Listening Tour Diary
Gender Equality – Not a Battle of the Sexes - Melbourne, 21 January 2008
Welcome to 2008! I hope you all had a relaxing break. We are now in Victoria on the next leg of our national Listening Tour.
Since coming into my role, I have been eager to engage with men, as well as women, on the issues of gender equality. You may have seen my recent opinion piece (click to read) on this theme.
To this end, we started our first day in Victoria meeting representatives from a range of different men’s health and relationship organisations. This included researchers, advocates, and service providers. Hosted by Mensline, we had a lively discussion about programs that support men, and how we can work together towards gender equality. A number of gaps were identified in services for men, particularly for young fathers and in the area of men’s health. There was wide-spread support for a national men’s health policy.
I left with a sense of optimism that men and women working together can bring about real social change. Working towards gender equality is not about a battle of the sexes.
Today, we also got together with a group of men working in the financial services sector, where we continued to hear what gender equality means for men. For these men, child care was the big ticket item. There was general support for paid maternity and paternity leave, but, once again, the question of who should pay was at the heart of the discussion.
Is there sexual harassment in the industry? Well, it doesn’t get talked about, but we were told that complaints do get made, and they are treated very seriously.
This is an industry where there is still an absence of women at the most senior levels. The participants saw this as a question of choice for many women, who leave the industry to travel, have relationships, and explore other horizons. I wonder about this. What do you think? To what extent does choice determine a woman’s career progression?
Victoria has one of Australia’s leading integrated responses to family violence. Critical to its success is the leadership shown by the Attorney General, the Commissioner for Police and Vic Health, together with the Minister for Women’s Affairs and her Office for Women’s Policy and an active NGO sector. This includes a ‘uniform risk assessment tool’, legislative change, and working from a strong evidence base. The next stage is a framework for evaluation.
I am really inspired by the determination of Victorians to address family violence in an effective and transparent fashion over the long term and I hope to see this approach adopted at a national level.
Liz
Anonymous Said,
January 23, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
I think we need to deconstruct the notion of choice. When a woman makes a ‘choice’ to leave an industry because of, say, a lack of family-friendly working conditions, we can hardly attribute this to personal preference. We need to consider the contraints that both women and men face in the workforce if we want to create real choices for balancing work and family. Employers have a key role to play here, especially large companies who have the resources to do so.
I’d like to see some leadership and vision from men in the higher realms of big business - this would be a great driver for change. This is about the bottom line in terms of retention and recruitment but also about corporate social responsibility.
Anonymous Said,
January 24, 2008 @ 10:04 am
On the question I choice - I really have to disagree with what the particpants have said about women choosing to leave to pursue other things. When our workplaces are set up on the premise that to be successful you have to be there five days a week slaving your life away, and that people working any other way aren’t as committed or ‘productive’, it’s not really a choice for women who are expected to produce children and care for them too? I know plenty of women who progress in their career and then baby arrives and suddenly they are on the same level for 10 years. Some will say, get a nanny if you are that committed to your career, but the question should be, why is it that women have to make the ‘choice’ between family and career and men don’t?
Ian Said,
January 29, 2008 @ 1:58 am
When Elizabeth Broderick speaks of “gender equality” she means ending:
10 % of the gender inequality that affects men and 100 % of the gender inequality that affects women.
How can you possibly achieve gender equality for both sexes when you
do not even recognize or acknowledge 90 % of the inequality that affects men.
First we have to get women (and men) to recognize that BOTH men and women have been adversely affected by their respective
gender roles.
Gender equality will only become a reality when we acknowledge that both sexes have been discriminated against in almost equal proportions.
In addition, we need to recognize that this acknowledgement is not some distance goal that we hope to reach in 500 years, but it is in fact THE starting point of any genuine and lasting conversation between men and women.
It is farcical to believe that one “listening tour” can overcome ten’s of thousand years of entrenched anti-male prejudice. No amount of “listening” will achieve anything
if the hearts and minds of those doing the listening are closed to possibility that gender discrimination affects both sexes equally.
Luke Said,
January 29, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
In response to the above comment relating to choice; I feel the author is understating aspects of ’success’. I would have thought it not uncommon for the ‘top end’ positions (eg CEO) to require working 6 or 7 days a week for 70 plus hours per week. In this area where the majority of staff are men, the tradeoff is missing out on time with family. Making a comment such as ‘why is it that women have to make a choice and men don’t” implies that men have a choice and that choice is work. Perhaps we need to explore why this may be the case (eg is it because men commonly fill ‘breadwinner’ roles and miss out on father/husband role as a result). Many men would much rather work part time and care for children but currently our society does not perceive this as being in its interest. This is not ‘choice’ for men.
Anonymous Said,
January 31, 2008 @ 8:44 pm
I agree that both men and women are not commonly afforded “real” choice when it comes to sharing time in raising children and spending family time. I know there are many surveys that reflect women’s wants in this area, but is there data available that would support men’s claims that they would, ideally, prefer to work less and spend more time at home? There will be little change in existing employment arrangements unless both men AND women are prepared to demand change.
Luke Said,
February 4, 2008 @ 9:45 am
There are numerous studies that have outlined that most men would prefer to work less and spend more time at home. Well under 20% of male respondents in these studies have expressed a desire to work full time; possibly the number that have reflects the unmarried male population with no children. Anonymous is quite correct in saying both men and women must demand change for it to occur. I feel, unfortunately, that only one gender is currently listened to when demands regarding employment are made.
Rosemary Said,
February 5, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
It seems to me that a very big problem is lack of workplace childcare. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m guessing that if workplace childcare were readily available, so much so that it was taken for granted, quite a bit of the angst about whether to work or not and for how long would be relieved. If your kids are a couple of floors down from your office in the nursery, and your workplace is flexible enough so you can visit them a few times a day, it doesn’t seem that much different to being at home working in the garden or doing other household stuff with the kids in their own space occupied with their own things.
Who knows, if we all expected to have our kids looked after nearby while we work, perhaps this might help reduce the schism between work-life and family-life.
It’s strange that we think having a family is a normal part of life, but only of life outside and separate from work. Yet work - i.e. paid employment, is supposed to be a normal part of life too. Integrating work and family life, or having a “work-life balance” gets a lot of talk; having guaranteed workplace childcare would be part of the “action” on this issue.
I can see this would be harder to do for some occupations and workplaces, but surely creative solutions can be found.