Women are (rightly) angry. Now they need a plan

If the lessons of second wave feminism are any guide, Australian women now need to not only get angry, they need to get organised.

In the 1980s, government policy was routinely audited for its impact on women. But in the 1990s, feminist policy “machinery” was steadily dismantled.

Today’s Office for Women has a tiny staff and a low profile. It was not consulted on any of the major COVID-related policy shifts, like JobKeeper or changes to superannuation.

If our parliament is full of men who ignore, belittle and disrespect women, and women who enable these men, it is because we, the voters, have put them there. But we can also vote them out.

A women’s candidate survey, ready to roll out at the next federal election, is just one strategy from the women’s movement of the 1970s that might be worth reviving today. Women need to maintain their rage, but they need to turn it into political action, too.

Source: Women are (rightly) angry. Now they need a plan

One thought on “Women are (rightly) angry. Now they need a plan”

  1. No surprises this was written by a Labor supporter. Yes, surveying candidates should be done – but why wait until the next Federal Election? Many of the retrograde steps in recent decades have been at the hands of Labor women (including Gillard) who have aided and abetted in the decline of women’s rights by legislating to pander to the TRAs agenda – including changing the definition of women such as allows (if not encourages) women-haters to identify as women. Those TRA women haters now steal women’s jobs and sporting places and invade refuges and rape crisis centres – and demand to speak for and on behalf of women.

    WA is about to hold a state election and, state candidates should be asked if they agree with the current definition of women (introduced by Labor, by stealth i.e. with no mandate). That way we might raise some awareness – but, no, WALabor refuses to change its repugnant definition and refuses to allow open discussion. Ditto Greens. Voters need to know who has been captured by the TRA GII agenda, but they can’t know if nobody will be open and honest. I asked the SAP (Sustainable Australia Party) for contact details of their candidates – so I could survey candidates for their opinion on the definition of women – SAP refused to disclose candidate contact details (SAP is determined to ensure their preselected candidates remain ‘on message’). SAP also refused to advise SAPs own policy on women’s issues. SAP claimed it was a small party which didn’t have policies on many issues (including women’s issues), so I asked if elected SAP MPs would only vote on issues about which their candidates were knowledgeable. SAP declined to respond.

    Therein lies the problem – information is withheld from voters by all political parties (and candidates) – and we know major parties will only preselect female candidates who ‘enable’ men “who ignore, belittle and disrespect women”. Personally, I think I would rather be dealing with a ‘sexist male’ than an ‘enabling female’ – because the public is deluded into thinking women will do the right thing by other women, when many (if not most) simply makes the situation worse. No wonder we are going backwards.

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