Category: Inequity

Exclusive: Female prisoners going without food and clean water | The Saturday Paper

A leaked report shows staff shortages have created rolling lockdowns at a Melbourne prison, where there have been numerous suicide attempts and limited access to water.

As many as seven prisoners a month are attempting suicide at a women’s prison on the edge of Melbourne, where staff shortages mean women are being kept in lockdowns that resemble solitary confinement.

Prisoners report shortages of food and a lack of access to clean drinking water during these lockdowns.

“We were going days without water,” says Ashleigh Chapman, who was released from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre last month. “We were getting quite sick and a lot of us had lost a lot of weight.”

Chapman says that as the lockdowns escalated this year, the water in her unit turned green and was not drinkable, but prison officers were not allowed to fill up her water bottle. She says the water was turning her sink green and had a strong metallic taste. Prison officers were told about the issue on multiple occasions.

Kelly Flanagan, who was also recently released from the prison, said there was green water in her cell. She says it smelt strongly of sewage and was making people ill.

Chapman says prison officers initially filled up drink bottles for the women from taps outside the cells, but were eventually instructed not to do this, leaving the women able to buy water from the canteen only once a week.

The lockdowns at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, Victoria’s only maximum security women’s prison, are not due to the behaviour of women or any unrest in the prison. Instead, they have been attributed to staff shortages, with large numbers of prison officers calling in sick, meaning not all parts of the prison can be unlocked.

Ordinarily, cells are opened about 8am and women are given about 11 hours out-of-cell time a day. During this time women attend appointments for housing, addiction, mental health and legal support, as well as visiting with loved ones and making phone calls.

Nerita Waight, chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, says the organisation is deeply concerned about the conditions in the prison, with clients reporting that programs, calls and visits are still being disrupted.

“It is unacceptable to punish the women further for the sheer incompetence of the department to manage its staffing requirements,” Waight tells The Saturday Paper.

Source: Exclusive: Female prisoners going without food and clean water | The Saturday Paper

‘Cindy’s Law’ follows tireless fight by families of Cindy and Mona Smith – ABC News

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the names and images of people who have died. This story contains some confronting details about sexual assault.

Teenage cousins Murrawarri and Kunja girl Mona Lisa (‘Mona’) Smith and Wangkumara girl Jacinta Rose ‘Cindy’ Smith died following a motor vehicle crash near Bourke in 1987.

Their families have waged a decades-long fight for justice, with a coroner last year finding the police investigation into the man driving the car was “manifestly deficient” and impacted by racial bias.

Now, thanks to their advocacy, a legal loophole that allowed the man to avoid prosecution for interfering with Cindy’s body will be closed, nearly 40 years after her death.

Cindy’s family called this “Cindy’s Law”.

The 2024 coronial inquest found 40-year-old non-Indigenous man Alexander Ian Grant was driving the car in which Mona and Cindy were passengers and he was “highly likely” intoxicated.

It heard a witness found him after the accident with his arm draped across Cindy’s near-naked body.

“Horrifyingly, the evidence indicates that Mr Grant sexually interfered with Cindy after she had passed,” State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan found.

Ms O’Sullivan also found “numerous, significant failings” in the police investigation that led to Grant’s acquittal on charges of culpable driving in 1990.

“Had two white teenage girls died in the same circumstances, I cannot conceive of there being such a manifestly deficient police investigation into the circumstances of their deaths,” she found.

Crucially, Ms O’Sullivan noted police prosectors had dropped the charge against Grant of interfering with Cindy’s body because they couldn’t determine the time at which she died.

With Grant dying in 2017, “the perpetrator escaped justice ‘due to a loophole’,” Cindy’s family told the inquest.

On Wednesday, the New South Wales Parliament introduced a bill that will enable the prosecution of offenders when it is not clear if an act of sexual violence occurred before or after death.

Source: ‘Cindy’s Law’ follows tireless fight by families of Cindy and Mona Smith – ABC News

Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Sues California for Violating Title IX, Denying Girls Athletic Opportunities | United States Department of Justice

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division today filed suit to enforce Title IX and protect California female student athletes from unfair competition and reckless endangerment by male participation on female high-school sports teams.

According to the complaint, the California Department of Education (CDE) and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) have engaged in illegal sex discrimination against female student athletes by allowing males to compete against them, depriving these girls of the equal education and athletic opportunities afforded to them by federal civil rights law. Thus, the suit seeks declaratory, injunctive, and damages relief for violations of Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding.

Source: Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Sues California for Violating Title IX, Denying Girls Athletic Opportunities | United States Department of Justice

The hidden cost of being diagnosed with a condition men can’t get | SMH

Australia’s “gender-neutral” healthcare system is failing women in their most vulnerable stages of life, according to a new report that found dramatically higher rates of mental illness among women with physical conditions that don’t affect men.

More than half of Australian women now live with mental health issues, and one in four have severe mental health conditions, according to the latest report by advocacy group the Liptember Foundation and the George Institute of Global Health.

Women with female-specific physical health conditions, such as endometriosis, gynaecological cancers and birth trauma, have significantly higher rates of psychological distress than healthy women or those whose health concerns are also experienced by men.

The findings are based on a nationally representative survey of 7000 women conducted by Neilsen in March.

The survey found an alarming rise in body image issues for 14- to 19-year-olds (from 48 per cent in 2024 to 64 per cent in 2025) as well as suicidal thoughts and self-harm (16 per cent to 25 per cent) in the same age group.

More than one in three menopausal or perimenopausal women had depression or anxiety (37 per cent).

The researchers also found 45 per cent of women with female-specific physical health conditions reported severe mental distress versus 24 per cent of women in the general population.

But 43 per cent of women did not seek support, for reasons including that they believed they could manage on their own, they couldn’t afford support, and they didn’t consider their mental health issues serious enough to warrant it.

Source: 12ft

Labor women make history by overtaking men in cabinet. So is the job done? | The Conversation

For the first time in Australian history, there will be more women than men in federal cabinet.This comes more than 120 years after women were first allowed to stand for federal parliament, and decades after Labor established its gender quota strategy.

Taking into account the full caucus, women will comprise 56% of the Labor party room, a clear record.

Labor women now easily outnumber the men in both chambers: 54% in the House of Representatives and a likely 63% in the Senate, once results are finalised.

Anthony Albanese’s new cabinet – the very top of the decision making process – is made up of 12 women and 11 men.

By contrast, Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott could find space for only one woman – Julie Bishop – in his cabinet in 2013.

Women are critically underrepresented in the parliamentary Liberal and National parties. They make up just 28.5% of the former coalition across both chambers – a slight increase on the previous parliament.

However, women comprise just 21% of Liberal and National MPs in the lower house, a decline of three percentage points. This has sparked renewed calls from some conservative quarters to introduce quotas.

Sussan Ley has made history as the Liberal Party’s first female leader. However, there are already indications she has inherited a “glass cliff” position, given she was elevated after a catastrophic failure at the ballot box.

Further, having more women in parliament does not guarantee substantive representative or inclusive policy-making. While some research shows women tend to advocate on female issues, a higher number of women politicians does not automatically mean more feminist policy.

Of the 42 frontbenchers who make up the full ministry, 23 are men and 19 are women.

Source: Labor women make history by overtaking men in cabinet. So is the job done?

‘It’s not fair’: Transgender girl smashes records at school sports day | news.com.au

Parents at a private Catholic school in South Australia have voiced “anger” and “disappointment” after a transgender student broke a number of records competing against girls at a recent sports day.

Following last year’s sports day, the school took to social media to congratulate a number of students for breaking records, saying it was “not an easy achievement”.

The transgender student was singled out for setting a new under-13 female javelin record of 20.58 metres — smashing the previous record by more than three metres.

It did not make a similar post this year, sharing only the overall house results.

The father said usually the sports day notice would be sent out with all the winners “but it didn’t come out (this year) because this (child) won the majority of the events — running, high jump, javelin, discus”.

He stressed that he didn’t want the transgender student to “cop abuse” but said “we can’t allow this kind of stuff to happen, to change the whole school for one person”.

Another father, who has three children at the school, said “the entire day was marred”.

“Literally all day, it was all anyone was really discussing,” he said.

The school last year also began installing gender-neutral toilets.

“I have a daughter at the school and if (this child) is being freely allowed to go into the female toilets, you’re setting yourself up for lawsuits,” the dad wrote.

Source: ‘It’s not fair’: Transgender girl smashes records at school sports day | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Lesbians: the canaries in the mine (Susan Hawthorne) – Verity La La

I would suggest that when lesbians become victims of attack, they are a signal. They are the canaries in the mine. And if the perpetrators get away with it, then other attacks will follow. So, we need to be protesting every attack on lesbians, because it is a sign of hatred in the social system. If lesbians are not protected, then people who don’t fit some other social dimension will not be safe from attack either. Keep your lesbian sister safe and watch the effect it has on society (Hawthorne 2020, pp. 171-172).

Source: Lesbians: the canaries in the mine (Susan Hawthorne) – Verity La La

Women’s sports are fighting an uphill battle against our social media algorithms | The Conversation

Women’s sport is more and more getting the attention it deserves.

Stadiums are filling, television ratings for many sports are climbing and athletes such as the Matildas’ Mary Fowler, triple Olympic gold medallist Jess Fox and star cricketer Ellyse Perry are becoming household names.

Despite this progress, an invisible threat looms, one that risks undoing years of advocacy and momentum.

That threat is the algorithm.

As more fans consume sport through digital platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and increasingly, AI-curated streaming services such as WSC Sports, the content they see is being selected not by editors but by artificial intelligence (AI).

Algorithms, trained to maximise engagement and profits, are deciding what appears in your feed, which video auto-p

But here is the problem: algorithms prioritise content that is already popular.

That usually means men’s sport.

This creates what researchers call an echo chamber effect, where users are shown more of what they already engage with and less of what they don’t.

Over time, content from women’s competitions risks being squeezed out, not because it is unworthy but because it has not yet achieved the same levels of engagement.

This is not a glitch, it is a structural flaw in how digital platforms are designed to serve content.

It means women’s sport, already underrepresented in traditional media, risks becoming all but invisible to many users in this AI-driven ecosystem.

Source: Women’s sports are fighting an uphill battle against our social media algorithms

Medical misogyny investigation: Australian women wrongly admitted to psychiatric wards | SMH

This masthead has uncovered a series of disturbing cases where women claim they have been disbelieved, misdiagnosed, and wrongly admitted to mental health wards. Others have been told their pain is “all in their head”.

A woman was involuntarily detained under the Mental Health Act after telling police she was being watched and could hear someone on her roof, only for her complaint to be vindicated when food and cameras were later found in the roof of her home, according to two doctors familiar with the case.

The NSW woman spent multiple days in a mental health ward because police and hospital staff had wrongly believed she was delusional when she reported her stalking fears to authorities, said Dr Karen Williams, a consultant psychiatrist who specialises in trauma and family violence.

In a separate case, a pregnant woman was forcibly admitted to a mental health unit before it became apparent that her distressing symptoms were being caused by a severe drug reaction to the medication she had been prescribed.

More than 1700 of the 1800 women who responded to this masthead’s ongoing investigation into medical misogyny said they felt dismissed or ignored when seeking healthcare.

Source: Medical misogyny investigation: Australian women wrongly admitted to psychiatric wards

What is going wrong with childcare in Australia?

An ABC Four Corners investigation revelead many Australian childcare centres are not meeting regulatory standards, with most being for-profit services, despite receiving government support through childcare subsidies. Poor-quality services and bad pay and working conditions are driving good educators away from the sector, according to Professor Marianne Fenech from the Sydney School of Education and Social Work and Professor Gabrielle Meagher from Macquarie University.

Data from Australia’s childcare regulator consistently shows for-profit childcare services are, on average, rated as lower quality than not-for-profit services.

Inquiries suggest this divergence is due to staffing levels, qualifications and pay. In 2023, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found large for-profit providers spend significantly less on staffing than not-for-profit providers.

Childcare subsidies haven’t always worked in this way. “Operational subsidies” were introduced in 1972 through the historic Child Care Act, which set the precedent for Australian governments to fund childcare.

This aimed to support women’s workforce participation through an expanded, high-quality childcare sector. Subsidies at the time were only available to not-for-profit services and required the employment of qualified staff, including teachers. In these ways, Commonwealth funding positioned childcare as a public good, like school education.

Then, in 1991, federal government subsidies were extended to for-profit providers. This prompted dramatic changes in the childcare landscape, leading to a dominance of for-profit centres.

Today, more than 70% of all long day-care centres are operated by private providers. Between 2013 and 2023, the number of for-profit long daycare services jumped by 60%, while not-for-profits only grew by 4%.

There are 25 large long daycare providers in Australia and of these, 21 are run for profit. Large for-profit providers impact sector quality in several ways.

Many have disproportionately high numbers of staffing waivers, granted by regulators, permitting them to operate centres without the required number of qualified staff.

Large for-profit providers also serve investors as well as families. So there are extra incentives to cut costs and maximise profits.

Source: What is going wrong with childcare in Australia?