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November 1, 2009
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Women Getting into Boards Report 2009
Moira Rainer - ENEMIES OF FEMINISM
Judy Small - Launch of Women Working Together suffrage and onwards
Mary Sexton - Women Working Together, Suffrage and Onwards
Other Reviews -
Women Working Together, Suffrage and Onwards
Cold tea for Brandy
A Tale of Protest, Painting and Politics
The Jammed
Willing Up and Keeling Over
Diann Rodgers-Healey - Women Getting into Boards Report 2009
As the implementation of quotas is being debated in the community to ensure a gender balance in board composition, it is clear that we have reached the point where stricter measures are being considered to effect change of the size and scope needed. The Women Getting into Boards Report was released today by the Australian Centre for Leadership for Women (CLW). Based on a survey of 317 women, 93% of whom were Australian, the study canvassed women's views on the difficulties they experience getting into boards .
The Report by Dr Diann Rodgers-Healey, Founder of CLW reveals why women want to join boards? Which resources do they access and consider most effective? What can workplaces and the Government do to assist them in their board membership aspirations?The findings of this study will apply to women, workplaces, government and most significantly to boards. Board members will gain an insight into the perceptions women have of how boards operate and how boards could benefit by adopting their suggestions.
The full Report is at www.leadershipforwomen.com.au
Moira Rainer - Launch of Women Working Together suffrage and onwards.
(Book launch, 31st March 2009
Sorry the photos of Moira Rainer didn't turn out well enough to use.)
ENEMIES OF FEMINISM - Moira Rainer:
"I have just about five minutes to talk about the enemies of feminism!
I was going to put it in verse, but I can't, so I have done an A to Z instead.
A is for Arndt, Bettina. Do I need to explain why? And the Alarm Bells that don't go off early enough. My fiance said, Of course he would let his career take second place while I got my doctorate in Canada. When he was my husband, immediately after the honeymoon, he said he wouldn't. I got a divorce eight years later. He never got another promotion, though there is no connection between the two. A is also for Apathy - we haven’t won the battle for equality, and defeat can be snatched from the jaws of victory at any time.
B is for Balls - by which I mean testosterone driven conversation. When Joan Kirner was Premier she used to say that when the boys talked about 'you have got to have balls to do that', that no woman needs breasts to do that. B is also for Bastardry - and there’s a lot of it around, let's not pretend otherwise - people who are supportive to your face but plotting away or undermining you behind the scenes. Never forget Margaret Thatcher - not my feminist friend. Nonetheless, the reason she stopped being Prime Minister of England was because somebody suggested that this woman was looking a little tired. That is where it all started from. They don't do that to these guys who are looking more than a little tired - and emotional, if you talk about Bob Hawke. But he is not a feminist either. B is also for Bullying, and there is plenty of it. Let us not pretend it is not there.
C is for Chauvinism, of course, and for Chronic fatigue - we try to do everything.
D is for Double Standards. Why didn’t the Murdoch press run pictures of Malcolm Fraser with his pants down? And they did run pictures of, allegedly, Pauline Hanson having a good time? The reson supposed to be that one was in the public interest and the other wasn't. Really? Is that so? D is also for Discrimination. We don't need to say any more, as some of you know I was an Equal Opportunity Commissioner here, and there is the backlash women received when they actually raised discrimination as an issue in the workplace. They were told they were whingers and were asking for special treatment. STILL - and the Equal Opportunity Act came into effect thirty one years ago - and they are still doing it.
E is for Energy, running out of, which is what happens when you try to do things on your own. Particularly when it is without the support of other women, and especially other feminists. It doesn't have to be women, my Dad was a feminist. My mother told me that girls didn't do carpentry. So you take it from where you can get it. E is also for Editors, like The Australian editor last week, who announced, Now that Anna Bligh had been elected Premier of Queensland there was no need for any more affirmative action in politics and Emily's List, in particular, should dissolve itself. Speaking as the co-convenor of Emily's List in Victoria, I don't think they got that quite right. E is also for the Endeavour Forum.
F is Fundamentalism - not religion, necessarily. Not faith, but fundamentalism.
G is for Guilt. This is something we take on - a useless emotion - that we take on when we cannot do it all. Of course we can't do it all - I can't do a 70 hour, seven day week for more than a few years.
H is for Harassment, of course. And it is not just sexual, it is sexist, as much. H is also for Handcuffs, golden, the sort you get when you play like a bloke in the workplace, thinking that you can join the honorary men's club. You never join the honorary men's club and they are still handcuffs, no matter how pink the fluff around them.
I is for Ignorance. Paris Hilton - Paris and I have a great deal in common - you might have noticed my Chihuahua. She doesn't seem to know that the only reason she has choices she has is because women not only fought to vote, they actually went and voted. She didn't bother. Mind you, I thought it was fun when she was running for President in the pink White House - that was pretty cute.
J is for Judgement - being judgemental about other women. J is also for jealousy - putting down women who have done really well. Finally, J is for Journalists who you should never trust. Sorry. It was a woman journalist who, in my very dark days a few years ago now, who rang and said that unless I agreed to be photographed they would set the paparazzi on me, and a few minutes later, as turned the corner in my car, I found they had staked out my father’s home. So naturally I did what they wanted. I was then pilloried by the same newspaper for having sought out publicity.
K - Kryptonite.
L is for laziness - girls who can’t be bothered using the rights we have fought for, and who don't realize that actually they haven't got it all.
M is for Men’s Rooms - also known as Board Rooms, no matter how many women are being spread thinly over the top (and have you noticed we are getting fewer and fewer at the moment in the decision making forums).
N is for saying No when you are offered an opportunity, because you think it is a challenge and that you are not 'up to it'.
O is for Obsequiousness. Don't ever trust anyone who is obsequious to you and don't be obsequious yourself - it is a major thing.
P is for Patriarchy. It is here. It is still alive and well. P is also for taking it Personally. Don't take it personally when they turn on you - they turn on you because you are a threat. Taking it personally means you are losing 'P for perspectiv' and that is the enemy of your own feminism.
Q is for Quislings. A quisling is a person who talks the talk but when given the power, decides they can't do it because it is different now. They join with the rest of the enemies. They reveal themselves as the Emporer and exercise power from the Dark Side (if you have seen Star Wars).
R is for Religion, but only organised religion. I speak here as a Christian. But I do not like churches and I do not like the major world religions when they decide to put women down. I find it quite remarkable that the institutions - I don't blame the faiths - turn on women and say women are second class citizens who are not fit to be in positions of power or authority, or, indeed, shouldn't be seen in public. Not spirituality. Not religion as such.
S is for Solitude, not solidarity.
T is for tension which you have to manage. And being too polite - Don’t Be Too Polite - Glen Tomassetti’s song (also in the appendix of Women Working Together).
U is for underground. If you haven't got one you are not going to get anywhere. Remember, the only reason that Emily's List, for example, got up was because for the first twelve months or so, the women didn't tell anybody other than their own circles. They were able to ambush the ALP and thus retain the feminist principles on which it is run - the ideas of equity and control of their own money.
V is for Viagra. Someone tell Bettina Arndt that it does doesn't do a thing for women. V is also for Vulgar abuse, which, I regret to say, I have been known to use about Bettina Arndt.
W is for women who want to be girls forever, the ones who gossip and put down other people and are nasty about other women because they don't wear good hats and their hair isn't the right colour.
X is for what happened last week where x-rated censorship cut a picture of two women kissing on Home and Away when they had allowed death, rape, incest, murder, heterosexual foreplay and torture of animals. Two women kissing is obviously seriously bad stuff!!!!!!
Y is for Why are we doing this to each other?
Z is for Zelda, who is not an enemy, but who is a woman who made it possible for the enemies to be approached, confronted, and told that they are not going to get away with it anymore. Because the other Z is for Zoo. If we allow the laws of the jungle, otherwise known as unbridled capitalism, the strong over the weak, those who are the most influential to have all the power, then we are living in a zoo, and that is what we need to make sure the public doesn't want."
Moira Rainer 31st March 2009
Judy Small - Launch of Women Working Together suffrage and onwards
Judy Small launching Women Working Together 31st March 2009
"I don’t get to do this often. It is a different kind of performance, but I enjoy it very much.
It is a very simple title, isn’t it? Women Working Together – a deceptively simple title for what is probably the most influential and powerful social movement for the last 100 to 150 years.
There has not been a political movement in the world in this time that has not had a core of women at its centre and this book – actually, when I picked it up, I thought, well OK, Suffrage and Onwards, this will tell me about the history of the suffrage movement in Victoria and a bit about what came later, but when I opened it up. And all these women came out.
It is not just a narrative of the Women’s Movement in Victoria. This book has a heart that is really warming and inspiring. There are the voices of many, many, many, women in this book. Some of them we know – Vida Goldstein, Muriel Heagney, Jessie Street, they are all in there.
Zelda D’Aprano’s words shine through the second half of this book; she is truly one of my great heroines. Without women like Zelda, where would we be? There are women we know well; women who are our friends, women we know well – Jean Taylor, Tricia Szirom, Sue Jackson, - all of them, all here. Even I am mentioned! It really speaks to all of us.
It is not just a history book. It doesn’t just tell us where we have come from, although it does that in an immediate and almost visceral way, but it gives us the path that takes us into the future as well. If we didn’t have that path that took us into the future, what would be the point?
I remember a few years ago somebody complaining that young women these days, They are not into feminism, and have you heard the music they listen to?
I said, Well, isn’t that what we fought for? For women to have the choice? If that is not what we fought for then we were kidding ourselves, back then.
I am just going to read two parts. I am not going to talk for long because this book, literally, speaks for itself. It is not so much stories, it is almost an almanac of the Women’s Movements - of the sections of the Women’s Movement and the groups that became and are part of the Women’s Movement in Victoria.
I really like this quote because it does take us all the way from then and into the future. Whenever women win something, and let nobody ever tell you that somebody ‘gave’ women the right to vote. Nobody ever ‘gave’ women anything. Women won the right to vote and they fought for it long and hard and bloody. But even in those days, even in the days before women won the vote, it was not just the vote they were fighting for. It was equality, it was what we later, in the 1970’s, called Women’s Liberation. And this is the part I want to read to you – it is from Bon Hull’s papers which are held at Melbourne University.
That the struggle for women’s suffrage was unable to end the oppression of women – the oldest, deepest, form of oppression in history – does not mean that it failed, or that it should not have been waged. It simply means that those of us in the feminist movement today must pick up our sisters’ struggle, inspired by their example, and carry it further.
The only other thing I want to say before I pick up my guitar and we all sing – because you show me a movement that has no music as part of it! The Women’s Movement has always had music as part of its celebrations and its commiserations and its events. This is a quote from our very own Joan Kirner:
I learnt pretty early on that the collective is an excellent way to operate. If you act as a woman alone you can be quickly cut off and ignored. You may have some initial success, but if you are not part of a movement you are likely to lose.
Right opposite that quote in this book there is a little poster, and I think it speaks for most of us. It says,
I will be a post-feminist in post-patriarchy.
I was commissioned to write this song for the World Congress of the YWCA some years ago. The YWCA gets a really good mention in this book. It is not, and has never been, a particularly conservative organization. It has always been an organization working for the rights of women and girls, and has done that internationally, so I wrote this song for that occasion. But apparently it was a bit too radical for them so they didn’t use it, so I took it back:
Those of you who went to Sunday School won’t have heard that Eve was Adam’s second wife. They didn’t teach us that in Sunday School. His first wife was a woman called Lilith, who was created at the same time as Adam. She wouldn’t play the game and so got kicked out of the Garden of Eden.
She’s Lilith born with Adam and she stood there at his side.
She would not be subjugated, she would not be denied.
They consigned her to the underworld but she would not be denied.
There’s life in the old girl yet.She struggled through the centuries to make her voice be heard.
She was burned alive and tortured for the meaning of a word.
When they called her witch and heretic she spoke out undeterred.
There’s life in the old girl yet.Chorus:
There’s life in the old girl yet.
And sister you’d better bet.
We can’t afford not to remember what the world wants to forget.
There’s life in the old girl yet.When she wrote her stories down she had to change her woman’s name
But the spirit deep inside her was never to be tame
Even in the darkest mills she felt the rising of the flame
And there’s life in the old girl yet.When she fought and died for franchise she was ridiculed and scorned
But the day a woman voted first she knew the tide had turned
While (……) and sentiment would like her to return
There’s life in the old girl yet.Now they’ll tell you that it’s over, that the battle has been won
That it’s only for the history that this song should be sung
But the spirit of young Lilith lives, and she’ll outlast the sun
There’s life in the old girl yet.She lives in every woman who will no more bear the blame
For the fire that she suffers in the patriarchy’s name
She lives in every young girl who will never wear the shame
And there’s life in the old girl yet.Thank you. When people ask me what it means for me to be a feminist I say, It means to me that I’m willing to work with anybody – male, female, any race, any religious persuasion, any political persuasion, any level of ability, who is willing to work with me to make this world a better place for women - because if this world is a better place for women, it will be a better place for everyone.
I take great pleasure in launching this deceptively titled book, Women Working Together."
Judy Small
OTHER REVIEWS OF WOMEN WORKING TOGETHER, Suffrage and Onwards
Dr Carole Ford - ‘Sisters, There are no accolades that would convey my profound respect, admiration and . . . . . I'm speechless! What an absolutely incredible resource that is so well documented, with all the links, tells the story. Totally blown away!!! Who are the wonderful women who have undertaken this seemingly impossible task? I am in awe! Regards, Carole Ford’
Virginia Mansel Lees, Lecturer, School of Social Work & Social Policy La Trobe University - 'Thanks for a fabulous resource – I have passed it on to my local Secondary College whose students held an art exhibition to coincide with our Women's Lunch celebrating Women's Suffrage at Beechworth La Trobe Thanks - Virginia
Response to Dr Ford - ‘This is such an amazing resource about the Women's Movement in Victoria. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have the same kind of detailed history of the Movement in each State? What a great project for feminist Uni students to undertake. To write such a history would be a big job, but the finished product would last forever!’
Response to Dr Ford - ‘I checked out this website & it is the most incredible resource - I intend to spend time there every day! I will certainly alert women in other networks of its existence.’
Sally Allman - ‘The site is addictive and I have logged on several times, every bit of it interests me …Have a look, let us know what you think of it, where we can improve it, before we go to print, and tell your friends
Mary Sexton - Women Working Together – Suffrage and Onwards
Compiled by Geraldine Robertson to complement http://home.vicnet.au/-women
Published by www.womensweb.com.au 2009
This is an amazing piece of work. It uses the ‘words of feminists and their enemies ... to tell the story of the Women’s Movement in Victoria’.
Although the book does not claim to be a history of the Women’s Movement in Victoria, it does set out a comprehensive account of women and their campaigns. Just as it draws upon the voices of women it also draws upon some of the ephemera of the Movement, such as tea towels. This inclusive approach has presented some difficulties with citation of sources; however, it has not been used to exclude relevant material.
The book comprises four chapters: Winning the vote; Social justice and peace; Finding our voices as women; and our strength, our struggle, our legacy. These chapters cover the period from the late 19th century to the present. The stories told in these chapters provide a picture of the world in which women worked and struggled to gain equal rights often against great opposition from men and women in both the public and private domains.
Through these chapters the reader can trace the work of individual women and women’s organisations in various campaigns and the slowly changing social environment.
One interesting aspect is the anti-women attitudes expressed publicly and Government actions to use the law to take away women’s rights. For example, in 1865 when the Victorian Legislative Assembly realised that some Victorian ratepayers were women and consequently eligible to vote, the law was changed to specifically exclude women ratepayers. While these events in the late 19th century are shocking it is useful to note that 1981 the Federal Government legislated to prohibit women in Canberra marching on Anzac date to protest about women raped in war.
For someone who was active in the Women’s Movement in the 1970’s and 1980’s and who has, like so many others branched out into other related areas of activity, this book is a wonderful reminder of the things women have done and achieved. For others it is an important and interesting insight into our society and the need to maintain our vigilance to ensure that the battles fought by these women and their achievements are not lost. For school students, or indeed any one interested in women’s history, the book is a valuable source of information and guide to areas of possible further study.
The resilience of women to continue to work and fight for equal rights is demonstrated again and again in the pages of this book. It is a treasure trove of vignettes of our history; a gift of love and commitment from Geraldine and all the women who worked with her to bring this huge task to completion.
Mary Sexton
Australian Women’s History Forum
June 2009
Cold tea for Brandy
A Tale of Protest, Painting and Politics
Joan Coxsedge
Published Vulcan Press
8 Leicester Street Balwyn North Vic 3104 joancoxs@tpg.com.au
BOOK REVIEW by Barbara Hall
I got from this book health matters, pollution matters, geography, history, international politics and a story of life as a feminist politician in Victorian politics.
Once I was on a committee run by a woman with such powers of reiteration you knew that if you drifted off you only had to tune in again and catch up.
So with ex-state of Victoria politician Joan Coxsedge who takes us back over the local terrain in her brisk accounts of what it was like when Victoria was quarantined from the rest of Australia by a polio outbreak in 1937.
Joan explains digger hostility to US troops during World War Two stationed in Australia because they were exempted from our laws meaning any offenders would be handled by the US army and not our courts. As we objected to this so do the Okinawans at present and so has a similar arrangement in PNG, whereby Australian Police are exempted from PNG laws, broken down because of local opposition.
In 1982 Joan was part of a group within the Victorian Labor Party who presented recommendations on sexual offences, one of which suggested that incest between consenting adults be decriminalised. Antagonistic response came from within the Labor Party. From the Right and media came the twisting of the issue so that Joan was accused of wanting to legalise incest. So resubmerged the last taboo and any hope of open discussion.
The constant frame to her autobiography is how our common wealth is deployed in health and education. What many Australians don't realise is that we are a socialist country with a mixed economy. And yet ...
And yet ... nowadays only 20% of young people between the age of 18 and 24 are doing tertiary education or training for skilled work because they are daunted by the HECS debt or unable to survive on the the cheap rated of pay for apprenticeships. My niece passed year 12 and like other young women works in retail or take away food.
It is this erosion of access to the common weal which Joan describes for us here in Australia. Meanwhile Cuba has had to bide with the stranglehold of the US over its access to resources and redouble its efforts to provide a common weal.
To be getting from and giving to the common wealth is what really matters.
Film Review for Women’s Web by Petra, Co-ordinator, National Network Against Trafficking in Women .
PROJECT RESPECT, 7/9/2007
Directly confronting an issue which is over-looked and ignored by society, The Jammed is a cinematic tour de force about the trafficking of women into the sex industry in Melbourne. Showcasing both the streets of Melbourne and young Australian actors, writer-Director Dee McLachlan has convincingly brought this controversial issue to the fore.
Human trafficking is a global issue, with the United Nations Office of Drugs and Trans-national Crime estimating that there are more than 700,000 women trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labour each year. Most of these are in Europe and Asia, but there are a number of victims of trafficking in Australia.
Project Respect and other NGO groups estimate that the number of trafficking victims in Australia is far in excess of the Federal Governments estimates of less than 100 women. The large bulk of trafficked women in Australia are in the sex industry under conditions of almost total control; conditions of sexual servitude. Many of these women come from South-East Asia, in the film there is Crystal (Emma Lung) from China, Russian Vanya (Saskia Burmeister) and Rubi, also from China (Sun Park) via Bangkok.
Why each of them have come to Australia is not clear, but what is clear is the ‘push/pull’ factors of trafficking: the ‘push’ factor of young women looking to leave their homes in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe for better lives in the West. One of the ‘pull’ factors represents male demand for easy access to prostituted women. Trafficked women in the sex industry are held in conditions of virtual slavery with their aspirations of a new future for themselves and their families shattered by the traffickers.
The Jammed accurately represents the journey which the women take as they progress from arrival in Sydney, to the harrowing realisation that the women are going to be doing more than just dancing to make a living. Physical violence and psychological abuse are key weapons used by traffickers to wield control over their victims and force them into submission. Although a trip to the beach represents a rare outing from their days and nights in the brothel, this is just another tactic used by the traffickers as a means of control; one which is not dissimilar to the control methods used by violent male partners.
The women are helped by a young woman Ashleigh (Veronica Sywak), who meets a Chinese woman searching for her daughter. Ashleigh’s maverick approach in helping the trafficked women is a dangerous and potentially foolish one. Her behaviour is a reminder that whilst the film takes much of its information from existing court transcripts (specifically the trial against Gary Glasner) and personal attendance at the trial of Wei Tang, some dramatic licence has been taken. More accurate however, is the indifference of the Department of Immigration to the plight of these women.
Project Respect believes that trafficked women deserve to be treated with empathy and consideration for their situation.
Controversy has surrounded the film’s release. After inclusions in the Brisbane and Sydney Film Festivals, The Jammed was ignored by the selection panel of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), Australia’s premier film festival.
Through rave reviews by Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, in addition to those in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, the film received a limited release at Melbourne’s Cinema Nova. The release has now been extended, and the film is showing at cinemas throughout the country. See the website www.thejammed.com for further details.
The streets of Melbourne are the showcase for The Jammed’s tale of trafficking, a tale which, as in the film, occurs right under the noses of the community. Melbourne, as a “character” in the film, stands up very well on the big screen.
The commercial and critical success of The Jammed indicates that there is scope within the community to further speak out against the acceptance of human trafficking.
BOOK REVIEW by Barbara Hall 7/8/07
‘WILLING UP AND KEELING OVER’ makes sense of end of life issues.
The persistent pain in my arm joints and the fact that I will probably not run or jump again make me attend to the terrain ahead.
I have need of this book as I have need of a cup of tea and friends. To all of us who have been disadvantaged by lack of due respect and its injurious aftermath comes this need to check what controls we do have.
This book is written for and by members of the Lesbian community of Melbourne but the information is relevant to all Victorians who seek to choose what medical treatment they receive, the practicalities of dealing with dead bodies, knowing about wills, family rights … biological and non-biological, dying with dignity and recognition of the role of grief. Not for this book is there crap about closure.
That this book addresses death as a matter for the individual, the family and the community, shows us that we need to have culture and ritual to mesh us together. How else do we thumb our nose at the powerful establishment and give ourselves due recognition. Collectively this book has been put together and collectively is the normal way we deal with death.
This book sets out deliberately to promote Lesbian culture and family. Its tone is made intimate by the recounting of personal experiences by different women such as ‘Dying Intestate: A Cautionary Tale’. It reassures by providing the information you need in an easy and attractive to read format which assumes you can interpret the play with metaphor and tells you where you can get the relevant forms and extra information.
My copy has already served me well in family matters because I was able to look up powers of attorney and work out which one I needed to assist my sister-in-law and personally so that I can start to think about doing a ‘medical power of attorney’.
WILLING UP AND KEELING OVER
A Lesbian Handbook on Death Rights and Rituals
Long Breast Press Inc 2007
ISBN 978-0-9803568-0-9$20 plus postage ($5 for one and $9 for two to seven copies,
more for overseas) and the book is available from Long
Breast Press, PO Box 168, Brunswick East, Melbourne,
Victoria 3057