Latika Bourke for the Age reports:
Companies with more than 1000 employees will be forced to publicly reveal their gender pay gap, named and shamed if they fail to comply, and excluded from lucrative government contracts, under a Labor government.
Fairfax Media can reveal the Opposition is preparing legislation that would also force companies to reveal the difference in pay between managerial and non-managerial staff, and would ban “secrecy clauses” that prevent employees telling colleagues how much they get paid.
While companies already report their gender pay gap to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Labor would make that data publicly searchable, as well as the pay gap between managers and their employees.
Labor’s announcement comes ahead of an expected statement by the government due in spring. The Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer has pledged practical measures to improve women’s economic security.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/gender-pay-gap-labor-policy-women-20180919-p504ti.html
Category: Inequity
The Radical Dissent of Helen Keller
Peter Dreier of YES! Magazine writes:
Less well known (but no less inspiring) is the fact that Keller, who was born in 1880 and died in 1968, was a lifelong radical who participated in the great movements for social justice of her time. In her investigations into the causes of blindness, she discovered that poor people were more likely than the rich to be blind, and soon connected the mistreatment of the blind to the oppression of workers, women, and other groups, leading her to embrace socialism, feminism, and pacifism.
Keller was part of wide circle of reformers and radicals who participated in a variety of overlapping causes. She was a strong advocate for women’s rights and women’s suffrage, writing in 1916: “Women have discovered that they cannot rely on men’s chivalry to give them justice.” She supported birth control and praised its leading advocate, Margaret Sanger, with whom she had many mutual friends. Keller argued that capitalists wanted workers to have large families to supply cheap labor to factories but forced poor children to live in miserable conditions. “Only by taking the responsibility of birth control into their own hands,” Keller said, “can [women] roll back the awful tide of misery that is sweeping over them and their children.”
She donated money to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—then a young and controversial civil rights organization that focused on opposition to lynching and job and housing discrimination against African Americans—and wrote for its magazine. At an antiwar rally in January 1916, sponsored by the Women’s Peace Party at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Keller said, “Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors.
In 1918 she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union, which was initially organized to challenge the U.S. government’s attempts to suppress the ideas of and jail or deport radicals who opposed World War I, including Socialists and members of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Keller is well known for being blind, but she also deserves to be heralded for her progressive social vision.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/the-radical-dissent-of-helen-keller
Labor promises $400m super boost for women
Matt Coughlan for The New Daily writes:
Women on maternity leave or juggling several low-paid jobs would be paid superannuation under a $400 million Labor plan to close the retirement gender gap.
Women retire on average with $113,000 less in their super than men, a gulf of 40 per cent.
The party is also looking to phase out the $450 minimum monthly threshold for eligibility for the superannuation guarantee, helping people in part-time and casual work.
Ms Plibersek said more and more people – particularly women – were working various low-paid jobs to make ends meet.
Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O’Neil welcomed Labor’s announcement, but argued the threshold should be scrapped immediately to ensure working women don’t retire in poverty.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/09/19/labor-super-boost-women/?
Push to double aged care fees – amid shocking revelations
Isabelle Lane for the New Daily writes:
A powerful aged care industry group featured in Four Corners‘ Monday night exposé is lobbying for aged care residents to be charged more than double the current maximum fee for daily living costs.
Residents in aged care homes are already forced to sacrifice 85 per cent of the aged pension to cover daily living costs, but according to Leading Age Services Australia – the peak body representing Australia’s private and not-for-profit aged care services – they are not paying enough.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who in 2016 slashed $1.2 billion from the aged care budget, also announced a royal commission into the sector.
Four Corners shone a spotlight on the harrowing living conditions, neglect, and abuse suffered by elderly residents in aged care homes across the country.
[ed: Women outnumber men in aged care 2 to 1. Source]
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/09/18/aged-care-lobby-four-corners/?
Kids Don’t Damage Women’s Careers — Men Do
Jessica Valenti for Medium writes:
For those of us uninterested in circus tricks, a bit of perspective: It’s not actually motherhood or kids that derail women’s careers and personal ambitions — it’s men who refuse to do their fair share.
If fathers did the same kind of work at home that mothers have always done, women’s careers could flourish in ways we haven’t yet imagined. But to get there, we need to stop framing mothers’ workplace woes as an issue of “balance,” and start talking about how men’s domestic negligence makes it so hard for us to succeed.
It’s easy to split, for example, who packs a school lunch or dresses a child in the morning. But someone also needs to keep track of those days when lunch needs to be bagged for a field trip, or when it’s time to buy new underwear or sneakers. How many dads do you know who could tell you their child’s correct shoe size?
This kind of invisible work almost always falls on women, and we rarely talk about the impact it has on our professional lives. Imagine if instead of our mind being filled with to-do lists about grocery shopping and dentist appointments, we had available head space for creative thinking around our work and passions. For mothers, the freedom to just think is a privilege.
Studies also show that fathers continue to have significantly more leisure time than mothers and that mothers use their off time to do chores and child care while fathers use time off for hobbies and relaxing. This, too, is about careers: We know that people who have more leisure time and time for creative activities tend to perform better at work.
If women in relationships with men seem to be more concerned with these tasks, perhaps it’s because we know it’s not our husbands who will be looked at askance if our kid goes to school sporting inch-long fingernails or ill-fitting shoes.
Americans need to stop believing that women do the majority of care work because we want to. It’s because we’re expected to, because we’re judged if we don’t, and most of all, because it’s incredibly difficult to find male partners willing to do an equal share of the work.
It’s not that women can’t “have it all,” it’s that men won’t stop taking it.
https://medium.com/s/jessica-valenti/kids-dont-damage-women-s-careers-men-do-eb07cba689b8
We need quotas: Liberal MP Julia Banks' stinging Parliamentary speech
Women’s Agenda reports:
The Liberal Party needs quotas, and there are an equal number of ‘meritorious’ women in the real world as there are men, Julia Banks said during a Parliamentary speech last night.
“The meritocracy argument is completely and utterly flawed. There are an equal number of meritorious Liberal women out there in the real world as there are men. But they won’t come if the barriers to entry and mountains to climb are too high.
Her exit is a significant blow for the Liberal Party, given there are just 13 Liberal women in the House of Reps, compared to 62 men
Prime Minister Scott Morrison responded to Banks’ speech by declaring it’s been a “harrowing time” in the Liberal Party and that his approach is to support his colleagues and “ensure there’s the support available to them that they need.”
That followed comments he made on the ABC earlier this week that women don’t need quotas, but rather more “practical” approaches like training and support.
https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/julia-banks-stinging-speech-quotas/
Why Are Public Parks So Dark?
Ellie Slee for Medium writes:
At the root of city design is a basic misogyny that affects how we move through them. Take, for example, public transport systems. Public transport is a vital part of navigating a city, particularly for people who don’t drive—many of whom are women. That’s right, driving is a heavily gendered pursuit, and while 80 percent of British men can drive, only 67 percent of British women have their license.
Ever wondered why it’s so difficult to get on the subway with a stroller? It’s because it’s not meant for it! I had this overwhelming realization when I stood, seven months pregnant: This train was not designed for anyone but the men in suits who weren’t giving up their seats for me.
I had it again another time, when I felt that familiar feeling of spiraling dread as a large, unknown hand worked its way across my waist: This train, with its close confines and limited CCTV, was not designed for me.
Lots of things were designed for women, it seems. Like baby changing units. They don’t exist in nearly enough places, but where they do, they are usually located in the women’s public bathrooms. This makes it impossible for male parents to care for their children effectively while in public.
Similarly, women are woefully underprovided for in terms of public restrooms. In Amsterdam, a woman was recently fined for peeing in an alleyway when she couldn’t find a public toilet. It seems more than a little unfair to punish someone for the shortcomings of her city, which coincidentally, has three public toilets for women and 35 public urinals for men.
https://medium.com/s/story/women-are-erased-from-urban-planning-at-most-it-costs-us-our-lives-e8d58d07e46b
Women Move From Samba’s Sidelines to the Center of the Circle
Shannon Simms for The New York Times writes:
With astonishing speed, female musicians in Brazil have begun breaking into the male realm of samba circles, taking a seat at the table both literally and figuratively. Just a few years ago, the musicians playing in a samba circle jam session used to be almost all male.
Another part of the movement is spurred by a newfound sense of revolt among female musicians against the lyrics of some of the traditional samba circle anthems, which make light of serious crimes such as domestic violence and sexual assault.
But as Brazilian women and female musicians in particular have called out the traditional samba circle’s culture of machismo, the blowback has been very real.
But samba circles weren’t always male dominated. In 1930s post-slavery Brazil, Ms. de Oliveira notes, women were the orchestrators of what are now known as samba circles.
Afro-Brazilian religions like Umbanda and Candomblé, which have been historically persecuted for their perceived connection to “black magic,” burnished the cultural role of the powerful female “auntie” — nicknamed a Baiana in reference to the state of Bahia, the geographical center of Afro-Brazilian religions in Brazil. The women inhabiting these leadership roles, which are somewhere between a mother figure and a wise queen, became the de facto hostesses of the very first samba circles.
Mr. Gustavo recently sat in as a guest at one of the new samba circles made up mostly of women. When he started playing one of the more offensive old songs — about beating women (without thinking twice, he claims) — the female musicians one by one stopped playing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/americas/women-samba-musicians.html
The Subtle Sexism of Icons – Member Feature Stories
Christina Ou for Medium writes:
In many instances I can recall, ranging from company presentations to popular apps and websites, the main icons displayed were obviously representative of men. At best, this shows that women were not taken into consideration when the product team designed and developed the product. At worst, it isolates women to feel like they are not the intended audience or priority.
As a designer, you have to pick your battles, but this is one that’s worth fighting. Women don’t deserve to feel inferior to men, even in something as small as an icon. Especially because it is such an easy fix. And to me, if a company isn’t willing to change an icon, then it most likely isn’t taking the steps to prevent unconscious bias on a bigger scale, as in addressing the gender pay gap and increasing the balance of women and minorities (and women that are minorities) in leadership roles.
https://medium.com/s/story/subtle-sexism-of-icons-e646ab1b0211
