If the ABS guts Australia’s time use survey, women’s work will count for little

Childcare is probably Australia’s largest industry, most of it unpaid.

We know this because of Australian Bureau of Statistics time use surveys. Since 1992 these surveys have recorded what thousands of Australians say they do with their time in diaries kept for 48 hours.

But if the Bureau of Statistics proceeds with its current plans for scaling down the survey we soon won’t be able to tell.

Australia has not only led the world in recording time use, but also in recording simultaneous activities – what Australians do when they multitask.

In 1997 the survey found that whereas the average time spent on childcare as a main activity was about two hours per day, the average when simultaneous activities were taken into account was closer to seven hours per day. Among the simultaneous activities were preparing meals and washing clothes.

Now the bureau wants. . . .to exclude simultaneous activities.

This means we will no longer get a good read on the total amount of childcare and other domestic activities we are doing. Our surveys will also no longer be directly comparable to those of other countries.

Time-use expert Lyn Craig of the University of Melbourne says that without the contextual data the bureau proposes to leave out we won’t be able to capture the full dimensions of care work, including whether the breakdown by gender is changing.

Those who specialise in time-use research say the bureau’s current plan is destined to fail. There’s a good deal of women’s unpaid work it won’t capture.

In 1988 New Zealand economist Marilyn Waring wrote a famous book called Counting for Nothing about how women and the environment were invisible in policymaking.

If the bureau proceeds as planned, it will take us back toward those days.

Source: If the ABS guts Australia’s time use survey, women’s work will count for little

A new senate inquiry is hoping to break the silence and stigma around menopause

Senator Marielle Smith

The Senate Community Affairs References Committee will spend the next 9 months delving into the issues related to menopause and perimenopause.

More specifically, the Senate inquiry will consider:

  • The economic consequences of menopause and perimenopause, including workforce participation, productivity, and retirement planning;
  • Physical health impacts, including symptoms, associated medical conditions, and access to healthcare services;
  • The mental and emotional wellbeing of individuals experiencing menopause and perimenopause, considering issues like mental health, self-esteem, and social support;
  • The impacts on caregiving responsibilities, family dynamics, and relationships;
  • Cultural and societal factors influencing perceptions and attitudes towards menopause and perimenopause, including within culturally and linguistically diverse communities and women’s business in First Nations communities;
  • Levels of awareness amongst medical professionals and patients of symptoms and treatments, including affordability and availability;
  • The level of awareness amongst employers and workers of the symptoms, and the awareness, availability, and usage of workplace supports;
  • Existing Commonwealth, state and territory government policies, programs, and healthcare initiatives addressing menopause and perimenopause; and,
  • How other jurisdictions support individuals experiencing menopause and perimenopause from a health and workplace policy perspective.

Submissions to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee inquiry, Issues related to menopause and perimenopause, are sought by 16 February 2024.

Individuals and organisations are encouraged to share their opinions and proposals in writing by addressing responses to the inquiry’s terms of reference. Submissions can be uploaded at: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Menopause

Source: A new senate inquiry is hoping to break the silence and stigma around menopause

Hopeful anthology about the gender war

Gender-based statistics are removed in several countries. Women are renamed womb carriers or pregnant people. Yvonne Hirdman, who launched the word “gender” in Sweden, reads a new anthology and reflects on what has happened to gender research.

The book I promised to review is called, Women’s Rights Gender Wrongs. The global impact of gender-identity ideology , and is an entry in this war.

It is an anthology (ed. Kath Aiken & Sally Wainwright) which is divided into two parts. The first consists of essays/reports from women around the world about the impact “gender-identity ideology” has had in each country – for example in terms of legal systems, social policy, education and health systems.

The second part contains short reports from 35 countries around the world on how the country in question lives up to the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, a declaration that requires CEDAW, the Women’s Convention, to be confirmed. 1

So what is the book about? The title trumpets its thesis: that women’s rights – as women – are threatened or have already been curtailed or sidelined by an ideology that does not recognize biological sex as a basis for rights, but replaces this with an experience, a sense of identity.

[S]o the core of this movement that leads away from woman/sex to gender according to the book’s author: to de-biologize motherhood, to be able to become a “generic” mother or father.

“Exploitation of reproduction is at the core of the post-queer agenda and appropriation of women’s reproductive capacity is at the core of patriarchy”.

Neither Beauvoir nor we (at least I) ever denied the existence of sex: the vagina, the breast, the X-chromosome. What we denied was that these biological characteristics created collective female characteristics. This attribution of stereotypical gender characteristics emanates directly from biological functions: if you have a vagina, you are predestined to scrub toilets – the kind of idiocy that has kept women under the tyranny of the cutting blankets. So simple.

Source: Parabol | Hoppfull antologi om genuskriget

Anglicare refused to assess Aboriginal baby’s aunt as carer because she was in same-sex relationship, court hears | Indigenous Australians | The Guardian

Anglicare refused to assess the Aboriginal aunt of an Aboriginal baby as a long-term carer because she was in a same-sex relationship and, with the knowledge of the New South Wales government, sought to have the baby adopted to a non-Indigenous couple, a court has heard.

The nine-month-old, who cannot be identified for legal reasons and is known to the court by the pseudonym Daisy, has complex needs. At four days old Daisy was discharged to the Anglicare adoption agency and placed with a non-Indigenous couple as “authorised pre-adoptive carers”, court documents show.

In October, the DCJ filed a care plan with the court, as required by law. In it, DCJ recommended the baby be adopted. It did not tell the court it was aware there were other family members who could be assessed and had applied to care for Daisy.

But the same day, a DCJ caseworker filed an affidavit in which she claimed Anglicare did not even assess the cousin and would not assess the aunt because she was in a same-sex relationship.

The magistrate said the act “requires that Daisy, because she cannot be restored to the care of a parent, should be placed with a relative, kin or other suitable person in accordance with a guardianship order”.

“[DCJ] was not able to explain why Anglicare was being paid to case manage … when seemingly not willing to make decisions in accordance with the Care Act,” Sheedy said.

Source: Anglicare refused to assess Aboriginal baby’s aunt as carer because she was in same-sex relationship, court hears | Indigenous Australians | The Guardian

Miriam Cates is right about surrogacy | Helen Gibson | The Critic Magazine

It is a fundamentally dishonest and exploitative practice

Much ado in Westminster this week, following the revelation by Miriam Cates MP, in a wide ranging interview in The House Magazine, that, like Pope Francis, she supports a ban on surrogacy.

“Anger as top Tory MP and mum of three Miriam Cates calls for surrogate baby ban”, screamed a Daily Mail headline. And yet, looking at the responses to Ms Cates’ mild assertion that “to deliberately bring a child into the world in order to separate it from its mother at birth … is just ethically not acceptable” I didn’t see much anger, more indifference, if anything.

Surrogacy is illegal in most countries in the world, in all forms. Commercial surrogacy, where a woman is paid for surrogacy and adverts can be placed for surrogate mothers, is banned in the UK in favour of a so-called “altruistic” model. Surrogacy is only legal in a handful of US states and countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Georgia and Ukraine. It’s certainly not a standard global practice to which everyone concurs with the view of it being “just another way to have a family”, whatever its champions may tell themselves.

Responding to Ms Cates in the Daily Mail, Chairman of the surrogacy agency Surrogacy UK, Alan White, said “surrogates don’t see themselves as mothers, they see themselves as extreme baby-sitters or looking after someone’s baby and doing that wonderful thing of doing the part of having children women or gay men can’t do for themselves.”

Only a man could call pregnancy and childbirth “extreme babysitting”.

[O]f course, a woman is not a microwave, or an oven. Without the mother, an embryo would remain just that. A woman’s uterus is not a neutral environment, one woman’s body is not interchangeable with another’s.

Epigenetics determines the development of the baby in utero; meaning the environment of the specific woman’s body can encourage or inhibit the development of certain characteristics that may emanate from the genes of the commissioning parents, but that her body ultimately decides whether or not to enable to develop. This reality makes the claim that a mother is just a “gestational carrier”, or “host” all the more galling.

Stop Surrogacy Now UK, a women’s rights group concerned with the growth of surrogacy at home and abroad. She said to me “we see all the time women reduced to nothing more than body parts, wombs for hire; we hear MPs talk about the need for ‘access to surrogacy’, without remembering there’s a living, human woman involved in this process; to say nothing of the impact of being handed away at birth on her child”.

Surrogacy might just be one of the biggest cons ever played against women. Convincing women that the child they grow from their own body and blood isn’t theirs, not theirs to bond with, not theirs to mourn; using their bodies for babies and milk, before leaving them behind without another thought, might just be the cruellest trick of the last fifty years.

Source: Miriam Cates is right about surrogacy | Helen Gibson | The Critic Magazine

NSW #ThisIsNotEquality Campaign CALL A MP/MLC Today

Alex Greenwich MP’s LGBTQI+ ‘Equality’ Bill is scheduled for Parliamentary debate on

THURSDAY 8 February 2024

Parliamentarians set to vote on the Bill

DO NOT UNDERSTAND ALL THE HARMS OF THIS BILL

WE NEED TO TELL MP’s OFFICES (again!)

woman holding a mobile phone in her left hand looking anxious

For list of MPs and what to say: https://mailchi.mp/womensrights.network/nsw-equality-bill-debated-nsw-parliament-8-feb-call-a-mp?e=e3c96effa8

Transgender man found pregnant during sex-transition, willing to be a father

RAn Italian transgender man while going through a mastectomy (removal of breasts) during his(sic) transition to become a man was found five-months pregnant. The trans man namely, Marco, had his(sic) hysterectomy (removal of uterus) due and was going through an advanced stage of the sex-change, before his(sic) pregnancy was noticed at the hospital in Rome.
Marco, as per the reports, is now willing to keep the pregnancy and give birth to his baby. Interestingly, Marco will biologically be the baby’s mother but will be registered as its father.Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/world/transgender-man-found-pregnant-during-sex-transition-willing-to-be-a-father-2861950

Source: Transgender man found pregnant during sex-transition, willing to be a father

‘Horrifying numbers’ of women and girls will die because of UK aid cuts, say MPs | Global development | The Guardian

British aid cuts have had a “devastating” effect on women and girls around the world, forcing sexual and reproductive health programmes to be cancelled, according to a new cross-party report by MPs.

Nearly 300,000 women died during pregnancy and childbirth globally in 2020, according to the parliamentary committee, which said aid should be used to combat this problem, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where 70% of the deaths happened. It also said 2.4 million children died in their first year – most of them in sub-Saharan Africa or central and southern Asia.

Sarah Champion, the IDC chair, said: “A girl in South Sudan is more likely to die in childbirth than to finish secondary school. Even here in the UK maternal deaths are at their highest level in 20 years, but almost 95% of maternal deaths globally are in poorer countries.”

An analysis of the potential impact of government policy on disadvantaged groups, known as an equality impact assessment, presented to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in July 2023, warned that the cuts could mean nearly 200,000 more unsafe abortions were performed in Africa.

The UK cut its official development assistance (ODA) from £11.7bn in 2019 to £7.6bn in 2022. Funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) was cut by a third.

Source: ‘Horrifying numbers’ of women and girls will die because of UK aid cuts, say MPs | Global development | The Guardian

Protect Women and Children in NSW | Petition

Sign the petition calling on NSW MPs to protect women and children.

Dear Premier The Hon. Chris Minns, Attorney-General The Hon. Michael Daley, Minister for Women The Hon. Jodie Harrison, and Members of the NSW Parliament,

We call on you to protect women and children and reject the anti-women, anti-children reforms being proposed in NSW, including:

  • The introduction of self-ID, which will allow anyone to change their legal sex (including children), enabling males to legally identify as female and access women-only spaces;
  • Fully deregulated prostitution, which will remove protections for prostituted persons, and further entrench the sexual objectification and exploitation of women and girls;
  • Removing bans on commercial surrogacy, which will encourage the commodification of vulnerable women as wombs for rent and children as products for sale; and
  • The criminalisation or restriction of care for individuals struggling with gender dysphoria that doesn’t simply affirm a person’s ‘gender identity’.

These regressive reforms endanger, discriminate against, and/or commodify and exploit women and children, and in some cases, put at risk the rights and freedoms of NSW citizens, and subvert best medical practice. They are out of step with evolving research and developments taking place overseas.

We urge you to listen to the concerns of women’s and children’s advocates and the broader community being raised about these harmful reforms, and to protect the rights and welfare of all NSW citizens.

Source: Protect Women and Children in NSW

23/01/2024 | Press release | Fight against human trafficking: Council and European Parliament strike deal to strengthen rules | Council of the EU

Today the Belgian presidency of the Council and representatives of the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement to add forced marriage, illegal adoption and surrogacy as types of exploitation covered by the EU’s anti-trafficking law. The update of the directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings will also require EU countries to make sure that people knowingly using services provided by victims of trafficking can face sanctions. Other amendments concern the strengthening of victims’ support and assistance as well as prevention measures.

Council and European Parliament negotiators agreed to explicitly mention in the directive that the exploitation of surrogacy, forced marriage and illegal adoption are types of exploitation which fall under the scope of the definition of trafficking. The trafficking for the exploitation of surrogacy, which is when a woman agrees to deliver a child on behalf of another person or couple to become the child’s parent(s) after birth, will target those who coerce or deceive women into acting as surrogate mothers.

Including these forms of trafficking in the EU anti-trafficking law will take into account the prevalence and the relevance of these forms of exploitation.

The Council and EU Parliament have also decided to include a new aggravating circumstance in the law to take into account the amplifying effect that information and communication technologies (ICT) can have as regards trafficking. This includes the fact that the perpetrator facilitated or committed the dissemination, by means of ICT, of images, videos or similar material of a sexual nature involving the victim.

Sanctions on legal persons, such as companies, held accountable for trafficking offences will also be beefed up. They will from now on cover the exclusion from access to public funding, including tender procedures, grants, concessions and licences, and the withdrawal of permits and authorisations to pursue activities which have resulted in committing the offence.

Source: Council of the EU