Australia Day Honours 2020: Largest percentage of female recipients balances gender disparity
Twins Eileen Giles and Patty Powell are part of a record percentage of women honoured for their endeavours.
This year’s Australia Day honours contain the highest ever percentage of female recipients, with women taking out 348 — or 41.6 per cent — of all awards.
The result was widely hailed as progress towards balancing a gender disparity after fierce debate last year about whether targets or quotas should be introduced.
Honours are determined by the Council for the Order of Australia under the auspices of the Governor-General, but it can only consider nominations from the public.
Business partners and identical twin sisters Eileen Giles and Patty Powell, who have received Medals of the Order of Australia in recognition of their charity work, are among those recognised.
For more than a decade, they have helped homeless people in Rockingham, south of Perth, through their Servants of United Love (SOUL) organisation. “Because we are identical twins, our thought process is pretty similar,” Ms Powell, 65, told AAP.
The general division of this year’s Australia Day honours considered 1190 nominations, of which 686 were for men and 504 for women.
Of those nominated, 837 or 70.3 per cent were granted an award, with 489 going to men and 348 going to female recipients.
There were no nominations in the general division for women in engineering, surveying and mapping or transport.
There was at least one man nominated in every category except for library and related occupations.
There were no nominations considered at all in the industrial relations sector.
Fewer women were granted awards in nearly every category except the Arts (30 for men, 32 for women), the disabled sector (4 to men, 9 to women) and library and related occupations (2 female recipients and no male recipients).
There are 31 categories.
In most categories there were fewer nominations for females except for architecture, the Arts and the disabled sector.
There was an even number of nominations for men and women in dentistry and primary industry.
A spokesman from the Office of the Governor-General said the past decade had seen a significant increase in the number of nominations received and awards made to women.
“In 2009, 502 nominations for women were received (30.4 per cent of all nominations),” the spokesman said.
Governor-General David Hurley said the increase in the number of women given awards was part of a long-term, positive trend that he would like to continue.
“It’s a diverse list – with the percentage of women recipients in the Order of Australia above 41 per cent – but could be even more so,” Mr Hurley said in a statement. “Over the course of my term as Governor-General I want to ensure that as many outstanding Australians as possible, from all backgrounds, are nominated.”
Additional reporting: AAP
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