'It's a matter of holding ground': where to for gender equality in 2020

Australian women celebrated historic anniversaries in the march towards gender equality in 2019 – the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage in South Australia and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the principle of equal pay for equal work – but in 2020, we stand at a crossroads, as key campaigners warning a fight will be needed jut to "hold ground", quite apart from working to close persistent gaps.

A few key milestones this year will focus minds on areas in which equality has yet to be achieved for Australian women – with sometimes-devastating consequences.

On a variety of measures, gender equality is a work in progress in Australia.Credit: AFR

Australian women still retire with, on average, 47 percent less super than men (and experts have warned of the “nightmare” that is expected to hit many Australian women as they age), so a rumoured follow up to the Federal Government's Women's Economic Security statement could and should include measures to help close the enduring 14 per cent gender pay gap.

Former Minister for Women, Kelly O'Dwyer, launched the statement in 2018 and her successor, Senator Marise Payne, is said to be considering where to next. Further action would be welcomed by a non-government women’s sector also keen to know how the struggle to cut the toll of family violence on Australian women will continue once the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women expires in 2022.

Despite 10 years and tens of millions of dollars in funding, on average one woman a week is still murdered by her current and former partner and one in three Australian women has experienced violence since the age of 15.

A renewed focus on reducing sexual harassment in tertiary education will occur when a second student survey by Universities Australia commences this year; and the state of sexual harassment in workplaces generally will be brought into sharp focus when the Australian Human Rights Commission hands down the much-anticipated report from its two-year inquiry.

I just hope everyone realises that they will have to fight harder ... to gain anything new, as well as to protect what little we have already won.

Even so, Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, leads the inquiry, tells me, “more than in the past, (we) need to keep holding ground as a top priority – we can’t take anything for granted". Pioneering women's rights activist, Anne Summers agrees: “I just hope that everyone realises that they will have to fight harder than ever in order to gain anything new, as well as to protect what little we have already won."

Their caution is well founded: Australia ended 2019 with the news that it had continued its almost uninterrupted backwards slide in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, slipping five spots to #44 out of 153 countries. In 2006, Australia sat at #15. Gaps in political participation and economic empowerment, in particular, are fuelling the downward trajectory.

Also on the agenda, more must be done this year to improve affordability and availability of quality childcare in order to support more women to participate in the workforce. Certainly more than urging parents to “shop around”, which was Education Minister Dan Tehan’s inadequate response to a recent report highlighting spiralling costs.

Leah Ruppanner, Associate Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Policy Lab at the University of Melbourne whose article Women Aren’t Better Multitaskers than Men – they’re just doing more went viral last year, will soon release her research in book form, Motherlands, in which she will establish a compelling link between policy settings and women's ability to reap the benefits for workforce participation.

Australia still has some of the most expensive childcare in the world, and as the Federal Government seeks to meet its G20 commitment to increase women’s workforce participation rates by 2025, Ruppanner’s analysis will be a call to arms.

On the push for equal pay, before Libby Lyons steps down as director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency later this year, she promises to target employers known to have an "action gap" between their statements about better pay and outcomes for female employees and the reality for employees. It will be good to see the softly-softly approach to boosting workplace gender equality in this country toughened up a little.

On reproductive health, Jacqui O’Brien, the Director of Public Affairs & Policy at Marie Stopes Australia, predicts that following the decriminalisation of abortion in New South Wales (the final state to do so), debate will shift to reproductive health equity and access issues. As well it should: there are still places in Australia where women cannot access abortion through the public health system – which effectively makes this health service a postcode lottery.

The ongoing Disability Royal Commission will also represent a turning point for disabled women this year. Activist Nicole Lee tells me “we’ll start to really hear and see the abuse that has been perpetrated on disabled people, particularly women,” and the campaign to safeguard women susceptible to sexual and other abuse will gather force.

Lee says she hopes issues including forced sterilisation of women with disabilities, something the UN rightly called on Australia to end, will be prioritised in 2020, as well they should be. It is unconscionable that this practice continues to happen in our names.

Kristine Ziwica is a long-term worker and campaigner in the gender equality sector.