Feminism and motherhood
I have just spent a week with a wonderful 16-month-old baby. On arriving back home one of the first things I read was a blog article about whether or not you can be a feminist and still have maternal instincts. Both these events got me thinking about my time as a young mother.
Plus 63: women work 63 days more than men
On September 1, 2009 it will be Equal Pay Day again. The first Equal Pay Day was set by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) in 2008.
Who remembers Mr Ed?
I couldn't help thinking about Mr Ed (you know, the talking horse from the '60s) the other day when I read that not only is 1st August the horses' birthday, it is also the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act in Australia.
Religion and misogyny
Why is it that most people's religions discriminate against women? This was the thought that occurred to me when I read Jimmy Carter's recent article in The Guardian talking about the role of religions in encouraging discrimination against women.
Paid maternity leave: a fix for pay inequity?
A recent news story about research by Ian Watson showing that whichever way you look at the data, women managers earn about 25% less than their male counterparts is no great surprise to anyone who reads this blog. Apparently between 70-90% of this wage gap cannot be explained, as the characteristics of male and female managers in the research sample are remarkably similar.
Child neglect and social isolation
Social isolation has been identified as the cause of quite a few problems, not the least of which are problems faced by women. Some research undertaken by WIRE in 2007 linked women's social isolation and problem gambling. I thought of this research when I was reading Jenny Macklin's statement on the 'Wellbeing of Australia's Children' in which she paints a pretty dismal picture of how well we are looking after Australia's children.
Who is telling whom to wear what?
The same week that we saw the young women of Iran, in their burkas, fighting with their lives for democracy, Nicholas Sarkozy declared a ban on the burqa as it is, in his opinion, a symbol of repression and he is going to rescue Muslim women in France from being oppressed.
Women's pay regresses further
The slippery slope of women's pay has taken another turn for the worse. Not only do we earn less, but the way we are paid also determines how much less we will earn.
Actions speak louder than ockerisms
What is it about our Prime Minister lately? By talking like an ocker he totally succeeded in distracting the media from the question of why the new jobs in the recent Ministerial reshuffle went to blokes and not to women, and then he refers to Kate Ellis, the only woman given a bigger job in the reshuffle, as 'Young Kate''.
Review of equal what?
The government announced a review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act recently, and I think I might propose that the Act be renamed the Hollow, Empty Act Promising Equality for Every Woman at Work (HEAP of EEWW).
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