Inequity – Feminist Legal Clinic

How much would you pay for school to provide your child with lunch every day? | The Conversation

All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not originally generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.

Most Australian children bring their lunch to school through a “lunchbox system”. But there is a growing push for schools to provide students with lunch.

Despite decades of efforts to promote better nutrition, it is estimated nearly half (44%) of the foods Australian children eat at school are energy-dense and nutrient-poor (or “discretionary foods”). This is alarming as our previous research with children aged nine to eleven shows an association between a poor diet and lower NAPLAN scores.

School programs providing students with a nutritious lunch are common around the world. Research shows school-provided lunches can increase social equity and improve nutritional, health and learning outcomes.

Pilot school lunch programs have begun in Australia, including Tasmania, New South Wales and Victoria.

In our study, we surveyed almost 400 parents of primary school students across Australia, to seek their views about school lunch programs.

We found 93% of parents surveyed were interested in school-provided lunches.

Many parents in our survey were also motivated by the idea all children would have access to the same meal, with 70% saying they valued the potential for equal and stigma-free food provision.

Parents in our study currently spent around A$6 per day on lunchboxes (most spent between $4–10). They said they were happy to pay a similar amount for a school-provided lunch.

Most were even willing to pay a little more to subsidise lunches for others to ensure all children receive a meal or larger portions for older children.

Source: How much would you pay for school to provide your child with lunch every day?

Women have fought hard to be recognised as farmers. There’s still more work to be done | The Conversation

Women’s labour has long been central to the success of Australian farming. But farming itself is still largely seen as a “masculine” job. That’s why the Australian women in agriculture movement has fought hard to change this perception.

Our research has reviewed the story and impacts of this movement over the past 40 years.

There have been some big wins for women – particularly in terms of cultural recognition. But they still do not have equal access to the economic rewards of farming.

In the 1990s, rural women started meeting and formulating agendas for change at what were known as the “Women on Farm Gatherings”.

In 1994, the movement was successful in challenging the existing legal status of women on farms as a “sleeping partner, non-productive”.

This impacted women’s position in divorce and injury settlements, impinging on their claims that they were contributors to the farm business and deserved recognition as such.

The movement was making gains in disrupting the masculine idea of what it was to be a farmer. But it also faced backlash.

Like many Australian women’s movements, the momentum of the rural women’s movement stalled from the late 1990s onward.

Farmers were encouraged to “get big or get out” to maintain farm viability. They were also encouraged to become more professional and entrepreneurial.

Policies targeted at women in agriculture and women in rural areas focused on tapping into rural women’s potential to make farms professional and less reliant on government support.

This included building skills related to the farm office. These programs helped to legitimise the policy of economic restructuring, as it was seen to be empowering for women.

These programs did little to improve women’s access to the economic rewards of agriculture. Key politicians still appeared to see women as secondary farmers.

For example, in 2013, then federal agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce said agriculture would “fall flat on its face without the prominent and incredible role that women play”, but then described that role as “basically as the assistant farm labourer, with the partner or with the husband”.

Women’s on and off-farm labour is crucial for family farm viability in Australia, but they still do not share equally in the economic rewards of farming.

The flexibility and underpayment of family labour is arguably one of the key reasons Australian farming remains largely in family rather than corporate hands.

This does not recognise women as independent farmers in their own right. It also reinforces and normalises women’s contribution to agriculture and rural communities as underpaid or unpaid.

Source: Women have fought hard to be recognised as farmers. There’s still more work to be done

Family law system not safe for Indigenous women: study | The Canberra Times | Canberra, ACT

The family law system is fraught with barriers for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

Distrust in the legal system, lack of cultural understanding and limited services in remote and regional communities limits Indigenous women’s access to justice through family courts, a study has found.

Dr O’Donnell, a Melbourne University research fellow and Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women affiliate, said Indigenous women are also disproportionately misidentified as perpetrators of family violence, which can damage family law outcomes.

“First Nations women are worried that their children will get taken away from them,” the Kungarakan Warramungu woman told AAP.

“We know nationally the statistics are about 45 per cent of children in out of home care are First Nations children.”

Source: Family law system not safe for Indigenous women: study | The Canberra Times | Canberra, ACT

Men earn nearly $10,000 more than women in bonuses and overtime pay, fuelling the gender pay gap: new data

Men are earning on average A$9,753 more than women each year in the form of performance bonuses, allowances and overtime pay.

That’s according to the latest gender pay gap data released on Thursday by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. It covers more than 8,000 private companies for 2024–25, employing more than 5.4 million workers across Australia.

The overall gender pay gap fell to 21.1%, compared to 21.8% in 2023–24. But the gap in discretionary pay makes up a big chunk of the total gender pay gap of $28,356.

The share of all parental leave being taken by men grew to 20% in 2024-25, a rise of three percentage points from the year before.

Source: Men earn nearly $10,000 more than women in bonuses and overtime pay, fuelling the gender pay gap: new data

Army officers ordered to cut ties with men-only members’ clubs | The Telegraph | UK

All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.

Army officers have been ordered to “disassociate” themselves from private members’ clubs that refuse to allow female soldiers to join.

Lt Gen David Eastman told regiments to review their affiliations with exclusive organisations that restrict women from joining or bar them from accessing certain rooms, urging troops to “advocate for change”.

The marching orders, believed to be the first of their kind seek to determine whether the rules and culture of the traditionally male-only clubs matched “the Army’s values and the principles of equality and respect”, the general said.

Writing to troops, the military chief said it had come to his attention that some corps and regiments maintained historical ties with clubs whose rules flew in the face of “inclusivity”.

In the letter, Lt Gen Eastman expressed his concerns not only for organisations that barred women entirely but those whose membership rights, access and participation varied based on gender.

Affiliations between the regiments and private members’ clubs are informal and membership is funded by individuals rather than by units. However, the links for some have been historic and long-standing.

Lt Gen Eastman warned that endorsements of such groups carried “weight” and must now be reviewed in an effort to better promote inclusivity.

“It creates an environment in which service personnel may feel an implicit expectation to join to fully participate in social or professional life,” he said.

News of the letter comes days after The Telegraph revealed the Army was facing a major probe into the alleged sexual abuse of recruits at medical testing centres.

Wiltshire Police launched the investigation, with detectives saying the abuse spanned between 1970 and 2016 and involved multiple “perpetrators” across “several locations”.

Source: Army officers ordered to cut ties with men-only members’ clubs

SURVEY: Freedom in the Arts – Campaign Club

All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.

Entries Close December 6th, 2025

Freedom in the Arts (FITA) has launched three new confidential surveys exploring how boycotts, censorship and political pressure are shaping the UK’s cultural sector.

This is the first research of its kind, designed to inform the creation of a practical FITA Toolkit — a set of clear, lawful, and supportive resources to help artists, venues, and agents navigate pressures with confidence and integrity.

We’re asking everyone across the arts to take 10 minutes to share their experience — honestly and confidentially. Your input will help us defend freedom of expression and rebuild resilience across the sector.

Source: SURVEY: Freedom in the Arts – Campaign Club

Met Police set to splurge £5m a year on 64-strong woke taskforce as mounted officers face job losses | Daily Mail

All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.

Britain’s biggest police force is to spend a staggering £5.2 million a year on employing 64 diversity staff, despite paring frontline services to the bone, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The Metropolitan Police is committed to expanding its woke workforce despite slashing thousands of officers’ jobs as it grapples with a £250 million funding gap, according to data exclusively obtained by this newspaper under a Freedom of Information request.

The document also reveals the mind-boggling array of inclusivity projects in the force.

Among 63 events celebrated on a ‘diversity calendar’ are International Pronouns Day, Pansexual and Panromantic Awareness Day, Be Kind To Humankind Week and National Tsunami Awareness Week.

There are also 47 staff support networks including the Bisexual Support Group, the He For She gender equality movement, and the Borderline Personality Disorder network, as well as 19 associations for various ethnicities – including Ibero-American, Polish, Italian, Slavic and Romanian – and support for followers of every major religion.

The revelations come after the MoS revealed that Britain’s public sector is splurging £70 million a year on woke equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) officers as frontline services are stretched to breaking point.

Our analysis of the diversity gravy train found the NHS alone spends £40million on EDI jobs each year, despite the waiting list standing at 7.4million.

Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, has said that the force would lose 3,300 police officers in 2025 and 2026 and close ten more police station front counters.

The Met is about to axe close to half of its mounted division to help the force shrink its £260 million debt – and officers expect to learn in the next few weeks who will be redeployed elsewhere.

Earlier this year the Met announced it will have to lose 1,700 officers, PCSOs and staff and axe several services, including the Royal Parks police and officers in schools.

Forensics and historical crime teams also face cuts, and station front-counter opening times could also be reduced.

Source: Met Police set to splurge £5m a year on 64-strong woke taskforce as mounted officers face job losses

24 Years Later, Michigan Still Ignores the Whistleblower Who Tried to Save Family Court — and Survivors Like Christine Morrison Are Still Fighting – clutch.

All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.

In 2001, former JTC director Daniel J. Henry warned Michigan that family courts were violating rights and operating without oversight. Twenty-four years later, survivor Christine Morrison is still fighting the same corrupt system.

In a detailed letter to then–Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, Henry described a judicial landscape that had abandoned its purpose entirely. Family courts, he warned, were acting with impunity; disregarding constitutional rights, retaliating against litigants, and operating without meaningful oversight. He called for immediate reform.

It was a chance for Michigan to course-correct before decades of damage piled up. But the state did nothing. And to this very day, it continues to do nothing.

It’s now 2025, twenty-four years since Henry’s whistleblower letter, and the system he tried to fix is still broken.

In many ways, it’s way worse.

Every week, new stories emerge of parents bankrupted by drawn-out custody battles, children placed with or forced to see abusive parents, and judges retaliating against litigants who dare to speak publicly. Family court still operates like a closed society, shielded from public scrutiny, insulated from legislative oversight, and free from consequences, yet raking in thousands in revenue through court and child support fees.

If you want proof that nothing has changed, look no further than Christine Morrison.

Clutch Justice is diving into Christine’s story; not just as one woman’s nightmare, but as a window into a broken machine that’s been grinding people down for decades.

We can’t undo the decades of harm that came from ignoring Daniel Henry’s warning. But we can refuse to let another 24 years pass without change. That means demanding:

Mandatory transparency: Hearings, orders, and performance metrics must be public.
Independent oversight: A new accountability body with investigative authority outside the judiciary.
Real consequences: Judges who abuse their power must face removal, not quiet admonishment.
Accessible appeals: Families must have realistic avenues to challenge unlawful decisions.
Public pressure: Citizens, journalists, and advocates must keep this issue in the spotlight. Relentlessly.

Henry did his part. Christine is doing hers. The question is whether we’ll do ours.

Clutch Justice stands with the whistleblowers — past and present — and with survivors like Christine Morrison who refuse to be silenced.

[Ed: Interesting to see how similar these problems are to the continuing issues with the Australian Family Court. We need to make similar demands.]

Source: 24 Years Later, Michigan Still Ignores the Whistleblower Who Tried to Save Family Court — and Survivors Like Christine Morrison Are Still Fighting – clutch.

From the manosphere to tradwives – why are young women embracing traditional gender roles? | The Conversation

[R]ecent signs suggest young adults may once again be embracing the idea that men should be dominant, while women play a supporting role.

Our research explored a concept called benevolent sexism – a set of patronising attitudes that appear positive while reinforcing women’s subordinate status.

This type of sexism is “benevolent” because it offers praise and protection to women who support traditional gender roles, while protecting patriarchal dominance as the status quo.

Our research, not yet peer reviewed, looked at two aspects of benevolent sexism.

1. Protective paternalism (“paternalism”): the belief that women need men’s protection

2. Complementary gender differentiation (“gendered roles”): the belief that men are naturally providers and protectors and women are naturally best suited to looking after home and family.

In the 2010 cohort, 57% of women disagreed with gendered roles, compared to 43% in 2024. In the intervening years, the dial shifted from “no” to “yes”.

In my 2010 focus groups, many young Australian women believed their male partners would be unlikely to share household and caring duties with them. As a result, they (reluctantly) expected to give up or reduce investment in their careers once they were partnered and had children.

Why do young women seem to expect even more conservative outcomes in their relationships 14 years later?

Some insight may be gained from two online trends that actively promote a return to traditional gender roles: the manosphere and the tradwives movement.

Denizens of the manosphere are loud and aggressive in expressing their criticisms of women.

One criticism has been gaining prominence: that men’s wellbeing is suffering as a result of women becoming more independent.

Misusing ideas from evolutionary psychology, the manosphere promotes the view that women and men are “naturally” suited to different roles.

The female equivalent to the manosphere is a collection of online female influencers. Many of these are “tradwives”, short for traditional wives.

Tradwives mirror the ideals of the manosphere, encouraging women to focus solely on looking after the home, the man and the family.

A key message of the tradwives movement is that “having it all” is too hard and women should allow themselves the freedom to focus on home and family.

This may appeal to young women feeling pressured to achieve in a world where the system is stacked against them.

But in romanticising the homemaker role, the tradwives movement wilfully ignores the risks in these traditional arrangements for women. One such risk is women who are financially dependent on their partners may find it harder to leave abusive relationships.

Source: From the manosphere to tradwives – why are young women embracing traditional gender roles?

If Harriet Harman strips me of my free speech, I’ll give up my job as a barrister | The Telegraph | UK

Baroness Harman’s independent review of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at the Bar, published earlier this month, sent ripples across the barrister community for its potential to lead to censorship and the repression of free speech.

Speech should only be a criminal or regulatory matter if a very high bar of offence is crossed. Certainly I don’t think I’ve ever crossed it. Yet, in our culture now, mere disagreement is seen as violence, and not having a prevailing view about issues such as sexuality or transgenderism is seen inherently to be bigoted.

The thing that really worries me from Lady Harman’s new report is recommendation number 24, which reads: “Regulatory enforcement action must be taken against online bullying and harassment,” particularly if it’s motivated by misogyny or racism.

But who is deciding an unknown individual’s motivations for a tweet? Somebody who is upset enough to get the whole apparatus of either the criminal law or a regulatory offence moving? It’s very dangerous.

Of course, there should be fetters on my speech. I’m a member of a regulated profession. That carries with it privilege, and I respect that. However, having a view about Brokeback Mountain does not bring my profession into disrepute. Neither does upsetting people through the lawful exercise of my Article 10 rights [to freedom of expression, according to the European Convention on Human Rights].

I think we all agree the line needs to be drawn somewhere. It’s about where we draw it.

Another facet of the report also caused me deep concern: “Micro aggressions such as… sarcastic remarks… may also meet the threshold of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment” it says.

Barristers are aggressive by nature because we have to be. We’re in an adversarial profession. The problem is when it tips over into unacceptable bullying and harassment, which does happen. I was a victim of it, and my profession did nothing to help me or to stop it. If the Harman report is designed to end that sort of behaviour, then it gets my vote, but I’m worried it’s going to sweep up a lot of casualties in its wake, and one will be Article 10.

For example, you’re not allowed to discuss immigration because then you’re a racist, and you’re not allowed to discuss gender identity because then you’re a transphobe.

In my daily life, I work in public law care proceedings, in cases where local authorities are looking to take children into adoption. It’s getting less rewarding, because resources are being cut and there is less help available for parents and children.

This is why reports and recommendations like Lady Harman’s make me so angry: they risk being performative and a distraction from the bigger, more significant problems in society.

Source: If Harriet Harman strips me of my free speech, I’ll give up my job as a barrister