‘Women’s achievements: untold stories’
Speech
by Elizabeth Broderick
Sex
Discrimination Commissioner and Commissioner responsible for Age
Discrimination
Human
Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Black and White
Committee
Women of Achievement
Lunch 2008
Four Seasons
Hotel
17 June 2008
I want to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered here today on the traditional land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their elders past and present. I would also like to acknowledge Her Excellency Governor Marie Bashir who is with us today. She is an inspiration to many of us, as a committed leader and advocate for social justice.
I am honoured to be here today with such an impressive group of people. Looking across this room, I see that there is certainly no shortage of women who are great achievers in this country. And it has indeed been a big year on this front.
It is wonderful that our next Governor – General will be a woman – Her Excellency Quentin Bryce is to be the first female representative of Australia’s Head of State in the 107 year history of that position. I was very honoured to recently spend time with Her Excellency as part of my Listening Tour. She is clearly a remarkable woman. Her appointment is both historic for our country, and a beacon for all women and girls about what should be possible, regardless of gender.
She has been a ground-breaker for women all of her life. She was the second Sex Discrimination Commissioner appointed from 1988 to 1993, at a time when the need for a Sex Discrimination Commissioner was still being widely challenged.
And of course, in recent months Julia Gillard has also made history for Australian women by becoming the first Deputy Prime Minister and then Acting Prime Minister shortly after the Federal Election. We also have a female deputy Leader of the Opposition, Julie Bishop.
The fact that these senior leadership roles are now held by women clearly matters. It highlights just how long it has taken for Australian women to be appointed on merit to roles which they can so clearly perform. The appointments are important steps towards our goal of gender equality.
However, I think that we need to pause and make sure that, when we talk about ‘women’s achievements’, we don’t just focus on the number of women in political life, or the number of women on boards.
It is equally important that we support and resource the efforts of the many women who are working at the grassroots, particularly amongst marginalised and disadvantaged communities found everywhere across our nation.
There are many women in Australia, working long and hard to make this world a better place - most of them without fame or fortune in return. Today, I want to toast their achievements.
As you may know, I have recently completed my national Listening Tour, and my findings from that tour will be made available next month.
For me, putting the human face to the issues I work with is incredibly important. The Listening Tour was about hearing personal stories. I wanted to know what mattered to people, and how I could make a difference. Over six months, I met over one thousand people - Abattoir workers, young women, bankers, Chinese factory workers, African women, indigenous women, community workers, academics, business, and parliamentarians – to name just a few. I feel incredibly privileged to have heard so many stories of women achieving remarkable things everywhere, everyday.
Today, I want to share with you just a few of the women leaders I met along the journey – these women are extraordinary, and they need our urgent support.
For those of you who are yet to make your way up to the beautiful Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, let me tell you about Fitzroy Crossing. Set in a landscape of red dusty dirt, beautiful rock formations and the odd roaming cow, the Fitzroy Valley is where four main Aboriginal language groups meet. Fitzroy Crossing, the town centre, has a population of around 1500. There are around 45 remote communities in the surrounding areas.
In Fitzroy Crossing, I met some exceptional women. Last year, they organised a women’s bush camp where they came together to take stock of the issues facing their community. They decided to fight for a 12 month ban on the sale of takeaway alcohol because they wanted to reduce violence and other problems associated with alcohol. I was shocked to hear that some estimates suggest that 30% of babies in this area are born with foetal alcohol syndrome.
As a direct result of their lobbying and advocacy, a ban was put in place last year. The ban, led by the women, has delivered great results. Police reports show that domestic violence reports have decreased by 43 per cent. The number of kids going to school has gone up. Police call outs for alcohol related violent incidents have decreased by 55 per cent. People are feeling safer too. Some senior women in the community told me that, since the ban, they have been able to sleep peacefully through the night without fearing for their own safety or that of their family.
The collective resolve of the women of Fitzroy Crossing to ensure that every woman in the community has a right to live without fear of violence is inspiring. I certainly have felt motivated and energised by their achievements.
Another remarkable individual I met on my Listening Tour was an older woman working in a young women’s refuge in Tasmania. Her life story is a long chain of incredible achievements - mostly unrecognised. Over the course of her life, she has contributed to bettering the lives of disadvantaged young women. Everyday she works with girls who are homeless for many reasons – violence and abuse from parents, drugs, alcohol or poverty. She gets up all through the night to help these young women – and on the morning I met with her she had been up at 2.30am, 3.30am and 6am. She is tireless and she is 72. The sad part of this story is that Lurline should be retired from paid work. But because of a life spent caring for others, and the poor wages in the community sector, she has little to no savings. She is representative of the 50% of Australian women in the age group 45 yrs to 59yrs who have less than 8K in retirement savings. She is still working to the detriment of her own health, not only because of her dedication to the community, but also to make ends meet. Her achievements are many.
The stories of these two women epitomise the strength of women of achievement, sometimes in extremely challenging and adverse circumstances. Their stories are replicated in different ways all over Australia, and indeed amongst women around the globe.
Earlier this year I was privileged to travel to the United Nations in New York to take part in the Commission on the Status of Women. Once a year, delegations from 192 member countries come together to discuss the promotion of women’s rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields.
Let me tell you, this was an experience of a lifetime. There were over 5000 delegates – government, non-government and women’s organisations from all around the world.
The first thing I noticed was the incredible diversity in the room. Everywhere I looked there was a different cultural dress, ranging from the Sub Saharan African women in their spectacular head dresses to Chinese women in their beautiful silk dresses, to women in military uniform, corporate women, women in saris and every other combination imaginable.
What struck me the most was the level of passion, determination and creativity amongst the women. I heard some extraordinary stories of women’s achievements across the globe.
One women’s organisation in India showed us their heart wrenching television campaign, to bring attention to the plight of HIV positive women who were kicked out of their homes once their husbands died. This was a bold and courageous effort as the issue was seen to be highly controversial and had not been in the public arena before this campaign.
Another story was from a woman in Ghana who talked about the impact of climate change on women’s lives in Africa. She told us that in the past, she had been able to rise at 4.30am to start the search for firewood and water. But now, as a result of climate change, she needed to start at 3am and spend up to eight hours a day searching. She talked of the increase in the number of young women dropping out of school to take on these extra workloads, thereby reducing the opportunity for them to participate in more productive activities. There was a real anger amongst African women, that they were suffering for a problem not of their own making but at the same time – there was a determination to come together to bring about change.
What all these stories tell us is that although women’s achievements are abundant, they are often unacknowledged and undervalued. In the Australian context, this became particularly clear a few weeks ago. In the top two categories of awards, there were only four women out of thirty. This is why as women we must celebrate and tell the world of women’s achievements - no matter how big or small. Importantly, we should bring attention to those achievements that otherwise go untold and unheard.
So, I want to talk a little about the importance of telling our stories and sharing them widely. Every woman in this room and across the globe has a different life experience, but we are also connected by the common bond of womanhood. We are daughters; we are sisters; we are mothers; we are friends; we are aunties; and we are partners. These lived experiences tie us together. Importantly, these experiences can often help us cut through the barriers of language, culture, wealth and poverty.
One direct result of our shared experiences is our shared knowledge as women. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to become a physician once said "what is done or learned by one class of woman, becomes by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women.”
By sharing our stories with each other, we continually build our learning and understanding. It is through shared learning that we become inspired to make change happen. To put it simply, stories are powerful. They are a catalyst for change.
The sharing of stories between women in my family is a strong tradition. When my mother was diagnosed with leukaemia several years ago, my sisters and I had young children. Mum was keen to impart to us all she knew about raising children. So for several months we would meet most evenings (just the women) to share the wisdom and insights that she had on child rearing and inevitably the process of dying. She created for us a small booklet which she named – The Gift of Children: Lessons for life. Her booklet is full of detailed practical advice from a grandma who knows she won’t be around long enough to offer the help herself. She has sections on holidays (mainly in the big red van) and the mealtime traditions she valued. Her booklet captures the spirit of the happy childhood my sisters and I remember. My mother was a woman of many achievements, including as a mother, and a grandmother. Now that she is gone, I still find myself referring to her teaching regularly. It is also the gift that I give to all my girlfriends as they enter motherhood and in a small way ‘what has been learned by one woman, has become the property of many women’.
Women’s voices and experiences matter. When we support each other in using our voice, speaking up, and toasting a woman’s achievement, we not only honour the woman and her success. We also honour all those women who helped to inspire her. And she in turn becomes an inspiration for us all.
I want to warmly congratulate the organisers on today’s landmark event. Many of you will know my colleague at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Graeme Innes. As the Disability Discrimination Commissioner and Human Rights Commissioner – also the previous chair of Vision Australia – he inspires me every day. He told me this event was one not to be missed and I will be very happy to report to him that he was not wrong.
