Happy International Women’s Day!
It’s the hundredth anniversary, and from where I sit, it’s a bit of a pity that most of the public debate has been dominated by people like Gail Kelly and Quentin Bryce talking about the urgent need for more women to sit on corporate boards. We could be talking about things like the fact that many women earn far less over the life course than men and have vastly inadequate superannuation, or the continuing barriers to agency and autonomy in popular culture and everyday social relations, or the fact that much of the labour women do in this society as carers of one sort or another is not valued or associated with exploitation.
But, we’re not, it would seem – the public debate is about women on corporate boards. The privileged knocking on the door of the patriarchal citadels of privilege.
So there you have it.
I am currently working for a Steel Fabrication business here in WA and we are always looking for good welders and apprentices. We pay above award wages and have flexible work practices. Haven’t had one enquiry from a female that I am aware of.
Hear, hear Kim. I caught only a few minutes of the Life Matters forum “Women’s business: all sorted?” this morning, but by chance it was the segment dealing with the undervaluation of the labor of care. Link. It really should be the main game, but I suspect there are some who simply do not want to ask hard questions because they are perfectly aware that the economy is in some ways underpinned by an enormous amount of underpaid or unpayed labor.
Couldn’t agree more, Kim. Gail was execrable on the parts of QandA I caught before going to bed last night. Mike Carlton’ incredulous response to her and Albrechtson, to the effect of “Do you think most women in Australia are worrying about why they aren’t on more corporate boards?! They’re working in cafes, trying to make their mortgage payments and wondering why it’s so much harder for them than the men.” really nailed it, I thought.
@1 – “Female”. Because women = some kind of non-human mammal.
Was “woman” the word you were looking for?
Do girls have the same opportunities for training in metal trades as boys in your school system, and are parents and teachers equally supportive of such life choices? Are girls and boys taught similar skills in childhood? What part are our society’s assumptions about what is appropriate for men and women playing in this?
Also – to directly address the topic – i’m a bit over this criticism of talking about women in top positions. I don’t see why we shouldn’t, unless we are assuming that women will never get into top positions, so we’d better forget about it. I’m speaking as someone who doesn;t particularly seek out leadership positions (and is a regular office jockey), so I hope this doesn’t come across as self serving. And I don’t see why talking about women in top positions should preclude talking about women in other social strata.
Getting more women into leadership positions/Boards may not deliver, in itself, real advancement – e.g. La Albrechtsen – but leaving the CEO positions and Boards 80% male surely won’t.
There were great articles by Eva Cox, Annie Lennox, Isobel Coleman and Jo Chandler on the editorial page of the AGE today – So not centred on CEOs/Boards. But I’m in victoria so YMMV.
Yep, my response was the same Kim. Maybe I should care, but I don’t. And never have really.
Eva Cox in the SMH today:
“We need higher pay for feminised jobs, not only more women in overvalued macho jobs.”
“We need higher pay for feminised jobs, not only more women in overvalued macho jobs”
If you really think that quotas are a good idea, then an alternative would be to force employers to employ some quota of men in “feminised jobs” and women in “masculinised jobs” where you could, e.g., men in teaching/nursing and women in engineering/trades. That way they wouldn’t be feminised or masculanised anymore, and there are definitely a surplus of graduates of both sexes in some of these areas and thus it would be relatively simply to bias against one group or the other (say, unlike welding). I would also think that many of these jobs with great gender imbalances probably have a greater impact on society in general than the rather small number of people employed as board members of public companies.
Eva Cox has an article in Crikey about Superannuation. The current user-pays superannuation system allows higher paid workers to save tax-free and penalises lower paid workers who would be better off on an aged pension [Ken Henry]
Leslie Cannold at The Age has an article calling for abortion to be decriminalised that has attracted the usual male pro-lifers
I agree with Kim that very few people sit on boards so setting quotas for the numbers of women on boards effects very few women.
However the symbolism is important. Boards are made up of professionals like lawyers, accountants, information officers, marketers and engineers. Your average down the mine miner never gets on a board. There are more women studying at university than men so the majority of people entering professions are female, except engineering. Sometime between finishing university and getting onto a board at age 50, women fall by the wayside.
There is now a high proportion of professional women who will never have children, although women currently in board positions have children and often the same spouse.
If women are more represented on boards and in higher positions then public perception will shift and society will see that women have just as serious a career as men and perhaps be as careful about nurturing their careers as they are men.
Some industries are notorious for driving women out of the field by their unfamily friendly practices. In the 1960s there were as many women as men in computing, but the practices like long hours, midnight stints in the computer room have meant that women are less than 20% of that workforce. It’s not physically hard work
I don’t know that Eva Cox would have had teachers in mind, their pay is respectable, people on the Social, Community and Disability services workers however – another story, hence the case before Fair Work Australia.
Other people don’t want to go there perhaps but I will – to some extent both middle class women’s and middle class men’s access to employment while they have care responsibilities has been dependant upon keeping wages for child care and increasingly, disability and aged care, low. This is fundamentally inequitable. Caring for children is not like giving the car a service (as I recall the last time child care workers got an award rise they were receiving less than mechanics). Caring for people who have disabilites or who have multiple medical problems as a result of aging is not a low-skill job, but the pay is such that the really good workers inevitably move from face to face care into management, where they will receive decent renumeration. The whole structure of the work economy is built on a lie – that caring for people is easy and therefore cheap or completely free.
Whoops I was going to say People on the SACS award, but it isn’t called that anymore, hence my more than usually illiterate first para. Delete “People on the” and it makes sense.
Australians too often see that women’s income supplement’s the male breadwinner’s income. That’s fine in a nuclear family where dad earns the higher wage but often women earn more than their spouse or they are a single parent or single.
While you believe that the woman’s income supplements the man’s income you
1. don’t have to provide affordable child care
2. don’t have to make provision for women leaving work to have children then returning after having children
3. don’t have to have an aged care system that’s fair to single women
4. don’t have to legislate labor laws that protect women as their physiology fails
5. don’t have to plan cities so that mum can work and raise kids
6. don’t have to ensure that jobs pay a living wage
point 6 there are many workers who are underemployed, they want more work, often Centrelink tops up their income. Some employers like Lutheran Aged Care in Albury were named in court as exploiting their workers
When women earn 80% of the income of their male counterparts, if they are a sole parent, their children are considerably worse off than children living in a family with dad.
Yep – class oppression trumps, and also intensifies, gender oppression. Gail Kelly has far more in common with her male co-directors than she does with the woman who cleans her office.
Class does not “trump” gender, it’s part of the whole network of privilege. It’s easy to discount gender if you’re one of the default gender.
John Passant has a piece on International Womens Day and women’s striving for equality
OH, it’s not an either/or surely. I agree the G-G’s comments had limited application (didn’t see Q&A) but granted that, she did well to raise the issue, I thought. If it’s right that only 4% of board members are women, that’s both a disgrace and I dare say a situation that is having negative impact on the ability of companies to draw on their human resources in the most productive way – I mean that without equal representation in upper management, workplace culture lower down where it affects most of us will never work to the bring out the best in women workers.
also, I am in favour of setting quotas in areas where gender representation is grotesquely out of balance purely because the drastic bluntness of such measures make the problem highly visible. I think any measure which draws our attention to ingrained/invisible but gross inequity is worthwhile.
Billie: “However the symbolism is important”
I think reality is more important.
Laura: “I am in favour of setting quotas in areas where gender representation is grotesquely out of balance”
I look forward to seeing more male primary school teachers and female tradies then.
I’m inclined to agree, Laura. Watching Kelly’s complete misinterpretation of what affirmative action means and why it’s an important leveller (a tragically common misconception, in my experience). Was another disappointing part of Q&A. When asked why the gender disparity in the finance sector was one of the highest and what Westpac was doing to address this, she kept repeating “men and women are paid the same at Westpac” – a statement that I would not only bet my mortgage is wrong, but displays a complete incomprehension of how gender inequity works, as if there is a “male” and “female” pay code at Westpac that determines why the women earn less, preposterous.
She was no better in responding to queries about why her executive team has no female representation at all – especially since there were two women on it when she came on. She kept going on about “best person for the job”, and “merit-based hiring”. It was like listening to a defender of the status quo, not someone lauded for challenging it. Weird.
@19 – yes, that would be great if more men took the hard work/high hours/relatively low pay of primary teaching and more women could move into the lucrative trades, such as electrician and carpentry.
patrickg, yes I noticed Gail saying that men and women were paid the same for doing the same work. You will find banks employ women in one role and men in another. At one stage the ANZ employed women as tellers who worked 5 hour shifts, so they were not entitled to a paid meal break. You might find male tellers were given a different title and worked 8 hour shifts.
conrad @19 I know where you stopped reading my comment @10
From: http://www.aare.edu.au/04pap/smi04051.pdf/
“the overall number and percentage of male primary teachers in Australia has decreased steadily over the past two decades. Between 1984-2002, the overall number of male primary teachers has fallen from 26,949 to 23,885 and the percentage from 29.68% to 20.87%”
Why? From family members who were primary school teachers, the primary cause was the expectation that a man teaching in a primary school was one of two things:
- Looking to go into primary school management
- A paedophile
Building sites are generally revolting places to work. I wouldn’t want to be there and I guess many other young women feel the same way.
No prize for guessing who said this, a quote which I think is pertinent to the thread. While I couldn’t (who could) argue against more balanced gender representation on corporate boards, I think that focusing the many problems facing women into this relatively small area of what is essentially a part of a patriarchal system is pretty non-productive.
It’s really hard to put into words the kind of every day sexism that women face especially in popular culture which seems to have the power to tell women what they’re supposed to be. A sterotype that can’t sit comfortably with most women.
One of the things that needs to happen is the recruit of more men into the feminist fold and those men actively sticking up for women and demanding they be treated fairly (rather than just staying dumb or as is more likely the case, banding together in opposition).
Once it can be demonstrated that beliefs often secretly held regarding women are illogical, irrational and in many cases a serious threat to the species as a whole, then perhaps reason will prevail and the world can begin to be a half reasonable place. It will have to be abundantly clear to everyone that abuse, rape exploitation and the general discrimination against women actually makes no sense at all.
We have a female GG, Premiers, CEOs, Judges, underground Miners, truckies – the works. Just about every single occupation is open to females except for a few – professional sporting teams and combat arms in the Defence Force.
Men and women are different. They want different things. Boys and girls play differently from the beginning. My 3 year old son walks around in his sister’s high heeled dress up shoes and dresses and calls himself Rapunzle’s Mum playing with her but he still plays like a normal boy. Most females have no desire to many of the male dominated jobs and most males don’t want to do many of the female dominated roles. Doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t. And that doesn’t mean that there should be quota’s.
As for the pay difference – that is up the pay negotiators – what are different jobs worth?
On superannuation I have two points. The current system restricts inputs but allows unlimited withdrawals. It is the current ALP Governemnt that has drastically cut what can be contributed in a perverse form of class warfare. The system it replaced had unlimited inputs but lifetime withdrawal limits (Reasonable Benefit Limits) and was a diabolically complex embuggerance – good riddance. Secondly, while males do accumulate more if they earn more than their wife, they also die earlier and their wife gets the benefits f the super for longer than they do – bit of a trade off there (and now if you divorce the super gets divided in the settlement).
I really tried to encourage my daughters to go where the money is – meaning financial services and ITC – but to no avail, I’m afraid, even though each of them had the essential skills. In a couple of years they will show up in statistics showing lower earnings than their equivalently educated male peers.
Now if they just did what they were told……..
As a condition for supplying goods to the Commonwealth the Keating Labor government required businesses to develop ‘affirmative action’ plans indicating measures they would use to support the development of female employees in the workplace. No US style employment quotas were involved, just strategic support measures. Suffice to say the policy was abolished as soon as Howard came to office.
My parents paid for my sister to go to a very expensive school and on to university and what are they doing now??? Why don’t they want to be on a Corporate Board?????? Are they just failures as women???
Am I right to think that it’s only in the last few decades that working very long hours has emerged as a pre-requisite for career advancement? Also in the last 30-40 years, women have increasingly entered/re-entered paid work and not been excluded from all but the lowest paid work on marrying.
We know that this time-based definition for achievement is nearly impossible for many women . As to the aim of 70s feminism, Eva Cox writes(Chookie’s link at 6): ‘Our push was to value feminised social goods and relationships that are undervalued as family and community soft skills.’ Feminised goods and skills don’t appear to have increased in ‘value’ in any sense of that word. Lower uni fees are charged for feminised teaching and nursing courses. The discount is apparently an attempt to attract students from courses they associate with the prestige and megabucks that apparently only a 60-70 hour week brings.
It’s only recently that women have gone from being a small minority of GPs to being poised to make up the majority of GPs. Many work “part-time”. This profession has adjusted with ease to part-time workers but not long ago was considered unthinkable, unprofessional. Even taking the part-time factor into account, women GPs’ pay is probably lower, as overall they spend more time with each patient. Presumably this time is often spent using those undervalued ‘soft skills’, for example with the old and ageing and the (often young) mentally ill.
Law is also ‘feminising’ in certain specialties and small practice and community legal centres. In the big commercial practices 40 hours IS part-time.
As for ‘women in the boardroom’, few men get to enter the inner sanctum either. I like Cox’s suggestion for all of us getting a life : “We need to work with men who are equally sick of being only money makers. Maybe then we will be able to solve future difficult issues collaboratively rather than destroying ourselves competitively.”
“As for the pay difference – that is up the pay negotiators – what are different jobs worth?”
I think generally whatever the government wants in a monospony.
Am I right to think that it’s only in the last few decades that working very long hours has emerged as a pre-requisite for career advancement?
No
“Am I right to think that it’s only in the last few decades that working very long hours has emerged as a pre-requisite for career advancement?”
No.
[h/t: PeterTB]
Any employment quota system , based on sex (or race) is wrong.
A friend(male) of mine ( qualified electrician ) tried to enter the Police force,and failed,because he couldn’t type fast enough (the reason he was given).
There were some female and Aboriginal applicants that got recruited ,even though he out- scored them on every test. Because of the quota system, the Police force is now weaker.
Its wrong.
Anyway, now he is in the mines on $140K+pa. and they are scraping up idiots and innocents off the road at 2am.
Actually, I think the police force is one of the rather few organisations where it makes sense to have quotas versus use less direct methods to try and encourage diveristy (e.g., incentives etc.), since it’s a job where you really do need people that can deal with a broad spectrum of the community and understand various cultural attitudes that different groups have. In addition, for many things, it doesn’t really make that much difference if you try and change things in the long rather than short term, but you don’t have that luxury for some aspects of policing.
Women are often poorly paid because they are represented by right wing unions led by officials like Joe de Bruyn head of shop assistants union who is more keen to tell the Prime Minister that same sex marriage, euthanasia and decriminalising abortion is wrong rather than getting better pay and conditions for his members.
conrad
“”"since it’s a job where you really do need people that can deal with a broad spectrum of the community and understand various cultural attitudes that different groups have.”"”
So my friend couldn’t do that coz he’s a “white male” who did better at the testing that is designed to establish the most suitable PERSON for the job?
It’s discriminatory and counterproductive.
“So my friend couldn’t do that coz he’s a “white male” who did better at the testing that is designed to establish the most suitable PERSON for the job?”
I think “most suitable” is the optimum phrase here. If you need police to deal with, for example, Vietnamese crime, then I’m sorry to say that it’s more than likely that you are going to need someone that can actually speak Vietnamese and understand how that community works. Some communities also have gender distinctions, so you need both males and females. If this means a white person who was better at some test that only correlates with some aspect of policing doesn’t get a job, then yes, since then they are not the most suitable.
Anita, working long hours doesn’t have much relevance to this debate. Sitting on a board means doing not much work for a lot of money. Nice work if you can get it. I take Helen’s point, but if I think that most Directors are parasites, then in all honesty so are women directors. It’s kind of like gay marriage: why buy into a system that’s corrupted from the start
conrad@39
“”"”" for example, Vietnamese crime, then I’m sorry to say that it’s more than likely that you are going to need someone that can actually speak Vietnamese and understand how that community works.”"”"”
If crime happens in Australia , its Australian crime, and dealt with by Australian Police.
“”"”"Some communities also have gender distinctions,”"”
And they shouldn’t, thats the point .
You just endorsed racism and sexism. If “some communities” want to act that way,i’m sure all here would discourage that.
“If crime happens in Australia , its Australian crime, and dealt with by Australian Police”
Actually, the Victorian police have been desperate to get both Chinese and Vietnamese cops for years, for obvious reasons — they’re the most suitable people for dealing with crime by these groups. This is just a hazard of being an organization that needs to deal with potentially ALL members of the community. This is obviously different to organizations that don’t need to this (or don’t care because all they want is profits), which is most organizations.
“And they shouldn’t, thats the point”
I think communities should do whatever they please as long as it’s legal, so I don’t discourage it at all. For example, it’s not illegal to speak only Chinese, it’s not illegal to be embarassed to talk about certain with the opposite gender (e.g., prostate cancer), and it’s also not illegal to have a poor understanding of other cultural groups (I have no idea how the Vietnamese community works, for example). This is just the way humans are. More importantly, the police arn’t there to tell communities what to do, they’re there to stop them doing things that are illegal and to catch those doing it, and, as it happens, white males can’t do everything and deal with everyone as efficiently as other groups.
“”"”"”"Actually, the Victorian police have been desperate to get both Chinese and Vietnamese cops for years, for obvious reasons”"”"
If your saying that people(M or F) from all communities should be policed by people (M or F),from that community ,regardless of race, then we agree .
But you must agree, my friend was discriminated against.
On that note, i go to bed, dreaming dreams that don’t include Vietnamese crime gangs, up here in North Queensland. I don’t know where you live, but have a good night anyway.
There is no doubt, that the inequalities between men and women that existed only a generation or two ago were to the detriment of both men and women and more importantly were socially (legally, politically, physically, etc.) born primarily by the women of the time.
I remember a few years ago watching a documentary about Sydney in the 1960s and a family in the inner West (can’t remember which suburb exactly), a mother with 4 young children trying to survive after the father/ husband had died. There was no social security and they had basically no income. It was a brutal time for families in this situation. The children were often removed and put into orphanages and the mother had to find menial work as a maid, cleaner, washing clothes etc.
In these conditions, violence was tolerated by women because they had no other choice. It was accepted in the community because, among other reasons, the community had no institutions to deal with failed relationships.
Here in Germany, for example, up until the 1980s rape in marriage was deemed as not legally possible. It just didn’t exist. I mean, just stop and consider that for a moment in the broader context of German history (post ww2). Women were unable to work or get a driver’s licence without the consent of their father or husband.
This situation was a terrible crime against women and also had a terrible effect on men and their relationship with some of the closest people in their lives.
Women and men must have the same rights in a fair and just community. The community has to be able to afford the institutions and support for this to be possible. This is no imposition upon what it means to be either man or woman or indeed choose with whom, when and where one wants to live with.
By the way, this is a great example of how some of the most important advances in standards of living are based on a social understanding of community and not an improvement in economic wealth per se.
Happy International Women’s Day!
Anita @ 31 – Annabel Crabb has an article you might be interested in reading:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/08/3158400.htm
Talking about making it easier for men to take time off to look after children and have flexible jobs like women commonly have.
Most people who are company directors would have entered the workforce over 30 years ago. So the percentage of female directors reflects the opportunities for women years ago. What is of more interest is the opportunities being offered now to women who haven’t been in the workforce for all that long.
JohnD, well, as Kim says in the intro and other have said at the top of the thread, the feminised jobs, of which looking after the kids the sick and the elderly are typical, are fundamental to any society. These jobs are often done by women and it is a fair argument to say that this type of work is not and never has been remunerated fairly and certainly not transparently.
By transparently, I mean, that the remuneration for jobs “traditionally” done by women implies that they are also receiving income or support from husbands (or, historically, from religious or other organisations.)
Instead of complaining about the lack of women welders, a more equitable solution would be to price work done “traditionally” by women in a fairer way. This is after all about fairness and equality and not about better or worse.
But actually, International women’s day is about “celebrating 100 years of womens’ achievements.” Maybe we can do that for a day?
Joan Garven has left a great comment on the Life Matters IWD page, I think she may be the author of a number of articles on the Universal Caretaker model, eg this one, Rethinking Care. Your statement, Joe, about advances springing from a social understanding of community, seems to describe well the changes in society described by the Universal Caretaker model.
Ack – http://www.mothersbeheard.com/Links/Articles/rethinking_care.htm
Talk about equal pay for equal work is a bit of a red herring and, in my experience, has little if anything to do with gender.
Having spent more years than I care to think about in the financial services industry I can tell you that there is a discretion on managers as to how they reward their staff and invariably the criterion is ‘performance in position’. These gradings may be from ‘poor’ through ‘adequate’ to ‘outstanding’. A manager who has been given,say,a 6% budget allocation for employee compensation for the coming year will try to reward staff in accordance with individual performance and achievement so some will perhaps receive 3% and others 8%; no equity there but then again why should there be; gender is immaterial in commercial environment.
“Wantok” is an appropriate name for someone writing that comment. For men who benefit from the male-dominated social and commercial networks which govern promotion and advancement in society, I guess the Wantok system of male privilege may indeed be invisible to them.
craigy, your plea on behalf of your friend is very eloquent, except that the police force doesn’t have a quota system for women, and hasn’t since 1980. Back then the quota system existed to segregate women into different jobs.
I think probably he ran afoul of the “OMFG It’s a mate of Craigy’s!” unwritten rule.
I think, though I don’t go along with some of the presentation, that Razor has got a good point. It’s hard to find women for some professions because they’re not interested (this is a problem that physics has been facing for some time). But I wasn’t under the impression quota systems were designed for professions women don’t want to join; i thought they were designed for professions they do want to join, but can’t.
The Guardian had a nasty set of tables comparing men’s and women’s hourly wage (which partially controls for part-time work). The gap is still huge in some fields.
Here’s the other thing about the under payment of those who take care of the young, the old and the ill who arguably perform the most important work in our community.
Tey remain underpaid because they have nothing to bargain with, their biggest bargaining chip, the withdrawing of labor is denied.
Can you imagine the uproar if all the women working in these professions were to strike for a day or two for better conditions? We don’t have to because it will never happen. Because most/all women working in these fields understand the responsibility they bear.
Which leaves men able to sneer about this low value work while belittling these professions as not as important as swinging a bat, swinging a pick or swinging a pen.
Because in those three professions you might lose the game, lose your life or lose money.
Whereas the only responsiblity these (mainly women and some men) in fields like child care, social work and nursing risk is the lives of those dearest to yuo. Your child. Your friends. Your parents.
Wantok,
just read the thread again slowly.
Su, yeah interesting paper. It’s going to be interesting to see how aged care develops as the baby boomers start requiring more and more age-related care.
From personal experience, I know that this is really an issue. The other thing is that the demands that kids place on their parents changes during the course of their development. It’s not a case of pursuing the career of housewife, or primary carer and the prospect of having to re-enter the workforce is always in the back of your mind. The community needs to work on reducing the difficulty of these transition periods.
sg @ 52 – there are a few organisations out there who do not have official quota systems but in practice do through managerial pressure. I’ve seen it personally happen a few times.
See what’s happening here?
Yes chris, I’m always very concerned about the radical feminists who rule the police force, and their unwritten, informal rules that discriminate against men.
But what can you do? With the sisterhood in charge of all the organs of state coercion, we just have to accept the sad fact that we earn more and do less housework, and have a wider range of work opportunities. I’ll be right behind you at the barricades…
Sg – I didn’t say I thought it was necessarily a bad thing, just that it does happen. I work in male dominated field and generally speaking think more of a gender balance would probably be better. I’ve seen cases of affirmative action policies work really well and others where it hasn’t worked. But I do think it is preferable for orgnaistations to be up front with their employees about it – less rumors for starters. And less wasting of time interviewing people who simply are not going to be hired anyway.
@27
“We have a female GG, Premiers, CEOs, Judges, underground Miners, truckies” in much lower numbers than men, at least I think that’s what you meant. Of course women can work where ever they like, take the navy, I bet you’d love to be treated like those women on the Success eh Razor? Nothing like a bit of slap and tickle to while away the lonely hours at sea. Honestly you level of disingenousness(?) reaches new highs.
Sheesh…’fewerrumours.’ Why does that bug me so much?
See what’s happening here, anyone?
It’s a bit like the damn space bar, I guess.
chris you seem to be giving credence not to rumours but to scuttlebutt and propaganda. No one who claims the police have informal rules against employing men could possibly be serious. It’s another case of “Political correctness gone mad.” You can tell when those rumours are wrong – as soon as someone utters them.
The task is not to reconfigure workplaces to prevent the rumours, but to attack the rumourmongers.
sg – I have no inside knowledge of the police, nor did I claim to. And I don’t think the original claim was that the police had a policy against hiring men, just that there were minimum quotas for people who aren’t white males. For a police force I think thats probably a good thing as long as minimum standards are still retained.
What I did say is that is in some organisations do have unofficial policies that effectively act as quotas. The cases I know about because I have been involved in the hiring process and seen it happen first hand. And as I also mentioned it has sometimes worked to the advantage of the organisation. I also suspect that my racial background was a non trivial reason for me being hired at one job I have had.
And you mentioned before:
I don’t believe thats true. Definitely not in the experience I’ve had in the US. Computer science is an example of where there are very low percentages of women and people from certain racial backgrounds entering computer science university courses but at the same time there is a desire by some companies to have a more diverse range of employees and they implement quota like systems. The problem isn’t really going to be solved at the employer level until the university intakes change. And from what I’ve heard intervention at the mid to late high school level is often too late as many of the talented students have already decided what they are going to do.
Chris@55: there are a lot of institutions that have unofficial quotas. The article leads off the the company board example, just for one. There’s no quota per se, but you have to be amember of the right social group, and that group is defined in part by the gender of its members.
Unfortunately some quotas would need to be enforced by a draft, otherwise we end up with silly situations where there are no people of the quota’d group willing to do the job. I’m thinking male primary school teachers as one example. The uni I went to lost a female lecturer they had nurtured from bachelor’s degree onward to the ministry for women’s nusiness, and part of her new job was to point out to that department their lack of female staff. The irony was not lost on anyone.
I do think there’s a market solution to the unfillable quota problem though – obviously we need to raise wages for those jobs. Unfortunately both major parties prefer the colonial solution – import workers who will do the job for whatever wage is offered.
I’m still thrilled that Australia is slowly catching up to NZ on the issue of female political leaders. It does give me hope.
@59 – Patrick
This time you have actually overstepped the mark and can go and fuck your self with the largest possible object.
I actually held the position of a Anti-harrassment Officer in the Army and conducted anti-harrassment training and investigations.
One of the many things I am proud of achieiving was successfully outing the predatory behaviour of a Senoir NCO who was harrassing vulnerable Army Reserve females. Not only did I destroy his career but also his marriage once his indiscretions became known to his wife. Unfortunately the young soldier involved did not push through with the full weight of actions available to her. I took on a lot of personal risk as a young Captain in doing this because a +25 year SNCO has a lot of mates in a lot of senior positions that can make a Junior Officer’s life hell.
And if you want me to prove it to you then I am more than happy to meet you or your agent here in Perth, face to face, and show then the evidence.
I don’t know where you are getting the slime you use to try and smear me from But you should stop sticking your fingers in what ever it is.
Razor, you are just an anonymous character on a blog. No one here knows who you are. Why do you care what people say to “Razor”?
bravo Razor!
PatrickB,
I’ve had a few stoushes with Razor over the years but I have no doubt he’d behave as an officer and a gentleman when personally confronted by such behaviour.
@66 – maybe you don’t care what people say about your charachter, Sam, but I do.
I don’t mind them atttacking my politics, reasoning and debating points – but making charachter attacks, particularly without any evidence and when they run contrary to much of who I am, then I take considerable umbrage.
I blog under a nom de guerre for many reasons. I will point out that I do write to the papers in my own name and get (very rarely) published.
Yep, those sorts of remarks are over the top and people such as Razor shouldn’t be smeared like that without any evidence at all.
Razor, I get all of that, or I would if you blogged under your own name, which very, very, few people do, usually for very good reasons. But since you are anonymous, I don’t get it. Now I’m not saying that you are making all stuff up about yourself – ex army, financial adviser, etc – but if you were, you wouldn’t be the first on a blog who did. Let’s face it, the ‘net is 99% piss take, and this blog aint no exception.
Speak for yourself, Sam (if that is your real name).
Making sarcastic remarks to the effect that you would love to be sexually harassed (you did get that didn’t you, he was not accusing you of being a harasser) is pretty low down on the hierarchy of blog accusations. Hardly a week goes by but the left are accused of being drenched in blood, blood, blood. But let’s not turn IWD into a referendum on how wonderful Razor is.
Patrick was (rudely perhaps) pointing to the extreme limitation of choice discourse applied to women’s employment. This focus renders invisible those barriers which prevent women from doing that of which they are capable – barriers such as the masculinist culture of many workplaces, sexual harassment and the many subtler forms of hindrance – it prevents people from examining how society is structured in such a way that gender equity remains a dream, an aspiration which, even with the best of intentions, is impossible for women and their partners to achieve.
And can I just say the use of “Razor” is meant to be a play on Occam’s Razor but I couldn’t work out something pithy that implied I am rather blunt.
Actually I don’t agree, Sam. Even though people blog under an assumed name, it is quite easy – over a period of time – to ascertain if a person is being genuine or not. I would argue that you do know indeed when the genuine article presents. People tend to react predictably on blogs as in life. Identity is quickly imbued in the pseudonym and when someone casts aspersions at the pseudonym, they can react to the insult as they would if they were blogging under their real name. You need to be careful you don’t confuse your pisstake attitude with 99% of the blogging population, and then, even in the pisstake Sam, there is always some kind of subjective truth going on. If there isn’t – well that person is just a troll, no?
“it is quite easy – over a period of time – to ascertain if a person is being genuine or not”
Yes. I’ve spent many years establishing a credible blog persona as a chaste and mild-mannered teetotaler, one who’s not easily distracted by – Oooh! Blackhawks are buzzing my office now, gotta go.
su – I agree that both the left and the right sling insults at each other often based on their own skewed vision of history. For some reason I can live with that. But I admit to taking umbrage at personal charachter attacks.
Well I still think you may have misread – he clearly doesn’t think you would love to be harassed, that was the (snarky and sarcastic) point, he was pointing out how difficult it is to be a woman “doing what she can” in certain work environments.
As an ex-service person it ashames me when I read of the kind of stuff that is alleged on the Success.
It is a Gordian knot putting a lot of young fit people of mixed sexes in close confined 24 hour living/working situations. Anyone who expects nothing to happen are denying human nature. It takes strong leadership to firstly prioritise the issue within all the other things that have to be done. It requires education and leadership. It is not just about Sexual Harrasment, but about working out the balance between the extremes of allowing a free for all and completely ruling out any relationships. I’ve seen relationships develop that are still long-term if not lifetime loving partnerships and I’ve seen the cancerous effect of ill considered one night flings and innappropriate or unwanted advances turned into witch(in fact more liek warlock) hunts, leading to severe unit morale problems which effects the unit effectiveness.
My experience leads me to propose that while females should serve in the ADF – units and ships should be single sex streamed if at all possible.
Quotas in parliament make some possible sense because they represent the people. But not boards. Boards do not represent anybody. They serve share holders (OK, in theory only). So there is no reason they should be statistically average in any way.
To quite Kim: “We could be talking about things like the fact that”….men have suicide rates double those of women, higher depression rates, alcohol and drug deependence, fare worse on almost every indicator of mortality, morbidity and psychological health. This includes all ages including 1 year olds.
But hey, men earn more money. What patriarchal bastards. And “the fact that much of the labour women do in this society…is not valued.” That’d be market value I guess.
Student – boards direct the public companies they serve and should be responsible to the shareholders of those public companies. Australian companies are overwhelmingly owned by superannuation funds. All Australian workers make compulsory contributions to superannuation of 9% of their income [soon to be 12%]. Overwhelmingly superannuation is invested in public companies listed on ASX.
The previous paragraph means that boards ought to represent the interests of their shareholders and as such women who make up 50% of workforce should have 50% of board positions.
Board members usually have degrees and experience in law, accounting, information technology, and engineering. Women are well represented in law, accounting and IT
“”"” women who make up 50% of workforce”"”"
billie is that right?
That word again, Razor – “females”. Do you use the David Attenborough voice for it?
Can I add that to my repertoire, Helen?
Sir David Attenborough
Women are not decrying war and this is why they are not receiving the respect they demand.
What was feminism about?!!?
Government sets new workplace gender rules
@82 – WTF???
Razor, I’m referring to a bad habit of Australian english speakers to use the word “female” as a noun, which makes them sound like Attenborough intoning about groups of meerkats. It’s dehumanising and disrespectful.
Oh Hell Naw.
I wonder if the men described here were part of the pro-Mubarak gangs who were bribed to disrupt protests since they began (mostly with expensive shoes, IIRC.)
The line of argument at 81 is novel – could you provide some specific figures to back up the claims made?
Unfortunately it would also follow from your line of thinking that the people making the greatest contributions to super should have a greater representation reflecting their greater monetary contribution.
There should also be some consideration for the difference and distance between the management of the super funds and the boards of publicly listed companies.
If contributions are made to the super funds then that is where the gender balance at board level could be considered feasible while perhaps not producing the outcome some would want.See above.
The board makes investment decisions based on performance of the public companies so as to protect the worth of the contributors funds.I gather that is their primary purpose rather than advancing change in gender equity issues.
Mais non. billie is pointing out that almost every working person in Australia has compulsory super, including women. They have every right to be represented as stakeholders on boards of financial institutions. I would go further than that and say that because board members are influential in setting directions and policy of companies, corporations and public institutions, they need diversity of representation because of the impact they have on citizens of all types even if those people don’t buy or use their output.
In other words, you don’t believe there are an equal number of educated women capable of filling higher positions many of whom are shut out for structural reasons; you just believe there aren’t that many capable women. I guess you’re entitled to your opinion.
Helen, re your post #88:
Egypt seems likely to become very similar, politically, to Iran in the near future, so whatever tenous gains women may have made there in recent times will be lost. I don’t think there is much the rest of the world can do about that.
Also, regarding your antipathy towards the use of the word “female” as a noun in place of “woman”: oddly enough, although New South Wales Police has equal pay for both male and female officers, and ostensibly has a strong commitment to EEO principles, equity, diversity, etc, etc, etc, officers are encouraged to use the term “a female person”, or “a male person”, in place of “a woman” or “a man”, in reports, statements, or other written material. The reason was never made clear to me, but I always assumed that it was due to some aspect of political correctness, perhaps because there are some “female people” out there who find the term “woman” not to their liking. There are two sides to every coin. Perhaps Razor’s use of the term “female” is just a reflection of the bureaucratic, (and perhaps somewhat depersonalising), mindset in which he was immersed as a military officer, where a soldier is more likley to be referred to as a “female” than a “woman”.
You are obviously very committed to your beliefs, and admirably so, but perhaps that is just one small thing you may need to let go. There is a lot of other more important stuff going on, that deserves your attention. Feel free to bite my head off, but I offer this comment in good faith.
“Female” in “Female person” is an adjective, Phillip. Not the same thing as using “female” as a noun.
Oh, and thanks for the kindly mansplaining in the last para. I welcome your sage advice on what I should be posting about and look forward to your valuable contributions.
Helen,
You have contributed to my edification in that had to look up “mansplaining”, and have thus learned a new word.
I wasn’t trying to offer you sage advice, nor was sagacity my intention, but you chose sneering condescension as a response to a suggestion that was made person to person, and not as an attempt at “mansplaining”. Life’s too short, Helen.
Helen, Boards do not represent the shareholders. They serve the shareholders. There is no reason in prinicple that they should have similar demographics.
Low representation of women on boards (about 11%) does not of itself imply either bias or that women are typically less able. Board members are statistical extremes in many (perhaps negative!) ways. This is where you expect to see gender ratios become very unbalanced. The proportion of people over 2 meters who are tall who are women is very small. The proportion of people over the age of 100 who are women is very large. So the mere fact of am 89%/11% does not by itself prove anything.
All that said – the appointment process of boards is a closed shop that rewards ambitious career-minded sycophants. I expect the gender imbalance will be the least of the ways in which board members are unrepresentative of society.
Well it is good to see tolerance with regard to differing opinions alive and kicking at LP even if the opinion is not one anyone has made a claim to.
It would seem only faintly ludicrous that everyone who pays super needs representation of equal extent.
Unfortunately your last paragraph doesn’t become any easier to understand after multiple readings and the conclusion is one you have made up yourself without any material from my previous post being in any way related to your summation.
I have no doubt there are many capable women who could easily be a board member be it of a publicly listed company or a super fund.
When they are they will need to focus on protecting the worth of the super funds they supervise.
Murph the surf asks “could you provide some specific figures to back up the claims made?”
Well MTS I can’t. But why don’t you peruse the Annual Reports of publicly listed companies and check who the 20 largest shareholders are, why don’t you listen to a presentation from a stock broker or investigate who manages industry superannuation funds and what they do with funds under management. Perhaps you could read Business Spectator, Commsec research and check population statistics and labour market participation rates at the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Student T you will find that there are some very strident Australian commentators like Stephen Mayne who would like boards to be more responsible to their shareholders. ACCC is being pushed to oversee corporate governance. The days of the unaccountable, anonymous board members are limited. It’s unlikey that the prime minister’s brother will be able to get away with run a company without paying 3000 employees super contributions again [national textiles - John howard, 2000]
As superannuation funds are the largest proportion of shareholders every Australian who earns a wage should have their interests represented at board level.
Student T said:
In principle, there’s no reason why boards could not be composed entirely of chimpanzees or three-toed sloths. In practice of course questions of fitness to carry out the functions of boards would inevitably arise. Your “in principle” qualification is mere handwaving.
In practice which is where these things are supposedly considered, the board is composed of the people most fit to protect and augment the value of the assets of the company, and it follows that if only a tiny minority are women, that a declaration is made that as a matter of practice, that despite being better qualified than chimpanzees and three-toed sloths, women are for the most part, unfit to serve. If this isn’t either simple misogyny, or poor human resource practice one would think someone would attempt to explain why that should be so, especially since there is scarcely a board that doesn’t pay lipservice to the fitness of women to serve, and how they dare not subvert the talent pool by casting them aside, how women improve the functioning of boards and so forth.
But no … no explanation is forthcoming and no research proposed to explain why about half the population should be only slightly more fit in practice to serve on boards than other members of the primate family. Someone such as you says, in principle and then we can all move on, albeit bemused at the oddity.
Indeed in practice, many boards are chosen by the CEOs of the companies, which choose the CEOs for the company, who’s main concern is to maximise the short term profits of the company…
Vive la revolution!