Jane Gilmore

It’s difficult to know if politics is getting weirder or just sillier.

Hello Women’s Agenda readers! I am thrilled to be the new Contributing Editor here at Women’s Agenda, I’ve been a reader for a long time and I’m so excited about joining the team and being involved in the work Women’s Agenda do.

When we talk about the gender pay gap, what we’re really trying to talk about are gender-based barriers to financial security.

What would happen if a couple of well-connected women, with the time and knowledge to do it properly, created a national political party that advocated specifically for women’s issues? At best, the three key issues that disadvantage women – male violence against women, the gender pay gap and lack of female representation in all forms of public life – get a token nod from male-dominated politics in the UK and Australia.

So Tony Bill Shorten has realised that it might be worth throwing a bone at the “women’s vote”.

Last week I looked at the real gender pay gap – the difference between what men and women get paid in Australia and showed that we should be talking about a 52% pay gap, not 18% This week I’m going to look at the hours worked and what effect that has on average earnings.

In September 2012 the Aboriginal Women’s Sexual Assault Network “Hey Sis, we’ve got your back” launched at Parliament House.

You wouldn’t normally expect to find a connection between a drop-in centre for street based sex workers and a member of the BRW Young Rich List.

Women’s representation in Australian parliaments (or the lack of it) has been topical over the last week or so, since the ALP announced it is setting a target of 50% female MPs by 2025.

Is it cynical to interview a politician and expect they won’t have a deep understanding of the issue you’re there to discuss? Or to expect that the issue itself doesn’t matter to them, beyond being a topic on which to score points and push opinion polls? Is it not being cynical enough, if by the end of the interview, you believe all your expectations were wrong? Perhaps cynicism comes too easily to those of us who consume too much political media.

Girls are pretty and sweet, they like pink frilly things and pseudo babies to nurture.

Tony Abbott was never going to come out of a marriage equality debate well.