Catalyst Blog

 Guest blog by Anne Summers, writer, journalist and author in Sydney

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Australia’s reputation for being a “blokey,” male-dominated, female-unfriendly country is being mugged by the reality that women now occupy a significant number of the nation’s highest positions.

The Prime Minister, the Governor-General (Australia’s head of state), the deputy leader of the Opposition, 20% of the federal cabinet, 35% of the Senate, 27% of the House of Representatives and three of the seven members of the highest court are women.

In New South Wales, the most populous state, a female triumvirate reigns supreme: the state’s governor, the premier, and the mayor of its capital city, Sydney, are all women—as are 28% of its parliamentarians. Oh, and the deputy Premier is female.  A woman also heads Queensland—a state that in the past was often referred to as the “Deep North” for its aggressively masculine and, often, racist culture.

When the politically powerful get together, the photographs sometimes suggest that men are now the minority when it comes to running the country.

Yet even Australians are surprised when presented with these facts.  It’s as if we had not noticed these incremental improvements until just seven weeks ago when Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister.  It took all the publicity that accompanied Gillard taking over the highest job in the land to reveal the welcome news that with so many other women in important positions, maybe Australia was not such a chauvinist backwater after all.

Suddenly, as we looked around, and counted up the women, we could hold our heads high.  Even if the picture is not so rosy when it comes to business, when it comes to political leadership Australian women are finally at the podium, the table, the bench, everywhere it counts.

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Anne Summers is a Sydney-based writer, journalist and author, whose latest books are The Lost Mother and On Luck. She writes opinion columns for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Sunday Age. Anne helped organize and facilitate the annual Serious Women’s Business conference, Australia’s pre-eminent conference for women aspiring to leadership, from 2001-2009. Her book The End of Equality was published in 2003 and her autobiography Ducks on the Pond came out in 1999.

In this edition, myths about working mothers are busted, the importance of engaging women on climate change is explored, and Australia’s “blokey,” or chauvinistic, culture is analyzed. Author Susan Douglas takes on “a new, subtle form of sexism,” and we look at disturbing information about the wealth gap for black and Hispanic women in America.

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 Gap, What Gap?

Startling new data on the wealth gap for single black and hispanic women only garnered one national television news mention, one NPR news story, two opinion pieces and one newspaper report. What did everyone miss? The fact that “single black women have a median wealth of $100 and Hispanic women $120—dramatically lower than white men ($43,800), white women ($41,500) or black men ($7,900),” according to the report.

READ: “Wealth Gap Yawns—and So Do Media,” by Julie Hollar, Extra!, June 2010

 Women in a Warming World

“Women need to be protected, engaged, and empowered for climate solutions to truly succeed,” writes  Kari Manlove of the Center for American Progress. Involving women at high-level climate negotiations is one place to start.

READ: “Women’s Role in a Warming World,” by Kari Manlove, Center for American Progress, 5/26/10

 Inequity Down Under

Last year, the Australia Securities Exchange (ASX) announced a proposal to expand corporate governance principles to include a mandatory gender diversity policy. In a country where a “blokey” culture rules, what effect will this have upon Australian corporate culture?

READ: “Not So Wizard in Oz,” by Cleo, The Gender Blog, 5/26/10

 Myth Busting

The Washington Post tackles  myths about working mothers. Did you know, for example, that working women (and men, for that matter) today spend more time with their children than ever before? Or that the more education a woman receives the less likely she is to “op-out” of her career? Consider these myths busted.

READ: “Five myths about working mothers,” by Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, The Washington Post, 5/30/10

 An Insidious Bias

What is “enlightened sexism?” According to author Susan Douglas, this new, subtle form of sexism “insists that full equality for women has been achieved … so it’s OK to resurrect retrograde, sexist images of women in the media, all with a wink and a laugh.” I agree with Douglas— how else to explain the sexist imagery and language that still pervades our media?

READ: “The New Sexism,” by Laura Fitzpatrick, Time, 3/16/10