So what’s a woman to do? It’s clear that many of our readers are becoming increasingly frustrated with the current state of politics, all on top of the fact progress for women in leadership is still slow and the structural and cultural impediments affecting women’s workforce participation don’t look like disappearing anytime soon.
Last week’s budget cuts didn’t help, especially for women with children — with cuts to Family Day Care services and changes to the Family Tax B benefit — and those who may have hoped to retire before the age of 70. Forecasting by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling released today finds that low income earning parents with school-aged children are expected to be some of the biggest losers from the saving measures delivered by Treasurer Joe Hockey.
As for young women — whether they have children or not — adjustments to Youth Allowance, requirements for obtaining Newstart and expected higher education fees are not looking good.
As Judith Ireland notes in Fairfax papers today, such frustrations are showing up in the polls. According to the latest Nielsen poll, support for the Coalition from women is dropping — down to 33% (form 45% in February) when it comes to the primary support vote, compared to 38% from men.
Meanwhile, there’s ‘wink gate’. Yep, that unfortunate moment during a live video-recorded interview with the ABC’s Jon Faine on Wednesday in which our Prime Minister winked, just as a pensioner was mentioning the fact she works on sex chat lines in order to make ends meet. While we’ll never know just why Tony Abbott had to lower his left eyelid at that particular time, plenty of us can’t help but question just how seriously he takes the needs of women.
So what can women do? Well, journalist, author and feminist ‘elder’ Dr Anne Summers just happened to offer some excellent ideas at the YWCA She Leads conference in Canberra last week.
She presented a ‘call to action’ keynote address at the event, encouraging women to do five key things — all in the context of the three fundamental principles she says are key for women: economic self reliance, control of our bodies and freedom from violence.
She conceded some of her ideas on what women ‘should do’ are controversial, and encouraged more of us to get involved in the debate. So let us know what you think of Summers’ suggestions in the comments field below.
The first thing Summers believes women should do is to stop calling Abbott the Minister for women. She said mocking him for such a title is politically shortsighted, factually incorrect, and that we should instead aim to return the prestige and effectiveness to the title that it was given in the Hawke and Keating governments. She noted both Bob Hawke and Paul Keating had ministers assisting them on the ‘status of women’ (the status piece has since been removed) and yet we didn’t call these prime ministers the ‘minister for women’.
The second thing women should do, according to Summers, is to oppose the Abbott government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme. She said we should consider the real intentions of the scheme and throw our support behind measures for reducing the high cost of childcare and the loss of income due to the high tax rates on the withdrawal of family tax benefits.
Summers added that Abbott’s proposed parental leave scheme has been rightfully criticised for being unlikely to deliver what he claims is its reason for existence — to increase women’s workforce participation. Meanwhile, the existing PPL scheme is working well. While it has its flaws — such as not paying superannuation — it has already assisted more than 400,000 women and 40,000 men.
“I’m not the only person who has suggested that what he [Tony Abbott] really wants is to do is take women — especially women of calibre — out of the workforce.”
The third thing women should do is support numerical, enforceable targets for women’s representation in private and public spheres. “We need to be quite clear about one thing: without enforceable numerical targets — what I would call ‘quotas’ — we are not going to see noticeable and permanent change.”
“At present, as we have seen in politics, the appointment of women is a matter of whimsy. If the bloke in charge feels like doing it, he will. Or, in the current case, he didn’t … We have to move beyond whimsy to regulation. Just as we do with every other goal we are serious about attaining.”
And the fourth thing? Given “what gets measured, gets noticed”, we should remain vigilant in ensuring gender reporting guidelines are retained, along with the Workforce Gender Equality Agency.
Finally, Summers recommended women band together to create a strong lobby group — with paid employees and a prominent office. A group that can join the likes of the Minerals Council of Australia in representing the interests of its members, especially around budget time.
What do you think? Are these the five things women should do?
Special thanks to Jen Phan who helped with some of the notes during this session.