By EK Wills
A friend lost her kindred sister to the horror of violence this week.
The attacker was someone she had previously trusted and shockingly this is still not unusual in society generally.
In the week of International Women’s Day it is important to reflect on the situation for women because the struggle has not eased.
In India in 2012 there was an horrific attack on a woman on a bus where she was beaten, raped repeatedly by a gang in Delhi, and left for dead. There was a huge public outcry to change the system for women’s safety but reports now indicate there has hardly been any change.
As late as the early twentieth century in Europe, women were not able to vote: they were second class citizens.
While women held positions of responsibility, their voice was not considered equal nor capable to contend with the concept of voting. Initially, reasonable arguments were put forward but were essentially ignored for a generation until active protest and disruption resulted in the establishment having to listen.
Through generations of resisting circumstance, equal voting rights are now seen as standard: as it should be. But it took the suffragette movement to stand up and voice opinion, to keep fighting until the status quo was changed.
“this was the beginning of a campaign the like of which was never known in England, or for that matter in any other country…..we interrupted a great many meetings……and we were violently thrown out and insulted. Often we were painfully bruised and hurt.” (Emmaline Pankhurst, a pioneer of the movement)
Equal employment and pay is a tougher battle and the front is still being resisted.
Affirmative Action was an attempt to level the field and multiple scholarly studies (Kim and Kim 2014), especially in Asia, show the impact of affirmative action programs for women in terms of gender, political factors, psychological factors, and social structure.
While affirmative action was shown to correct existing unfair treatment and give women equal opportunity, some places such as the UK and USA have banned it because it does not treat everyone equally.
In Australia, there is the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 but only private sector companies of more than 100 employees, public sector and higher education institutions are required to “report annually on programmes they have developed to improve women′s employment opportunities”.
Women are still not paid equally today and I have written before about why women may not negotiate contracts that better reflect their level of expertise and maybe it has something to do with natural tendencies of interacting with others, particular men in power, but it seems to come back to our fundamental difference in the way we think about the genders.
But we all have our own individual unconscious bias towards women, as highlighted in Kristen Pressner’s powerful TEDx talk “Are You Biased? I Am”. Kristen talks about her own bias towards women leaders, who are just like her. And to be honest, I know I am guilty of such thoughts when I make claims such as “I get along better with men than with women”. We are not taught to support each other, we are taught to be competitive and this is reflected in the persistent ideal of ‘survival of the fittest’.
In many cultures, girls appear to be criticised while boys are praised.
Why do people still continue to project the idea that having a boy is a blessing? Why are they treated reverently while the girls are enlisted to do household chores? Why is it ok for a boy to go out on his own but a girl needs to ‘be safe’?
In our family, it was always talked about how the girls were the better workers, and it was meant to be a complement to the girls. But are girls better at doing it because it is expected of them or because of a natural tendency?
While we treat gender differently it would be impossible to tell.
I’m still very angry about what happened to my friend’s sister. It has stirred up the injustices done to women that perpetuate in society and seem to continue regardless of horrors faced like those in India in 2012 and in Australia this week.
What will it take to actually see some change?
There is another movement that promotes women’s rights but the stigma attached to it has been whittled away by both genders.
In a fantastic article, Kathy Caprino outlines why this has come into being and states “feminism has been associated with strong, forceful and angry women and our society continues to punish forceful women. It also talks about the fear that feminism hates men or wants to change time honoured traditions and relationships between the genders.
History has shown that shifts can be made in women's rights but it has required a united front. While there continues to be division, change wont happen.
Kathy concludes, “If you believe in equality for all, are you able to take a brave stand for it, in a way that feels right to you, in your own life and in your own sphere of influence?”. I believe that it starts in the home. If we accept what is in our own lives then how can there be global change?
On International Women's Day, many women around the globe go on strike against a gender based imbalanced world for 2 hours. It appeared to start last year in Spain and is the movement is spreading slowly where women stop work in all areas of work including carer roles and domestic duties in order to demonstrate their contribution to society and the need for change. Calls are being made to make it longer so the impact can be highlighted more accurately.
I would like to see this spread to more countries like Australia. Passive acceptance of this inequality leads to more than insecurity. It is a matter of safety for many women and surely change is long past overdue.
If you think it's time to make a public protest on days such as International Women's Day, please make your contribution by passing the word to gather support. Its time to help women not have to suffer alone.
article on domestic violence and where to get help:
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