How men continue to interrupt even the most powerful women

The numbers do not lie: women have long been underrepresented on the United States Supreme Court. In the court’s 228-year history, only four of the 112 justices have been female. Sandra Day O’Connor became the first female justice in 1981, almost two centuries after the court’s creation, decades after ratification of the 19th Amendment, and years after landmark Supreme Court decisions on women’s rights. Now, with three female justices on the bench, gender equality on the court seems within reach. But our new research on interruptions among justices during Supreme Court oral arguments indicates that women still do not have an equal opportunity to be heard in the highest court in the land.

Justice is interrupted when a justice is interrupted. When a justice is interrupted during her questioning, her point is often left unaddressed. Because women and liberal justices are interrupted at significantly higher rates than the other members of the court, this could make it much harder for women to make arguments and win votes during the post-conference process.

https://aeon.co/ideas/how-men-continue-to-interrupt-even-the-most-powerful-women

Women rely on the family home to support them in old age

Thanks in part to the gender pay gap, the gender wealth gap more than doubled between 2002 and 2014. But our research shows Australian women don’t just trail men in total wealth, they also have less diverse asset portfolios. Women are more likely than men to have their assets tied up in a family home. This means their finances are more precarious, and they have less saved for retirement.

https://theconversation.com/women-rely-on-the-family-home-to-support-them-in-old-age-76703

This workplace just got a menstrual policy and yours can copy it

Now, the Victorian Women’s Trust is promoting its “menstrual policy”, which they say for the past 12 months has been successfully assisting female employees who’re experiencing their period or menopause.

The VWT is also making its menstrual policy template freely available to other workplaces, in the hope other employers will follow their lead.

The policy offers a number of options for employees who’re managing their period: including to work from home; to stay at work but sit or lie somewhere comfortable (such as in a quiet area); and to take a day’s paid menstrual leave. It gives employees a maximum of 12 paid days per calendar year (pro-rata and non-cumulative) for those who’re unable to perform their work duties due to menstruation or menopause. A medical certificate is not required for these days.

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/eds-blog/workplace-just-got-menstrual-policy-can-copy/

Proposed Changes to HECS/HELP Repayment Will Be Particularly Harsh on Women

Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney said analysis of this year’s budget showed younger women were some of the budget’s biggest losers. “Another generation of women will have less money, less opportunity and less financial security because they’re earning lower wages than their male counterparts from graduation, to childbearing years and right through to retirement,” Kearney said.

According to the 2017 Workplace Gender Equality Agency report there is an average gender pay gap for recent graduates of 9.4 per cent favouring males.

The NFAW report said: “It may not make financial sense for a woman with young children to take up a position with a salary that is close to the repayment threshold, if it jeopardises other benefits and if she is required to pay for childcare as well.”

https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2017/05/proposed-changes-hecshelp-repayment-will-particularly-harsh-women/?

The 22 women on this year’s Rich List, including eight billionaires

There are now eight, billionaire women in Australia as reported by the annual Financial Review Rich List yesterday. It may sound like a huge figure, but this year 60 Aussie billionaires made the list – the highest number in the report’s 34-year history. If you can do quick maths, this means that just thirteen percent of the highest earners were female.

An honourable mention goes to Nicole Kidman for emerging as the highest earning Australian entertainer. She currently sits on a fortune of $347 million. (Not bad for a girl who started out on Aussie TV soap, ‘A Country Practice’.

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/22-women-years-rich-list-including-eight-billionaires/

There’s still a huge gender gap in NZ’s equity partner ranks

There’s still a wide gender disparity at the most senior ranks of law firms in New Zealand. At the equity partner level, 81% are male while only 19% are female, according to a study conducted by the Australasian Legal Practice Management Association (ALPMA) and McLeod Duminy.

“There are considerably more women than men working in private practice – yet, women make up less than a fifth of equity partners and only 43% of salaried partners,” said Kirsty Spears, McLeod Duminy legal recruitment consultant. “It seems that despite women making up 63% of lawyers and solicitors, and 64% of senior management, the top position of partner is still dominated by males.”

http://www.nzlawyermagazine.co.nz/news/theres-still-a-huge-gender-gap-in-nzs-equity-partner-ranks–study-236803.aspx

‘Stay-at-home Mum’: An archaic term ripe for extinction?

. . . the opportunity and financial cost of spending time raising children and managing a household, instead of working for pay is a huge drain on a family’s finances. So because what we do is unpaid, society in general inherently, and often subconsciously, looks down on ‘Stay-at-home Mums’ as not providing value.

But we are all painstakingly aware, both from statistics, economic modelling and experience, that this work is so hugely valuable and fundamentally important. Yet, still today, the term ‘Stay-at-home Mum’ is full of negative connotations and stigma. It implies inactivity and masks the many roles a mother actually fulfils. No other job description is so multi-dimensional. In my view, the term ‘Stay-at-home Mum’ undermines the very work we do and belies the real nature of this all consuming role. So no, I was not going to write ‘Stay-at-home Mum’ on that form.

A close friend, who has the same immigration form dilemma, shared with me her struggle with the term. “It implies that you stay at home….and do…well…not much. It has symbolised the totally undervalued, horrifically hard role that I took on for a period without properly understanding the job description.

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/soapbox/stay-home-mum-archaic-term-ripe-extinction/

“Ask Treasury”: The Office for Women’s response to the Budget’s impact on women.

On Monday the Minister for Women and the Office for Women were asked a number of questions about this in Senate estimates. They were specifically asked about what modelling for women had been undertaken. They were also asked to articulate the Office’s efforts to meet the G20 objective of boosting women’s workforce participation.

The responses seem to reinforce the NFAW conclusion that no “gender aware” analysis of the budget took place.

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/ask-treasury-office-womens-response-diabolical-tax-situation-women-will-face/

End the system that fosters misogyny

Today, women occupy 65% of the paid workforce, but still perform 66% of the unpaid caring work in Australia. Despite these victories, there is something fundamentally wrong with this system. Capitalism can live with women in the workforce just as long as we know our place and continue to accept the double standard and the double burden.

Imagine if quality child-care was free, there was free health, dental and hospital care for all, community restaurants provided cheap and nutritious meals, education was free and domestic chores were paid for by the state. Life for families, and especially women, would be very different. But this sort of arrangement would mean that a proportion of the profits currently pocketed by the ruling class would have to be spent on providing such services.

Neoliberalism is moving society in the exact opposite direction to this vision. We are seeing attacks on welfare, the dismantling of universal health and free education. This is putting huge strain on families and, by extension, on women. We cannot take the gains that working women have won for granted. But they are limited and temporary — just look at the attacks on penalty rates, on the right to organise in a union, the fight for equal pay.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/end-system-fosters-misogyny

Damning Budget analysis: Some women will be hit with an effective marginal tax rate of 100%

One of the key findings in the NFAW 2017-18 Gender Lens report, released today, is that the combination of various policy changes this year could lead to an effective marginal tax rates of 100% or higher for some women.

The “stacking together” of changes to the medicare levy, HECS and government benefits and different income tests, can create a very different effective tax rate.

Changes in this Budget mean a graduate earning $51,000 could have less disposable income than someone earning $32,000. Because women are overrepresented at lower income levels, changes to government benefits and increases in taxes have a disproportionate effect on women.

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/some-women-to-be-hit-with-an-effective-marginal-tax-rate-of-100/
http://www.nfaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FINAL-Gender-Lens-2017.pdf