Fair go for women

Gender-orientated legislation and bureaucratic bodies to support it have been in place in Australia for a long time, but their impact seems to be lessening over time. If we wish to achieve an equality consistent with "fair go" values, we need to pay real attention to the current statistics suggesting a nation of overworked and underpaid women. They should create some urgency, or at least a sense of obligation to act, somewhere deep inside the bowels of our elected governments. Perhaps we need to revise, or indeed to reform, gender-orientated legislation and to increase support and funding of gender bureaucratic bodies?

If we don't act we will travel down the same path as countries like the United Kingdom, where an influential all-party group of MPs warned that the gender pay gap could take another 78 years to close at the current rate of progress, and that some minority groups may never achieve equality if current trends continue. Let’s see: 78 years makes me - in fact all of us - either very old or very dead!

The 2007 Women on Boards analysis (PDF 320KB) of female representation on the boards of the top ASX listed companies, and the recent EOWA report, confirm that many Australian businesses have not yet made the link between corporate social responsibility, gender and its economic benefits.

On International Women's Day it is important to remember that the struggle for fairness and for equality is not an attempt by women to divide and conquer. It is part of the centuries-old struggle of women to participate equally with men in society and social change. Australian statistics show that although that struggle has not been in vain it has a long way to go. A “fair go” is indeed what we want for all Australian women and for generations of Australian women to come.