquitous force in everyday life’.  It has inspired new possibilities for gender relations, evident in the supposedly counter intuitive narratives that Karla and I have found in our interview data.

    Its ubiquity has also, though, been met with ferocious backlash with grim consequences, including the attack on reproductive rights in the US and the possible threat of what is to follow.

    We would do well to keep at the front of our mind that masculinity is centrally implicated in the latter, but we ought to resist any suggestions that it is specifically a product of working-classness. This is not an effort to engage in a form of ‘whataboutery’, but rather to ensure we can train our attention to the core of the problem – the powers, people and structures that sustain and expand gender inequalities.

     

     

     

     

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  • A Call for All Progressive Candidates and Officeholders to Embrace a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights

    We call upon all progressive candidates and officeholders to embrace our proposal and seek to enact a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights.

    This post was originally published on Real Progressives.

  • The suffocating blanket of heteronormativity

    Look around you. Men and women couple up on TV shows like Love Island for millions of viewers. The latest Hello Fresh ad shows Mum cooking dinner for her husband and two children. You see a friend’s baby and coo “oh, he’ll break a lot of girls’ hearts when he’s older!” because even toddlers cannot escape the expectations of heteronormativity.

    Heteronormativity is defined as: “the privileged and normalized view of heterosexuality.” It is a social and cultural expectation of straightness and gender conformity.

    The term describes a system that harms queer people because firstly, it assumes we do not exist and seocndly, it demands that we suffocate part of our identity to engage with the world around us.

    Not cool – especially when you consider that more than 650,000 Australian adults consider themselves to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or an alternative sexual minority orientation.

    This marginalisation is internalised by queer people. Through the news and media that dominate my screen, the people in my life, and the values I was taught from a young age, I learnt to see myself as straight. Anything other than being straight and cisgender (identifying as the gender you were assigned at birth) was ‘wrong’. 

    For some queer people, this results in a state of ‘unknowing.’ What do I mean? Well, I think of it as a state of mind or being that many queer people may find themselves in. When you are bombarded by heteronormativity at every turn, you may repress your identity to the point that you cannot see yourself as a queer person. 

    I also must point out how this affects the mental health of LGBTQ+ people. In an Australian study conducted last year, “LGBTI people aged 18 and over were over eighteen times more likely to have considered attempting suicide in the previous 12 months.” 

    This is not because of any ‘inherent difference’, rather it might be seen as a consequence of living within a heteronormative, cisnormative society.

    Through conversations I had with other queer people – across generations and identities–I see the sharp edges and suffocating walls of heteronormativity. Here, we make known the state of ‘unknowing’. 

    I reached out to Robin Ladwig, an academic at the University of Canberra doing transdisciplinary research concerning gender and queer studies. Reflecting on heteronormativity, they said: “It means the limited freedom to express my whole self and the consistent evaluation of the possible risk of being discriminated against, stigmatised, or excluded. This is a shared experience with a lot of my transgender and gender diverse research participants.” 

    Robin Ladwig

    Robin Ladwig is a PhD Candidate at the University of Canberra. 

    They also spoke about the pressure this puts on LGBTQ+ people: “It increases the invisibility of gender and sexual diversity” and “..reinforces the social expectations of relationship status.”

    Bi- or pansexual people who “appear” to be in heterosexual relationships are assumed straight. 

    Robin continues: “A gender diverse person might get assigned the opposite gender to their partner, as this seems to be the only logical consequence based on heteronormativity.” Aromantic and asexual people are “pressured” to conform to the expectation that they should desire sex or to be in a relationship. 

    Robin’s words identify some of the ways queer people are asked to erase parts of themselves. I see how this invisibility may lead to the state of ‘unknowing’.  

    Megan Munro is a disabled and queer artist, who produced the Queer Variety Show in Canberra earlier this year. We spoke over Facebook, writing paragraphs back and forth as we shared our experiences with heteronormativity. 

    Megan recalls going to gay clubs once they’d turned 18, but says, “I went as a straight person.” They told me: “If you don’t know it’s a possibility […] you don’t know it could be you.” 

    This small statement spoke to me. In it, Megan captures an essence of ‘unknowing’.

    Even in queer spaces, a queer person who doesn’t know they are queer is denied connection to identity, and denied a space to explore that identity. 

    Megan also describes an afternoon they spent at a friend’s house: “I know now that she spent the entire time hitting on me… but I was so blind to it, I didn’t realise.” This prompts me to reflect on similar experiences; the intense friendship I had with one girl during my last year of school, the first time I went to a club at 18 and danced with a girl. 

    I remember the suffocating panic I felt then, because the lines between ‘unknowing’ and ‘knowing’ were beginning to blur. I had no words to describe these interactions, because I called myself straight. I was not allowed to know myself as queer.

    I asked Megan if they felt a sense of loss for the years that heteronormativity distorted their sense of self. They tell me: “I don’t think I missed out, and never did, really. I wouldn’t have some of the great friends in my life, had I come out early. Plus, the 80s and 90s were very homophobic still, it would’ve been harder in some ways.”

    Heteronormativity and cisnormativity (the assumption that everyone identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth) attempted to erase queerness from the narrative. Megan is in their 50s now, and non-binary. Being trans, they observe, wasn’t really spoken about in the ‘mainstream’ until about ten years ago. 

    Megan Munro as Sparklemuffin, ACT Finalist in the upcoming Mx Burlesque Australia competition. Photo credit: Nathan J. Lester.

    Megan Munro as Sparklemuffin, ACT Finalist in the upcoming Mx Burlesque Australia competition. Photo credit: Nathan J. Lester.

    While explicit homophobia and transphobia are very real dangers, Megan mentions how more subtle instances of heterosexism and cissexism can be just as harmful. We speak about how heteronormativity flattens out perceptions of ongoing oppression of queer communities. 

    Beyond queer people being suspended in a state of unknowing, broader communities do not see your lived experiences once you do know. They may not be able to identify the heteronormative structures that privilege them.

    When Megan came out for the first time in their 30s, they facilitated a Stepping Out program, “for women questioning their sexuality”. Through that they heard many stories from women who grew up under the suffocating blanket of heteronormativity. They often didn’t know they were interested in women until a lightbulb moment sparked something too bright to ignore. 

    Despite our differences in age and identity, I see how the weight of heteronormativity impacted myself, Megan, and the women they worked with in the Stepping Out program. I don’t remember clear lightbulb moments; there were small moments that poked at the edges of my unknowing, but never enough to completely disrupt it. 

    I then reached out to my friend, Imogen, a graphic designer and visual artist based in Meanjin/Brisbane who is a couple of years younger than me. She reflects: “When I was younger [I] just assumed heterosexuality was normal and the only other option was being gay.” 

    Imogen: “Took ages for me to realise that I could be attracted to multiple genders, and having some kind of awareness or visibility around bisexuality then would have helped me to realise that a lot sooner, but I had just never heard of it.”

    Here, Imogen touches on how ‘unknowing’ is not always ignorance of your own feelings. Unknowing is not the absence of knowledge, it may also be a suspension and negotiation. We recognise that something is different, but are unable or unwilling to name the difference. 

    Heteronormativity depends on placing people in precise boxes, on strict binaries and identities. Bisexuality (the capacity for romantic or sexual attraction to more than one gender) blurs these boundaries, so even knowing that straight is not the only option left Imogen feeling untethered for a time. 

    Queer people may feel adrift in a state of unknowing and knowing. The expectation that I was straight meant I was constantly reaching for ways to affirm this projection. Falling in love with boys and repressing my own identity felt like learned behaviours, and became muscle memory. 

    To lift the blanket, stretch your closeted limbs, and let yourself see whatever you want to see is not something we are all in the position to do. Imogen and I know how lucky we are in this. 

    My conversations with Megan and Imogen revealed to me the state of unknowing as one way that heteronormativity impacts the lives of queer people. Examining this unknowing has allowed me to identify the contours and boundaries of heteronormativity, as a structure that has shaped much of our lives. 

    Heteronormativity and cisnormativity leave queer people tightly wound, perhaps convinced of our perceived ‘straightness’ or gender because the world held up a mirror and told us what to see. 

    This is why representation in media that combats heteronormativity is so important. TV shows like Heartstopper, which I wrote about here, are entering the mainstream. My hope is that this representation will help end the state of ‘unknowing’, because young queer people are finally seeing their true selves reflected back at them.

    • Feature image is a stock photo. Jacob Lund/Shutterstock. 

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  • Medicare For All: Just The Facts, Ma’am

    I am calling awareness to the continuous misuse of the words, used as a manipulation. 

    This post was originally published on Real Progressives.

  • Gender a key barrier to electoral success

    In this analysis, Anna Hough of the Australian Parliamentary Library analyses the gender composition of Australian state and territory parliaments in comparison to that of the Federal parliament. This analysis was originally published on the Parliament of Australia website.

    How does the gender composition of Australian state and territory parliaments compare with that of the federal parliament? As of 1 January 2022, 39% of federal parliamentarians and 39% of state and territory parliamentarians were women. Over the past two decades, the proportion of women across state and territory parliaments has tracked closely with the proportion of women in the federal parliament. Women’s overall representation in state and territory parliaments has increased from 22% in 2001.

    Figure 1 below show women’s representation in the federal parliament, and in all state and territory parliaments. In the case of the federal parliament and the bicameral state parliaments, these are combined figures for both chambers.

    Gender_composition_of_state_and_territory_parliaments-01

    (Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘Gender Indicators, Australia’ and Parliamentary Library data. Reference point is 1 January each year. These figures are calculated according to the current number of parliamentarians, and do not include vacant seats.)

    Figure 2 below shows how the proportion of women in each state and territory parliament has changed over the past decade.

    Gender_composition_of_state_and_territory_parliaments-02

    (Source: Parliamentary Library historical data. Numbers as of 1 January for 2016–2022 and other dates in January and February for the other years. These figures are calculated according to the current number of parliamentarians, and do not include vacant seats.)

    In 2016 the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT) unicameral Legislative Assembly became the first Australian parliament with a female majority.

    In 2018 Tasmania’s parliament followed suit, becoming the first state parliament with a female majority in the lower house, as well as the first state parliament to achieve equal gender representation across both houses.

    The less populous Australian jurisdictions have led the way on gender equality among parliamentarians. To date the ACT and Tasmanian parliaments have been the only Australian parliaments to reach equal gender representation. The Northern Territory, with 48% women, is close behind.

    Members of both the ACT parliament and the House of Assembly in Tasmania are elected using the Hare-Clark electoral system, a method of proportional representation where multiple members are elected for each electorate. (Tasmania’s Legislative Council is elected using preferential voting with single member electorates, in a similar manner to the federal House of Representatives.)

    The electoral system used in each jurisdiction, and in each chamber of bicameral parliaments, is one factor that influences their gender composition. More women tend to be elected to parliaments, or to houses of parliament, via proportional representation than via preferential voting. For example, in Australia the Senate has a higher proportion of women than the House of Representatives. When it comes to Australian state and territory parliaments, however, the picture that emerges is more complex.

    At the time of publication, this tendency holds true for the ACT Legislative Assembly, and the Victorian and the South Australian legislative councils (upper houses). In addition, Queensland’s unicameral parliament, which is elected via preferential voting, has a relatively low proportion of women.

    However, the legislative assemblies (lower houses) of New South Wales and Western Australia, which are elected by preferential voting, have a higher proportion of women than the legislative councils of those states, which are elected by proportional representation.

    The Tasmanian Legislative Council (upper house), which is elected by preferential voting, has a higher proportion of women than the Tasmanian House of Assembly (lower house), which is elected by proportional representation. And, as discussed above, the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly (single house), which is elected via preferential voting, comprises 48% women.

    These differences suggest that, as well as electoral systems, other factors affecting the gender composition of parliaments and houses of parliament also play an important role. Those factors include each parliament’s party composition, as well as party and voter choices about candidate selection and election.

    There is evidence, including from Australia and from the European parliament, that parliaments dominated by progressive parties are likely to have higher female representation, as more women tend to be preselected as candidates, and to be elected in parties from the progressive end of the political spectrum. Gender quotas, whether legislated by countries or introduced voluntarily by individual parties, play a critical role in increasing the proportion of women in parliament.

    Women, including independent candidates running in what had previously been considered safe seats, made gains at the federal election on 21 May 2022. However, evidence from the Australian parliament, and from comparable parliaments such as that of the United Kingdom, indicates that it is not sufficient to simply increase the number of women running for office.

    To substantially improve women’s representation, women need to be preselected for winnable seats, rather than for ‘glass cliff’ seats that they are less likely to win. While recent research by the group Women for Election Australia suggests that the majority of Australians would like to see more women in politics, and other research indicates that voters have generally positive views of female candidates, gender is also perceived as a key barrier to women’s electoral success.

    Further reading

     

    • Please note feature image is a stock photo. It shows voters in the 2019 Federal election in Sydney. Source: Shutterstock/MW Hunt

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  • More women: will Parliament be a safe workplace?

    The 2022 federal election was a win for women candidates, and a historic moment in Australia’s journey towards a parliament that truly endorses and promotes gender equality in all its work.

    At this stage of counting, it looks as though the House of Representatives will have at least 57 women, making 38% of the chamber female. This is our highest proportion of women ever in the lower house.

    The Senate reached and exceeded 50% in the last parliament, and will maintain this in the new parliament. These new levels will see Australia reverse a 20-year decline in the international ranking of women in national parliaments, from 57th up to around 37th, ahead of Portugal, Tanzania and Italy.

    How did this happen? And what will this mean for the culture at Parliament House?

    First, look at the numbers

    The simplest explanation is numerical: more women won because more women than ever contested seats in 2022, rendering true the maxim “you gotta be in it to win it”. Women represented just under 40% of all candidates in Saturday’s poll – an increase, says analyst Ben Raue, from about 32% in 2016 and 2019, and under 28% in 2013.

    Independent candidate Allegra Spender arrives to vote on election day.
    Independent Allegra Spender is the new member for Wentworth, having defeated Liberal incumbent Dave Sharma.
    Bianca De Marchi/AAP

    The 2022 numbers also indicate women candidates actually outperformed men candidates.

    And consider the swing

    The depletion of the Liberal Party vote was accompanied by a wave of unexpected wins for women.

    Women won as challengers in safe or fairly safe seats previously held by incumbent MPs and ministers. This includes the well-publicised wins of independent and minor party women in Curtin, Fowler, Goldstein, Kooyong, Mackellar, North Sydney, Ryan and Wentworth.

    But it also includes the wins of Labor Party women who took the seats of Boothby, Chisholm, Hasluck, Higgins, Pearce, Reid and Swan.

    New Labor MP Zeneta Mascarenhas on election night.
    Zeneta Mascarenhas was elected to the Perth seat of Swan, with a swing of more than 12%.
    Richard Wainwright/AAP

    In this, there’s a historical comparison with the 1996 election in which John Howard’s landslide election saw an unprecedented 23 women swept into the House of Representatives. The Liberal Party had also placed these women in unwinnable seats, but the magnitude of the swing away from Labor changed the meaning of a safe, as opposed to a marginal, seat.

    In fact, those women consolidated their positions in the 1998 election, and the number of women increased further. The swing towards the Coalition in 1996 was so great it was hard for the Labor Party to come back. However, women in the “class of 1996” also kept their marginal seats through concerted work in their electorates. The class of 2022 would do well to heed this lesson.

    Community campaigning was vital

    In 2022, Australian voters took advantage of the alternatives presented by independent and Green women candidates. Raue, again, was the first to notice the seismic change in the proportion of women running as independents in 2022: a whopping 65%, up from about 22% in 2019.

    Women made the deliberate choice not to run as candidates for the major political parties. And for good reason: Australian major parties have proven, time and time again, that their pre-selection processes are top-down, out of touch and impervious to increasingly loud calls for equality and diversity.

    These campaigns were also driven by record numbers of volunteers, knocking on record numbers of doors, having record numbers of conversations with local communities. These community-based campaigns followed the model established by Cathy McGowan in Indi in 2013, and serve as a key lesson not just in Australia, but around the world.

    It’s also true that the swing and community based campaigns resulted in the loss of female talent. Moderate Liberal Katie Allen could not stem her electorate’s dissatisfaction with the government in Melbourne’s Higgins. Likewise, Labor’s Terri Butler could not prevent the “Greenslide” in Brisbane’s Griffith. Parachuted Labor candidate Kristina Keneally could not convince the people of Fowler that she would be their best representative.

    New member for Kooyong Monique Ryan with supporters on election night.
    New independents like Monique Ryan were elected on the back of strong community campaigns.
    Luis Ascui/AAP

    Voters wanted something different

    In what was arguably one of the country’s most blokey electoral campaigns, it appears Australian voters wanted something different.

    Gender equality was not top of the list of issues considered important in this election, in fact it was well below climate change and the cost-of-living.

    But voters across the country chose candidates who explicitly articulated a desire to shift our political culture. Climate 200 candidates, for example, had Women’s safety and equality one of their headline policies.

    The last parliament brought the toxic work culture of Parliament House into the headlines.

    Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’s Set the Standard report late last year found the “win-at-all costs” mentality of major party politics was one of the key drivers of unsafe parliamentary workplaces. Deep-seated partisan differences have also prevented cross-party collaboration in the name of gender equality.

    Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins listens to a speech.
    Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins made 28 recommendations to fix parliament’s work culture in November 2021.
    Lukas Coch/AAP

    The election of so many women and so many women from beyond the major parties is a huge opportunity to change this.

    The incoming Labor government will need to engage with a new brand of women in parliaments: women, importantly, who are new to the parliamentary area but who have worked in professional workplaces. They will carry those standards and expectations into the chamber.

    The new cross-bench will not be encumbered by the need to protect a party. In fact, their electorates have given them a mandate to keep the parliament accountable, not only on the full set of recommendations of the Set the Standard report, but on the 55 recommendations of Jenkins’ Respect@Work report on sexual harrassment.

    The women on the cross-bench will not always agree with each other, let alone with the new government, but there is a sense that they will approach the job differently. As new independent Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel told the ABC’s Insiders after the election, “independents already communicate and collaborate [with each other]”.

    If this approach continues, it will make a big difference to the way parliament works.

    Correction: the original piece included Robertson in the list of seats won by Labor Party women. It was won by a man.The Conversation

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

     

    • Feature image: Zoe Daniel. Picture: Diego Fedele/ AAP

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  • Bra-burning to Hollywood – trailblazing women in film

    In an electric event held at the ANU last month, some of Australia’s best female film makers and experts shone a light on a tough, sexist industry. The battle continues for female film practitioners and their supporters in policy, media, activism and academia to not only celebrate their achievements but also to address the ongoing challenges still facing the underrepresentation of women in Australian cinema. Here Professor Lisa French reflects.

    Since the 1970s, each decade of women’s work in the moving image in Australia can be read as a significant cultural location. One of the most momentous in Australia was the 1970s, which saw the emergence of feminist culture and the revival of the film industry.

    This year, the Pamela Denoon Lecture, Australia’s longest running and most prestigious feminist lecture, shone a spotlight on this era, and a significant event in 1973 called Womenvision. Organised by The  National Foundation for Australian Women, it was presented as a panel of trailblazing women who looked back and joined the dots to 2022, to review the status, participation, and experience of women in Australian film and television today.

    That panel: Womenvision Revisited, hosted by award-winning social justice journalist and author Ginger Gorman, recognised the significance of the 1973 event as “the first major [national] enterprise of the women’s movement”.

    In 1973 there was barely an industry and women found it difficult to make films, but Womenvision created a momentum for change. From this time women stepped up and demanded and lobbied to be included. And according to panellist, writer director Kim Farrant, “so many women have shown their talent, and that’s just that cream rising to the top, they just keep having an incredible voice”.

    Leaders of industry, and women who attended the 1973 event joined the panel: director/writer Kim Farrant (Strangerland, The Weekend Away ); producer Sue Maslin AO (The Dressmaker, and Executive Producer of Brazen Hussies); producer Sheila Jayadev (Way out West, Ali’s Wedding); Professor Lisa French (author and leading authority on women in Australian film and editor/ co-author of the book WomenVision), director/cinematographer Jane Castle (60 Thousand Barrels, When the Camera Stopped Rolling) and Director/ Producer Pat Fiske (Rocking the Foundations, When the Camera Stopped Rolling).

    Pat Fiske described the atmosphere of the event, the energy and excitement.

    Sue Maslin observed the debt that women in the industry owe to these trailblazers: “I completely owe my career to those women …[who] realized that we were not going to have women’s stories in our culture unless women did get the cameras get the sound equipment and just get out there and make the work”.

    It was a completely different era but according to the Maslin, today, “the debate is just as valid”, and “diversity is central to our storytelling”. As Fiske noted, the event caused significant momentum, notably spawning women’s groups and then some of those women organized the first International Women’s Film Festival in Australia, showcasing female creativity and offering a context for women’s cinema.

    As a woman of colour, Shelia Jayadev reflected on the personal and structural barriers, in particular fighting against the idea that diverse stories are ‘niche’ rather than something that the general public wants. Although Australia is diverse, she said “we’re not seeing those stories reflected on screen as much as we should’. The biggest fight for her is to shift thinking, to get the exhibitors and the distributors on board to “reflect what Australia looks like”, to be able to make films at the same scale rather than with a micro budget because it’s niche. Being female as well as looking different makes it harder to break through.

    Farrant argued for intersectional considerations because: “if we’re not seeing ourselves reflected the colour of our skin, our gender, our sexual preference, our disability, our fullness, all of it, then how can we rise a sense of self-worth that healthy self-worth that we all need?”

    Diversity seen this way is essential for an individual to mature, and for social cohesion and the range of identities we can inhabit.

    Women in careers such as cinematography have had a harder time than some other crafts. Cinematographer Jane Castle has experienced great success but knows that change is slow. Her mother, Lilias Fraser (the subject of Castle’s When the Cameras Stopped Rolling), single-handedly shot her first film in 1957. The ABC picked it up and were “screening it every night but when she went to apply for a job as a cinematographer, … they just laughed out of the room”. According to Castle, “we still have this dreadful statistic of how few women’s cinematographers are shooting feature films”.

    Kim Farrant, who is working currently in Hollywood, and whose film Weekend Away (2022) was number one on Netflix, acknowledged how significant mentors are. She also outlined the challenge women directors encounter up against male dominated teams, a lonely and often alienating journey if you are one woman with thirty men. Castle also spoke of women having to work harder to gain respect from male crew. Women’s issues such as the experience of violence, are not regarded by gatekeepers as what audiences will want to see, despite the large percentage of women who have encountered such violence. The panel discuss a breadth of issues such as wellbeing or childcare. An innovative solution to the childcare dilemma was that of sharing a job to achieve a doable work life (family) balance.

    The panel pondered what is being done now to improve the position of women in film, which for features in Australia has women as around 34% of producers, 16% of directors and 24% of writers. Maslin was the founding president of the Natalie Miller Foundation, which offer screen industry career fellowships, and both Maslin and French have been on Screen Australia’s Gender Matters Taskforce, an initiative to support women’s careers and creativity. Gender Matters has increased the gender balance in creative teams, supported women’s businesses, funded storytelling and attachments, whilst achieving soft results such as increasing women’s confidence submitting applications and changing funding agency and film industry practices. These initiatives are valuable and have an outcome, but there needs to be a whole of industry commitment to change to achieve equality and equity. It is not about fixing women but that fairer film and television workplaces must be built.

    The panel concluded with calls to action: listening to women, including women as leaders and gatekeepers to improve their autonomy over their work and enable women’s voices to be heard. Industry leaders must commit to inclusion. A recording of this event, which includes video material played, is available here: Womenvision Revisited video

     

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  • The Mothers’ Milk Tool: Putting a price breastmilk

    Breastfeeding and mothers’ milk is presently not counted in food systems or the economy and should be, argues Dr Julie Smith. She argues that the new ‘Mothers’ Milk Tool’ quantifies the volume of breastmilk and the value of breastfeeding at national and global levels.

    Why do we need the Mothers’ Milk Tool?

    When a farmer feeds her children milk from a cow, the value of the milk counts in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but when she breastfeeds, it counts for nothing.

    Why is breastfeeding not counted, and what are the consequences?

    Breastfeeding and mothers’ milk is presently not accounted for in our food systems or the economy.

    Economic statistics are built on a system established by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the 1950s. It became an international rule, and lead to the fact that many countries do not count the unpaid work done within households or women’s food production as crucial to the local and family economy. Only economic activities done for others – and for monetary reward – count in this statistical system.

    Feminist critique

    Excluding unpaid household production from measurement has been strongly criticized by feminist advocates. Marilyn Waring scathingly critiqued the so-called System of National Accounts (SNA) – the internationally agreed standard set of recommendations on how to compile measures of economic activity. In her book, If women countedDame Marilyn Waring describes the SNA as ‘applied patriarchy’.

    Since then, estimates have shown that if given a monetary value, unpaid household work is equal to over 40% of the value of GDP.

    Policy analysis and impacts

    There have been strong critiques of the delay in reforming the SNA.

    OECD economists have recently shown that GDP overstates the true growth rate of economically valuable production. This is because there is now more use of paid childcare services instead of unpaid care. The growth of GDP is misleading because it fails to account for the shift away from the unpaid childcare that was provided – mostly by women – in the household sector, to the monetized economy, and misleadingly measures this shift as boosting economic growth rates.

    Over a decade ago, breastfeeding and human milk was used as an example of the same problem, in a review of the SNA commissioned by the French President. The Nobel Prize winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen who led the review wrote that:

    There is a serious omission in the valuation of home-produced goods—the value of breast milk. This is clearly within the System of National Accounts production boundary, is quantitatively non-trivial and also has important implications for public policy and child and maternal health.

    Human milk production should be counted

    From the early 1990s, the rules of the SNA were slightly changed so that production of goods, can be counted in GDP if there is a suitable market price that can be used to impute value to it. So for example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics makes a rough count of backyard vegetable garden production, and on-farm consumption of milk and eggs, and counts the monetary value of these in GDP figures using market-based pricing.

    However, unpaid ‘services’ such as childcare or breastfeeding remain outside the core measure of GDP, which is commonly used to describe countries’ economic growth and progress.

    Research has shown that the monetary value of unpaid childcare, for example, in Australia is several times the size of the childcare industry. Other studies in Korea and China show similar results.

    Gender responsive budgeting and breastfeeding

    Money is the language of policymakers, and what is not visible is often not valued. This can reduce the priority given to the needs of new mothers in government policy and budgets.

    To advance women’s human rights and improve budget transparency, gender responsive budgeting (GRB) has been introduced in a number of countries in recent decades, and encourages better collection of relevant data, and greater representation of women in policy decision-making. Gender budgeting helps to address hidden biases in public policies and programs, and in budget funding. The Victorian parliament is moving to introduce GRB.

    The ANU ran a series of webinars applying gender budgeting to breastfeeding during 2020.

    Despite a national breastfeeding strategy being prepared and agreed by all Australian jurisdictions, it lacks funding for implementation. A gender budgeting lens and the Mothers Milk Tool can help highlight the need to resource this important strategy, in order to implement better breastfeeding protection, promotion and support in Australian health services and employment or other settings.

    This gender budgeting approach informed a call for the federal budget to provide for better planning and preparedness for infant and young child feeding in emergencies, something that WBTI Australia, part of a global women’s advocacy group, identified as a key gap for Australia in its 2018 Report.

    Counting breastfeeding as a first food system

    Breastfeeding is the first food, and there are risks of ignoring this healthy and sustainable first-food system in economic statistics and policymaking.

    In countries with a large subsistence sector, the SNA changes in 1993 were an important recognition of women’s important economic role as food producers. The change meant that human milk can be counted in GDP. However, in most countries it still isn’t, though in Norway it has been counted as part of the country’s food supply for decades.

    GDP rules exclude breastfeeding because it is classified as a ‘service’, not a ‘good’. GDP rules do provide for human milk to be counted in economic statistics where it is feasible to count its production volume and to find a price for a comparable product so it can be given a monetary value.

    Counting mothers milk in economic statistics

    Previous studies have estimated how much milk breastfeeding mothers produce each year. This data can provide better scientific information for public policy and budgeting decisions and reduces the invisibility of women’s productivity including breastfeeding.

    The new ‘Mothers’ Milk Tool’ will help to make the value of breastfeeding more visible by making such calculations easier.

    The Mothers’ Milk Tool quantifies the volume of breastmilk and value of breastfeeding at national and global levels, as well as how much is lost if country environments and policies, or healthcare, work and community settings do not enable women’s and children’s rights to breastfeeding.

    For example, the Mothers’ Milk Tool conservatively estimates that globally, around 35.6 billion liters of milk a year is produced by breastfeeding mothers of children 0-3 years. Each year, the world loses around a third of the biologically feasible potential, a loss of value of more than US$2.2 trillion. In Australia, human milk production amounts to around 51 million litres a year.

    There are various ways a monetary value can be attributed to this, but at the cost of fresh donor milk of around $100 a liter, this is valued at over A$5 billion a year.

    Such data draws attention to the need for measures to prevent or address declines in breastfeeding, such as maternity protection, Baby Friendly Hospitals, and control of baby food marketing.

    The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding exclusively for 6 months and continuing with safe and adequate complementary foods to 2 years and beyond, and together with UNICEF in the Global Breastfeeding Collective, has called for governments to take key 7 key actions on breastfeeding, including better monitoring of progress.

    The Global Breastfeeding Collective has identified seven policy priorities for countries to protect, promote and support breastfeeding

    The Global Breastfeeding Collective has identified seven policy priorities for countries to protect, promote and support breastfeeding.

    The Tool also allows individual mothers to calculate how much milk they have produced for their child and its value, depending on how many months the child is breastfed for during the first 36 months of life. For example, a mother who breastfeeds to 6 months and then continues breastfeeding her child to 3 years will provide around 431 litres for her child. A child breastfed to 12 months will benefit from 211 liters of this uniquely valuable milk, and if it were paid for, would be akin to a gift of at least A$30,000. Of course, every drop counts!

    The Australian National University and Alive & Thrive Southeast Asia have partnered to develop this easy to use, open source and  downloadable tool that quantifies the economic value contributed to society by women’s unpaid care work through breastfeeding of infants and young children.

    The Mothers’ Milk Tool will be of value to a variety of users, including policymakers, advocates, researchers, national accountants and statisticians, and individual mother/baby dyads. It can support tracking of progress on breastfeeding targets, by assisting food and health policymakers and public officials to include breastfeeding in food balance sheets and economic statistics.

    The Mothers Milk Tool was launched in May, when most countries celebrate Mothers’ Day, to acknowledge the role, health and economic contribution of mothers to society through women’s unpaid care work, including breastfeeding. Professor Dame Marilyn Waring gave the opening remarks.

    Measuring the value of mothers’ milk in monetary terms may be said to devalue it, and the value of breastfeeding and human milk is indeed far beyond its dollar value. However, counting human milk production in food and economic statistics will assist in better policy decision-making and investments in women’s unpaid care work.

    To find out more, and try out the Tool for yourself, go to this website at the Australian National University.

    • Please note: Feature image is a stock photo

     

     

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  • Why some women oppose gender equality

    Anti-feminists, ‘tradwives’, and men’s rights advocates – why some women oppose gender equality (and what to do about it).

    When we talk about women’s activism, the first thing that comes to mind is feminist activism such as the #MeToo movement or Women’s March 4 Justice against the sexual harassment of women, aiming to advance gender equality or responding to gender discrimination. However, not all women engage in or even support feminist activism. On the contrary, some women actively oppose initiatives advancing gender equality. For example, groups of conservative women came together in the past to oppose the suffragist movement and legislation granting abortion rights.

    More recently, the most visible examples of such reactionary activism include the advocacy of women’s groups who claim that progress on gender equality has gone ‘too far’ and that this progress has come at the cost of men. Probably the most famous example in Australia is men’s rights advocate Bettina Arndt who, in her recent book under the telling title ‘#MenToo’, explains “what’s really happening to men and boys in this anti-male culture”.

    To take a few quotes from Arndt’s book, she variously claims:

    We live in a society where women’s wants and needs receive constant attention, a society which frowns on any discussion of men missing out

    And also:

    I’ve long been speaking out about the tilting of laws, practises and regulations to unfairly advantage women at the expense of men.

     Other examples of feminist backlash include women who stood up to ‘protect’ prominent men from sexual harassment and rape allegations: in 2018 over 100 prominent French women signed an open letter denouncing the #MeToo as a “puritanical witch-hunt against men”. In another open letter, 65 American women defended the US Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, against alleged rape accusations.

    Finally, the two most striking examples of this phenomenon are the recent emergence of the ‘tradwives’, women who advocate for the return to the traditional division of gender roles with a woman being the homemaker and a man being the main breadwinner in the family, and young white and physically attractive women active within supremacist movements such as alt-right that push explicitly anti-feminist and misogynistic messages.

    As a woman and a feminist researcher looking at these women with a mix of horror (can we ever achieve gender equality if not only men but also women actively resist social change?) and disbelief (what are they even thinking?!), I set myself on a mission to understand why women engage in such actions, and to make sense of how it is possible that we, as women, are so different from each other.

    My research has given me two ways to answer this conundrum. In a paper published recently in the European Journal of Social Psychology, my collaborators and I showed that women in the UK and in the US who endorse traditional gender roles, values, and beliefs (such as the belief that women should be provided for and protected by men, become wives, homemakers and mothers) and identify as a ‘traditional woman’ do not see gender discrimination as a real issue women are facing.

    Actually, we found they are more concerned that feminism and gender equality policies pose a threat to traditional gender values. These women are also likely to engage in actions protecting traditional division of gender roles and reinforcing gender inequalities, rather than actions empowering other women.

    We wanted to look more deeply into this and in a follow-up piece of research, we show that a considerable proportion of women support actions that preserve male privilege—such as initiatives ‘protecting’ men from sexual harassment allegations—because they genuinely believe that men are the socially disadvantaged group. This is a sense that men are victimised by the feminist movement and gender equality policies are leading to reverse discrimination.

    The key takeaway is that women might oppose gender equality initiatives when they believe they threaten their traditional worldview or come at the cost of men.

    While some ideological differences between various groups of women might be simply impossible to reconcile (as seems to be the case with ongoing abortion debates in countries such as the US and Poland), our findings carry a couple of practical implications for gender equality advocates:

    1. To tackle the perceived threat to traditional gender roles, gender equality policies can be framed as incorporating the needs and values of both progressive and traditional women. While a lot of feminist advocacy is framed around women’s choices, it is often implicitly assumed that these choices align with a progressive, rather than a traditional worldview.
    2. Similar to men, some women might see gender equality initiatives through the lens of a zero-sum game unfairly benefitting women at the cost of men. It is therefore crucial to frame proposed gender equality programs or policies as benefitting women and This point is particularly important for women concerned about the close men in their lives, such as male romantic partners or their sons.
    3. Finally, women might oppose some gender equality initiatives not necessarily because these initiatives contradict their broader traditional worldview, but because they perceive them as having negative consequences for men. In such cases, advocacy should focus on the minimisation of those (either anticipated or real) negative impacts rather than on convincing women to the benefits of gender equality itself.

     

    • Feature image is a stock photo

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  • Hillary and Bill and Paul Krugman Race to the Right to Stop the Bern

    From 2016, just change the names from Bill & Hillary to Joe and Kamala. Nothing has changed

    This post was originally published on Real Progressives.

  • Research wrap: time poverty, parenting and mental health

    BroadAgenda Research Wrap is your monthly window into academia. We scour the journals so you don’t have to. 

    This month’s research wrap comes to you from the covid recovery bed. While the ‘mild to moderate’ version I had caught felt like someone had sucked all energy out of my body, I couldn’t help but be thankful for the fact that my kids are now old enough to fend for themselves, and that the most labour-intensive parenting years are starting to be behind us.

    And in the series of crappy silver linings, the plague was kind enough to jump from one person to the next only every couple of days so that no one was looking after others while going through their worst days.

    On day four of her covid recovery, Dr Pia Rowe posted to social media: "Bored. Rewatched a lot of Grey’s. Can’t get enough of sour & salty things. Will probably turn into a lemon soon. A salty lemon." Picture: Supplied

    On day four of her covid recovery, Dr Pia Rowe posted to social media: “Bored. Rewatched a lot of Grey’s. Can’t get enough of sour and salty things. Will probably turn into a lemon soon. A salty lemon.” Picture: Supplied

    Recent research shows that caring for others remains as one of the biggest stumbling blocks when it comes to gender equality. The weird thing is that this holds true regardless of the individual’s own values and the level of gender equality in the society more broadly.

    A 40-country study on gender equality and maternal burnout (Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2022) provides a fascination account of the paradoxical effect gender equality has on mothers’ wellbeing.

    That is, high egalitarian values at the individual level and high gender equality at the societal level are actually associated with higher burnout levels in mothers.

    On one hand, this is hardly surprising. As the old cliché goes, instead of ‘having it all’ we somehow just ended up ‘doing it all’. But on the other hand, it provides an extremely timely reminder of the importance to keep care labour at the front and centre of the gender equality debates. As the authors note:

    “The results suggest that gender equality backfires on mothers when equality is achieved in many areas such as education, employment, health and political empowerment, while inequality still prevails in parenthood. The results point to the need to implement social policies to achieve the same degree of gender equality in parenthood as in other areas.”

    However, it’s not exactly a bed of roses for fathers either. As a study (Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 2021) on the facilitators and barriers to fathers’ participation in a health intervention during the early years of their parenting journey notes, early fatherhood is now recognised as a significant determinant of men’s health, and mental health issues are common during the first six years of their children’s lives.

    According to the study, approximately 10% of fathers report symptoms of depression, while 18% report elevated symptoms of anxiety and/or stress. What’s more, the statistics for their physical wellbeing are not exactly encouraging either.

    A whopping 10% of Australian fathers of young children aged 4-5 report at least one health issue, 12% report poor overall health, and 70% are overweight or obese.

    The researchers identified both individual and program related facilitators and barriers to fathers’ participation in support programs. At the individual level, fathers noted three motivating factors: The desire to make social connections; wanting to learn how to be a batter dad and a partner; and the support and encouragement from their partners to attend. From the program perspective, factors such as the accessibility of the program, and in particular organising programs outside of business hours; having a male facilitator, preferably a father himself; the advocacy of other fathers; including a group fitness/exercise component; and marketing the programs clearly as exclusive to fathers, were noted by the participants.

    In terms of the barriers, fathers mentioned being time-poor, in particular as it related to their work commitments, as a significant deterrent; the reluctance to sacrifice family-time – especially for those in a two-parent relationship who wanted to give the other person a break from caring duties after their own paid labour; and general apprehension to go because they weren’t sure what it would entail.

    The program related barriers included travel (the location of the programs), lack of awareness of the programs available; and traditional gender roles. One father noted that the society still perpetuates the idea that men are more stoic and therefore do not need additional support services, which in turn can also result in lack of appropriate programs targeted at fathers specifically.

    And things get more complex still when you start moving beyond the heteronormative parental gender binary. A study on transgender parents’ mental health in Australia (International Journal of Transgender Health, 2021) noted that research on the topic has been scarce in Australia, and they sought to bridge the gap by examining how trans adults contextualise and experience issues around their mental health.

    The researchers used online surveys and one-on-one interviews with 66 trans parents aged 24-67 years old. The results showed that many participants experienced significant mental health challenges, such as depression and suicidal ideation, which made parenting more challenging. While gender affirmation as well as family and social support had a positive impact on mental health, the majority of the study participants noted that they had to educate their therapist, felt pigeon-holed by their gender identity, or had concerns about confidentiality.

    While the results were concerning, one of the key takeaways is the importance of appropriate training for mental health and associated health services to be competent in treating trans parents.

    To put the onus on the patient to educate the very people responsible for helping them is nothing short of a failure. And at the information age, it is inexcusable.

    In general, all the studies discussed above are exactly the kind of research we need right now to shift the dial on gender equality. They highlight the areas we need to zero in, and provide clear ideas as to how to do this. But at the same time, they are also undeniably infuriating. How is it possible, that after decades of research and advocacy, we still fail at the basics?

    I’ve written about my own experiences with infertility in the past. I’ve experienced first hand the strange divide that can exist with parenting related issues. While I received exceptional care over the years as I tried to become a parent, my partner was often nothing but a mere afterthought. Of course, the physical dimension was strictly related to my body only, and as such it was perhaps inevitable that the care then also focused on the identified ‘problem’.

    However, getting pregnant, carrying the baby – while obviously necessary for the actual creation of life – are only a fraction of the parenting journey. Quite often, there is more than one person involved, and regardless of their gender identity, or any other identity attribute for that matter, they need and deserve to be supported.

    That’s the very least we can do if we want to talk about genuine gender equality.

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  • Ms. Representation: Gender composition of the Australian parliament

    In this analysis, Anna Hough of the Australian Parliamentary Library analyses both how female representation has changed in the last 20 years, and how Australia ranks globally on achieving a gender-balanced Parliament. This analysis was originally published on the Parliament of Australia website.

    How does the gender composition of the Australian parliament compare with parliaments around the world, and how has it changed over the past two decades?

    International comparisons

    The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has published international rankings of women in national parliaments since 1997. The IPU’s rankings are based on the representation of women in the lower (or single) houses of national parliaments only. The representation of women in the Australian Senate is therefore not factored into Australia’s ranking.

    As illustrated in Figure 1 below, Australia’s IPU ranking for women in national parliaments was 27th in 1997, rising to 15th in 1999. In 2022 Australia’s ranking has fallen to 57th.

    Figure 1 — Australia’s international ranking for women in parliament

    Figure 1 — Australia’s international ranking for women in parliament: 1997 to 2022.
    Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Monthly ranking of women in national parliaments’ and ‘Women in National Parliaments: Archived Data’. Data is as at the earliest date in each year for which it has been published by the IPU. IPU rankings are based on representation in the lower (or single) house of parliament only.

    This decline in Australia’s international ranking over the past two decades has occurred alongside an increase in the proportion of women in the House of Representatives. However, during this period many other countries have achieved greater increases in the proportion of women in their national parliaments, which explains the decline in Australia’s relative position.

    Of the countries ranked in the top ten for women in parliament on 1 January 2022, all have seen the percentage of women in their lower or single house of parliament increase by at least 20 per cent in the 25 years from 1997 to 2022. As set out in the table below, the United Arab Emirates went from having no women in its parliament in 1997 to 50 per cent female representation in 2022. Rwanda and Andorra increased women’s representation by over 40 per cent, while Nicaragua, Mexico, and Cuba increased women’s representation by over 30 per cent. In comparison, the proportion of women in Australia’s House of Representatives increased by 15.6 per cent over the same period, from 15.5 per cent in 1997 to 31.1 per cent in 2022.

    As set out in Table 1 below, eight of the ten countries with the highest percentage of women in their lower (or single) house of parliament have implemented some form of gender quota. Four of those eight countries have legislated gender quotas, while in the other four voluntary party quotas have been adopted by some or all of their political parties. In Australia, voluntary party quotas were introduced by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in 1994, with the party currently having a target of 50 per cent female representation by 2025.

    Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Monthly ranking of women in national parliaments’ and ‘Women in National Parliaments: Archived Data’ and International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) ‘Gender Quotas Database’.

    On 1 January 2022, as set out in Table 2 below, Australia ranked well behind New Zealand (6th), behind the United Kingdom (45th), just ahead of Canada (59th), and ahead of the United States of America (72nd).

    Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Monthly ranking of women in national parliaments’ and ‘Women in National Parliaments: Archived Data’ and International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) ‘Gender Quotas Database’.

    Parliaments or houses of parliament elected by proportional representation have generally had a higher representation of women than those elected from single-member constituencies only.

    New Zealand is the only country listed in Table 2 above that elects its members of parliament via proportional representation. In addition, New Zealand’s governing Labour Party has adopted a voluntary quota. In countries where the governing party has implemented a quota, the percentage of women in the parliament increases.

    Trends in Australia

    In 2001, 23 per cent of members of the House of Representatives and 29 per cent of senators were women. By 2022 the proportion of women in the House of Representatives had risen by only 8 per cent, to 31 per cent. In the same period the proportion of women in the Senate had increased by 24 per cent to 53 per cent. Since September 2019 the majority of Australian senators have been women.

    The Senate’s proportional voting system has resulted in a higher representation of women than the single-member electorates in the House of Representatives. Proportional voting systems encourage parties to offer a more diverse range of candidates and often give parties more control over which of their candidates are elected.

    Figure 2 below shows changes in women’s representation in Australia’s federal parliament, by chamber, between 2001 and 2022. The data represents snapshots taken on 1 January each year.

    Figure 2 — Women in the Australian parliament: 2001 to 2022. Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘Gender Indicators, Australia’, and Parliamentary Library data. Reference point is 1 January each year. These figures are calculated according to the current number of parliamentarians, and do not include vacant seats.

    The proportion of women in the Australian parliament as a whole was 25 per cent in 2001, rising to 39 per cent by 2022.

    Figure 3: Women in the Australian parliament by major party after each election: 1993 to 2019. Source: Historical data on the composition of Australian parliaments by party and gender, maintained by the Parliamentary Library. Data reflects the composition of each parliament after MPs and Senators elected have taken up their seats after the election shown.

    Figure 3 below shows the percentage of women in the Australian parliament from the ALP and the Liberal-National coalition after each election since 1993. After the 1993 election the ALP’s proportion of female parliamentarians (11.8 per cent) was only slightly higher than the Coalition’s (10.9 per cent). Following the ALP’s introduction of quotas from 1994, the party’s representation of women increased, reaching 46.8 per cent after the 2019 election, compared with 25.9 per cent in the Coalition.

    This post is part of the Women’s Policy Action Tank initiative to analyse government policy using a gendered lens. View our other policy analysis pieces here.

    it was also posted on “Power to Persuade” (which is where we found it!)

     

     

     

     

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  • The biggest gender equality event you’ve never heard of

    Imagine an annual event which is exclusively focused on achieving gender equality, which attracts something in the order of 8,000 – 9,000 delegates from across the globe, and which produces a road map to gender equality on a different theme each year. Imagine opportunities for women from around the world to share their research, data and practical techniques for improving the lives of women from all walks of life. Imagine that 200 nations are prepared to get involved in the negotiations to produce a consensus plan on how to get closer to gender equality.

    Welcome to the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) – the biggest gender equality event you’ve never heard of.

    CSW is the UN’s only permanent forum dealing exclusively with gender equality. The annual CSW event is held in New York over two weeks in March. It’s technically a glorified committee meeting for a rotating group of 45 UN member-States aimed at producing a document called the CSW Agreed Conclusions, but in reality, up to 200 States get directly involved in the negotiations and hundreds of activists put significant effort into trying to influence the negotiations.

    CSW is a huge affair – a confusing, bustling, vibrant, frustrating and exciting combination of feminist ingenuity and energy, patriarchal feet-dragging and conservative sabotage.

    Many delegates from NGOs and governments attend in order to participate in panels, seminars and workshops, but the main action is inside the UN building, where national delegations make commitments about how they will advance gender equality in the context of each year’s theme. During the pandemic, CSW was initially cancelled (2020 – CSW64), then held exclusively online (2021 – CSW65) and then offered in a hybrid format (2022 – CSW66).

    As someone who has been strongly engaged with CSW for almost a decade, I was struck this year by how many Australians were taking advantage of the online format to engage with CSW for the first time. Among those who engage with CSW regularly, there is a sort of weary acceptance that CSW is poorly recognised in Australia – after all, it’s not surprising. The cost of travel to New York for two weeks is prohibitive, the time commitment is heavy and UN processes are opaque and can appear to lack relevance to the Australian context. However, this year, the move to an online format saw participation in the parallel events rise from 9,000 to 27,000 people, 63% of whom were first time participants. Next year, it is likely that CSW will return to an in-person format in New York, and I’m worried that this will kill rising interest in CSW within Australia.

    The historical lack of engagement with CSW among Australian NGOs is regrettable, given that we have deep national connections to CSW. Jessie Street, the pioneering Australian diplomat and activist was a key figure in the establishment of CSW more than 70 years ago, advocating successfully for CSW as a permanent stand-alone entity within the UN. The Australian government sends a significant delegation to CSW every year, including two delegates from NGO organisations, and is an active and important ally in the negotiations on issues such as sexual and reproductive rights, the rights of Indigenous women and girls, rights relating to sexual orientation and gender identity and highlighting the needs of women facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.

    But here’s the thing: every year the Australian delegation trots off to CSW and works bloody hard on the negotiations – sometimes sitting in the UN through the night to defend critical language against States hoping to water down the commitments in the Agreed Conclusions. Then the negotiations end, everyone drags themselves back to Australia for a good sleep and the Agreed Conclusions are never heard from again.

    In addition to being a huge waste of resources, this is also a massive missed opportunity for women and girls in Australia. Did you know that Australia has publicly committed to use gender responsive budgeting? Yep – it’s in the Agreed Conclusions of CSW65 (2021), CSW61 (2017), CSW60 (2016) and CSW58 (2014).

    Our government has been supporting this essential mechanism for gender equality at CSW for at least 8 years. During that time, the government has strongly resisted gendered analysis of the federal budget; in 2018, the Prime Minister scoffed at criticism that his projected tax cuts would benefit men more than women, arguing that the cuts must be gender neutral because ‘you don’t get a blue and a pink form to fill out your tax return’.

    There is a stark gulf between our enthusiasm for gender responsive budgeting in New York and our reality back home.

    This gulf extends well beyond budgets. At CSW65, Australia agreed to ‘promote and protect the rights of Indigenous women and girls by addressing the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination …they face, including violence, … access to … education, health care, public services, economic resources…’ Try reading that sentence after checking out the most recent Closing the Gap report.

    It goes on and on. At various times Australia has also committed to ‘ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights’ (every year for at least a decade), ‘promote … adequate social security benefits for both women and men’ (CSW61), ‘prevent and eliminate discrimination and violence against indigenous women and girls’ (CSW60), ‘Step up multi-stakeholder efforts to combat racism’ (CSW66) and ‘Integrate a disability-inclusive and gender perspective while developing, reviewing and implementing laws, policies and programmes on climate change adaptation and mitigation.’(CSW60). Australia talks a really good game out there in New York. Imagine what might happen if we all started holding Australian governments to account for their international promises?

    In 2023 the priority theme for CSW will be ‘innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.’ In a world where cyber bullying, trolling and harassment are routinely used to belittle and intimidate women in leadership or other public roles, this is a critical theme. For a nation aiming to roll out its second National Plan on Violence Against Women and Children it’s a particularly relevant issue.

    So how do we manage to find ways for women in Australia to get involved in CSW67 when it rolls around next March? The first step is to get involved in the preparation work. The National Women’s Alliances (NWAs) will be seeking comment on what Australia’s priorities should be at CSW67 later this year – keep an eye out on ERA’s website or sign up to our newsletter for details. The next step for those with a keen interest in the theme is to sign up to the email list run by the NWAs for people who would like to receive updates on the negotiations and provide their thoughts to the team of NGOs who will be supporting the government delegation.

    But the final and most important way to be involved is to read the Agreed Conclusions at the end of March and work out which commitments apply to your work. Then show the document to decision makers working on your issue and insist that Australia lives up to its promises. The Agreed Conclusions may not be a magic wand for achieving gender equality, but they might be the tool you need to ramp up the pressure for change.

     

    Feature image: The 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66)—the second largest UN intergovernmental meeting in New York—closed its two-week long session on 25 March 2022, acknowledging the important role of women and girls as agents of change for sustainable development, in particular safeguarding the environment and addressing the adverse effects of climate change. 

    Pictured: UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous addresses the closing of the 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women on 25 March 2022 in the General Assembly Hall of United Nations Headquarters in New York. 

    Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

     

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  • The Archaeology of Hope

    The Dawn of Everything challenges us to shake off fatalism and embrace the creativity at the heart of doing politics.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Banding together to combat gender bias on Wikipedia

    When you stop to think about it, it is mind-boggling that of the millions of biographies on Wikipedia, only 19% of them are about women. This statistic is even less for those working in the scientific sectors. What may not be as surprising is that the Wikimedia community of editors who create and maintain its content are predominantly male. What this means is one of the most visited websites in the world has ‘gender content bias’.

    As the founder of Franklin Women – a social enterprise that is committed to supporting women working across the health and medical research ecosystem – I understand the importance of ensuring that women and their important contributions to science and society are visible. Firstly, it is about equity, aligned with a national priority given to addressing the under-representation and participation of women in sciences in Australia. But it is also about ensuring that scientific discoveries and their impact on society are accurately captured and written into history.

    When people search for information online, Wikipedia is usually among the first results that appear and as such, it plays a big role in informing people about the role women play in science.

    This is as important now as ever after more than two years of a global pandemic that has seen women at the helm of the response here and globally. While Franklin Women has allowed me to learn a lot about gender bias online (and elsewhere!), I’ve also become aware of ways we can all play our part to help to reduce it.

    Wikipedia Edit-A-Thons are an exciting global movement working to close the content gap for under-represented groups like women, persons of colour, and the LGBTIQ+ community. They are grassroots events, which have been held across the UK, USA and Canada, where people come together to collectively edit and update Wikipedia entries to give recognition to those who deserve it, yet aren’t yet represented.

    Franklin Women contributed to this global movement by hosting its second Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon on World Health Day, 7th of April 2022. We had 40 women working in health, medical research and life sciences join us who not only gained new Wiki editing skills but also went on to add over 20 000 words of notability for women in our field. This grassroots event allowed us to combat gender bias head-on but also gave us an opportunity to amplify the message that it is time to drive change.

    Professor Carolyn Sue AM, Executive Director Kolling Institute. Picture: The Kolling Institute

    Professor Carolyn Sue AM, Executive Director Kolling Institute. Picture: The Kolling Institute

    During the event, we were able to create profiles for some amazing women working in the medical and health research sector so that you can now find their scientific achievements and accolades online.

    Like social researcher Professor Julie Leask from the University of Sydney, who has provided research and commentary on the Covid-19 pandemic and recognised through awards like the AFR 100 Women of Influence awards. Or Professor Caroline Sue, Executive Director of the Kolling Institute who also leads an impressive and internationally recognised program of work on better understanding neurological disorders and developing new treatment options for patients.

    This year’s event will also include a dedicated ‘Article Aftercare’ session. As Wikipedia is a completely crowd-sourced encyclopaedia, the content and the longevity of new pages are based on decisions among editors, who are mainly Anglo-Saxon men living in North America.  This puts pages for women at risk of deletion.

    The follow-up workshop, which will involve experienced editors from Wikimedia Australia, will support participants to make any follow-on page updates so their edits stand up to the test! We hope the whole experience leaves participants feeling empowered with the skills to continue editing Wikipedia after the event.

    The impact that 40 women with laptops had in one afternoon is humbling and motivating. We now have more scientists receiving the visibility they deserve, providing the community with a more accurate representation of Australian science and more women are upskilled as Wikipedia editors.

    • Feature image: Participants updating Wikipedia pages at yesterday’s event. Picture: Cain Cooper.

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  • A (feminist) love story saved by radical empathy

    It’s something each of us might sometimes wonder. How do you change someone’s mind? This unexpected love story is the ultimate lesson.

    It could easily have been one of those Tinder-dates-from-hell you so often read about, or the opening scene of a Hollywood rom-com: an outspoken, staunch feminist meets her online match and discovers he’s a former editor of Playboy magazine. There are so many ways this date could have gone wrong. And yet, three years later, staunch feminist, Dr Niki Vincent and former Playboy editor, Chuck Smeeton, are still together and going strong.

    In a world in which there is so much heated division, the way in which Niki and Chuck negotiated a way through their differences provides a master-class in radical empathy. To the uninitiated, this is a concept that encourages people to actively consider another person’s point of view.

    “I don’t think Chuck appreciated exactly what kind of a bombshell it actually was at that time,” says Niki, 59, who serves as the Commissioner for Gender Equality in the Public Sector in Victoria. Chuck, 58, is now Chief Operating Officer for the Royal Institution of Australia.

    For some, it may have been a ‘deal-breaker’. But Niki, a psychologist, processed Chuck’s revelation in the context of all the other things she had learned about him during, and in the lead-up to, their first date.

    As they connected over lunch, Niki found Chuck interesting and engaging – and, she concedes, good looking. But mostly, she was taken by his willingness to talk about his kids. She liked his attitude towards them.

    “I have lots of kids in my life – loads. In fact, more than most,” Niki explains. You get the sense that if Chuck wasn’t into kids, it would have been more of a deal breaker than being a former Playboy editor.

    Niki and Chuck

    Chuck says it was Niki’s energy that struck him most, “There was a lot of communication … It was just the energy and excitement … and her eyes. You know, amazing.”

    The point of approaching someone with radical empathy is that if someone raises a red flag, instead of following your natural inclination to wrap them in it and bury them, you try to understand how they came to be waving it.

    Niki’s personal and professional experience has taught her not to judge people based on their opinions and biases – not to write people off just because you disagree or disapprove of some of the things they say.  She explains:

    “I’ve realised that people with different – very different – views from me don’t get up in the morning thinking, ‘I’m going to be evil.’ They just have different views. And they think they are good people.”

    So, while their opinions might make her “a bit cross” she says, “I approach them as good people with different ideas.”

    Not only has this approach allowed Niki to date different kinds of people, she believes it has helped her to have some influence on their attitudes. She laughs, “My team used to joke that I was trying to save the world one man at a time – sort of hang out with them and help them understand feminism and my perspective.”

    It can’t have put them off because she remains friends with most of the men she dated after her divorce.

    During this time Niki began to realise that many men’s attitudes weren’t coming from a place of misogyny, but from a lack of perspective. When feminist perspectives were introduced in a non-confrontational way, many of the men Niki dated had the grace and intelligence to accept they just hadn’t looked at things from a woman’s perspective. That’s not to say they all became feminists, but they came to appreciate her point of view.

    “They’ll occasionally send me inappropriate jokes, just to, you know, give me a jab or whatever.”

    But, she says, even that indicates they’re looking at those jokes through a different lens.

    Given those experiences, says Niki, when Chuck raised a red flag with a Playboy bunny on it:

    “I just thought he was like other guys that don’t get this stuff. But, I could also see that he was a guy that was open to exploring things. We had such an easy conversation that I felt I would be able to give him some stuff that he’d probably go away and think about it. I don’t think I analysed it that much at the time. I just hoped he’d be open to it.”

    Chuck certainly didn’t think of himself as a misogynist, and it would be unfair to cast him in that light. In fact, most of his time at Playboy was spent as a journalist, and he remains proud of that work.

    “You know there is the old story about Playboy, where the quality of articles is what it’s all about,” says Chuck, “It’s true, Playboy has excellent journalism, but in a wrapper that isn’t quite as acceptable.”

    Chuck insists:

    “I never thought of myself as a bad person. Obviously, you know, I thought I was a good person, but I didn’t understand a lot of those unconscious biases that came from my background, from the things that I’ve done.”

    When he became editor of the magazine in the mid-1990s, Chuck had no sense that women were being exploited. In fact, he took pains to give models complete control over which images were published. Now, he concedes, “I was very blind to what the publication was.”

    Through Niki, Chuck has come to understand that many people have an unconscious bias – attitudes they really haven’t reasoned out or given a lot of thought to. Sometimes, challenging those biases is just a matter of learning to look at things from a different perspective. As their relationship progressed, says Chuck, “I started to look at my unconscious bias with a new sense of awareness.”

     

     

    Niki and Chuck 2

     

    While it would be inaccurate to say Niki and Chuck’s differences never caused frustration and arguments between them, it was their determination to respect each other, keep the lines of communication open, and really understand each other that formed the foundation of their relationship.

    “You know,” says Chuck, “Niki asked me a lot of questions about what I did. And once I got over my defensiveness – making excuses and trying to justify my actions – and just started listening to the questions I was able to say, ‘Yeah, that’s really interesting to think about because whilst I was doing ‘x’, I see that may not have been the right kind of thing.’”

    Niki gives Chuck a lot of credit for remaining open and receptive throughout their conversations:

    “Although he was a bit defensive, I knew that he was interested. And I understood that feeling because, I’ve been challenged about my commitment to intersectional gender equality and I’ve felt defensive about that  – and he pointed that out to me.”

    To bring down the barriers between them, both partners needed to employ radical empathy.

    Chuck appreciates that Niki didn’t just rail at him, but asked questions, pointed him towards resources, and gave him the space to work things out for himself. Niki appreciates that while Chuck sometimes felt he was being personally blamed for the sins of the patriarchy, he’d mull over it and then come back and say, “OK, I think I get it now.”

    And, for both of them, the secret ingredient that made it all work was that, for the most part, they kept their exchanges light-hearted and fun.

    Throughout this process, Chuck has come to appreciate the transformative power of asking questions:

    “When you’re asked, ‘What do you think about this situation?’ there can be an incredibly powerful thing where you hear yourself utter some words and you think, ‘What a dickhead, mister!’ And you know, it’s this kind of approach that we found worked best with anti-vaxxers in my work with the Royal Institution.

    You can’t just be ‘told.’ It’s harder to be told. It’s much easier to discover and find those pathways that you want to go down.

    Encouraging people to ask questions would be my number one recommendation for changing attitudes.”

    Chuck’s attitudes have changed since Niki started asking him questions on that very first lunch date, three years ago. Playboy has been expunged from his LinkedIn profile. He is no longer proud of the association.

    Now, Chuck considers himself a ‘feminist-in-training.’ Niki likes the description because it reveals Chuck’s willingness to keep learning and his humility in recognising that, no matter how much he learns about feminism, “… it’s just something I think, as a man, you can’t ever fully ‘get.’”

    Neither Niki nor Chuck would ever suggest that their experience provides a blueprint for solving the problems of the world. But, there is a lot to be learned from using ‘radical empathy’ to break down barriers between people. It means looking beyond someone’s opinions, and seeing the whole person. It means being willing to engage openly and respectfully with sincere curiosity about what has formed the other person’s views.  It means asking questions rather than giving sermons. And it requires a commitment from both sides, not necessarily to change, but to challenge. their views.

    It may be that the key to dismantling the barriers that divide us is just a question of empathy.

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    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • The “weather event”: Australia’s stormy #MeToo movement

    The #MeToo movement has powered an insurgency against sexism and sexual violence in Australia. From once-isolated survivors to political staffers, women everywhere are refusing to keep men’s secrets. 

    In an electrifying Quarterly Essay, journalist and author Jess Hill traces the conditions that gave birth to #MeToo and tells the stories of women who – often at great personal cost – found themselves at the centre of this movement.

    Jess recently joined Virginia Haussegger, Founder of the 50/50 by 2030 Foundation, “In Conversation” live at the ANU to talk about this work.

    The “weather event”

    The Australian #MeToo movement may only be five years old, but the build-up to it was decades in the making.

    In her hard-hitting Quarterly Essay, journalist and author, Jess Hill deftly traces the confluence of events in recent history that led to the seismic shift in how we talk about sexual violence.

    From Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against the U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991, the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” child sexual abuse investigations, the child abuse allegations against Rolf Harris in 2013, Elliot Rodger’s Isla Vista killings and Rosie Batty being named Australian of the Year in 2015 – the list of sordid tragedies is longer than anyone cares to imagine. And it begs the question: why now? What was different in 2017 than in all those years before?

    In her Quarterly Essay, Jess Hill traces the conditions that gave birth to #MeToo.

    In her Quarterly Essay, Jess Hill traces the conditions that gave birth to #MeToo.

    Jess Hill refers to this as the “weather event”.

    “Sometimes with these types of cultural phenomenon, we tend to think in terms of linear progress, when in fact, actually what’s happening is multiple feedback loops.”

    “What I was trying to understand is: What is it that fundamentally lodged in the public mind that was not lodged there before? And how was our public mind ready to hear that?”

    Since the global social media traction in 2017, the #MeToo movement has spawned thousands of articles, events, scholarly investigations – and of course, legal action – a fact that did not escape Ms Hill’s notice.

    “When I first got invited to write this essay, I thought to myself, ‘What more there is to say that we don’t already know? … It’s been written about so much, what am I even going to add?’”

    “Partly what I decided to do with this essay was to go, ‘Let’s just like take it from the beginning.’ In four years, a lot of preconceptions can build up. So, let’s like try to take apart those preconceptions [and] get them back to their original components and analyse them. Is what we think about the #MeToo movement accurate?

    “What’s amazing about writing this essay is realising what a different culture we live in to the one we lived in in 2017, when sexual harassment was barely ever talked about…when it was presumed… that sort of stuff just doesn’t happen here [compared to the US].”

    “But the progress that we are making year on year…is quite seismic.”

    The cultural shift

    Jess Hill’s essay starts with the moment when, in the wake of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s is holding a press conference supposedly showing the world he cares for and understands women.

    He tells the press pack that violence and abuse of women “must be acknowledge and it must be stopped”.

    Just moments later, however, in response to a Sky News reporter’s question, he changes tact and warns those in the room that people in “glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”. He goes on to erroneously claim that there has been a harassment complaint inside News Corp about a specific journalist.

    “The prime minister is not just making a veiled threat to the gathered reporters…he is sending a chilling coded message to one woman in the room: the journalist who broke the story of Brittany Higgins being allegedly raped in parliament house, News Corp’s political editor, Samantha Maiden,” Ms Hill writes.

    In front of the ANU crowd, Virginia asks her what this says about the Prime Minister.

    Jess Hill with Virginia Hausseger. Picture: Mary Kenny

    Jess Hill with Virginia Hausseger. Picture: Mary Kenny

    “That he is a machine,” she replies without hesitation. “He’s just all about utility. Like, ‘What will keep me in a position of power?’”

    At its heart, #MeToo is all about the power. The Harvey Weinstein allegations had laid bare the sinister reality of the patriarchal structures of the workplaces around the world. As Hill writes in her essay:

    “This was a rare moment of structural weakness in patriarchy: a vulner­able piece of flesh had been exposed, and it was as though women all over the world received a subliminal message that now was the time to draw back their arrows and shoot.”

    Speaking to Ms Haussegger, Hill draws links to the increasing media attention to child sexual abuse in the church: “This is starting to lay the groundwork to overturn…a presumption that people in power, particularly men in power, would never do what we consider to be depraved behaviour.

    “There was a whole institution of silence and cover up that permitted them to go on and do it again and again.”

    Reflecting on the many #MeToo stories that resulted in the victim getting attacked in popular discourse – including that of Tessa Sullivan – Ms Hill critiques Australia’s culture of mates protecting mates.

    “Don’t let the law get in the way. Don’t let those bitches get in the way. You know, you’ve got to step in for your mates, it doesn’t matter what they’ve done.”

    The unfolding of #MeToo in Australia

    Australian television presenter, author and horticulturist Don Burke was the first target of Australia’s #MeToo movement. The story was uncovered injoint ABC/Fairfax investigation, and detailed claims from a number of women who worked with Burke in the late 1980s and 1990s.

    Quoted in the essay, lawyer Michael Bradley explains: “The textbook example of how to do it was the Don Burke one, which was really a replication of the Weinstein approach: bury him in volume, so he knows that there’s no point – he’s done. There’s a tipping point, and it’s a game of bluff, right? [By contrast, actor] Craig McLachlan took the other course: call the bluff. He went after them and sued one of the victims.”

    New Corp journalists hoped to deal a similar blow against actor Geoffrey Rush, when they published allegations against him in November 2017. Instead, Rush won a defamation case against the publisher.

    Michael Bradley further explains: “It was the [Geoffrey] Rush case specifically that “scared the shit out of everyone. It was just such a game-changer,” Bradley says. “If that hadn’t happened, if they’d done their homework properly . . . I know that Fairfax and ABC had a queue of stories lining up they were going to run. Everyone just ran for the exit. It stopped the whole thing dead in its tracks.”

    Ms Hill is scathing about how this unfolded. She writes: “Let’s be clear: The Telegraph’s story on Rush was an epic failure of journalistic ethics – by far the most egregious example of ‘trial by media’ in Australia’s #MeToo era.”

    She further explained at the ANU event: “They were just desperate, because they didn’t have a #metoo story. And it was the biggest story going.”

    “They’d heard second-hand that Eryn Jean Norvill had made this complaint, but they did not go to her [for comment] and she had expressly said she did not want to go public with it.”

    The Telegraph, Ms Hill says, then published front page story: “[W]e can say what we like about defamation laws, but it was very clear that what it was saying about Geoffrey Rush, and did not substantiate it.”

    In her essay Hill describes this as “sloppy ‘gotcha’ journalism’. Recounting the advice of Michael Bradley to the ANU audience, she argues: “You have to prepare these stories and the people who are the victims, survivors, like they are witnesses going to trial.”

    “You need to do that not just because of defamation laws, but because that’s actually what good investigative journalism does.”

    “There’s a real question mark around whether Australia’s defamation laws would have crushed the #MeToo movement, had it not been for this catastrophic error that News Limited made.”

    “Anyone who has allegations against them…when you launch a defamation case, all of that evidence is going to be brought to bear. Do you want that? And they know how many potential accusers there are. So, it’s a game of bluff.”

     

    Feature image: Supplied.

     

     

     

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  • How gender bias can impact a life

    Last month, feminist editor and writer Zoya Patel delivered a speech at the Canberra Labor Club that blew the crowd away. Through the lens of her own family, Zoya reflected on how gender bias impacted the women she loves. How might life have been different, if those women had had equal opportunities? The text has been lightly edited for readability.

    According to Our Watch, First Nations women in Australia are nearly 11 times more likely to die due to assault and twice as likely to die due to domestic and family violence compared to non-Indigenous women.

    The average life expectancy for First Nations women is more than eight years less than non-indigenous women.

    I want to note that any Australian movement for gender equality that is not led by First Nations women, grounded in a commitment to reconciliation, and that doesn’t prioritise closing the gap between First Nations women and non-Indigenous women, is not a true movement for equality.

    I want to ponder what would have changed for the women in my life had they not had to contend with gender bias.

    First, a little about me. I’m 32 years old – and I say this because I know appearances can be deceiving. I was once asked by religious doorknockers if my parents were home, when I was 27.

    So, I’m 32, and I’m Fijian-Indian. I have lived in Australia since I was three years old, and have called Canberra home for most of my life. My ancestors span numerous countries and continents, starting in India, and ending all over the world.

    My maternal grandmother was a nurse in Fiji. She came from a family of few means, the eldest of 13 children. Her own mother had her first child in her early teens, from the marriage that was arranged for her when she was just a girl.

    My grandmother was an incredibly intelligent woman. The cultural norms that dictated her coming of age did not value intelligence in women, but she was lucky in that her family supported her to study and qualify as a nurse. At that time, the thought of an unmarried woman studying to become a doctor was very uncommon. So, she was a nurse, she married, she had three children.

    She lived a humble life and was widowed young. She died in her early 70s.

    If my grandmother had not contended with the gender bias that saw women’s first priority as being the home, perhaps she would have been a doctor. The bias against women-dominated jobs meant her pay as a nurse was meagre, although it still contributed considerably to the household, where my grandfather was a taxi driver. If this bias didn’t exist, perhaps my mother’s experiences of childhood would have been less defined by poverty, and she and her brothers would have been able to access a higher standard of living than their parents.

    My mother, like her mother before her, is very intelligent. She studied to be a teacher, but when we moved to Australia when I was a child, she left her teaching career behind in Fiji.

    Her reasoning was that, given the systemic racism that permeated so many parts of Australian society, she was afraid of the students she encountered not respecting her or other teachers presenting an issue, possibly being prejudiced.

    Here, mum was responding to what she saw around her. We arrived in Australia in the early 90s, when racism in politics was rife, led by Pauline Hanson, the founder and leader of the right-wing populist political party, One Nation. We were living in a country town, and faced racism regularly – at my parents work, at our schools, on the street.

    If this racist bias didn’t exist, perhaps my mother would have requalified as a teacher in Australia and pursued her passion for knowledge further. But instead, she worked in supermarkets for years, before my parents eventually bought their first business.

    Mum also had to navigate the gender biases and norms of both our Fijian Indian culture, and Australian culture.

    This meant she prioritised the needs of her children, her husband and her community over her own. It means that she ignored the growing aches and pains in her body for years, not realising they were the early signs of the debilitating autoimmune condition that now defines her life. Had she been treated earlier, perhaps she would have been able to go into remission, instead of being nearly crippled by the disease.

    In fact, mum did visit a doctor in her thirties to complain about the swelling in her joints. The doctor told her she was imagining it, that she was bored or anxious now that all four of her kids were in school. He suggested she get a hobby, didn’t run tests, and it wasn’t until a decade later that she was diagnosed.

    If women’s bodies weren’t seen as public property, and women’s experiences of health not dismissed as hysteria, would my mother have a better quality of life now?

    I have two older sisters, a blessing which I am very grateful for.

    When my sisters and I were growing up, we were trapped between the conflicting expectations of women in Australia in the early 2000s and in our Indian Muslim culture at home.

    On one hand, contemporary culture sexualised women and objectified our bodies in the media, advertising and music industries. On the other hand, we were expected to be modest and chaste in our religion and culture.

    We watched Spice Girls music videos on the weekend, where girl power was defined as  a sort of aggressive sexuality, and then heard sermons at the mosque about the importance of female modesty, as a form of protection against male urges.

    One community saw the other as oppressed, and the other saw the first as immoral. This is an oversimplification, but the contradiction felt very real to us, and it was both confusing and frustrating because both views relied on a rigid set of expectations about women and femininity.

    I watched most of the girls around me at school obsess over their appearance – particularly their weight – and place a very high value on male attention and approval. Those among us who weren’t heterosexual or cisgendered suffered ostracism, judgement and bullying.

    I wasn’t immune either – I hated the way I looked, I was insecure about how others perceived me, and despite my outward feminist persona, I was desperate to be liked and accepted, like most adolescents.

    But imagine if our culture didn’t perpetuate the objectification of women’s bodies. Imagine if myself, and the young women I grew up with, were encouraged to pursue the growth of our intellects and creativity over our sexual capital. Imagine if, instead of being pitted against other women in competition for male attention, we were enabled to collaborate and come together in the pursuit of our shared goals.

    It’s hard to envision what that world, free of bias, could have looked like, and partly that’s because our reality today isn’t that different to the past.

    The same biases that have influenced three generations of the women in my family, persist to this day.

    The expectation that women must prioritise the home, children and their families to a greater extent than male partners or family members; the trivialisation of female-dominated industries, women’s health, and the contributions that women make to our communities; and the obsession with women’s appearances, the objectification of our bodies, and the equation of our worth with male approval.

    The cover of Zoya Patel's book, No Country Woman: A memoir of not belonging

    The cover of Zoya Patel’s book, No Country Woman: A memoir of not belonging

    Every year, we make progress, but every year we also uncover yet more examples of how gender inequality persists in our communities. Remember – for every Grace Tame, or Brittany Higgins, there are thousands of unknown and unnamed women who have suffered abuse and assault with no attention and no consequence for their perpetrators.

    Among these women are the many Indigenous women, women of colour, queer women, trans women, disabled women, and other women who don’t fit the criteria of acceptable victimhood, who have not only been ignored, but often who have faced discrimination and been retraumatised by the systems that are meant to protect them.

    Biases don’t have to be bad things. There is such a thing as a positive bias. We could, as a society, be more inclined towards believing victim survivors of assault and violence, for example, than disbelieving them when the evidence lies in their favour.

    We could be more inclined towards celebrating the diversity of women’s contributions, instead of trivialising or dismissing them.

    We could be more inclined to supporting policies and programs that seek to accelerate gender equality, than to reinforcing patriarchal systems of inequality.

    I have four nieces and a nephew, and watching them grow up has shown me that every generation starts with a foundation that is more solid than the generation preceding them. Already, my nieces and nephew are proving to be more emotionally intelligent, empathetic, and  fierce than we were, and it excites me to think of the futures they have ahead of them.

    I know that their parents, and their aunts and uncles are determined to break as many biases that they may face as possible. After all, if we all dedicate ourselves to changing the corner of the world that we’re in, eventually, those corners will meet up and form a whole.

    • The Labor Club event where Zoya gave this speech was in support of the Canberra-based service, Toora Women Inc, which supports vulnerable women in the region. Find out more about Toora here.

    Feature image: Supplied

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  • The compelling reason women must help negotiate peace

    In 2011, I travelled to Afghanistan as part of a defence sub-committee delegation. I was the only woman. During the program, I met with two Australian female soldiers for a briefing on the issues facing women in Afghanistan. The briefing was an optional extra in the delegation’s program and I was also the only member of the delegation to attend.

    The soldiers had just returned to the Multinational Base in Tarin Kowt after an intelligence-gathering mission “beyond the wire”.

    The soldiers shared the stories of the women they had met in Uruzgan Province. Stories about the women’s lives, their hardship, their fears, their hopes and their dreams. Stories about how they survived as women, right down to how they managed period cramps and the pain of childbirth. And stories about their addiction to opium.

    Because in rural villages in Afghanistan in the middle of a war zone, you can’t just drop in to the local chemist to get painkillers. So you resort to a treatment that’s cheap, accessible, homegrown and abundant – poppy resin.

    What these soldiers discovered, which was little understood at the time, was that women were using opium to manage their pain—the pain that comes from being a woman, and the pain of their reality.

    And, in some instances, they found, men were deliberately addicting women to opium, to pacify and control them, to manage them.

    The stories of those women in Uruzgan Province would not have been told were it not for those two female soldiers and gave added impetus to efforts to build women’s and maternal health centres in remote parts of Uruzgan Province. Because until their mission, those women were unseen and unheard outside Afghanistan. It was only those two female soldiers who gave them a voice and amplified it.

    Those soldiers are no longer there, but that doesn’t mean the women of Afghanistan should be forgotten and unheard. As the international community calls for the formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan, we need to continue our efforts to amplify the voices of the women who still live there and advocate for female empowerment, education and economic participation. Because too many of them are being silenced through harassment, censure, threats of violence or actual violence – they are in hiding, being hunted or have already been hunted.

    And as we witness the horrors of another war unfolding in Ukraine we need to remember our sisters there too. We need to fight for them to have a voice and be heard during this conflict, and in the transition out of it.

    Because the experience of more than two decades in Afghanistan has taught us many lessons when it comes to empowering, listening and responding to women on national security and peace building.

    Afghan Women

    Gai says lessons from Afghanistan show why women must be consulted. Picture: Afghan Women in Herat, Afghanistan. June 2012. Picture: United Nations Photo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. 

    And a lot of lessons on not what to do. During that delegation to Afghanistan, I heard a powerful story that underscored the need to consult with women. It was about a remote village in Afghanistan where the main source of water was a well.

    As part of the international effort to stabilise and build capacity in Afghanistan, a well-meaning team of people from the international assistance community decided that this village needed all its houses plumbed to bring them into the 21st century.

    But, unfortunately, no one consulted with the women in the village about whether this was a good idea. Had they done that, they would have learned that the trip to the well each day was the only time a woman could get out of her house and commune with other women. By plumbing their houses, the international community cut off women from their only daily source of freedom and engagement.

    Now many lessons were learned from that well experience, but in some respects the world seems to be going backwards on the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

    The agenda, which stemmed from a United Nation’s Security Council resolution more than 20 years ago, addresses the important and vital role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflict, in humanitarian assistance responses and in peace building. The resolution calls on the international community to increase the participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all peace and security efforts.

    In his Women, Peace and Security report to the United Nations Security Council in September last year, the Secretary General said:

    “The recent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban has attracted much of the world’s attention. But in the months leading up to it, the United Nations had already documented a record number of women killed in the country in 2020, including civil society activists and journalists, and the targeting of academics, vaccinators and even women judges in the Supreme Court.

    “And yet, Afghan women were not included among the negotiators with the Taliban in 2020.

    “When delegates representing the Taliban and the Government of Afghanistan met in Moscow in March 2021 to discuss the peace negotiations, there was only one woman among them.

    “This juxtaposition of violence targeting women and their rights, on the one hand, and their extreme marginalization and exclusion, on the other, still encapsulates the women and peace and security agenda in 2021.”

    He outlined that:

    “In 2020, women represented only 23 percent of delegates in peace processes led or co-led by the United Nations.

    “None of the ceasefire agreements reached between 2018 and 2020 included gender provisions.

    “Only 5.2 per cent of military troops in peace operations were women.

    “Bilateral aid to women’s rights organizations and movements in fragile or conflict-affected countries remains strikingly low, well below 1 per cent, and has been stagnant since 2010.”

    Multiple studies over multiple decades have shown that peace lasts longer and conflict zones become more stable when women participate in the negotiations and decision-making. Peace processes involving women as witnesses, signatories, mediators and negotiators have a 20 percent increase in the probability of lasting more than two years, and a 35 percent increase in the probability of lasting 15 years.

    Women shaping their future shows the lives of women, and their community, are improved for the long term.

    Here in Australia, the numbers of women in every field of national security are on the rise, particularly in leadership positions. But there is still more work to be done, and we need to keep applying the pressure for change.

    The Lowy Institute’s Foreign Territory: Women in International Relations report of 2019 found that it has been more than 50 years since the Commonwealth ‘marriage bar’ was lifted in 1966 in Australia.Since then, more than 30 major white papers, reviews, and inquiries had been produced that have shaped Australia’s international relations architecture and influenced our foreign and security policy.

    At the time of the report, none of these major policy-setting exercises had been led by a woman in more than half a century. It’s now time to normalise the presence and voices of women in national security, here and overseas. We need to set a target for speakers and panellists at national security events organised by government agencies or organisations that receive government support through funding, venues or speakers—domestically and internationally.

    The Government has set a target of  50 percent of women holding  Government board positions overall, with at least 40 percent of positions at the individual board level.

    The same 50/40 rule should be applied to government funded or supported national security events.

    And no more excuses that the female talent doesn’t exist. The talent exists in spades, in every national security field. While the numbers in some fields may still be in the single digits, the women are there. Finding them just requires a bit more lateral and creative thinking, a broadening of networks and an end to the lazy churn of the same male voices.

    The 50/40 rule should also apply to national security and international relations task forces and papers, and publications and journals produced by government agencies and government-funded organisations.

    And reporting on performance on the 50/40 rule should be done through the Women, Peace and Security National Action Plan interdepartmental committee and review process, with audits by the Australian National Audit Office.

    National security parliamentary committees also shouldn’t be immune from the 50/40 rule. Currently, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has 36 percent women. The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade has just 25 percent.

    The application of the 50/40 rule for parliamentary committees inquiring into national security would be a good start, as would a
    cross-party parliamentary friends group on Women, Peace and Security.

    We need to make women’s involvement in peace and security  decision- and policy-making and practice, here and throughout the world, mundane, everyday and unremarkable.

    And that starts with women having a seat at the table, according to the renowned women’s rights defender, peace negotiator, former member of the Afghan Parliament and its first-ever female Deputy Speaker, Fawzia Koofi.

    Because if they aren’t around that table, they end up being the dinner.

    Feature image: Supplied

    Editor’s note: At an International Women’s Day event in Canberra, Gai Brodtmann gave a speech that captivated the room. Gai has kindly allowed BroadAgenda to publish an edited version of that speech. Parts of this article/speech also appeared in a previous article Gai wrote for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in 2019, Find the publication via this link (see page 117). After Covid-19 Volume 2: Australia, the region and multilateralism (amazonaws.com).

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  • The Lost Petition: Naming those killed by domestic abuse

    In a couple of lines, tell us about yourself.

    I am Dans Bain, a Narrm/Melbourne based artist. I work across multiple intersecting mediums with a strong focus on social justice, inclusion and personal narratives.

    It is important to me that my arts practice is collaborative, as I believe that this brings depth and texture to the stories that emerge, and makes the work interactive and accessible for a wide range of audiences.

    I am an artist, but I am also a mum of two young kids, a boy and a girl. For the past five years I’ve mostly taken a break from my arts practice to raise my kids. I’m an introvert and I like to think that my work speaks for me, so stepping into this public arena and having to speak alongside my work is a new experience.

    My recent work is very much informed by motherhood. I look at my kids and I foresee two very different life experiences ahead of them. I see my daughter facing gender inequality, attracting unwanted sexual advances and fearing for her safety around men and boys.

    I also see my son, and when he’s grown up I want him to call out misogyny and use his privilege to allow equal opportunity to others. I want him to understand the crisis that is happening in our communities, in our homes and on our streets.

    You’re taking on the issue of gendered and family violence. Why? Does this have a personal resonance for you? 

    When I think back to my first recollection of gendered violence, I think of 1997. I was a typical 16-year-old. One night on the news they announced that a woman’s semi-naked body had been found face down by bushwalkers in the bushland not far from where I lived.

    Her name was Kristy Harty. She was 18 years old, just two years older than me. What was ingrained to me at the time initially was the tragedy, the loss of a young life. However discussion and reporting quickly turned to victim blaming, and so I found myself asking…

    • What about the man who raped and murdered her?
    • What about the institutions who failed Kristy?
    • Why are we still seeing victim blaming headlines?
    • What kind of message are we sending to the next generation?
    • Why can’t any government seem to effectively deal with allegations of misconduct or protect those who work within their offices?

    Over the years I’ve become so weary. Weary of always being hyper-vigilant of my personal safety as a woman in public space and weary with concern for my female friends and family.

    I’m sick of the cat-calling, arse-grabbing men who always get away with it and the people who look the other way. All of these smaller indiscretions perpetuate a rape culture environment that can escalate to women and children being murdered.

    I have friends and family who have been abused or assaulted and none of the perpetrators have seen justice. All of the women I know who have experienced gendered violence have not reported it.

    I despair at the rate at which women and children are being lost to or living with violence in our communities.

    Laying out the Lost Petition.

    Laying out the Lost Petition. Picture: Mickey Russo.

    What is the Lost Petition? 

    The Lost Petition is a 30-metre long fabric artwork currently containing the names of 986 women and children who have lost their lives to male violence, from 2008 until present day. These women and children can no longer vote, they have unjustly lost their right for representation and to have their voices heard by our Government.

    The Lost Petition is a platform for the people most affected by domestic abuse, family violence and gendered violence to be heard. It is based on the research of award-winning journalist and anti-violence advocate Sherele Moody of The RED HEART Campaign and the Australian Femicide and Child Death Map.

    I want people to see the scale of this crisis. I want them to read the names of those women and children who are no longer with us today. I want them to grapple with the reality that we must act – to ensure that this petition doesn’t get any longer. The Lost Petition signs for the dead.

    Our names are who we are. Why have you decided to make your artwork with text like this?

    The Lost Petition is created with the handwritten word. This work echoes the 30,000 signatures from The Women’s Suffrage Petition in 1891, demonstrating public support for women’s right to vote. I’d also like to acknowledge that universal suffrage was not granted to Indigenous women and men until 1965.

    The Lost Petition also pays homage to The Great Petition by Susan Hewitt and Penelope Lee. The Lost Petition had its first exhibition, intersecting The Great Petition sculpture at Burston Reserve, Melbourne on International Women’s Day 2021.

    The first thing that a viewer will notice is the handwritten element. The imperfections of the text reflect the individual women and children listed.

    Our names are our identity, and they help us connect with each other.

    The act of writing on a large-scale petition signifies its origins in grassroots activism.

    You’re taking this work to Federal Parliament today. Why? 

    I am taking The Lost Petition to Parliament House the day before Budget Day because I want to see an adequate response to the issue of gendered violence in Australia not only reflected in this budget, but for all parties to signal their commitment and responsive policies to this issue in the upcoming election.

    There are so many incredible organisations working in this field who have already done the work of developing detailed policy alternatives for governments – I’d advise any Member of Parliament to seek those out. The work has been done for them – they just need the political will to act.

    If you had a magic wand and could fix the issue, what would that look like? 

    All kinds of women are affected by gendered violence. It does not discriminate between postcodes.

    We must ensure marginalised members of our communities have their voices heard. To achieve positive outcomes, policies must recognise the experiences of survivors, families who have lost someone to violence, women with disabilities, elderly women, women of colour, multicultural women, First Nations women, sex workers and people from the LGBTIQ community.

    Women in all their diversity should be included in all considerations of policy, services, practice and legal rights.

    Is there anything else you want to say

    When I get asked, “what about men?” it’s important that we look at the facts. Statistically, men are more likely to commit violence against women and children. In Australia, on average, one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner. These are the cold, hard facts – which is why men and boys need to be held accountable.

    Equality cannot exist without respect, and respect needs to be ingrained in the minds of the young. Respecting people regardless of gender should be at the cornerstone of how we engage with our community.

    We need to ensure that prevention services are at the forefront when tackling the issue of domestic abuse – not just protective services and after-trauma support.

    • Melbourne-based artist Dans Bain, with her 30-metre-long fabric artwork, listing all of the names of women and children who have lost their lives to gendered violence since 2008. Picture: Mickey Russo 

     

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  • National housing policy: Where’s the vision?

    Well before the floods hit the Northern Rivers of NSW, many people were already living precariously.

    The images of shattered men, women and children losing their homes from weatherboard ‘queenslanders’ to caravans was spine-tingling, even for me, a seasoned reporter. Homes now full of mud, sewerage and mould had to be abandoned.

    A shortage of affordable housing was the context too of the Black Summer bush fires. Many who lost homes across the south coast of NSW are still in temporary accommodation.

    Our geography doesn’t help. A startling fact tucked away in a recent Insurance Council of Australia report explains that Australians especially vulnerable. The Insurance Catastrophe Resilience Report 2020-21 tells us that “Australians are five times more likely to be displaced by a natural disaster than someone living in Europe”.

    And yet after decades of research sounding the alarm on the science, Australia still has no national and cross-jurisdictional housing strategy, and certainly not one that anticipates climate impacts on housing.

    We at the Equality Rights Alliance (ERA) keenly make this point in our submission to a Productivity Commission review into the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement currently underway. The five-year state-federal agreement expires next year and the PC is asking the public for comment.

    The agreement is national in name-only. It largely excludes local government. It lacks accountability measures to keep all parties focussed on the objective of delivering affordable housing and reducing homelessness. There is no explicit policy connection to climate change adaptation and mitigation, nor women’s safety, gendered poverty or the needs of people with a disability. And it avoids the elephant in the room, tax reform.

    What’s holding us back is a narrative stuck in a groove: ‘housing as an investment right’ rather than ‘housing as a human right’. While the Federal Government tries to reduce affordability pressures with measures like rent assistance (which is way too low in our view), policy settings simultaneously bias the housing market in favour of those with capital.

    We argue that a new National Housing and Homelessness Agreement should join up the dots and be driven by a federal housing minister who sits in cabinet, and with the support of a dedicated agency that measures and marshals the evidence. That way it gets the sustained attention it needs.

    All levels of government have to work together better, recognising the Commonwealth’s role with macro-policy settings which drive housing demand such as taxation and population, and the responsibilities of State, Territory and Local governments for land use, land supply and urban planning and development policy, infrastructure policy and tenancy legislation.

    The Commonwealth is best placed to deliver overarching leadership that strengthens cooperation and accountability and it is best placed to provide capital injection for net growth in social housing stock in partnership with the states.

    The design and delivery of housing and homelessness services must be more gender explicit. Conditions are undoubtedly worse today for anyone on low income but the fastest growing group to experience homelessness in Australia is older single women. Many are first-time users of the welfare system.

    Maggie Shambrook of Brisbane had post graduate studies behind her and steady work but an abrupt change in her family’s life suddenly saw her at risk of homelessness.

    “The stereotype of a person who is homeless does not reflect reality. It’s a surprising picture of women who have been carers for chapters of their life and who have enjoyed modest incomes, even earned PhDs.”

    Maggie is now an advocate with the Housing Older Women (HOW) movement based in Queensland.

    “There are many women who are hidden from view.  A friend moved 18 times in 3 years trying to stay safe, staying with friends and family, remaining invisible. The toll on her physical and mental health was huge,” she told ERA.

    Women and children are disproportionately impacted in the wake of economic shocks and natural disasters. They will need specialised support over some time because women are more likely to take on unpaid care while living with the legacy of systems that lead to compound disadvantage.

    The Housing Older Women movement is among many in the sector who with at ERA argue for measures that address a ‘missing middle in terms of housing options’ – options in between private ownership and multi-level public housing where every tenant is struggling.

    We hope the Productivity Commission will listen to the call for more housing options. Its review is a once in a generation opportunity to reset housing policy for the long haul, one that sees beyond annual budgets and political terms and one driven by a vision that leaves no one behind.

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  • Unpacking the cumulative inequality of Australian women

    This year’s International Women’s Day theme of #BreakTheBias invited us all to imagine a world that’s free of inequality, bias and discrimination. While advocacy work has highlighted the deep-rooted inequality experienced by women in many parts of the world, it has also drawn attention to a cohort of older adults that are suffering the most – women.

    And the data is currently showing us that:

    • Women retire with 24% less super than their male counterpart
    • 34% of single Australian women over 60 live in income poverty
    • 59% of those accessing homeless services are women

    If older women are most at risk of poverty and more likely to experience homelessness at retirement, then what has contributed towards these dire statistics? The answer to this question is arguably complex, but in part, can be explained by understanding cumulative inequality. Let’s unpack.

    Fundamentally, women’s cumulative inequality is upheld by social systems that generate inequality. These systems manifest over their life course and influences women’s personal trajectories, including their exposure and accumulation of risk and the kinds of resources available to them.

    A good example is that of unpaid work. While we may not value unpaid work from a monetary perspective, it’s still a form of work that satisfies a need. More women undertake unpaid domestic or family caring work, while men outsource it or have someone devoted to doing it. These dynamics forms part of the social structure that maintains the economic insecurity of women.

    While we may be socialised to accept and even expect women to take on this role, it’s also no coincidence that women belong to the largest constituents of low-paid and part time workers.

    Recently, it was reported that Australian women form 67% of part time workers and earn 14.1% less than men.

    If we include unequal pay, the promotion gap and the superannuation gap into the equation, the result is gendered poverty. Ultimately, the experiences of women that include career disruptions, unpaid work, caring responsibilities and mom tax all compound over women’s lifecycles to results in the conception of poverty at retirement.

    What this is showing us is that our current social and economic structures lead to and maintain inequality. But more importantly, we ought to acknowledge and appreciation that inequality is fundamentally not the result of individual choices and actions but is structurally generated. As articulated by Elizabeth Broderick, the former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner, “there is no one single point where the gap begins and ends”.

    Understanding the accumulation of inequality helps us to understand how social and economic structures fail women on a systemic basis.  And while we may not have all the answers to solve this problem, what we can do is collectively use our voices to RISE in order to advocate for:

    Representation

    Inclusion

    Social Reform and

    Economic Empowerment

    Bernice King, the daughter of civil rights activists Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, recently tweeted, “If you don’t think representation matters, you’re probably well-represented.” Part of breaking the bias is stressing and illuminating the underrepresentation of Australian women in positions of leadership.

    While women make up close to 50% of the workforce, yet only a third occupy key management positions across all industries. Even fewer women are represented as CEOs and chairs of boards (18 percent and 15 percent respectively). The long-standing biases that women do not aspire to the highest ranks of organisations contributes to these figures when in fact the Harvard Business Review reported that women score higher in leadership skills.

    Dr Bomikazi Zeka

    Dr Bomikazi Zeka believes a truly fair and bias-free society, is one where everyone has equal access to opportunities. Picture: Supplied

    Inclusive policies that acknowledge and consider the career patterns of women is a central part of correcting gender inequality. More so, policy should incorporate and demonstrate how the cumulative disadvantage of women is considered in the design of gender-neutral policies. Because if we can identify, acknowledge and address how and why women are slipping through the cracks, then we can develop policies that addresses the gender income inequality gap.

    The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu once famously stated that: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

    If we consider that data on housing insecurity, homelessness, income insecurity and gender pay gap, it’s all connected and speaks to the issues facing most Australian women. So why not streamline what would otherwise be independent policy areas of employment, healthcare, social protection, housing support and pensions? What this would do is encourage a minimum universal social protection threshold for all women throughout their lifecycle and address the issues that are central to the eradication of poverty.

    Because poverty is not just a matter of monetary deprivation. It permeates every aspect of a person’s life. Rania El Mugammar articulated that “poverty monopolizes your time, you spend hours waiting for underfunded transit, healthcare and social services.

    Time negotiating payments, filling out paperwork, walking to save bus face, going far for work or even just to pay less for something. It steals your life in instalments.”  The economic inclusion and empowerment of women is thus a pivotal part of correcting cumulative inequality. This means that all women should be able to participate in economic decision-making at all levels because equality is also access to opportunities. And a truly fair and bias-free society, is one where everyone has equal access to opportunities.

    • Please note: Feature photo is a stock image. 

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  • Experiencing racism inside the media

    I was being humiliated, my position had essentially been made  redundant as all of the decision making had been taken off me in a way that implied my total incompetence. I was repeatedly berated in front of the staff, and I had my team members reduced to tears for being yelled at in the office.. When I learned that I no longer had any power to protect my team from harassment, I could no longer justify staying in that role. Furthermore, I had strong objections to the content being produced, the racial nature of incitement of an already volatile audience, led to a visceral reaction that I could no longer tolerate. As the only person of colour on the media team, to be told almost daily that our audience is racist, became too much to bear.

    This was the response I gave in my exit interview when asked why I chose to leave. This doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of my experience at this organisation. I won’t name them and I have deleted the experience from my Linkedin profile, in fact, I have erased those eight weeks from my life. I have accepted the learnings reflected on how this traumatic experience has helped me grow.

    Enough time has passed for me to be able to reflect on what has transpired and how it has changed me. How it has taken the experience of a culture that is rotten to its core to allow me to truly appreciate what my values are. To have made a decision that prioritises my mental health and racial integrity was an empowering move that I am proud of.

    Why diversity matters

    To the best of my knowledge, I am the only person of colour to have ever worked on the media team for this organisation. During my first week, a story came across my desk about the Federal Police reporting an increase in terrorism activity online. The details in the report indicated that the increased activity came from factions of far right extremist groups, yet the image used to accompany the alarmist headline was one that played directly to the indoctrinated masses that had consumed white washed media for decades; i.e: a bearded brown man with a turban. 

    I rejected the story immediately. What astounded me was that no one could understand why. Even after I had explained that the story exacerbates an already wounded culture that is stigmatised by exactly that kind of media coverage, I was still met with confused faces. 

    Antionette Lattouf, CEO & Founder of Media Diversity Australia says, “Racialised and inflammatory reporting, for some outlets, seems to be part of their business model. But for most journalistic output, the discriminatory content is often due to unconscious bias and the fact that most people in editorial roles hail from the same cultural and socio economic background.

    “Do I think most journos wake up and think, ‘Which minority am I going to marginalise today in my reporting?’ No, I don’t, but when newsrooms are monolithic, lack cultural competence and connections to our very diverse community, then the bias easily creeps into reporting, and goes unchecked.”

    The story was pulled in the end, but I was really taken aback by the total lack of comprehension. Perhaps they may not have deemed it offensive because they were so used to reporting on such issues, maybe they didn’t understand the impact they had on such a large audience? I later found that reporting on such things suited ‘our brand’. 

    Once the dust settled and the ink on my employment contract dried, I was told almost daily that our audience is racist and that we should write accordingly to appease them and increase traffic. There were unspoken parameters in which I had to work within. Anytime my objective journalism would creep beyond those boundaries, I was swiftly put in my place and told, “we’re not socialists”. 

    There was no reprieve from this narrative being pounded in me and it began to erode my racial integrity. It was at that point that I removed my title from my Linkedin profile. I was careful not to send too many work emails as I didn’t want to be associated with the platform. After two weeks, I began looking for another job. 

    Although I didn’t stick around long enough to make any kind of a difference to this workplace, hiring a team rich in cultural backgrounds, religions, ethnicities, abilities, genders and sexual orientations gives the organisation a better understanding of the real world. Such an understanding leads to a sensitivity of what is and isn’t acceptable. What could be deemed offensive and what is downright wrong. It’s irrelevant that this diversity is made up of minority groups, no matter how minor these groups are, they’re still people that deserve respect.

    I’ve written many times of my own personal struggles of dealing with race, it’s an altogether different battleground when it comes to my professional struggles. It’s confronting working in an industry that has contributed so much to the pain of my culture. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to make a difference. 

    I couldn’t achieve that in this workplace, but the fight continues. 

    Generation gaps

    Born at the end of 1980, I am one of the youngest cohorts of Generation X. Raised by Baby Boomers, our generation was taught to be hard workers, has a strong work ethic instilled in us, and we take great pride in our work, regardless of our chosen professions. 

    We were also raised by a generation that doesn’t believe in mental health. If you’re sad, you pray, you go for a run or you simply get on with it. Ours is a generation that teeters between stoicism and an overwhelming display of constant emotion. It’s a difficult place to navigate. 

    I’m also one of the youngest in my circles of friends. It’s not surprising that when I told friends that I had resigned from a terrible job that left me depleted, left me doubting my ability to do anything at all, that had a toxic culture littered with acts of covert and overt racism, I was met with faces of shock, concern and confusion.

    Do you have another job to go to?

    What about your kids?

    What are you going to do?

    How could you just leave?

    I don’t blame my friends for their reactions. I would probably react in the same manner if the situation were reversed. 

    What was interesting was when I had reached out to my younger friends. Their instant reaction was celebratory. 

    Good for you!

    Well done for standing up to them.

    Their loss… can’t wait to hear what you do next.

    Blind optimism or a generation that is not held down by cynicism? Whatever it may be, the disparity of reactions were stark.

    I have never left a job before finding another one. Furthermore, I had taken on this role after a seven month stint of unemployment having been made redundant from my previous role, not unusual in media. I had never been unemployed for that long either. 

    Another characteristic passed on to our generation from the boomers was resilience. 

    I always pride myself on being quite resilient, but at what point does resilience give way to tolerance? Does tolerance then lead to complicitness? By ignoring or not allowing certain abusive behaviours to impact you, do you then become complicit in accepting that behaviour? It’s like the saying goes, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

    When younger people speak up against something they don’t agree with, they are immediately branded snowflakes. Women especially are held to a different standard when displaying any kind of emotion in the workplace. By showing what we perceive to be a sign of strength and enduring discriminatory behaviour, are we suggesting that toxic environments in a workplace are acceptable?

    There are only so many things that are in our control or influence. As a manager, I tried to influence at a micro level, the culture of my team; I failed. I tried to influence the outcome of the content we produced; I failed. I then went into preservation mode and simply tried not to let my CEO have such an emotional hold on me; initially, I failed that too. 

    Ultimately, all I could control was whether or not I chose to stay in that workplace. By making that choice to leave, I regained my power. Shortly after I left, removing myself from an environment where I was told repeatedly in front of an audience how poorly I was doing and how little I was achieving, I reclaimed my confidence. 

    My resignation was a huge display of strength. It was an incredibly difficult decision that impacted my career, my family, my wellbeing, and my finances. I had finally achieved my goal of leading a news room. No easy feat for a woman in media, let alone a woman of colour. By making a choice to leave, I am making a stand to say that behaviour is not acceptable. 

    Congratulations, you’re successful!

    2021 was a tumultuous year, personally and professionally. I was made redundant in January and resigned from a job in October. 

    Two days after my resignation I was informed that I was accepted for the Walkey Foundation Mentorship Program. I had gone from completely doubting my ability to write at all, to being recognised by the most coveted organisation in Australian journalism. Obviously, it’s not an award, but a group of highly respected writers and journalists thought my work was deserving of being mentored to reach a higher level of my career. 

    Furthermore, within a week of my resignation, I was offered another role. It’s a smaller team, I am not in a managerial position, a completely different industry and I’m working alongside, quite possibly, the kindest people I have ever met. The organisation stands by their mission of work-life balance (yes, it’s achievable) by offering a hybrid model of working from home and in the office.

    Somewhere along the way of my career, I lost sight of my values. I got so caught up in the big paychecks and fancy titles, that I forgot why I had chosen this path in the first place.

    I wrote my thesis many moons ago on the gang-rape trials in Sydney in 2000. I wrote about the atrocity of the crimes committed and the appalling coverage in the media that led to an all-out assault on all people of middle eastern appearance.

    I wanted my words to matter, I wanted for a different voice to be heard. Through the years, my voice has reached a wider audience. I thought I had reached the pinnacle of my career, writing to an audience of well over two million people. I know now that it’s not about who I am reaching, but the message I am conveying. I would much rather have a tiny audience and be true to my values than write absolute garbage that erodes everything I stand for to reach the masses.

    This is my success.

    • Feature image: Supplied by the author. Photo: Dominka Lis

     

     

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    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • The glass cliff: why women lead in a crisis

    In 2003 I finished up my PhD at ANU and jumped on a plane (and then the trans-Siberian express train) to make my way to Europe. Within a month of arriving at the University of Exeter, my mentor and I stumbled upon a newspaper article from the front page of the business section of The Times that claimed that women were ‘wreaking havoc’ on company performance in the UK biggest companies. Their evidence suggested that the more women on the boards of FTSE 100 companies, the worse companies tended to perform on their annual average share prices.

    In response, we designed a archival study that demonstrates that the opposite is the case: poor company performance instead leads to the appointment of women into leadership positions.

    From this study, the term ‘the glass cliff’ was born to describe the phenomenon where women (and members of other marginalised groups) are more likely to occupy leadership roles in times of crisis. The metaphor captures the increased risk and precarity of leadership when things are going badly: a sense of being up high, yet teetering on the edge. 

    Since then, a global body of research, including case studies, archival analyses, and experimental studies, demonstrates poor company performance leads to the appointment of women into leadership positions.  The research has examined the precarity leadership positions in a wide range of contexts. Building on the original work in senior corporate leadership, the glass cliff has been demonstrated at all levels of politics, from council members, mayors, and members of parliament in poorly performing electorates, to Prime Ministers such as Theresa May and Julia Gillard. A racial glass cliff has also been found for coaches of sporting teams, such that Black coaches are more likely when the team has a poor winning record. Most recently evidence for the glass cliff has been found in the COVID-19 pandemic.

    EU2017EE Estonian Presidency, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

    Experts suggested former British Prime Minister Theresa May was left standing on a glass cliff, because she reached a position of leadership at particularly precarious time. Picture: (EU2017EE) Estonian Presidency, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

    We see the glass cliff as a relatively new and reasonably subtle form of prejudice that occurs once women start to shatter the glass ceiling. The increased scrutiny and risk of failure makes such positions likely to be stressful and sub-optimal. Indeed, research also describes a parallel ‘saviour effect’, such that once all is going well again, those on glass cliffs are replaced by more traditional leaders.

    But that is not to say that glass cliff positions should be avoided altogether. Crisis situations may be seen by some women as opportunities. Indeed, there is evidence that gender stereotypes may lead to the perception that women have unique skills and abilities that make them particularly suited to dealing with crises. It may also be the case that women do not have the luxury of turning down a sub-optimal leadership position. Returning to the Theresa May example, it is likely that a Prime Ministership during Brexit was the best that she could hope for – she wasn’t in a position to wait around until a better opportunity came about, as Boris Johnson did.

    But despite the potential opportunity, we argue that glass cliff positions may be seen as a poisoned chalice. Indeed, that the precarity of the glass cliff may contribute to the stagnation of progress towards gender equality and equal gender representation in positions of leadership. If women are less able to demonstrate leadership success, or are apportioned blame for negative outcomes evident before their appointment, this may reinforce the pernicious stereotypes that women are not suited to leadership positions.

    Our more recent research has looked at the body of work as a whole suggests that while the glass cliff is robust, it is a complex phenomenon. It is highly dependent on circumstances, such as the broader social context, the nature and severity of the crisis, the resources available to overcome the crisis, and the previous leadership incumbent.

    The nuances and complexities of the glass cliff suggest that it is unlikely to have a straightforward solution. However, the fact that the glass cliff is so dependent on context suggests that change is possible. We can design interventions to reduce the likelihood that members of underrepresented groups will continue to face the glass cliff, including the transparency of the precarious nature of the leadership role, ensuring that adequate resources are in place to deal with the crisis, and insuring that leaders are evaluated fairly during a crisis situation.

     

    • Feature image from the SBS documentary “Strong Female Lead”/Supplied 

    The author of this article, Professor Michelle Ryan (bio below) is based at the ANU’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership. Find out more about their work here. 

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    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • Is this sexism? UC Capitals without finals home

    A few days ago, the ABC reported that the UC Capitals’ basketball team had effectively been left ‘homeless’ with no location to play their finals game in ACT.

    BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman, had a chat with Lucille Bailie, General Manager of the UC Capitals about how this unfolded – and why the situation is impacted by gender. Lucille was a player with UC Caps 2001/02 to 2003/04 incl Captain 2002/03 and 2003/04)

     

    BroadAgenda has a national and growing international audience. So for people who don’t know who the Capitals are (not anyone in Canberra, of course!), tell us a bit about the team.

    The UC Capitals are proud to be our city’s most successful national sports team. The team competes in the Women’s National Basketball League and have won a league-leading nine championship titles. We’re trailblazers locally and nationally, resetting expectations in the delivery and engagement with women’s sport. The business that underpins the Capitals goes from strength to strength each year and our short term goal is to deliver a fully professional basketball program, with increased revenue through a range of business areas supporting a full time squad of athletes and staff.

    We’ve been reading the the UC Capitals have been left homeless for finals games this season. How did this (frankly bonkers) situation unfold? 

    After winning our 9th WNBL Championship in March 2019 at the AIS Arena in front of around 5,000 supporters, we received an email from the Australian Sports Commission to advise that the Arena would no longer be available to us, or other users such as netball and entertainment events.

    You’ve previously played at venues like Canberra’s National Conventional Centre Canberra and the Australian Institute of Sport. Why can’t you use those venues again? Where will you have to go instead? 

    The Caps play matches at the NCCC throughout the regular season but with increased match day attendances year on year and finals matches that attract 5,000 supporters, the Caps have effectively outgrown the venue.

    Finals matches – as our supporters and the CBR community know – are the highlight of the season and when we’re talented enough to make the finals (which we do make a habit of doing!), we need and want to showcase our team, our sport and our incredibly talented athletes to as big an audience as possible. Playing in finals also represents a unique financial opportunity for our organisation, given the increased interest in our product and match day experience, so it’s a major double whammy when we miss the financial benefits finals presents our organisation and this stalls our business growth in another way.

    It is likely that most finals games in the current season will need to be relocated to Wollongong due to a lack of availability at the NCCC and the lack of any other suitable venue in the ACT.

    Given this is the capital city of Australia, how do you reflect on this situation? Can you imagine this happening to an elite women’s team in Beijing or London, for example?

    The CBR community, Government, Corporate and Sports sectors are all incredibly supportive and engaged in our great program – we see that in the growth and engagement in the Caps experience be it on match day, online, in the community, in sponsorships. We know this city understands that we’re delivering world class basketball and our athletes are wonderful sportspeople and valuable community members. The support for the team is incredibly evident and making the team as accessible to as many people as possible is a positive part of both ours and the Government’s remit, so there’s a major gap in facilities that needs to be addressed to ensure the Caps and the Government can continue to facilitate all the great work for the CBR community.

    What impacts is this having on things like: future recruitment efforts, team morale and income streams?

    We know Canberra is a basketball city and the Capitals are one of our biggest success stories. But having to deal with the constant uncertainty around venue availability is tough. The Capitals are being held back by inaction at every level and it is at the point where it is starting to impact our financial viability, not to mention the flow-on effects this creates. We have spent decades building up a dedicated fan base and while we can continue to deliver them all the talent and adrenalin and magic they love, we can’t always do it at home, which is devasting for Capitals players and fans.”

    Have you ever hear of a predicament like this happening to any male sports teams?

    No, we’re not aware of similar predicaments for other sports teams. This is a major threat to the UC Caps and the momentum created over many years. The city’s most successful national sporting team have been left with no “home” and the ACT’s top female elite basketballers are scrabbling for space only to be forced from the ACT for crucial games.

    Flow-on effects from the mishandling of this issue could be felt for years across women’s basketball and are already having a very real financial impact on the team. With every game played outside the ACT, the Capitals miss a vital opportunity to earn revenue and showcase female elite sporting success.

    More broadly, the success of the UC Caps and the thrill and entertainment of each season has the ability switch on kids to the game from a very young age and vitally, this shows girls that team sports are cool, that women can be physical and powerful, and you can make a career out of the game you love.

    How the Capitals have managed to stay at the top of the ladder while surviving on the crumbs of infrastructure in their hometown is testament to their grit, talent and loyalty, but this ongoing uncertainty threatens the team’s future ability to market itself for new players, fans and sponsors.

    I understand there may be plans to build a suitable venue for the Capitals and other elite teams to play at the University of Canberra. What can you tell me about that?

    A new arena is part of the University of Canberra’s masterplan – the organisation needs ACT and Federal Government engagement and support to make it happen. A dedicated playing and training venue at UC would be perfect.

    Is there anything else you’d like to say? 

    We know Canberra is a basketball city and the Capitals are one of our biggest success stories. But having to deal with the constant uncertainty around venue availability is tough. The Capitals are being held back by inaction at every level and it is at the point where it is starting to impact our financial viability, not to mention the flow-on effects this creates.

    We have spent decades building up a dedicated fan base and while we can continue to deliver them all the talent and adrenalin and magic they love, we can’t always do it at home, which is devasting for Capitals players and fans.

    Find out more about the Capitals here.

    • Feature image: UC Caps vs Melbourne. Kelly Wilson in action. Picture: Supplied/Davey Barber.

     

    The post Is this sexism? UC Capitals without finals home appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • Utah Lawmakers Look to Legalize Youth Trans Abuse

    On February 25th, 2022, hundreds gathered at the Utah State Capitol in protest against H.B. 11 Student Eligibility in Interscholastic Activities and H.B. 127 Medical Practice Amendments, Utah’s most recent attempts at violently transphobic legislation.    H.B. 11 would incorporate a state-based commission to “establish a baseline range” of “physical characteristics affected by puberty” (bill text …

    Utah Lawmakers Look to Legalize Youth Trans Abuse Read More »

    This post was originally published on Real Progressives.

  • Come to our IWD Discussion! Women in sport

    International Women’s Day 2022 – Morning Tea & Panel Discussion ‘Issues effecting women in sport – Equal Pay, Homophobia, cyber/media bias and hope for the future’

    Join us! Find all the details here. 

    In the same breath that we celebrate all that has been achieved in women’s sport since the dark days of women being banned from playing, and even watching, sport – we are reminded about how much there is still left to do to achieve true equality for female athletes, coaches, administrators, match day officials and support staff across the board.

    This divide was clearly represented by the Sport Australia media awards overnight.  Sport Australia values safe and inclusive sport and yet “couldn’t separate” the entries for “Best Reporting of an Issue in Sport”:

    The first winner, by SBS reporters covering the issue of female athletes fleeing Afghanistan for the safety of Australia, being targeted and killed by the Taliban.  This piece sought to highlight the issue, while trying to avoid contributing to making the lives of those left behind more dangerous…

     

    That award sat beside a piece which led to the reigniting of historic wounds, and for far too many people, abhorrent trolling and homophobic slurs across a range of sporting codes.

     

    This took place in the same week that the US women’s football (soccer) team reached landmark $24m settlement in their 6 year equal pay battle, and the international sporting community stood alongside Ukrainian athletes and the Ukrainian people more broadly in condemning the invasion by Russia.

    There is so much to talk about this IWD!

    Come along on Tuesday 8 March at 10.30am in the Refectory to hear the panel discussion on ‘Issues effecting women in sport – Equal Pay, Homophobia, cyber/media bias and hope for the future’, followed by complimentary morning tea on the Concourse.

    Proudly sponsored by UniSuper.

    Panel members:

    • Amy Kilpatrick, Incoming Director, 50|50 by 2030 Foundation
    • Ginger Gorman, Editor of BroadAgenda |50/50 by 2030 Foundation
    • Dr Catherine Ordway, Sports Integrity Research Lead, University of Canberra

    This event will be hosted by Dr Pia Rowe. 

     

    • Feature image: From Left to Right – UC Canberra Capitals player Abby Cubillo, Paul Gorris, Jade Melbourne, Alicia Froling, Carly Wilson, Gemma Potter and Kennedy Kareama. Picture: Davey Barber.

    The post Come to our IWD Discussion! Women in sport appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • Research wrap: In the shadows of war

    BroadAgenda Research Wrap is your monthly window into academia. We scour the journals so you don’t have to. 

    This is not the Research Wrap I wanted to write.

    I wanted to write something light-hearted about people and their sometimes funny, always complex relationship dynamics. The boundaries of romance. And the challenges and jubilations that come with sharing your life with others.

    But the news and images from Ukraine have been overwhelming.

    The pictures of desperate parents handing over their children to complete strangers have been gut-wrenching, making it impossible to focus on anything but the crisis unfolding before our very eyes.

    I come from a country that has its own bloody history with Russia. My late grandma (or Mummi as we called her) lost her first husband in World War II. A widower with three young children and no resources at her disposal, she soon remarried another war veteran, and had one more child, my father.

    Growing up we were taught that the impacts of war extend to three generations. My grandma, both of her husbands, and some of her children experienced the atrocities first hand. Her children grew up in the aftermath, with the welfare state still but a distant dream, and no help available for the extensive psychological scars carried by their parents. My generation was supposed to be the last one to live in these shadows of the war.

    And now we bear witness as it happens to our neighbours.

    n the photo, President Zelensky (centre) and the Minister of Defense.

    Ukraine. Kyiv. 20.01.2022 Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. In the photo, President Zelensky (centre) and the Minister of Defense. Zelensky has refused to leave the Ukraine, telling the world: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” Picture: Shutterstock/Sarakhan Vadym

    With all the victims of conflicts in our minds, this month’s BroadAgenda Research Wrap focuses on gender, voices and war.

    First, let’s take a look at those who’ve fought in the frontlines. In his book, Guys Like Me (Rutgers University Press, 2018), acclaimed sociologist, Professor Michael A. Messner introduces five veterans: World War II veteran Ernie Sanchez, Korean War veteran Woody Powell, Vietnam veteran Gregory Ross, Gulf War veteran Daniel Craig, and Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran Jonathan Hutto.

    The individual stories of the veterans are as diverse as the battles they fought, but the physical and psychological trauma they experienced knows no generational boundaries. As Professor Messner writes: “After returning from war, each kept his experiences to himself.  And each turned to alcohol, and sometimes other substances, to deal with their emotional trauma.”

    He argues that many veterans of war are plagued by “manly silence”, the foundations of which stem from narrow definitions of masculinity.  While institutions such as military benefit from this silencing of pain – or indeed any emotions that poses the risk of being seen as ‘vulnerable’ – it comes at a great cost. The risks associated with being a “real man” who must remain strong and stoic include:

    “…undiagnosed depression; alcoholism, heart disease, and risk-taking that translate into shorter lifespans; fear of emotional self-disclosure and suppressed access to empathy, resulting in barriers to intimacy. Veterans of wars—especially those who were multiply-deployed—amplify these costs of masculinity, adding elevated rates of suicide, sexual assault, domestic violence, and homicide.”

    The five men profiled in the book are remarkable, however. After a long process of healing, each has turned into a vocal activist for peace. And indeed, these are the voices we need to keep amplifying.

    Also on the topic of veterans, Professor Messner has investigated the role of diverse women in veterans’ peace movement. As he notes, until recently the movement had been dominated by older white men, and “hostility to non-heterosexual people in the military, especially when combined with gendered racism, continues to create toxic and punishing experiences for women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ service members.” However, with increasing diversity there’s also an opportunity to push for change as we learn to better understand the interlocking challenges of individuals.

    When we talk about the victims of the war more broadly, it is important not to assume that people are powerless.

    In ‘Can women benefit from war? Women’s agency in conflict and post-conflict societies’ (Journal of Peace Studies, 2020), Dr Punam Yadav argues that despite their vulnerabilities in conflict situations, women may simultaneously be exposed to “new knowledge and opportunities, which may have positive impacts on their lives”. The article, based on over 200 interviews and six focus groups over a period of 12 years in Nepal examines the everyday lives of women and demonstrates the significant transformations that have taken place since the war.

    The agency of marginalised people in media-saturated societies can also have a strong creative element. In ‘Asserting disadvantaged communities’ deliberative agency in a media-saturated society’ (Theory and Society, 2021), Professor Nicole Curato illustrates the activism of low-income families who have been “directly affected by the bloody war on drugs in the Philippines”. Amid all the fear and trauma, the families use creative means such as photojournalism and online music streaming to participate in the public discussions about the war, demonstrating that disadvantage does not automatically equate to silence.

    It is also important to note that peacebuilding is not limited to post-conflict periods. In ‘Building peace in the shadow of war: Women-to-women diplomacy as alternative peacebuilding practice in Myanmar’ (Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2021), Magda Lorena Cárdenas and Dr Elisabeth Olivius analyse how Myanmar women’s activist have devised strategies in pursuit of peace amid ongoing conflict. Quite remarkably, their findings showed that “women’s inter-ethnic cooperation contributed to transform conflict divides long before the initiation of formal national peace negotiations in 2011”.

    Finally, while human suffering should never be reduced to numbers alone, we can’t ignore the enormous and far-reaching economic impacts of conflicts. As the World Bank report, Fragility and conflict: On the front lines of the fight against poverty (2020) states:

    “After the guns fall silent, conflict leaves a legacy of damaged human capital that will lower productivity, weaken growth, and slow poverty reduction far into the future.“

    ❖❖❖❖

    This wasn’t the wrap we had hoped to publish right now. But it was one we had to write as we stand in solidarity with the millions of people across the world whose lives have been interrupted by meaningless wars. As long as we don’t stay silent, there’s hope.

    • Feature image: KYIV, UKRAINE – Feb. 25, 2022: War of Russia against Ukraine. A residential building damaged by an enemy aircraft in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Picture: Shutterstock  

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  • A Summer of Hope: Amani’s story

    After two long years of the global COVID-19 pandemic, so many of us find ourselves tired and lacking energy for even basic tasks. Facing a new year does not fill us with the joy of possibility as it may once have done. Where, then, do we find hope?
    In this uplifting summer series, Ginger Gorman talks to six extraordinary women about how they found hope in unexpected places. This series was first written for HerCanberra and is republished here with full permission. 

    Content notification: This story contains discussion of gendered family violence.

    These days Amani Haydar, 33, calls herself a lawyer-turned-artist. But the truth is, her journey to become a painter is nearly incomprehensible.

    Back in 2015, Amani was madly in love, newly married and glowing in her fifth month of pregnancy. Soon, she’d take maternity leave from her commercial law gig and delight in getting to know her first child. Or that was the plan.

    Then, Amani’s father brutally murdered her mother, Salwa Haydar. It was a story that shocked the nation and made newspaper headlines over and over again.

    “It wasn’t until I experienced the huge trauma of losing my mum while I was pregnant, that I began to think about…my creative practice in a totally different way. And I started to think, well, ‘Do I really want to be back in courtrooms’?”

    Through her father’s trial, Amani and her siblings spent so much time in courtrooms, reliving the details of their mum’s murder. They went through the agonising process of giving evidence, following the rules of an unbending justice system.

    To make matters worse, the sisters were faced with the judgment of their dad’s family, who believed they should be forgiving. As a way of finding solace, Amani found herself painting.

    “Each day, I found that the thing that I looked forward to most was that when my children went to bed, I would get out my art supplies. And I would just paint whatever came to my mind and look at ideas online and in books, and just fill my head with inspiration and techniques,” she recalls.

    “When you’re in the creative process, and then there are no rules, there’s no outside scrutiny. You get to exercise your agency in a way that you don’t really get in any other spaces.”

    “I was experiencing so much pressure at the time. And one of the definitive experiences of trauma is that you feel a total lack of control over your surroundings over the things that are happening to you. Between the murder and the trial was a two year wait. That’s a long time to feel completely out of control and to feel that your life had been turned upside down.”

    Amani Haydar’s Archibald Prize shortlisted work ‘Insert Headline Here’. Courtesy of the artist.

    Amani Haydar’s Archibald Prize shortlisted work ‘Insert Headline Here’. Courtesy of the artist.

    Amani says that after the murder, art gave her “a sense of confidence.”

    “It was it was a bubble. And I took my time with it. And I felt that it allowed me to begin processing a lot of things that I wasn’t able to put into words yet,” she says.

    Despite Amani winning art prizes all through primary school and high school, she never previously considered painting as a career because society indicated art was “wasting time.”

    Wistfully, Amani notes: “I always loved art. I always found peace and comfort [in art], even since I was a kid. When I was being creative, and it allowed me to feel like I had control over something—to feel mindful and really calm and exercise my intuition.”

    Amani’s parents—especially her Dad—pushed her towards academic study and pursuing a ‘traditional’ profession: “I had a responsibility to parents as the eldest daughter. They had migrated from Lebanon and come to Australia, and I had responsibility to live up to their expectations and make something of myself.”

    This, and her interest in human rights, was why she became a lawyer. But once her mum had been taken from her, Amani’s perspective changed. Art became not just a vocation, but a lifeline.

    “From about halfway through 2017, I started recovery process, doing deeper counselling, thinking about the future making plans.”

    “And I remember sitting down one evening and re-imagining what I wanted the next few years of my life to look like. Art had become so important to me that it didn’t feel like it could just recede into the background again,” Amani recounts.

    She decided to conquer her imposter syndrome and enter the famed Archibald Prize. (And luckily, she did, because her work got shortlisted!).

    “I didn’t even have a decent easel at the time, two small kids wandering around in the background. And I had hadn’t refined my process to the point where I felt 100% confident that I’d get it done,” Amani recollects with a laugh.

    Amani’s stunning self-portrait depicts a haunted face, framed in a floral hijab. In her hands she holds a black and white photograph of her mum, also wearing a hijab. Her mum is in deep grief, holding a photograph of Amani’s grandmother after was she killed in southern Lebanon by an Israeli airstrike in 2006.

    “These are the two women who have been most formative and influential in my life.”

    “The portrait is sort of a commentary on intergenerational trauma on the different layers of violence that women experience, whether it’s state violence, or interpersonal violence, and how that’s all interconnected.”

    “Now I’ve got kids, how do I put a stop to this? How do I create safety down the track? How do I create a sense of optimism, despite everything that’s happened? How do we escape this cycle?”

    Reflecting on the idea of hope, Amani says: “The colours and the patterns are inspired by the types of motifs that you would see on a mosque, for example, or in Turkish ceramics. I wanted to tie that in, because that really strongly associates with continuity and hope for me.”

    Girl in Garden by Amani Haydar. Courtesy of the artist.

    Girl in Garden by Amani Haydar. Courtesy of the artist.

    Please note: Feature image of Amani with her award-winning book “The Mother Wound.” Courtesy of the artist.

     

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