Category: Inequity

On childcare, we can’t ‘waste the crisis’ and go back to the old system

In a remarkable turn of events, yesterday Education Minister Dan Tehan urged the parents of Australia to send their little comrades to kindy.

Well, not quite.

But he did announce that all childcare – yes, essentially all — would be free from Sunday night onwards for the next three months, with the strong possibility that the new arrangements would remain in place for as long as six months.

During World War II in the United States, another time of great disruption when women were needed in manufacturing jobs as men were shipped off to the front, President Franklin Roosevelt funnelled funding from a wartime infrastructure bill to create and run a network of child-care centres. Without these, there would have been no Rosie the Riveter.

Unfortunately, President Harry S. Truman shut the childcare centres down shortly after Japan surrendered. And judging by Mr. Tehan’s interview on the ABC yesterday, he hopes to follow Truman’s lead. “We would love to be able to go back to the system we previously had in place,” he said.

To put it mildly, that would be a huge mistake.

Source: On childcare, we can’t ‘waste the crisis’ and go back to the old system

Prostitution is never safe, let alone now

In Brisbane, Australia, where prostitution is legal, police have been arresting and fining women working in unlicensed brothels, when what they should be doing is arresting the pimps and punters involved.

Vulnerable women need to be given the opportunity to escape the sex trade, and not be fobbed off with pointless health advice and hand sanitisers. These women are already exposed to horrific violence, as well as a number of serious and long-term mental and physical health conditions. The last thing any government should be doing is finding ways to keep the sex trade thriving.

Prostituted women should be financially supported and classed as long-term unemployed. We need to acknowledge the hell they have been living under and make available everything from counselling and health services, childcare, and re-education packages.

The government should clamp down on the men that are putting their own selfish desires before the lives of others. Prostitution can never be made safe. Covid 19 is but one threat to women in prostitution, and pimps and punters need to be the ones that pay the price.

Source: Prostitution is never safe, let alone now | Julie Bindel | The Critic Magazine

Invisible Mothers in the age of Coronavirus

An unexpected side effect of COVID-19 appears to be that biological sex is both real and mentionable again!

[W]hile men are becoming sicker and dying at a higher rate, women are emerging as more vulnerable to the social and economic sequelae of the virus. Professionally, women are more likely to be teachers, paid carers, nurses, supermarket check out workers, cleaners etc in ‘essential professions’ which are at high risk for exposure to COVID-19. They are also more likely to be engaged in casual or insecure work, and in sectors which are being most heavily affected by escalating closures and lockdowns. The contempt for the wellbeing of women in the sex industry was demonstrated perfectly in Sydney, where the first ’employees’ to be fined for breaching new pandemic regulations were three prostituted women working in a brothel massage parlour which was clearly not about to let the risk of communicable disease get in the way of profiting from women’s bodies.

Let’s be perfectly clear – it is not ‘people’ who are being forced into early induction of labour or surgical births as health systems divert resources from maternity wards to pandemic preparedness. It is not ‘individuals’ who are finding themselves wondering if their only choices are to birth their baby in an overrun disease ridden hospital or at home unattended. It is not ‘parents’ crying in the hoarding-emptied formula aisle wondering if it’s too late to rebuild the breastmilk supply they were told was optional. None of this is or has ever been done to any person on the basis of their pronouns – this is all a result of the status of women in patriarchy as less than people on the basis of belonging to the female sex class.

Source: Invisible Mothers in the age of Coronavirus – Full Cream

Malaysia issues apology after telling women to “stop nagging”

In the past week, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry in Malaysia posted tips for women on how to behave in the home.

They included:

– Don’t nag your husband.
– Don’t speak in an infantile voice.
-If you must request your husband to do something, adopt the voice of Doraemon (a Japanese cartoon robot cat)
– If you’re working at home, wear makeup and dress neatly, rather than in casual clothes.

The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry have since issued an apology.

“We apologise if some of the tips we shared were inappropriate and touched on the sensitivities of some parties.”

The posters have now been removed.

Source: Malaysia issues apology after telling women to “stop nagging”

The last thing women need is IWD to be a version of Mother’s Day

The chief executive of the Women’s Resource Centre, Vivienne Hayes, told The Guardian “This use of International Women’s Day by companies is part of the co-option of feminism and women’s equality into a much more mainstream position, that has led to the corporatisation of the advancement of women’s rights.”

The blatant commercialism of a day designed to highlight the very real inequity women and girls continue to face is vile. The absolute last thing any woman or girl the world over needs is a corporate version of Mother’s Day.

On Sunday Westfield Hornsby ran a promotion with a list of seven different ways women could ‘celebrate’ IWD. From getting a blow dry, to a mani/pedi, new dress or eating a pastry, I very nearly threw up.

Source: The last thing women need is IWD to be a version of Mother’s Day

How Debbie Kilroy achieves change for women and girls in the criminal legal system

Debbie Kilroy OAM is the CEO of Sisters Inside and one of Australia’s leading advocates for criminalised women and children.

If I was Premier of a State, or Chief Minister of a Territory, I would close all youth prisons immediately. I’d decriminalise minor, non-violent offences, such as public nuisance and drug possession charges, which account for the vast majority of women prisoners. Trauma is the other key contributor to criminalisation of women, with the vast majority of women prisoners having survived violence. I’d outlaw re-traumatising practices routinely practiced in Australian women’s prisons, particularly strip searching and solitary confinement. I’d ensure domestic violence legislation was gendered (for example, since de-gendered legislation was introduced, breach of DVO’s has joined the top ten reasons for women’s imprisonment in Queensland!) And, I’d outlaw mandatory sentences which do not allow the judiciary to make judgements based on the wider context of an offence. Once prisons emptied, I would close them one by one.

Source: How Debbie Kilroy achieves change for women and girls in the criminal legal system

Iranian lawyer who defended women’s right to remove hijab gets 38 years, 148 lashes

After two trials described by Amnesty International as “grossly unfair,” Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.

Sotoudeh, who has dedicated her life to defending Iranian women prosecuted for removing their hijabs in public, has been in the crosshairs of Iran’s theocratic government for years.

Source: Iranian lawyer who defended women’s right to remove hijab gets 38 years, 148 lashes – Women in the World

Gender study finds 90% of people are biased against women

A new UN report has found at least 90% of men and women hold some sort of bias against females.

The “Gender Social Norms” index analysed biases in areas such as politics and education in 75 countries.

Globally, close to 50% of men said they had more right to a job than women. Almost a third of respondents thought it was acceptable for men to hit their partners.

There are no countries in the world with gender equality, the study found.

Source: Gender study finds 90% of people are biased against women – BBC News

Overcoming disproportionate interruptions faced by female judges

Ms Loughland joins host Jerome Doraisamy on this episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show to unpack the findings of her research paper, “Female Judges, Interrupted”, which suggests that the volume of interruptions faced by female judges on the High Court of Australia far exceeds that of their male counterparts.

Source: Overcoming disproportionate interruptions faced by female judges – Lawyers Weekly

Why are our prisons full of domestic violence victims?

Consider this: Over the past decade, the total number of people behind bars in Australia has skyrocketed, rising by almost 40 per cent since 2013, and 56 per cent since 2008, according to ABS data released earlier this month.

But while men continue to make up the majority of the prison population (92 per cent), the number of women being incarcerated is increasing at a significantly higher rate: a staggering 85 per cent over the past 10 years. Indigenous women account for much of that growth.

Behind these figures, though, is one often-overlooked fact: an overwhelming majority of women in prison are victims of domestic violence, with evidence suggesting between 70 per cent and 90 per cent of incarcerated women have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused as children or adults — an experience experts say frequently leads to their offending and criminalisation.

Source: Why are our prisons full of domestic violence victims? – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)