Listening Tour Diary
Support GetUp’s campaign for pay equity - 10 March 2008
I observed a real groundswell of support for gender equality around International Women’s Day this year. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, marches, afternoon teas, speeches and community awareness raising activities were held across the country to celebrate our achievements as women and to bring attention to our ongoing pursuit towards equality. I felt a great sense of renewed optimism and camaraderie amongst women at all the events I attended.
To mark International Women’s Day 2008, GetUp!, an independent, grass-roots community advocacy organisation has launched a campaign to raise awareness of pay inequity.
Did you know that women working full time earn 84 cents in the male dollar? When we take into account casual and part time earnings, the pay gap is even bigger with women earning 66 per cent of what men earn.
As part of the ‘Equal Pay for Women’ campaign, GetUp! is collecting signatures for a petition to the Australian government.
The petition calls on the Australian Government to take action to achieve equal pay for women. I encourage you to sign it and spread the work to your family and friends. Click here to see the campaign.
Liz
Anonymous Said,
March 14, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
Dear Liz,
I have read with interest your comments and those of others on this blog. My imperession is that this has become a seriously one sided discussion about what women want. I am not sure why you call it a community based listening tour when the overwhelming topics of discussion are about women, for women and to do with women.
It seems that although the statistics are OVERWHELMING when it comes to poor health, (ie one third of funding for men’s health issues), suicide rates, lack of equal rights in the courts etc for men the discussion is far from equal.
My firm belief is that if women in general are serious about addressing the issues raised they perhaps should think of trying on the old adage of “walk a mile in my shoes”. At least trying to see what it is like for men by looking dispassionately at the statistics would be a great step for our WHOLE community to move forwards.
Allan