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Gender Equality – Let’s Not Let It Become a Lost Australian Dream


Speech by Elizabeth Broderick, Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Commissioner responsible for Age Discrimination

Celebration of International Women’s Day and fundraising event for UNIFEM Australia, Australian Institute of Management and Macquarie University
Sofitel Wentworth Hotel Sydney, 6 March 2008


I want to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered today on the traditional land of the Wurundjeri people and pay my respect to their elders past and present.

In particular today, I pay my respect to the many Indigenous women of this area and others who, for many decades, have spoken out locally, nationally and on the international stage, for the rights of women. I have had the privilege to meet and work with some of these women and their energy and determination is a real inspiration.

I am delighted to be with you to mark International Women’s Day.

On this occasion, women gather together across the country and around the globe to bring attention to our ongoing quest for equality and justice. We celebrate our achievements, look honestly at our challenges and plot our course for the future.

On the 8th of March, 100 years ago, 15,000 women textile workers marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay, voting rights and an end to child labour. Their sweatshop style working conditions were dramatically and tragically highlighted three years later on March 25th 1911, when a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s factory in New York City. The exits were locked from the outside to prevent workers taking breaks or stealing materials. The fire caused the death of 146 mostly young immigrant women and children as young as 12 who either died trapped in the burning building or leapt to their deaths.

That same year more than one million European women and men rallied for women’s rights on the first official International Women’s Day. The first Australian International Women’s Day rally took place in Sydney’s Domain on March 25, 1928. Back then, women called for equal pay for equal work; an 8 hour day for shop workers; a ban on piece work; a basic wage for the unemployed and annual holidays on full pay. These don’t seem like radical demands but even today there are many working women who cannot lay claim to any of them.

This is not to say that the situation for women has not improved over the past 100 years – it has - and it is worth spending some time, particularly today, to reflect on past struggles and victories, to consider the challenges that remain, and to propose new ways forward.

100 years ago Australian women finally won the right to vote in all State and Commonwealth elections, although Indigenous women had to wait another 57 years until 1965 for the same right. Suffragettes organised rallies, wrote books, campaigned in the press, collected 1000s of signatures on petitions and furiously lobbied the government for many years to win this right. Their activity and advocacy was subsequently labelled the first wave of feminism.

Even with the right to vote, women did not have representation in Australia’s parliaments until Edith Cowan entered the West Australian Parliament in 1921. And it was not until 1943 that women were elected to our federal parliament for the first time. At the same time the Prime Minister of the country was telling the Australian Women’s Weekly “...the natural urge for motherhood, husband and home is the great motivating force in a woman’s life.”

Well into the 1960’s Australian women in the public service were forced to resign from their jobs as permanent officers if they got married. It was the same in many private companies. Some women hid their marriages from employers for years, removing their rings before they reached the office. Others preferred to ‘live in sin’ rather than give up their careers.

It was during the second wave of feminism which begun in the late 1960s that the possibilities for Australian women opened up most dramatically. The Women’s Liberation movement fought long and hard during this time for the rights of women in many areas of public and private life. The aim was not to “have it all” as some contemporaries would have us believe, it was – among other things – to transform the power relations between men and women which lay at the foundation of our society. These women demanded equal pay for equal work, equal access to education and employment, public provision of child care, shared responsibility for the upbringing of children, and women’s right to autonomy over their own bodies.

In the early 1990s the so-called third wave of feminism swept Australia. Young “DIY feminists” took the concept of men and women as equals as a given and applied it in both their professional and personal lives. Their focus was on individual practices and personal challenges rather than identification with a broader women’s movement. Rejecting the notion of women as victims, many of these women did not identify as “feminists” even though they advocated for their own rights. This is where we are today.

We have all derived benefit from these decades of activism which have resulted in extensive social and legislative change. Today many women can enthusiastically pursue and maximise opportunities our predecessors could only dream of.

We are allowed by law to hold our own bank accounts, access superannuation and apply for home loans. There is legal protection from sexual advances at work. Laws and policies identify violence against women as a serious criminal matter, not a private one.

Women are able to enter state and federal Parliaments, appear in courtrooms, speak to the media, in university lecture halls, boardrooms and on worksites.

We can run our own businesses and we are more likely to graduate from university than men. We have the right to choose whether to marry a man and whether to take his name, whether or when to have children, and whether to devote our lives to caring and home-making or to pursue a career...or both.

These are profound accomplishments which cannot be underestimated. We need only look into our own history and countries in Africa, parts of Asia, the Middle East and South America to appreciate that, for many women in Australia, we are relatively well off.

However, it seems to me that our pursuit of gender equality in Australia has become stuck, and may even have been in retreat. Whilst it is now hard to find examples of overt discrimination against women in Australian laws and policies, we must face the fact that formal equality has not delivered. It has not delivered TRUE equality for many women in their daily lives. Indeed, in some respects, life is harder. We are no where near the so-called ‘tipping point’ on gender equality.

If you were ever in any doubt, you have only to look at the lack of women on the federal Government’s 2020 Summit Steering Committee – Australia’s ‘best and brightest’ apparently only includes one woman! The Small Business Working Group announced the week before was even worse – not a single female voice!

Women in full-time work earn only 84 cents in the male dollar and in recent years this pay gap has actually widened. Women continue to take on the majority of unpaid work caring for others, managing the household and volunteering in the community. So, while women won the right to a career, and are constantly told that they should be engaged in paid work for the sake of the economy, those who work full-time end up with the double whammy of more paid and unpaid work than any other worker.

Women are more likely to be working under minimum employment conditions and be engaged in low paid, casual and part time work. They are more likely than men to work below their skill level in order achieve some sort of flexibility to care for their loved ones.

Nearly 1 in 5 Australian women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15 and almost 90% of the victims of domestic violence are female. The figures are even worse for women with disabilities and Indigenous women.

In the public sphere, let’s be honest. Men continue to lead all our major institutions: politics, the judiciary, academia, business, the professions, unions, sporting organisations, churches and so on.

Australian women deserve better. Australian society deserves better.

In my view, we are at a serious cross-road in the pursuit of gender equality in Australia. In recent years, we have been spinning our wheels, trying to find the best way forward.

So, today, I would like to offer you my thoughts and invite a vibrant conversation with you about getting back on the road, picking up the pace and moving into top gear.

Many of you will know that, shortly after I became the new Sex Discrimination Commissioner, I announced my intention to go on a national Listening Tour. I wanted to get out into the community and hear your voices – what do you the women and men of Australia see as the pressing issues in 2008? And what ideas do you have for change? How do you think we can go forward in our pursuit of gender equality in this country?

I have been to capital cities and regional or remote areas in South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, NSW and the ACT. Let me tell you, it has been an incredible experience so far. I have met with many diverse groups of people – from women of Chinese background working in factories, to male abattoir workers, to African Australians, to carers, to business and academic experts to name just a few.

I have also met with a range of government stakeholders to look at ways we can work across all levels of government to address the issues raised on my Tour.

Another exciting aspect of this project is the virtual Listening Tour. I have started a Listening Tour blog online, which I believe is the first of its kind for a federal government agency. The purpose of the blog is to allow people to contribute their experiences and ideas on-line as well as building a virtual community around the issues of gender equality. Participation is at the heart of human rights and for this reason we want to provide as many ways as possible for people to connect with us. We have had over 14,000 page views in the 3 months since we went live.

I encourage all of you to have a look at the Tour Diary and the blogs that members of the public have contributed. I’d also like you to add your contribution.

It is my hope that this blog is the start of an online conversation, and that we continue to explore new and innovative ways of community engagement offered to us by technology.

What is surprising me most about the Listening Tour is the message I have received loud and clearly that women - and men - want to talk about gender equality in 2008. You want to discuss the roles of women and men, and how we can achieve a fair and just society for ourselves and for our children, into the future. You want to be heard, and to be taken seriously.

I came into the position with three broad themes in mind – economic independence for women, work and family balance over the lifecycle and freedom from discrimination, harassment and violence.

On the Listening Tour I have been asking people about their experiences and ideas relating to these themes. I would like to share a few of these in the area of women in the paid workforce.

This is a hot topic. One of the key questions I have been asking people is how do we create a society which allows women and men to balance their work and caring responsibilities? While caring for young children in particular is a big balancing act, this question is not only about looking after kids. With the rapid ageing of the Australian population, we are facing up to the fact that most of us are likely be caring for parents and elderly relatives at some point too.

For many women, it is not until a baby comes along that we understand that rigid and outdated policies and social expectations create an environment of constrained choices. On my Listening Tour, I have met countless women who tell me the all-too-common story of being forced into the ‘financial decision’ of who works and who does the caring in a relationship. And many men have told me that they have not made a free choice to work long hours away from family but that the competitive nature of workplaces and their role as primary breadwinner has made this necessary.

For women on low incomes, single women, women who don’t have family to assist with their caring responsibilities, women who are doing the double shift of working full time and carrying the load of unpaid work, women who don’t have access to family friendly workplace policies - for all these women, the daily preoccupation of managing the household, child care, school holidays, and before and after school care is piling up – and add to this a job. For women on low incomes, women with disabilities and single mothers in particular, financial as well as time poverty is a daily challenge. It is no revelation that balancing work and family has been strong resonating theme of my Tour so far.

Paid maternity leave has been raised again and again during my Tour. One woman in Tasmania told me she was unwell during pregnancy and so had used up all her leave – she had to go back to work days after the birth. Coming from a place where I had access to paid maternity leave, I was astonished to find that only 1 in 3 Australian mums to be have access to paid maternity leave.

Women everywhere are telling me loud and clear that this basic entitlement would make a world of difference. It would do so by maintaining women’s workplace attachment, offering some economic security, and providing the necessary time for recovery from child birth and the establishment of breastfeeding.

Let us all make sure that in 2008 the Rudd Government finally provides Australian women with the right to paid maternity leave as is already enjoyed by women in all but one other western country. Let’s not just play catch up here. Let’s develop a scheme that is internationally recognised as first class. Our failure to do so before now is frankly an embarrassment and great shame. We were one of the first to have the vote for women but are among the last to get paid maternity leave.

Another reoccurring theme on my Tour has been the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. Women I speak to, across all sectors and levels, have told me that sexual harassment is alive and well. Women – and men – have also told me of the level of confusion about what constitutes appropriate behaviour in the workplace, particularly in relation to new technologies.

In industries where there is a high level of social activity associated with the work, this line is even more blurry.

It has been disheartening to hear young women say that they have experienced sexual harassment but didn’t know they had any rights and that just leaving the job is the safest option. Or hearing from older women who report that sexual harassment is ‘career suicide’. Or hearing of their fears that, if they report harassment, they will be forever known as a bit ‘unhinged’.

With a fresh government, women have at this moment an enormous opportunity to influence the future direction of our country. Achieving true gender equality is at the heart of that future. But to do so we must speak up and stand together. We are a prosperous nation of innovation and talent. Women make up more than 50% of that potential. The sky is the limit.

But if we are to be the country we could be, we need to hear women’s views and to know of women’s experiences – your views and your experiences are important to policy making.

Are we ready to create a fourth wave of advocacy and action for gender equality in this country?

This is my question and my challenge to you. Gender does matter, and we need to get it back on the Agenda!

Don’t sit back and think someone else will do it for you. Why not you?

What’s to stop us harnessing the technology that is already a part of our lives and using it to inspire and activate women across generations and cultures, across cities and states, across schools, communities and workplaces?

Globalisation and technology have offered us new and exciting ways of communicating with one another and influencing change. Social networking websites and virtual communities provide us with opportunities to discuss and debate women’s issues, and organise a movement for change locally and globally.

As women, we must capitalise on these advances and use them effectively to push for a better future where women’s human rights are at centre stage, locally and globally – a future where we are equal.

We are a part of a global movement for gender equality – if we want to join it.

I was recently privileged enough to attend the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women in New York. This is an annual gathering where governments and women’s organisations meet together – over 5000 participants – to share experiences, challenge each other, and commit to future action to secure gender equality as a human right for all women, everywhere.

I was starkly reminded of how Australia has in the past been a ground-breaker and world leader for the rights of women. At an international level, this dates back to the early years of federation and the establishment of the international League of Nations. In the middle of the 20th century, Australian women were instrumental in having recognition of women's rights included in the United Nations Charter. And in the 1970's, the contribution of Australian women to the development of CEDAW - the international human rights convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women - was pivotal. In 1984, we were lauded as being the first country in the world to prepare our national budgets with gender equality as one of the key outcomes to be achieved,

But we are clearly seen as having been in retreat in recent times – observing but not leading. For example, we have not yet signed the Optional Protocol to CEDAW which would give Australian women the option of taking their sex discrimination complaint to an international forum once they exhausted all domestic avenues.

It is clear to me that the international community is waiting and watching. Will Australia resume a leadership role in the global journey towards gender equality?

I’m hoping so.

Like many of you I would like to see Australia ratify the Optional Protocol as soon as possible. And, at our national summit next month, I want gender equality to be central to the vision we set. And so much more.

I say to you, on this International Women’s Day, if you care about our right to live free from violence, our right to have our caring work valued and our right to economic independence, then you must make your voice heard and support other women to speak up too. This room is full of talented and visionary women. We owe it to ourselves, to our sisters around Australia, and to women all around the world to join in the debate.

I am so very excited about the opportunities presented to us. I want to join with you in shaping our future.

We can own and shape an equal and just future for all women and men everywhere.

Join with me. Let’s make it happen, together.

Thank you.