Feature from Monkey Girl - Tuesday, 15 November 2011 @ 3:35pm
What is equality? What does it mean to be equal to a man? In a country where an increasing number of young women professionals are entering the work force, I sometimes feel guilty for wanting to settle down with a family one day, and potentially taking a few years to spend on focusing on the rearing and education of my children.
Feature from Mama Woolf - Friday, 16 December 2011 @ 1:33am
In Gillard’s cabinet reshuffle yesterday, it was announced that The Hon Julie Collins MP (Electoral Division of Franklin, Tasmania) is to be the federal Minister for the Status of Women. She joins Nicola Roxon and Tanya Plibersek in a special club. The “super mums”, as dubbed by the media, have risen to the top of Australian politics, while also juggling young families. Nicola Roxon, a mother of one has become Australia’s first female Attorney-General, while newly appointed Health Minister Plibersek and Collins both have three children.
Feature from EJ Cook - Wednesday, 11 January 2012 @ 3:11pm
All women do it. But we don't talk about it. Menstruation is a normal part of life for women, but because it is considered "not nice" to talk about it, there are women tolerating discomfort or pain, embarassment, or overpriced commercialism of their bodies. The personal is the political, and if we start talking openly about normal things that we do every month, perhaps we can make the whole thing a little more comfortable.
Feature from EJ Cook - Monday, 26 December 2011 @ 1:26pm
Language is behaviour. In this new series, we'll look at a different word each week from the perspective of what it means and how it is used with reference to women. And this week's word is very suitable for a brand spanking new series.
Feature from EJ Cook - Monday, 02 January 2012 @ 4:16pm
Because I'm a masochist, and because I kept seeing references to it on Twitter, I read Bob Ellis' opinion piece on The Drum about The Iron Lady, a new film about Margaret Thatcher starring Meryl Streep. It inspired me to look at the word "experiment".
Feature from Ms Equality - Monday, 27 February 2012 @ 1:52pm
“If I/she was a man you wouldn’t be asking or saying that”. If I had a dollar for each time I heard that statement these days I would be very rich by now. No woman should be apologising for rising to the top or for not having a nurturing motherly attitude. However just saying, “If she was a man they wouldn’t be saying that”, is not good enough either.
Feature from EJ Cook - Tuesday, 06 March 2012 @ 1:25pm
In my previous life working in IT and hanging out with geeks, I often had to put up with sexist remarks or behaviour. At the time, I could never think of a suitable reply. I was either too intimidated, or jaw-droppingly surprised that real people actually say such stupid things to women. So here’s what I wish I’d said to things that people really have said to me at work in the past. If ever I hear those sexist remarks again, I’ll have a reply ready!
Feature from Erin Cook - Saturday, 16 June 2012 @ 3:49pm
I'm not too sure when exactly I started speaking like the missing Kardashian sister. It certainly wasn't on purpose. But there I was a few months ago, collecting my change from the cashier and letting loose a 'thank yewww'. The long, lazy drawl isn't all that much different from the standard Australian accent I've always had and these slight Kardashian influences that have begun peppering my speech fit in nicely next to my occasional uptalk (the 'high rising terminal') and the Gilmore Girls-style rapid fire conversation that for some reason only women seem capable of following.
Feature from EJ Cook - Monday, 09 January 2012 @ 11:45am
When people talk about women's equality, there's a lot of use of the word "fair". It's not fair that women earn less over their lifetime than men. It's not fair that women are subjected to violence because they are female. And so on. But what do we really mean?
Pronunciation: /fɛː/
adjective
1 treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination: the group has achieved fair and equal representation for all its members a fairer distribution of wealth
just or appropriate in the circumstances:
to be fair, this subject poses special problems
it's not fair to take it out on her
archaic (of a means or procedure) not violent: try first by fair means
Definition from the Oxford English Dictionary
It is not fair to deny a promotion to a woman because "she might get pregnant and it would be a waste of our investment in getting her to that level". That's an excuse I've actually heard from a male manager on why he doesn't promote women. The fair thing would be to promote the person who is best able to do the job, with gender being a non-issue. We can all agree on that.
But it is entirely possible to treat two people exactly the same, without discrimination on the basis of gender, and still be unfair. Female child care workers get the same pay as male child care workers. But because the majority of child care workers are women, and there are a lot of child care workers in Australia, the pay rate for child care workers is bringing down the average for women's income. Fair Work Australia recently recognised that being a female-dominated area is one of the reasons why community workers don't get the same pay as State Government workers, with a lower percentage of women, doing similar jobs. These workers will be disadvantaged for life, retiring with far less superannuation, and with less capacity to pay off a home or save for a rainy day. Is this fair?
Caring for children is one of the highest responsibilities in society. The evidence that early childhood experiences shape the child's life is undisputed. And yet we, as a society, consider it "just or appropriate in the circumstances" that the female-dominated child care industry has one of the lowest pay levels in the country. We pay more to have our toilets unblocked, or to the man who sells us a used car, than we do to nurture the generation who will one day run the country.
What is fair, what is just and appropriate, is not always equal. There are times when we need to redress imbalance. This is why scholarships are sometimes needed, or quotas, or other mechanisms to boost the numbers of those who are not fairly represented. Providing additional support to those who need it means the race begins with everyone at the same starting line. That's fair.
Image taken from nyghtowl's photostream on Flickr under creative commons licence.