Queen’s birthday honours: Catherine Fox, champion for women, says there’s plenty of work still to do

When Catherine Fox first walked into a newsroom in 1989, she was struck by how many women there were. But progress on that front has stalled.

Author/journalist Catherine Fox. Picture: John Feder

When Catherine Fox first walked into a newsroom in 1989, she was struck by how many women there were.

“At the time, it was quite a refreshing thing to see. Business media, especially, was seen as a slightly more conservative branch of the industry, so it was surprising to me that it was the area where I was seeing such a strong female cohort,” she said.

“But what I would observe is that by now I would have expected to see even more progress on the issue of gender equality, not just in the media but right across Australia, and I think that’s a shame.”

Fox – who did her cadetship with The Australian Financial Review – is a Walkley award-winning journalist, author and corporate speaker. The 63-year-old has been made a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia, for significant service to journalism, and to gender equality and diversity.

“I love journalism; I loved it from the moment I started. I wanted to be a journo since I was in my teens, and when I finally landed a job in a newsroom, I knew I’d found my tribe,” she said.

“Journalism has given me the chance to interview Nobel prize winners, leaders of government and business, and so many other interesting people in between – it’s such a wonderful job.

“But it’s also given me a platform to pursue my passion, which is to see more gender equality in society, and I’m very grateful for that.”

Fox has written several books on the issue of gender equality, feminism, and women in the workplace; she has edited business magazines, and is still a regular contributor to titles including The Australian’s The Deal.

“I think there’s still a problem with the way we organise labour – domestic unpaid labour, and paid labour – in this country,” Fox said.

“We still don’t have the level of affordable and accessible childcare that we should have in Australia, and we still have a tax system that makes it, at times, prohibitive for women with small children to work more than three days a week. And on top of that I think we still have some pretty old-fashioned attitudes about gender. It’s still a pretty blokey culture.”

Fox said it was an “uplifting feeling” to be recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.