Love your female tribe and challenge what's 'normal' - Women's Agenda

Love your female tribe and challenge what’s ‘normal’

Dr Susan Harris Rimmer:

Susan Harris Rimmer is helping to set a new agenda for women across the world. She does so by challenging what is ‘normal’ and/or ‘invisible’ and has helped create a powerful platform for sharing such ideas. 

Why isn’t women’s unpaid labour counted in GDP? She asks. 

Why do we accept a photo of G20 leaders with very few women present? 

A strong believer in the power of female networks, she was instrumental in the formation of the Women 20 (W20), a subset of the G20 that aims to advance the economic empowerment of women globally, and was one of two Australian representatives to the W20 in Turkey. 

An academic specialising in gender studies, human rights law and international relations, she frequently acts as a policy adviser to governments and has written numerous papers.

Below Harris Rimmer shares how she got involved in the W20, what we can expect from the next W20 in Germany, and why she believes in the power of ideas and evidence for creating change.  

1. Tell us how you got involved in helping to form the W20

I was already a member of the Think20 process, which during Australia’s Presidency was run by the Lowy Institute.  In my previous role at the Australian Council for International Development, we had worked hard to get a C20 process, which was a civil society consultation feeding into the official G20 Summit in Brisbane 2014. I had a front row seat and I felt that gender equality issues were not given significant attention or policy rigour.  One day through ANU Professor Peter Drysdale, I met Paola Subbachi, head of the International Economic section of  Chatham House. She had been thinking along the same lines.  We held a forum in Canberra in 2014 to map out the contours of whether a W20 was a good idea and what it could achieve. In the Brisbane Summit, we achieved a female labour participation target, mostly due to the internal female leadership of G20 officials.  Then Turkey announced they would launch a new W20 engagement group.  I went to the launch and then the W20 Summit in China. Chatham House is now holding an annual forum on gender and growth as well. It has grown very fast.  Paola and I recenty held another strategy meeting in Bellagio to map out the next steps. Good ideas tend to roll-out themselves if there is a pressing governance gap.  

2. You’re an author, and have had more than 30 refereed academic works published, how do you choose the subjects you research and write about? Eg, how did you get involved in writing about the Women of Timor Leste?

I have come a long way from my Coonabarabran roots, I acknowledge that! Usually I am trying to make sure the historical record acknowledges the role and importance of women and sometimes I have become acutely aware that I would have to write it myself.  I was working as a volunteer in Timor Leste in 2002, working with Timorese NGOs and I slowly realised their story of transitional justice would not be told due to the other pressing concerns local women had.  That motivation sustained me through a long part-time PhD with busy jobs in a peak body, UNHCR and Parliament.   When I joined ANU, I realised an academic has two great sources of power – the power of reflection, and the power of choice over what questions you dedicate your research energy and time.  My research is directed to policy and legal reform to improve the realisation of human rights, it is contemporary and grounded in the voice of the people affected, usually inspired by the concerns of civil society groups or the women’s movement. I think all research is valuable, but that is how I do mine. I try to write in an accessible way, and be easy to find. If I never make full professor doing that, I honestly don’t care a fig, my career has been quite fluid. You are trying to connect with the big questions of your era, add some value to national and international conversations, often in an incremental way. I care about what happens to women in transitional moments – economic transition, post-conflict, democratic reform.  That is why my research is focused on Myanmar/Burma and Afghanistan at the moment.    

3. Why is the W20 so important, what kind of power can it wield?

The German Presidency under Chancellor Merkel represents the opportunity of an epoch, let alone a lifetime. She will host the W20 herself as one of the most powerful female leaders in the world, it may be our best chance to consolidate the new focus into structural reforms which include and benefit women.  What is unique about the W20 initiative is to demand a role for women in macroeconomic coordination, to scrutinise what the future economy means for women and to address the inequality in modern economies that structurally disadvantage women. We hope to have the same impact as the Women Peace and Security agenda in the UN Security Council. 

4. What can we expect from the W20 in Berlin in May 2017?

We can expect more policy depth, and more attention to how to implement the promises the G20 has already made to women.  This means pressure on leaders to have a strategy to meet the female labour participation and youth targets. I will continue working for Australia to have a parliamentary inquiry or similar process to map out how we will decrease the gap here and make sure the new jobs are in quality work that can be sustained in the new economy.  I hope to see more gender analysis on other areas of the G20 agenda – what does increased investment in infrastructure mean for women, what about monetary policy, what about trade? I also hope Merkel herself as the longest leader of the G20 makes some investments in increasing female participation in the G20 processes themselves, we recommend an audit as a first step.

5. What personally drives you in setting a new agenda for women internationally?

I believe in thought-leadership. The power of ideas and evidence, and in investigating why the evidence is resisted. The power of challenging what is ‘normal’ or invisible. Why isn’t women’s unpaid labour counted in GDP? Why is the ideal diplomat still the same model as a 17th century man? Why doesn’t a photo of the G20 leaders with only four women raise more comment? What if we used women’s rights to justify our interventions in Afghanistan but are now abandoning those same rights to do deals with the Talaban? What would feminist foreign policy actually look like? 

 

I also believe fervently in the power of women’s networks. I love my tribe. Women standing in solidarity with other women in their own country and around the world is really powerful.   

×

Stay Smart! Get Savvy!

Get Women’s Agenda in your inbox