One of the highlights of Day Two for me was spending two hours with a group of remarkable young women brought together by the YWCA of Adelaide.

These young adults came from all walks of life and included women originally from Sierra Leone and Iraq, young women with babies, young women looking after their grandparents, and women of diverse gender identity. It was clear to me that they did identify with the themes of the Tour.

Their ideas for what could be done were surprising and exciting.

We had a long discussion about dealing with sexual harassment at work - yes, it’s still happening! They talked about their particular vulnerability as young workers and they suggested using ’social networking’ websites like Facebook to get the message out about preventing sexual harassment at work. (If you haven’t heard of Facebook, check it out at www.facebook.com).

One idea the women suggested was that when small businesses apply for an ABN, they also receive information about rights and responsibilities in the workplace, particularly relating to bullying and harassment.

When I first came into the job, one of the things that struck me was  the absence of objective benchmarks to measure the equality of women and men in Australia.  South Australia is the only government to make publicly available a toolkit for measuring gender equality - check out the Gender Indicators Online (http://www.aisr.adelaide.edu.au/gio/).

The South Australian Government has also set itself some serious targets for getting more women into leadership positions - e.g. 50% of board positions within government. It would be great to hear from South Australians about the impact this is having.  It seems like a good idea to me.

Well, that’s all for now.

 Liz