CART (2)25/11/2016
Opening remarks
Breakthrough
Victorian Women’s Trust
By
Anne Summers AO Ph.D
Melbourne Town Hall
25 November 2016
When we consider that it is a mere fifty years since all Australian women white and black, obtained the right to vote in federal elections, and women no longer had to resign from their jobs when they got married, it might seem that we are making good progress when it comes to gender equality.
After all, women are getting educated, getting jobs and going places that once were beyond our reach. We have legal equality and we have broken barriers that once seemed impenetrable. Women have occupied the roles of Governor-general and state governor, prime minister and state premier, High Court judge and State Chief Justice, police commissioner, university vice-chancellor, president of the trade union movement and members of parliament at federal, state and local level. Australian women have won Oscars, Pulitzers, the Nobel Prize, the Melbourne Cup and Olympic Gold.
There is nothing we cannot do and yet there is still so much that stands in our way.
We lack equal pay and fair treatment, we can’t always control our fertility, we still do virtually all the housework and child care even when we hold down full time jobs, we have less money to live and retire on, we suffer intolerable amounts of violence, sexual assault is on the rise and we live in a world where sexism and misogyny are part of the atmosphere.
So we are still so far off from achieving gender equality in Australia. The question is: how are we going to make it happen and how long will it take us?
Over the next two days we will ask this question.
We will explore issues and decide which ones we want to work on.
We will meet people of like minds and people who challenge us. We will see the range of possibilities and we will come to understand the obstacles that – still! – stand in our way.
I think we need to do more than that.
As someone who has been fighting for women’s equality for more than forty years now I have witnessed some tremendous victories but I have also seen progress stall and even be reversed.
During the years of the Howard government, much that we had achieved during the Hawke and Keating governments of the previous decade was cruelly abolished or watered down and we are still suffering from those setbacks. And we have new threats – to what we thought was an entrenched paid parental leave scheme, and our child care system is still a mess, despite the billions spent on it each year.
We have seen women’s political clout diminish – although I think we are slowly getting it back now. This is a subject that we will talk about in one of the Breakout sessions tomorrow.
Our agenda is large and complex – and growing. We discover new issues even as we understand that the “old” ones have not been totally addressed.
For Instance, we now know we need to address female genital mutilation (FGM) as an issue affecting many immigrant and refugee women and their daughters.
The “old” issue of abortion is not solved. It is still a criminal offence in New South Wales and Queensland.
We have lots to do – and this is before we take into account the ideas that will arise from Breakthrough.
We need to mobilise women and the men who support us and make it happen.
And we can. And we will.
There is a new wave of women ready for battle – the third generation of modern feminism. You are here today in great numbers and the hopes of people of my generation are with you.
You will define the issues that matter to you. I hope you will also pick up the unfinished business from earlier generations such as
- pay equity – which still eludes us – and
- preserving (or in some states still needing to win) the right for abortion to be legal as well as safe and affordable
- ending violence against women – domestic abuse and sexual assault. This will probably be our longest and most difficult fight. It is, as we know, the most potent marker of women’s inequality.
As Rosie Batty has said, violence against women is both a cause and a consequence of violence against women. Until we end it, we will never be free.
As my contribution to the ongoing fight for women’s equality, I intend to draft a Women’s Manifesto that will outline in precise detail what remains to be done to achieve women’s equality.
We should list every issue, every policy, every element of inequality and then plan for how we intend to address these. This is a huge task I know, but we need to know what we want in order to be able to fight for it. I will release a draft of the Manifesto early next year and invite comments and discussion around it. I hope it might be a useful tool.
But before we start today’s discussions, there is one further thing I think we need to do – and that is to thank the women who lead us.
It can be tough to take a stand. It often involves great personal cost and we should never fail to express our appreciation and our gratitude to the women who are prepared to do it.
Just this week we have seen two such women on our televisions speaking with brutal frankness about what it feels like to be the subject of domestic violence.
Both Nakkiah Lui, a writer and actor who is Aboriginal, and Emma Husar, the federal member for Lindsay, speaking in the House of Representatives on Wednesday talked about their shame and embarrassment at having been subjected to violence. Both also mentioned that their mothers had also been subject to such violence.
It takes huge guts to stand up in public and say this. We owe these young women, Nakkiah and Emma, because they have shone a light on a tough subject and, as both of them said, they have tried to make it easier for other women. And we should tell them how much we appreciate their doing this.
Just as we should tell Dr Anne Aly we stand beside her as she is threatened with death because of her religion. Dr Aly is a fierce feminist who delivered an inspired Emily’s List Oration on Wednesday night. We owe her too. And we should thank her.
We all remember what happened to Julia Gillard – the first woman to be prime minister of this country and who was subjected to brutal sexually based vilification. What happened to Julia Gillard was a huge wakeup call to this country and especially to young women who did not believe such behaviour was possible in our era.
I think it is not an exaggeration to say that Julia Gillard is the mother of the third generation of Australian feminism, as well as being the person who re-energized the earlier generations into renewed activity, and gave us the determination to never give up.
Many of us had the opportunity to thank Julia Gillard in this very hall in late 2013 – at an event organised by the Victorian Women’s Trust and another one that I put on. We know how important it was to her- as well as to us – to put our gratitude on record.
And I want to propose that we do the same thing today.
Julia Gillard led the way, again, just yesterday when she expressed her gratitude on Twitter to Emma Husar for her incredible speech. And Emma in turn thanked Julia.
These are their tweets:
Juila Gillard: In the year we tragically lost Jo Cox, I congratulate @emmahusarmp bravely calling out violence against women. Stand up, speak out, act – JG.
Emma Husar MP: @JuliaGillard thanks for all you have done for women and for making it easier for us in this place to share the stuff that matters [heart]
I know that Julia Gillard would agree with me that we should all express our appreciation and gratitude to Hillary Clinton.
Three weeks ago we thought we would be toasting her election as the first woman president of the United States. Instead, despite her getting at least 2 million more votes than her opponent, she lost.
No woman has ever got this close and we must wonder how long it will be before another woman has the opportunity to even try – let alone win.
Hillary Clinton has spent a lifetime fighting for the rights of women and girls, including in her landmark speech at the Beijing Conference in 1995 when, as First Lady of the United States, she declared that “women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights”.
Just last year, she declared that there has never been a better time to be born a woman as the risks have declined and the opportunities have grown for girls to grow into fulfilled and independent women.
Unless they want to be President of the US.
We are sorry that she lost, but we are even sorrier when we see who won.
The election of Donald Trump is not just catastrophic for America, especially American women, it is a disaster for us too. It has already emboldened the right wing here, especially those who would have women denied equality – even returned to the home. Back to barefoot and pregnant.
Our fight just got that much harder.
But before we start it, let’s give a huge round of applause to Hillary Clinton, the woman who gave her all, endured more sexism and misogyny than one would think humanly possible and still came out saying this in her concession speech:
And to all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion.
Now, I – I know – I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday someone will and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.
And to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.
We have to take up the fight.
We have to, as she urged, never give up. Never give up.
And we won’t.
But before we begin our Breakthrough, let’s give her a huge round of applause for:
- making it just a bit easier for the rest of us
- absorbing so much hatred and vitriol yet still standing strong
- being the first but not the last.
Thank you Hillary Clinton.
Now let’s begin.