Australian Feminism

Finally!!

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:26:31 GMT

Fashion Week axes underage models

ABC.net.au
Posted Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:57pm AEST
Updated Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:08pm AEST

Australian Fashion Week (AFW) has banned models under the age of 16 from its catwalks.

The move comes after organisers outraged fashionistas by announcing a 14-year-old Polish model would be the face of this year's industry-only event.

Vogue magazine refused to feature Monika Jagaciak, while Marie Claire editor Jackie Frank called for the minimum age for models in Australia to be raised to 16.

Initially AWF stood by Jagaciak, insisting she had the support of her parents and would be chaperoned on her visit to Sydney.

But in a short statement AFW boss Simon Lock has confirmed organisers have revoked that decision.

"Effective immediately both male and female models participating in AFW will need to be at least 16 years of age and must be represented by a reputable model agency," the statement said.

"Polices are constantly revisited and endorsed by the ... advisory board to ensure the event best served the industry and reflected community attitudes towards issues surrounding the fashion industry," Mr Lock added.

The new policy is similar to those adapted in London and France.

'Sick system'

Vogue's editor in chief Kirsty Clements says Jagaciak's age became known to her only two days ago.

She says she made the decision to pull the teenager from their Fashion Week coverage immediately.

"We had been told that this rising star was coming to Australia and we had been working off head shots and some publicity shots that she has done," Ms Clements said.

"I just figured she was that average age of a model, so we said 'she's great, we will use her for a couple of shoots'.

"Then it was only two nights ago that it was relayed to me that she was 14 so I pulled the plug on it."

Ms Clements admits it is hard to tell how old the girls are when they are wearing designer clothes and make-up.

"It is very hard to tell ... working from head sheet, you really do need to know a birth date," she said.

"Fourteen is young and extreme."

Ms Clements says Jagaciak's case is symptomatic of a sick fashion system.

"I mean there's the obvious sexualisation of very young girls ... but also the reason that they are using them so young because they haven't actually developed women's bodies yet. And that is a whole other part of the business that's a problem," Clements said.

"They want them so thin they have to get them pre-pubescent.

"That is a big disconnect to what you are essentially supposed to be doing [which] is selling clothes to women, and yet you are getting them so young that they haven't even developed a curve.

"What does that mean? They are going to be washed up and on the scrap heap, which actually does happen as soon as they start to develop breast and hips. It is ridiculous."

Ms Frank says publishers and companies selling products must take a stand.

"I think we as an industry need to get together and actually work these guidelines into our profession," she said.

"I mean, it is the same as doing the body mass index (BMI) weight and having that as a guideline, so nothing is stopping us. We need to get together as an industry."

MORE: Furore over AFW's underage model

2 PhD scholarships

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:52:30 GMT

This ARC project looks fab... Anybody know someone who might be interested in a PhD scholarship? There are two up for grabs, one at UNSW and one at ANU.

http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/research/soc_movements_phd_scholarships.html

Two ARC-funded PhD Scholarships

Applications are invited for two PhD scholarships available from July 2008, one for research on the institutional legacies of the Australian women’s movement (tenable at the ANU) and one for research on the discursive legacy of the women’s movement (tenable at University of NSW). Stipend $26, 140 pa for three years. Funding for fieldwork also available.

CLOSING DATE 1 May 2008.

Applicants must have an Honours 1 or high 2A degree in an appropriate social science discipline such as politics, history or sociology and be Australian citizens or permanent residents or New Zealand citizens.

Further information is available from Prof Marian Sawer at the ANU<marian.sawer@anu.edu.au> or from Dr Sarah Maddison at the University of NSW <sarah.maddison@unsw.edu.au>

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:49:33 GMT

PLEASE PASS THIS EMAIL TO ANYONE WHO WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THIS FREE
PUBLIC EVENT

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) will host a special Women’s Health Forum on
International Women’s Day on Saturday 8 March, 2008. Moderated by ABC
journalist, Jennifer Byrne, the forum will bring together a panel of MSF
experts to look at the multitude of health issues facing women in the
developing world.

Maternal mortality. Obstetric fistula. Sexual violence. These are just a
few of the topics to be discussed on the day. Find out about Médecins Sans
Frontières’ work in the field regarding these very important issues.

The event is FREE and open to the public. A limited number of seats are
available, so please turn up early. Ticket distribution commences at the
Oatley Road entrance from 12.30pm.

DATE: Saturday 8 March, 2008
TIME: 1:00pm-3:00pm
LOCATION: Chauvel Cinema, Cnr of Oxford and Oatley Road in
Paddington, Sydney

For more information, please see our women’s health website feature at
www.msf.org.au/womens_health

in which a rant becomes a poem...

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 10:40:30 GMT

I know it's probably a bit weird to be posting a poem here, but it seems oddly appropriate from my point of view. Right now I'm in Italy and there are days when this country's attitude to women frustrates the hell out of me. Let me make it clear that not everyone has the viewpoint of the woman in this poem - but she certainly did. It makes me realise that while we have a long way to go in Australia, we do have it a lot better than in some other places. Mods, if this sucks too much, zap it! *smiles wryly*

Meet A Feminist

Women cannot be as men, says the lady seriously.
Feminism has shackled our century, she adds with cool straight face.
I could restrain from resentment if she weren't a
Smart young doctorate, product of the progress she's slamming.
With bitten lip I hold in epitaphs of 'hypocrite'
But I'm slowly sick of these career chicks and
Their conservative whine.

Of bra burners I'm proud, but I shove hands in pockets,
Restrain the urge to raise my shirt in celebration of my girls
With their defiant freedom. Instead I give a Look and
Murmur I'm thankful for our foremothers and am
Busy living out the rights they bought me.
Her lips curl and eyebrows raise - oh what I would give
For her not to be my professor,

Then I could share my thoughts aloud and snap,
You know, I have infinite patience with
Misguided mysogynists but only
When they're male.

- J.E.M. (November 2007).

Business of Being Born showing in Melbourne

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 04:32:34 GMT

A Special “Sneak Preview” Film Screening

Maternity Coalition in association with La Trobe University School of Social Sciences, La Trobe School of Nursing and Midwifery and the Mother and Child Health Research Centre, are proud to present the long awaited documentary by TV personality Ricki Lake. 'The Business of Being Born’ is said to do for childbirth what Al Gore did for climate change “You’ll never view birth in the same way again!”

A documentary film by Ricki Lake, directed by Abby Epstein

The film will be introduced by Associate Professor Kerreen Reiger in the Sociology Program and followed by panel/audience discussion on

The Relevance of the film to ‘future directions’ for Victorian maternity care

Thursday 6^th December 2007

7pm for a 7:30 sharp start

Screening is approx 1 ½ hours, followed by the discussion panel

La Trobe University, Bundoora

Western Lecture Theatre (WLT) 1. Parking available in Car park 1, 2, 8- follow the signs

number 86 tram from the City

Cost: $10 single $15 couple. Payable at the door- includes complementary refreshments before the film

BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL:

RSVP BOBB.melbourne@maternitycoalition.org.au

www.maternitycoalition.org.au/vic/BOBB

“The ‘inconvenient truth’ of Childbirth” – Huffington Post

The Business of Being Born

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 03:28:39 GMT

On Sat night I saw a fantastic documentary which created a huge emotional response in me. I want every woman or girl, especially those that haven't had children yet, to see this film.
http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/

In a nutshell, Ricki Lake (the talk show host) had her first baby and went through the system had the epidural etc, and felt that she didn't have the birth experience that she was after so before she had her second child she went and did her research to find out more. The result of that research is this documentary.

I desperately wish that I had seen this before my pregnancies. I had such a horrible time and I think that things could have been better if I knew then what I know now. But the only way that you can find this kind of thing out is either by seeing other birth experiences, or seeing a movie like this. My only experience with birth was seeing those movies in sex-ed where their goal is to prevent teenage pregnancy. Also those documentaries always show it from the POV of the clinician (ie watching the crowning) which is not what a woman actually sees. And in fact, nobody needs to see it.

The documentary shows a few homebirths, with one which ends up in a hospital. It also shows some hospital births. It explains the intervention cycle, which I never understood before, and also the hormonal implications of Caesareans. Put simply, the intervention cycle shows that once you add an artifical hormone to induce birth, then that causes labour to be harder and more painful, which increases your need for an epidural. But an epidural slows labour down, so the hormone is topped up, which causes painful contractions, so the epidural is needed again. Etc. So then what happens is that the baby gets distressed because the contractions are too strong, and so then the doctor uses forceps, vacuum or caesarean. And the statistics on those interventions clearly shows that the doctors often make their decision based on "quitting time".
The film is US-centric, so I don't know how similar it is to Australia, but it clearly showed that it doesn't matter what stage in labour that a woman arrives at the hospital, if she hasn't progressed by a certain time, then pitocin (hormone that brings on labour) is introduced. The doctors work to a timeline. I had no idea.

I thought that trusting the system was the right thing to do. That they had all the research, that they knew what they were doing. They don't. I am so disappointed. After I had an emergency Caesarean, I thought I was doing the right thing by having an elective Caeserean for baby 2. I asked the doctor and midwife whether going through the elective Caserean would be a problem because I wouldn't be experiencing the labour hormones. They said it didn't matter. This film shows that it does matter. And that I should have trusted my instincts. It impacts the bonding immediately afterwards. It impacts the success of breastfeeding.

I feel stupid, because I had read online that it would impact these things, but I trusted the system, and I feel foolish for doing that. I will never trust the system again. I am so disappointed.

Now if I had hired a private midwife, then maybe things would have ended up the same, but maybe they wouldn't. Maybe things could have been easier with baby 2 with breastfeeding. Maybe I might have bonded more easily with him. Maybe I wouldn't have got the severe PND that I got. And this movie has made me question all of that.

This film hasn't made me a convert to homebirth, but it has made me a convert to consistent midwife care throughout a pregnancy and birth and afterwards. I think that the model of having birth centres is a good one, where you have access to the hospital in case something goes wrong. But most women don't have access to birth centres.

I would like to have seen more about how there is not enough reassurance of women's fears and anxieties about childbirth. That nobody questions you about what your experience of birth is. They simply have a PND checklist, and then say "yes you are high risk". But nobody followed up.

I'm angry, sad, devastated. And I want to make a difference. So I'm now a member of "What Women Want", the new political party.

"The Business of Being Born" is not on at the cinema yet. It's been shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, and at grassroots screenings. I am hoping to organise a screening of it, and I will communicate it out if it happens.

So, now I have two pieces of advice for anyone considering pregnancy or who are pregnant:
1. Join the ABA and go to a meeting while pregnant.
2. See "The Business of Being Born" before deciding conclusively how you plan to have your baby.

If you are on Facebook, check out the group "What Women Want"

Reclaim the Night Melbourne

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:25:01 GMT

So Reclaim the Night is fast approaching! Here are the latest details; please forward onto to friends, family, pets and pot plants...

Reclaim the Night (RTN) is an annual feminist event, held globally on the last Friday of October, and represents a claim for women's basic human right to live in freedom from discrimination and fear of violence. Reclaim the Night marches and rallies have traditionally been organised by collectives of unpaid women who have worked together in their communities to organise peaceful protests against sexual violence towards women and children, and to promote women's strength and survival.

Broadly, the aims of RTN are:
1. For women to gather to protest sexual violence and abuse towards women
2. To encourage a wider community response to violence against women
3. To promote women's strength and survival
4. To work towards a society which can be a safer environment for women and children

This year, RTN in Melbourne will be held on Friday, 26th October, starting off with a rally at 6pm on the steps of Parliament House, an autonomous* march through the CBD, and a small community fair with food, music and stalls in the Grand Ballroom, Trades Hall.

The RTN 2007 organising collective would like to acknowledge that RTN and its organising have taken place on stolen Indigenous land. This land always has and always will belong to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present.

* Reclaim the Night is, ideally, a safer space, free of sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia. We welcome womyn and children (incl. male children under 12), trans and genderqueer-identifying people at the autonomous march. Men are welcome at the rally and at the fair.

Sydney: meet October 26th 7pm
Town Hall to Hyde Park

Melbourne: meet October 26th 6pm
Parliament House to Trades Hall

Australian Radical Feminists

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 04:32:06 GMT

Hey all,

I'm compiling a list of all Australian Feminist bloggers for an Australian Feminist website. The underlying philosophy of the website will be Radical Feminism. For a good introduction to what Radical Feminism is and what we do go here. If you would like to be included on the blog roll as an Australian Feminist blogger please comment on this post and give the address of your blog (if your feminist blog is not your lj blog)

In sisterhood,

allecto

An interesting article on the state of women's affairs in parliament.

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 19:30:11 GMT

Just read this article in the Age on women and their place in Political life in Australia. It's spot on as far as I'm concerned. Politics in Australia is still a 'boys club' and there are far too many who'd like to keep it that way. I like Gillard and I'm pleasantly surprised that Maxine McKew is standing in Bennelong. Pity I'm not still living there.

Considering many Australians disdain New Zealand, they seem to be doing incredibly well on all fronts with their 'ugly' female PM. And they're not the laughing stock of the rest of the world.

Long way to the Lodge

The Australian
Rebecca Weisser
August 13, 2007

INDIA did it in 1966. Britain did it in 1979. New Zealand did it in 1997, but Australia never has. It is perhaps the biggest disconnect between our egalitarian self-image of a fair go for all and a more discriminatory reality.

One hundred and five years after Australia became the first country in the world to simultaneously give women the right to vote and the right to stand for elections, we have never had a female prime minister or even leader of the Opposition.

Former federal sex discrimination commissioner Pru Goward left no doubt where she thought the problem lay after she was elected to the NSW parliament in March and appointed shadow minister for women.

Goward said she had never worked in any profession as male-dominated or ruthlessly sexist as politics and that the NSW parliament was "extraordinarily chauvinistic, in a very primitive, physical way that I didn't expect people to still behave".

Goward was immediately attacked by Premier Morris Iemma as a political novice who didn't know what she was talking about and told her "to put her head down".
But evidence of sexism in politics is apparent elsewhere.

Julia Gillard, the Opposition spokeswoman for industrial relations, was subjected to overtly sexist attacks in May by Liberal senator Bill Heffernan, who said she was unfit to lead Australia because she was "deliberately barren". Heffernan's comments are indicative of a sexism that persists in the community and was more widespread in earlier decades. But it also underlines the ruthless adversarial nature of Australian politics in which any attack on an opponent is countenanced to gain political advantage.

John Howard's industrial relations hitman Joe Hockey claimed in May that Gillard got more media attention than he did because she was "prettier". Reports a week ago said the federal Government was planning another "get Gillard" campaign targeting her perceived weaknesses. Citing Coalition research, columnist Glenn Milne said concerned voters see her as "hugely ambitious", from the "hard Left" and a "spear carrier" for the unions who would "overcome" Kevin Rudd if he were prime minister.

While some of Gillard's alleged weaknesses are related to the traditional left-right divide in politics, others have a peculiarly sexist slant. It is highly unlikely Peter Costello, Malcolm Turnbull or Tony Abbott would be described as hugely ambitious simply because they have leadership aspirations or, if they were, that that would be seen as a negative.

Gillard's appearance on ABC TV's Australian Story in March last year, a profile in The Australian Women's Weekly in March discussing why she would not be marrying her partner, hair products salesman Tim Mathieson, even a photograph of her in her kitchen in front of an empty fruit bowl centred debate around her marital and maternal status.

While politicians both male and female are quitting politics to spend more time with their families - former Victorian premier Steve Bracks and star MP for Lindsay Jackie Kelly are among the most recent cases - not having a family is still seen as a barrier to being prime minister or even a minister. Last week Victorian Premier John Brumby passed over Tim Holding for the position of treasurer in part because of his lack of experience as a parent, father and husband. Yet former Labor leader Bob Carr, who has no children, holds the record for the longest continuous service as premier of NSW, from 1995-2005.

The attacks on Gillard in May seemed to backfire, with 52 per cent of respondents in an online opinion poll saying Heffernan should be sacked and 59 per cent agreeing with the statement "face it Joe (Hockey), she's smarter than you on IR issues and that's why she's polling better".

In a speech on August 3 Gillard said society still struggled with visualising women in positions of power and authority. "Helen Clark has been described as 'the ugly duckling of New Zealand politics', criticised because her hairstyle was too 'severe' and her teeth too crooked. Of course the flip side of that is almost as bad when a male opponent, like Joe Hockey, blames their lack of success in politics on 'not being pretty enough' rather than on the particularly ugly policy that they are trying to sell," Gillard said.

Julie Bishop, the Education Minister and minister assisting the Prime Minister for women's issues, says "there are subtle differences in the way the media treat women politicians: some are positive, others not".

According to Julia Baird, author of Media Tarts - How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians, the media tends to typecast female politicians either as "Steel Sheilas", antipodean versions of Margaret Thatcher such as Bronwyn Bishop, "Superstar Housewives" such as Ros Kelly and Joan Child, or "Cover Girls" such as Natasha Stott Despoja, Cheryl Kernot and Pauline Hanson.

What is striking about Gillard and Bishop is how similar their images are. Despite Bishop criticising Gillard on the weekend for a Kernot moment, posing in designer clothes and jewellery, both women have avoided feather boas, ball-gowns and bikinis.

Gillard says it is often assumed that increasing the number of women in parliament will increase co-operation, but dismisses that view as sexist. "The difference that women make is not an outbreak of sugar and spice and all things nice. Women have different life experiences to men. They are confronted with different choices."

The debate on the abortion pill RU-486 is indicative of the difference it makes having women in parliament.

"If there had been no women in the Senate, the bill would have failed there," Gillard says. "In the house, only seven of 36 women voted against treating RU-486 like every other drug - none of them Labor, I might add - joined by 49 out of 110 of their male colleagues. That result shows that while women clearly do not all think the same way, we also clearly do not think the same way as men."

Maxine McKew, the federal Labor candidate for Bennelong running against the Prime Minister, does not believe Australia's political culture is holding women back.

"If women can come up through The Philippines, which is a much tougher society, or Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, a much more abrasive society ... deeply patriarchal societies have produced female leaders."

True, but female Asian leaders have all been widows, wives or daughters of male martyrs from prominent political dynasties. Indira Gandhi became prime minister shortly after her father Jawaharlal Nehru, the country's first prime minister, died; Bhutto, the daughter of slain former president and prime minister Ali Bhutto, has been prime minister twice and may be a third time; Sheikh Hasina Wajed was the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of Bangladesh's independence; Khaleda Zia was the widow of that country's dictator Ziaur Rahman; Corazon Aquino was the widow of assassinated popular Philippine opposition senator Benigno Aquino Jr; and Megawati Sukarnoputri was the daughter of Indonesia's first president Sukarno.

In the US, Hillary Clinton is campaigning to follow her husband Bill into the White House, while Nancy Pelosi is the Democratic Speaker of the House. Yet it is New Zealand which leads the world when it comes to women in leadership.

Not only does New Zealand have a female prime minister in Clark, who entered her third successive term in 2005, but in 2000 every key constitutional position in the country was held by women, including Silvia Cartwright, the Governor General, leader of the Opposition (and former prime minister) Jenny Shipley, attorney-general Margaret Wilson (now the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Justice Sian Elias and of course the head of state, Queen Elizabeth. Until last month, the chief executive of Telecom, the country's biggest listed company, was Therese Gattung.

Despite Australia's progressive stance on women's suffrage in the previous century, Australian political culture has been ambivalent about women's rights. Many in the Labor party opposed female suffrage fearing that women would vote conservatively, and many trade unionists also feared that working women would take away jobs from working men. Both sides of politics saw women's role in society as revolving around the domestic sphere.

It wasn't until 1943 when women were endorsed as candidates by the ALP and the United Australia Party (the forerunner of the Liberal Party) that Enid Lyons, widow of former prime minister Joseph Lyons, won a seat in the lower house and Dorothy Tangney who stood for the ALP was elected to the upper house.

Yet the representation of women in the Australian parliament continues to lag behind the percentage of women in the population, with 37 women in the House of Representatives out of 150 members and 23 female senators out of 76.

"When I was starting in journalism in 1974 there was a tiny number of women in federal parliament," says McKew. "Senator Kathy Martin (1974-84) was one of very few."

Between 1975 and 1980 there were no women in the House of Representatives, and the first minister assisting the prime minister for women's affairs was a man, Tony Street, appointed by prime minister Malcolm Fraser in 1976.

McKew is disappointed that 100 years after women gained the right to enter politics so few women are in parliament.

"We're still just getting to a third. It's not an impressive record, and it does lead to fundamental questions about the status of women in Australia and leads to some troubling conclusions: that we are still at some levels a pretty sexist society and that it has been particularly difficult for women."

Bishop believes that with increasing numbers of women in parliament, it is inevitable Australia will one day have a female prime minister. She also believes that the first female prime minister is more likely to come from the Liberal Party, which does not believe in quotas to get women into parliament. Of the 10 female cabinet ministers Australia has had, seven have come from the Liberal Party, including the three longest-serving: Amanda Vanstone, Margaret Guilfoyle and Jocelyn Newman.

McKew says the first female prime minister could come from either side of politics.

"But I think they will have the same strengths and weaknesses as any male, they'll be subject to the same challenges and their flaws and triumphs will be analysed in the same way. Life at the top is tough.

"Leadership at that level requires immense physical stamina, great mental discipline and, to be a great leader, imagination, and whether you're male or female they're the qualities that you have to bring together in one individual."

Gillard says having equal numbers of men and women in Australian parliaments is about merit and fairness.

"If you believe, as I do, that merit is equally distributed between the sexes, then you must also believe that our country can't afford to turn away half the talent and half the ability of the Australian community. And we cannot in conscience frustrate half the aspirations."

Gillard hopes that as more and more women enter politics and take on leadership roles the novelty will wear off.

"There will come a time when we will be judged purely on our achievements and our strength of character rather than whether we ascribe to what are seen as feminine traits, fit a particular model of attractiveness for public life or have fruit in a fruit bowl."

Rebecca Weisser is a Sydney-based freelance writer.

Has anyone read Media Tarts - How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians? Sounds rather interesting.

Oz in 30 seconds..

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:10:33 GMT

On Saturday 21st July; an add made by an amateur film maker will be selected to run at certain intervals on a major television station across Australia leading up to the federal elections, this coming Spring.

The adds featured on the website bring up environmental, political, aboriginal and feminist and local issues within Australia

Until midnight tonight you can watch and vote for as many 30 second adds as you wish. You can find the website at http://www.ozin30seconds.org

Come on, have a say!

This is XPosted everywhere. If this is unappropriated for this community please let me know.

Feminist Collective

Sun, 20 May 2007 09:35:26 GMT

Hey all,

I'm starting a Feminist Collective in Sydney if anyone is interested. Here are the details:

Feminist Collective
As violence against women increases on a massive scale across the globe, as sea levels rise and the climate is thrown into chaos by masculine science, as women, children, animals, and our sacred earth are treated as commodities which can be bought and sold, used and abused by men, for male conceived ideas of profit, the need for feminist ideas, spirit and action is more important than ever. It is not safe to be a woman in any home, in any street, in any workplace, in any country of this world. Our feminist struggle is not over, it has only just begun.

Women are at the forefront of all movements for social and environmental justice. It is time that we reclaim our participation in these movements as feminist. It is time that we recognise the central role of patriarchy as the bedrock ideology which has lead to the systematic devastation of community and environment by neo-liberal globalisation. It is time to hold our ‘left’ male leaders to account for failing to acknowledge this.

While male violence continues to be the main cause of death, injury and illness for women both locally and globally, we will continue to be feminist. While violent men continue to be valourised, and objectified images of women continue to be consumed, we will continue to be feminist. While pornography, prostitution and sadomasochistic sex continue to be sold to us as evidence of our liberation, we will continue to be feminist. While teenage girls in ‘Third World’ countries slave away in sweatshop conditions to produce consumables for Western greed, we will continue to be feminist. While any woman anywhere suffers from the insidious nature of patriarchal ideology and male supremacy, we will continue to be active.

Come along to the Feminist Collective every first and third Sunday of the month at The Women’s Library (behind the Newtown Library on Brown St, Newtown). The first meeting will be held on Sunday 3rd of June 2007 @ 2pm.

**With specific acknowledgement to our indigenous sisters whose courageous resistance to white invasion continues to this day. This land has never been ceded. It is stolen land. We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Iora Nation as the traditional custodians of the land we inhabit.**

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 08:59:00 GMT

Two scenarios happened today that were direct opposites to each other, and the latter unfortunatly did not reflect the reputation of men very well at all.

Today, I was walking to uni with my Make Howard History shirt on, when this construction worker commented to me on my shirt saying how he thought Howard was a "little scum bag" etc. To which I replied "Bloody oath mate".

Later in the day I walked back in the same direction and passed him again, and he came up to me and was telling me he was a Union Delegate for the CFEMU.. awesome guy.. and maintaining his original anti-Howard dogma. He was talking to me for 30 seconds about my shirt and how proud he was of being in the Union, etc. I thought it was awesome that he was telling me all this because of my shirt.

Then I got to the cnr of Elizabeth st where the Irish Bar is and I was crossing the street minding my own business when these 2 scumbags at the window started wolf whistling at me. I turned around and saw them gawking at me and told them to 'fuck off' which drew hearty laughs from them.

What a pair of morons. What, a woman can't even stand up for herself without being laughed at or thought to be hormonal or just not taken seriously.. i mean clearly I wanted them to whistle at me, I just didn't realise it. I'm sure they would be pissed off if someone did that to their sister/mother/girlfriend/daughter, but it's ok to do it to a complete stranger going about her routine.

Whenever shit like that happens, I always want to pull the Thelma and Louise monolougue about "We don't like the way you talk to women, how would you feel if someone spoke to your girlfriend, wife or mother like that" but I realise I would only get bullied and harassed more. Shit.

From there on it made my day miserable, and I had to change the route I took back to Uni just to avoid going past them again.

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:05:29 GMT

This isn't really a rant at all.

Can anyone on the list tell me if in Australia it is legal to question a woman's sexual history in a rape case in which she is the victim. I only ask becuase I was under the impression that in Queensland or Australia it is no longer sound practice and is considered out of order, but have since been informed that this is not the case.

Does anyone know?

Leah

From a link left by a reader at australian_left...a great and succinct opinion piece...

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:06:54 GMT

... and written by a man...

Michael Costello: We're just asking for trouble

The mufti's attitudes towards women are a Muslim problem, right? Think again

The Australian
November 03, 2006

DOES Taj Din al-Hilali deserve the attacks launched on him for his sermon at Lakemba Mosque in September? He sure does. Should the Muslim community also be subject to criticism if it doesn't remove him from office and condemn unreservedly what he has said? It sure does. And should the rest of us see this as just a Muslim issue? We should not.

Let's start with what the mufti said. Most of the coverage has been of his words blaming women if men committed adultery or rape. There is no ambiguity or lack of context in what he said. He said: "The woman possesses the weapon of seduction and temptation. That's why Satan says about the woman, 'Oh, you are my best weapon."'

There has been less coverage of his description of Jews and Christians as being condemned "to the fires of hell. And not part time, they'll be in it for eternity. What are these people? The most evil of God's creation on the face of the earth."

What got virtually no coverage was what he said about theft. Guess what? If a man steals, women are responsible. In the words of the mufti, "And behind every man who is a thief, a greedy woman. She is pushing him." According to him it is women who drive men to the mafia to be gangsters, to steal cars, to smash banks and to deal in the "blue disease" (drugs).

Hilali is not some private nutter expressing crazy views that we should just ignore. He is the mufti of Australia, a leader of the Muslim religion in this country. Unfortunately there are signs that there'll be sufficient support for him in the Muslim community for him to stay on. If he does stay on, and if he does not repudiate without ambiguity everything that he said in that sermon, Australians are entitled to assume that the views he expressed are those of the Muslim community in Australia.

This will be a tragedy for the large number of Muslims who find his views offensive and unacceptable.

What is equally worrying is that the rest of the Australian community may think that the attitudes the mufti expressed reflect just a Muslim problem. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley observed that 30 years ago less lurid versions of what Hilali said were widespread. He didn't make this as "an apologetic comment", as one commentator observed. He stated it as a fact.

I was 28 those 30 years ago and I can tell you that Beazley is absolutely correct. If a women was raped, a common reaction was: "She must have been asking for it. See how she was dressed! See where she was! See whom she was with! What on earth did she expect?" Women who were raped seldom went to the police because they knew they would be subject to suspicion, disbelief and attack. If the case got to court, the accused's barrister would savage her in the witness box, demand her full sexual history in detail, often imply that she was a whore and suggest, just as Hilali did, that she had worn the wrong clothes and tempted some poor boy beyond all reasonable bounds. If you don't believe this, go back and read the transcript of the trials at the time.

Beazley went on to say that we had moved on from those times and now we blame the rapists, not the victims. He is correct that much has been done and that things are different and better. But as Beazley said, rape is less about sex and more about the assertion of power and disrespect for women. On that score, non-Muslims have no cause to be complacent. In recent months we have seen appalling cases of assertion of power over, and lack of respect for, women.

One case was of a young woman with a disability apparently raped at Sydney's Darling Harbour by several young men in turn in a toilet block. No Muslims there. Another was of a girl who appears to have been sexually assaulted near Werribee, in Melbourne's outer western suburbs, her hair set on fire and sadistically humiliated by a group of youths, all of it videoed for the subsequent amusement of themselves and their friends. No Muslims there either.

Then there was the horrendous contempt shown by a group of men on a cruise liner towards a woman who died in horrible circumstances. And even if it doesn't involve rape, the casual groupie and group sex indulged in by some Australian footballers is clearly not about sex but is a display of power and contempt for women as objects and playthings rather than real human beings.

Then there is the large number of women murdered and injured each year in what is described as domestic violence, a term that somehow neuters the horror to which women are subjected, often for a sustained period.

We can have preventive detention for terrorism suspects. Why can we not have preventive detention for husbands and boyfriends and stalkers who threaten injury and death to women, and who all too often make good those threats?

I am sure that what I have written will be dismissed by many cultural warriors as politically correct self-flagellation, a black-armband view of Australian men, apologetic instead of standing proud and tall as Aussies together. But facts are facts. The problem of rape and contempt for women is a profound issue for Muslims, but it is also a profound issue for all Australians, especially for Australian men.

I marvel at how long the women of Australia have tolerated this. I wonder how much longer they will.

It's well put, the 'black armband' view of Australian men [I know you'll say I should have said the Australian Public, but... nah!] on this issue. For the most part, they'd laugh it off or ignore it if it was a senior judge, as it has been in the past, or one of their 'mates' who acted or spoke in a sexist or misogynistic manner. "Ahhhh it's just a laff!"

In another incident here....

Classroom sex attack leads to suicide

From correspondents in Warsaw
October 26, 2006 06:55am
Article from: Agence France-Presse

A SCHOOLGIRL in Gdansk, Poland killed herself after five boys stripped her in front of a classroom and simulated raping her.

The teacher of the class had left the room temporarily and one of the boys recorded the group's abuse of the 14-year-old girl on his mobile phone.

Some of the other girls in the class tried to help the girl, but she was only able to break free from the boys after they had stripped her.

The head teacher tried to relay the incident to the girl's parents, but only managed to get her teenage brother on the phone, who apparently did not pass on the message, police said.

"On Friday, when the teacher was out of the classroom, five boys undressed the girl in front of her classmates and then started to touch her intimate parts and simulated the sex act with her," said Jaroslaw Sykutera, a spokesman for the Gdansk police.

A preliminary investigation has shown that the victim of the attack told a friend on Friday night that she would never again set foot in the school.

On Saturday morning, the girl's parents found her lifeless body in her room. She had hanged herself with a skipping rope, police said.

The five boys who stripped the girl have been detained. The police tried to retrieve the mobile phone recording of the incident from the memory card of the phone, but the clip had already been erased.

The stiffest sentence the boys face would be time in a correctional institution for minors. Had they been adults, they could have been jailed for up to 12 years, according to the police.

Conversation starters...

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 11:44:12 GMT

Okay, seeing as there's some controversy on the subject of women and how they are under fire right now, I want to ask you all to contribute, for a discussion group I will teach at university this Saturday further statements you have come across which generalise about WOMEN. I have a few, but I'd love to hear some other thoughts.

Women wearing headscarves are asking to be attacked by Non-Muslims.
Women who wear short skirts and low tops are asking to be attacked by men.
Women who stay out late at night are asking for trouble.
8 year old girls who act provocatively towards their fathers and other relatives are asking to be molested.
Women who swear or drink are loose and slutty.
It's a man's right to have sex with his wife.

I'm playing 'devil's advocate'. Many of these slogans have been said by men or other women; members of varied levels of society.

Some of you, depending on what you've experienced in your own lives, might feel traumatised by the mere suggestion of these statements [hence the LJ-cut]. But I want these people to THINK about STEREOTYPES OF WOMEN and how WRONG it is to even contemplate that a woman might 'ask for' some kind of violence by doing any of these things.

Recently here, we had an incident in a High School, where a young girl was molested by her classmates, one of them was her cousin, while others looked on. The teacher was out of the room for 15 minutes. The incident was filmed on a mobile phone - though deleted later. The girl hung herself the next day. The boys who did this have been charged, but it begs the question/s... what led them to believe that this is somehow acceptable behaviour? Why didn't anyone from her class run for the teacher or any form of help? Why don't people have some kind of 'stop valve' within them anymore? Are we so desensitised?

It might be worthwhile to organise a PEACEFUL women's counter-protest on this occasion...

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:04:48 GMT

Large police presence expected at Al Hilaly rally
ABC.net.au
Last Update: Wednesday, November 1, 2006. 10:32pm (AEDT)

Police are expected to turn out in force at a rally to support the controversial Muslim cleric Taj el-Din Al Hilaly later this week.

Organisers say it will be a peaceful protest, but authorities are taking no chances.

The Government admits it will be a test for police after recent reports showing failures during last year's Cronulla riots.

After two days in hospital, Sheikh Al Hilaly's family gathered up the many flowers sent by well-wishers while the mufti slipped out a side entrance.

His supporters are planning a rally in the shadow of Lakemba Mosque, at Parry Park on Saturday.

Like in the build-up to the Cronulla riots and reprisal attacks, text messages are being used to spread the word, reading: "Get prepared! Peaceful protest in support of Mufti Al Hilaly This is a critical day to show our solidarity and to silence the hypocrites!"

Police are preparing for unrest either at the rally, at the popular Friday prayers, or both.

New South Wales Police Minister John Watkins has issued a public warning.

"The police will be there in numbers and they will take action if there's any antisocial behaviour or criminal behaviour," he said. "If that is your intention do not come.

"There is no place for a softly softly approach here, and I've made that clear in my discussions with the Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner."

But that confidence isn't shared by everyone after well-documented failures at cronulla.

News South Wales Liberal leader Peter Debnam says it is critical that police have the resources they need to monitor the situation.

The president of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, Keysar Trad, says he believes the protest will be peaceful.

"We don't believe that anything will go wrong, we certainly hope that nothing will go wrong," he said.

While the sheikh has not decided if he will join his supporters at the protest, his critics continue to grow in number.

Amnesty International has urged the Muslim community to abandon the sheikh.

Sheikh Al Hilaly is still deciding if he will save them the trouble.

Sorry if anyone's sick of hearing about this issue, but it has to be said. A peaceful counterprotest, even if held in the centre of Sydney, rather than trying to provoke the marchers in Lakemba, would be a great idea.

X-posted to australian_left

What the FUCK?! A guy drugs and rapes a woman and is a doctor, thus breeching his duty of care...

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 23:20:56 GMT

....and they're screaming for LENIENCY! Tell me I'm dreaming... *grrr*

Grenfell rape victim speaks out on Muslim sentencing

ABC.net.au
Last Update: Wednesday, November 1, 2006. 9:27am (AEDT)

A woman from Grenfell, in central western New South Wales, whose former doctor has been convicted of raping her, has spoken publicly about her concern at calls to go easy on Muslim offenders.

Melbourne Muslim cleric Sheikh Mohammed Omran has accused judges of religious bias in sentencing in rape cases.

Dr Rafid Alramadan blamed his Iraqi background and Muslim faith for his conviction on three charges in the Wagga Wagga District Court recently.

He is in Junee Jail awaiting sentencing for drugging and raping her in December last year.

The Grenfell woman who brought the rape charges against her former doctor is worried about calls for leniency.

"Does that bring his sentence down because one person feels that the judicial system is too hard on Muslims?" she said.

"This man was charged on three counts, he deserves to be in jail and he deserves to have the full sentence.

"I already knew he was guilty, but 12 people that didn't know him found him guilty on evidence."

Meanwhile, the woman says she is thinking of leaving the town because of a lack of community support.

The woman says half the residents of Grenfell do not believe her story.

She has thanked those who do support her, but says she thinks she has been adversely judged by many Grenfell people.

"I just can't believe that the town would turn against me, I did this for me but I also did it for the people of the town," she said.

"But it just seems to me that they would prefer to have a doctor who rapes people, patients who trust him, than to worry about what I'm going through."

I'm not sure what's going on, if there's a rise in this kind of activity or if they're just becoming more public, but perhaps men should be accountable for their actions rather than ask for leniency. This 'cleric' should read his Koran a little more.

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 08:33:09 GMT

Hi all, I'm a new member of this community.

I found an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald which I would like to share:

Where have our female firebrands gone?
October 27, 2006

Elisabeth Sexton went in search of the country's most influential and powerful women. Her quest proved more difficult than expected.

AUSTRALIA has had many First Women. In 1949 Enid Lyons was the first female in federal cabinet and in 1975 Margaret Guilfoyle the first to hold a major portfolio. Leonie Kramer became the first female to chair the ABC in 1982. Mary Gaudron was the first woman to sit on the High Court, in 1987, the same year that Di Yerbury was the first to run a university. Three years later Carmen Lawrence became the first female premier, swiftly followed by Joan Kirner, and Betty Churcher the first woman to head the National Gallery of Australia.

Jennie George was the first female president of the ACTU in 1996. Catherine Livingstone made stock exchange history in 2000 when the bionic ear producer Cochlear, where she was chief executive, became big enough to rank in the top 100 companies. Six months later Margaret Jackson became the first woman to chair a company in that elite group when she took the top board seat at Qantas, to be joined three months later by Jill Ker Conway at Lend Lease. At the end of 2000, conductor Simone Young took over the musical direction of Opera Australia.

These women opened the doors of the country's institutions and others have been playing big roles in the national debate for decades. Think of the impact of Faith Bandler in the 1960s, Germaine Greer in the 1970s, Ita Buttrose in the 1980s and Pauline Hanson in the 1990s.

So surely it must be an easy task to compile a list of this decade's women of influence? So many role models, and so many paths already broken, might suggest a wealth of options.

But it is hard enough to identify their current female counterparts, let alone find a critical mass of women at the top.

Today's federal cabinet includes Helen Coonan, Amanda Vanstone and Julie Bishop. SBS is chaired by Carla Zampatti. Susan Crennan became the High Court's "second woman" after Gaudron retired. Janice Reid is vice-chancellor of the University of Western Sydney. Clare Martin is Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. Elizabeth Ann Macgregor is director of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Sharan Burrow is the second female ACTU president. The chief executive of St George Bank, a top 20 company, is Gail Kelly. This month Elizabeth Alexander became chairman of the blood products maker CSL, which ranks at 26th, and Jackson still leads No. 34, Qantas.

These women influence our lives. But the number of their peers is still small in the halls of power and in the national discourse. The pioneering women have been replaced, but have not multiplied.

Australia is run by men. Our political, corporate, cultural, educational, media, scientific and sporting institutions are overwhelmingly male-led. Arguably the most powerful woman in the country is Janette Howard; arguably because her influence is hard to measure, exercised as it is via her Prime Minister husband, John.

There is no growing class of women who wield influence openly in their own right, based on their own achievements and their own ability to affect the lives of others.

The social movements of the 1960s and '70s, and the advent of widely available contraception, gave women access to new roles in society. Forty years on, their participation in education and in the workforce equals that of men. But when it comes to positions of power, little has changed since the first wave.

This is a familiar story to Laura Liswood, the American author and adviser to the global investment bank Goldman Sachs. "The pipeline argument, which we all thought was a valid argument - which was just wait until they get through the [tertiary] schools, and wait until they get the experience and all will be fine - well, it turns out that not all boats are rising at the same speed," she says.

Liswood heads the secretariat of the Council of World Women Leaders in Washington, comprising female presidents, prime ministers and heads of government, and researches what it takes for women to achieve leadership. She says the Australian experience mirrors what is happening in other developed countries.

In her 2003 book, The End of Equality, Anne Summers wrote that women were no more powerful than "when the second wave of feminism got off to its noisy, ambitious start in the late 1960s".

"Women need to be realistic about what is going on here," she wrote. "There is no evidence whatsoever of any willingness on the part of men to share power."

Summers says nothing has changed in the three years since the book was published. "In the '80s we had this tremendous visibility for women, which was fantastic, but I guess we hoped that would set up precedents and [now] there's a question of the extent to which breaking a barrier is a permanent thing or the extent to which there might have been more willingness back then to promote women than there is now."

Until this year, the longest-serving female member of federal cabinet was Guilfoyle, who was minister for social security and then finance from 1976 to 1983. In March her record was broken by Vanstone, 23 years after it was set.

Fewer than 3 per cent of the top 200 companies have a female chief executive or chairwoman.

Women have been agitating in and influencing the community from the grassroots for decades but it's hard to think of anyone active today to match Bandler, who directed the successful 1967 campaign for Aborigines to vote, Lowitja O'Donoghue, who led Aboriginal organisations from the 1970s until the 1990s, or the group of stirrers including Eva Cox and Wendy McCarthy who set up the Women's Electoral Lobby in 1972.

There are highly visible achievers in diverse fields such as actor Cate Blanchett, film producer Jan Chapman, athlete Cathy Freeman, head of ABC radio Sue Howard, nutritionist Rosemary Stanton, author Colleen McCullough and child health researcher Fiona Stanley.

But it's difficult to argue they are stronger role models, or more numerous, than forerunners such as Joan Sutherland, Pat Lovell, Dawn Fraser, Ita Buttrose, Margaret Fulton, Thea Astley and Jean Macnamara. Absent from the national stage are household-name opinion makers who are women.

When Forbes magazine published its annual list of the world's 100 most powerful women last month, it included broadcaster Oprah Winfrey. She has no Australian female equivalent. (The Forbes list did not contain any Australians. Two New Zealanders were included: the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and Theresa Gattung, chief executive of the country's largest company, Telecom NZ. Clark is New Zealand's second female prime minister after Jenny Shipley. The country has also produced a female chief justice and two female governors-general.)

In the media, former editors of newspapers such as Jeni O'Dowd at The Sunday Telegraph, Colleen Ryan at The Australian Financial Review and Michelle Grattan at The Canberra Times are still in senior roles but have no counterparts in the top jobs. Maureen Plavsic, the only woman to have run a TV network, has had no female follower since she left Seven in 2003.

The Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward, attributes the dearth of women agitators to men being more willing to take risks than women. "If you want to be part of the public debate you have to be sometimes prepared to roll a grenade in there and then stand up and argue your case," Goward says. "Women are cautious and want to get their facts right and they often tend to middle-of-the-road decisions." Men are more prepared to adopt an exaggerated stance to gain notoriety, she says.

Liswood says the response that greets outspoken women is part of the explanation. "A man can say 20 outrageous things before someone says he sounds pretty stupid, whereas a woman can say two before someone says 'hey, there's a pattern here'."

She says there could also be a more encouraging reason. "The intellectual and talent pool maybe 20 or 30 years ago didn't have the opportunity to use their talent in law or medicine so that intellectual energy and fervour was channelled into public debate," she says. "My theory is that women still have that incredible intellectual energy but they are solving law cases or doing brain surgery."

Business institutions began admitting women to their higher echelons decades ago, but few are showing signs of building on those moves.

A Federal Government body, the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, last month reported a fall in the number of the 200 largest companies on the Australian Stock Exchange that have at least one woman on the board.

It identified only one company with more than two female directors: the financial services group Perpetual, which a year ago had four women among 11 directors and, following a board reduction, now has three out of eight. The retailer Coles Myer recently joined Perpetual by appointing a third woman to its 10-member board.

In a survey of the education sector published last year, the agency reported that while 13 of Australia's 41 university vice-chancellors are female, only 11 per cent of full professorships are held by women.

The agency's corporate census is sponsored by the ANZ Bank, whose chief executive, John McFarlane, says women remain "largely excluded" from positions of corporate power.

He is more optimistic about the "pipeline" than Liswood or Summers, saying most CEOs are appointed when they are between 45 and 55, and there were not enough women graduating in business disciplines 20 and 25 years ago to be appearing at the top now.

But while he expects to see that alter as more recent female graduates work their way up, he says sitting back and waiting will not deliver change. The ANZ has introduced quotas for women in senior and middle management, as well as rules such as putting a woman on every appointment list and ensuring managers have "conversations with women to understand the issues women face".

McFarlane says these affirmative action measures were initially resisted by women in the bank because they wanted to be able to say they had been promoted on merit. But he says they are vital because "if you are a man you are more likely to appoint a man than a woman". He says there is no other explanation for the poor representation of women in middle management in big Australian companies, where the pipeline should have started to do its work by now.

The Women in the Workplace Agency's census said 7 per cent of line management roles - the type of jobs usually a precursor to the top level - were held by women.

"There is a bias," McFarlane says. "It's an unconscious bias, but it's a systemic bias." It won't change until men are forced to "take a chance" on appointing women against their inclination, he says. "Unless you have a target and time frames and you measure what you are doing, it won't happen - that's how companies work."

Summers says Australia is "not even close" to having a female prime minister. She says it is encouraging that women are entering politics younger, that as many are winning seats in the lower house - and hence are in line to lead parties - as the Senate and that Julie Bishop's elevation to cabinet in January was a first for a woman from the House of Representatives.

But she says these trends are relatively recent and, like women in business and other institutions, women in politics face a critical obstacle.

"The biggest barrier is that we still haven't worked out a way for women to have children and have careers. Women have to make choices that men don't have to make."

The academic Barbara Pocock says Australian culture will need to change before large numbers of women become political or business leaders.

"It's incredibly difficult for women to work in a way that means they can deliver in the model of leadership that dominates in Australia - with lots of face time, an enormous amount of travel and on top of that a hostile culture to women's leadership," she says.

Pocock, director of the Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia, cites this week's decision by Natasha Stott Despoja to quit politics in favour of her family. An adviser to Stott Despoja when she led the Australian Democrats in 2001-02, she says the hours parliamentarians are expected to work mean that "as soon as you have a child you can't do it".

She also says female leaders provoke hostility. "They have a level of scrutiny over their sexuality, their private lives and their decision-making that's much more intense than most men face," she says.

Some of the most lucrative careers remain overwhelmingly dominated by men. Investment banking and stockbroking, where senior executives receive million-dollar incomes, have few female stars. At the highest-paying investment bank, Macquarie Bank (where five executives received an annual cash bonus of more than $10 million last year), eight of the 250 top executives are women.

In law, the bar, where the top practitioners take home similar amounts, also has a tiny female population: in NSW it's 16 per cent. Of the 325 highest-paid senior counsel at the Sydney bar, 15 are women.

"I can go back at least 30 years and there were significant women barristers," says Tony Blackshield, emeritus professor of law at Macquarie University. He cites Margaret Beazley and Ruth McColl, now both on the NSW Court of Appeal with nine men, and Jane Mathews, who has sat on the Federal and NSW Supreme courts.

"I don't think there are more of the influential ones today than there used to be and I doubt there are even more women barristers than there used to be," Blackshield says. "It puzzles me because women solicitors are completely accepted now. The bar is a very conservative profession."

Summers says even for solicitors and other professionals, the picture is not good. "If you look at some of the accounting firms and the law firms, about 14 to 15 per cent of their partners are women and they all say their recruitment policies should produce a figure of 30 per cent."

Australia is home to some extremely wealthy women, and having a billionaire in the family can coincide with opportunities for cultural or sporting influence. Ros Packer, widow of Kerry, sits on the council of the National Gallery of Australia; Dick Pratt's daughter, Heloise Waislitz, is a member of the Australian Football League foundation; Rupert Murdoch's daughter-in-law, Sarah O'Hare, is an Australian Ballet director.

But few women are credited with direct involvement in building wealth and thus wielding the power that comes with it. BRW magazine includes women who work in family business on its annual list of the nation's wealthiest. The latest Rich 200 list contains just 11 women. Some, like the Nutrimetics founder Imelda Roche and the Medina Apartments developer Charlotte Vidor, have built large family businesses (worth $545 million and $430 million respectively on BRW's estimation) in collaboration with their husbands.

Others have inherited and then increased business empires, including Gina Rinehart, who inherited her father Lang Hancock's iron ore interests, and the Melbourne retailer Naomi Milgrom, who has expanded the Sussan group founded by her parents, Marc and Eva Besen.

One of the few sectors that can point to a growing number of women at the top is the federal bureaucracy.

The most senior woman is the secretary of the communications department, Helen Williams, who has also headed the education, tourism and immigration departments since 1985.

There was a 16-year gap before Williams was joined by "the second woman", Jane Halton, who was named secretary of the health department.

But in 2004, two became six with the appointments of Joanna Hewitt at agriculture, Lisa Paul at education, Patricia Scott at human services, and Lynelle Briggs at the Australian Public Service Commission. They comprise one-third of Canberra's 18 chief executives. Of the wider senior executive service, 35 per cent are women.

The top public servant, the head of the Prime Minister's department, Peter Shergold, offers several reasons, starting with longstanding merit-based rules for appointments.

"The fact that the Public Service Commissioner is represented on all the selection panels that we do for senior executive positions ensures a very transparent process, and through that I think you do select the people who are the best people to do the job without other factors coming into play," says Shergold. "And then it becomes self-fulfilling."

He cites the flexible working conditions that have applied for many years, which allow women to take maternity or other leave without losing seniority. "When women are making the decisions about careers it's not just the salary package; I do think they look at the terms and the conditions and the whole life on offer," he says. "While we have learned a huge amount from the private sector in things like customer service I think to be honest the private sector can learn a great deal from us in providing really open career opportunities for women."

Shergold says women are motivated by the type of work on offer: "In some ways it's the issues rather than the salary that attract our best and brightest."

He says women are particularly attracted to "working not just for yourself but for the public interest and future generations. The big things we are working on, drought, climate change, these are long-term significant issues."

Pocock agrees that there are gender differences in job motivation, with many men more concerned with salary and status, while many women "look at the hours and demands of those [top] jobs and say 'you must be joking, I don't want to do that, I want to have a life"'. The interesting question is the price we pay for that, the price we pay for having a managerial class who don't understand what it's like to be a worker and a carer."

"We pay a huge price for running companies in those ways, for having working conditions set by and managed by the most hard-working managers."

Goward says by far the biggest issue is managing work and family obligations. "It's difficult for a woman, even an ambitious woman, with children to juggle the load," she says. "Having said that, you would have to ask yourself why aren't the childless women getting there? I have no explanation as to why women who don't have children don't do as well as men who have children."

She also blames incumbent decision-makers. "Most companies say they want women, then when push comes to shove there's a sense that 'she can't do it'. It's staggering really that so little progress has been made in 20 years."

Helen Coonan
WHEN she hosted a fund-raising dinner this month to celebrate the achievements of conservative women in federal politics, she had no trouble filling the Great Hall in Parliament House. The 360 attendees paid $750 each, a good turnout for a Thursday night in Canberra. It’s unlikely that many of them were attracted by speeches about why
the Liberal Party had a longer history of female cabinet ministers than the ALP. Coonan was on the verge of finalising new rules for the media sector amid intense lobbying, so booking a table was de rigueur for every major media company. While Coonan has since come under fire for the marketplace response to her reforms, the significance of her position is underlined by the fact she bore the political brunt of actions by two of the most powerful men in the country, Rupert Murdoch and James Packer. In addition, Coonan recently became deputy leader in the Senate, making her one of the four-strong parliamentary leadership group.

Kylie Minogue
FOR many years she was neither more nor less influential than any other female star. That changed in May last year when her diagnosis with breast cancer hit the headlines. Minogue’s longevity as a television and pop entertainer
ensured the news had impact well beyond gossip.
A September 2005 article in the Medical Journal of Australia argued that publicity about Minogue’s illness prompted a doubling in bookings for mammograms by women being screened for the first time. Eight weeks after the story broke,
bookings were still 40 per cent higher. ‘‘The dramatic increase in initial and rescreen mammography among eligible women is unprecedented in the Australian breast screening program,’’ the authors, Simon Chapman, Kim McLeod, Melanie Wakefield and Simon Holding, found. Commenting on research linking historical rates of screening with a 26 per cent fall in mortality, the authors predicted ‘‘the significant ‘Kylie effect’ on screening may further reduce breast cancer deaths’’.

Gail Kelly
FAR and away the leading example of female corporate achievement in Australia. In 2002 she was head-hunted from running a division of the Commonwealth Bank to become chief executive of St George Bank, the 16th-largest company in the country. She runs a $17 billion business with 8000 employees, 2.9 million customers and 149,000 shareholders. Unlike the next-ranking woman running a publicly listed company, Kerrie Mather at the Macquarie Bank spin-off Macquarie Airports, Kelly does not answer to a major shareholder. And unlike Katie Page at retailer Harvey Norman, the only other female chief executive in the stock exchange’s top 100, Kelly is the most senior executive and is not accountable to an executive chairman (Page’s husband Gerry Harvey).

Margaret Jackson
THE undisputed doyenne of Australian boardrooms. While other women have as many directorships, Jackson became the first to chair a major company when she headed the Qantas board in August 2000 (pipping Jill Ker Conway at Lend
Lease by three months). While Ker Conway has not held an Australian board seat since 2003, Jackson’s stature has grown as Qantas has shown itself adept at managing the strategic issues, the domain of the non-executive directors. The standout example is Qantas’s lobbying in Canberra, which resulted in it benefiting enormously from the Ansett collapse in 2001, and its success in achieving regulatory decisions that disadvantage foreign rivals. Under Jackson’s leadership, Qantas has also cemented its position is one of the country’s most recognisable brands.
The 53-year-old, who practised as an accountant until she switched to a career as a non-executive director in 1992, also sits on the ANZ Bank board and has completed stints as a director of BHP, Pacific Dunlop and Southcorp.

Fiona Stanley
HER research into childhood illness has brought her international recognition. One of only three women on the 21-strong science council that advises the Prime Minister, Stanley was named Australian of the Year in 2003. The research institute she established in Perth in 1990 was part of the international team that discovered that folic acid before and during pregnancy can prevent spina bifida in babies. The institute instigated the first public
health campaign in the world to promote folate. While the results of her work inside the laboratory would give Stanley an enduring place in Australia’s scientific community, her decision to speak and agitate on behalf of
children in public forums has ensured a wider impact.

Susan Crennan
WHENshe was appointed to the High Court last year, Crennan immediately became the nation’s most senior female lawyer. While Crennan is but one of seven judges, the institution’s ability to shape and define the law makes each member powerful. This year’s challenge to the Federal Government’s industrial relations laws, which the seven judges have heard but not yet ruled on, could have a big impact on manylives. In cases where the seven are split, Crennan could be the deciding voice. She will also be influential in cases where she writes the majority decision, such as this year’s morally complex ruling in two so-called wrongful life cases about the rights of severely disabled children to sue doctors over conditions which could have been detected in the womb. While legal convention restricts how much judges participate in community debates, Crennan’s appointment also automatically makes her a role model for women aspiring to senior legal positions.

Gina Rinehart
INHERITED one of Australia’s most famous business legacies from her father, Lang Hancock, who discovered Western Australia’s iron ore riches in 1952 when bad weather forced him to divert a light plane he was piloting. But, as she told BRW magazine this year, after his death in 1992 she discovered that ‘‘everything was mortgaged to the hilt, cash was a real problem, and it did limit what we were able to do’’. Rinehart is now about to achieve what her father never did: developing an iron ore mine and becoming a billionaire. In April her company and the world’s
second-biggest mining company, Rio Tinto, announced they would jointly spend $800 million developing the Hope Downs project in WA’s Pilbara. Rinehart receives tens of millions of dollars a year in royalties from the iron ore
reserves her father discovered. When the new mine opens in 2008, her annual income is expected to surge to hundreds of millions of dollars. Her company also has sole rights to develop vast tracts of tenements in the Pilbara.

Marie Bashir
VICE-REGAL posts involve many ceremonial duties, but Bashir has made much more of being NSW Governor than cutting ribbons.When she opens a fete or marks an anniversary, she invariably makes a speech and always has a point to make. She uses the contact with a wide variety of citizens to spread her messages of tolerance and compassion. She forcefully supports the Aboriginal community, gays, minority religions and those unable to afford university fees. She has spoken equally of her pride in discovering the Arab culture which produced the Bashirs who migrated from Lebanon in the late 19th century and ‘‘the wonderful and lifelong friendships’’ she has forged with Australian survivors of the Holocaust. She reminded a group of journalists to remember the media’s role as advocate and guardian ‘‘as implications of new laws relating to sedition, to national security and terrorism, and to industrial
relations come before the Parliament’’. She told some plumbers they were indispensable, guarding against the risk of ‘‘miserable diseases’’.

Janette Howard
SAYS little in public about public policy, but Canberra insiders credit her with excellent political antennae and her husband with heeding them. John Howard’s former chief of staff, Grahame Morris, has described her role as one of ‘‘half a dozen people that thePMon any issue will bounce ideas off’’. She was not a decision maker, but ‘‘she is still the most important person to Australia’s most powerful person and she is certainly a sounding board’’, Morris said last year. Max Moore-Wilton, the former head of the Prime Minister’s Department, says Morris should know. ‘‘The two sounding boards that the Prime Minister has on the big issues ... are Janette Howard and Grahame Morris,’’ Moore-Wilton said in 2004.‘‘[They] are the two people he will turn to regularly.’’ In one of her few public speeches in February,Howard said she kept a low public profile because hers was not an elected position. ‘‘Particularly these days when so many women are members of Parliament, you are not the symbol of the woman’s voice in Canberra,’’ she told a function at the National Portrait Gallery, of which she is chief patron.

Cathy Freeman
CATHY FREEMAN did not find it easy to adjust after she retired from running in 2003. ‘‘When I retired, I felt lost; it was like I was free-falling,’’ she said. ‘‘I lost my feet and I didn’t feel solid within myself.’’ But the
decisions the Olympic champion has made since then mean her influence will endure, just as she was more than a sporting figure at her athletic peak. Her stature as an athlete, her personal charisma and her decision to drape
herself in the Aboriginal flag during victory laps at the Commonwealth and Olympic games combine to give her a greater national prominence than other sporting champions. She has translated this into direct influence in her recent choices to make a television series, Going Bush, with Deborah Mailman, and to represent the London Olympic Games, the Hans Christian Andersen Foundation, Asthma Awareness and Aboriginal Tourism Australia.

I'm disappointed that Natasha Stott Despoja (even though she just quit, she has had a huge impact and she's one of my personal role models) and Fiona Wood weren't mentioned in that last section, though. And I thought there seemed to be a strong focus on business and politics - which definitely aren't the only fields in which to influence public opinion.

Something else they didn't discuss was the number of women in medical school at the moment (at the uni I attend the split is about 50/50 male/female).

Who is your Australian female role model? Who should be added to this list?

Enough already....

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 22:17:51 GMT

It's about time this ridiculously inflammatory 'leader' of the Australian Muslim community stepped down or was stripped of his post. He's done no good for the Australian Islamic community as a whole, and provoked dischord with his ridiculous statements and incitement.

He does not behave as a good leader should.

Community leaders condemn Al Hilaly's comments

ABC.net.au
Last Update: Thursday, October 26, 2006. 2:02pm (AEST)

Community and political leaders are distancing themselves from senior Muslim cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilaly's comparison of women who do not cover their bodies to raw meat.

Sheikh Al Hilaly is reported as saying that women who do not wear the hijab, or headdress, are like uncovered meat.

The sheik reportedly made the comments in a speech in Sydney last month.

Sheik Al Hilaly was given the title of Australia's Mufti by the Federation of Islamic Councils, but Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Walid Ali says he should be stripped of the title.

"It is inherently a nonsense," he said.

"It is a fiction really and because of that he should go."

New South Wales Community Relations Commission chairman Stepan Kerkyasharian has written to Sheikh Al Hilaly condemning the comments.

"The position of leadership is a matter for his constituency, but he owes the rest of Australia an apology," Mr Kerkyasharian said.

The Federal Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, says Sheik Al Hilaly should make a retraction.

"And a clear-cut statement that people who commit acts of rape should be absolutely condemned," he said.
Out of context

A close associate of the sheik, Keysar Trad, says the speech was about adultery, not rape.

"He wasn't talking about rape in any way," Mr Trad said.

"He wasn't talking about standard norms of dress in Australia or any country, he wasn't talking about the hijab, he was talking about people who engage in extramarital sex."

But the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner and New South Wales Liberal Party candidate, Pru Goward, does not believe the sheikh can backtrack over his comments.

She says he could be guilty of incitement to the crime of rape and should be deported.

"On that basis he can, if his visa arrangements are appropriate, be deported," Ms Goward said.

"I would strongly urge the Islamic leadership to ask him to go, we would all support that.

"There is a pattern of these statements, we are a tolerant people but incitement to the crime of rape is not acceptable."

Meanwhile, New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma has urged the cleric to retract his statements, calling them offensive.

"His comments ... don't do a very good job of representing Muslims. Now to in some way suggest that you can justify sexual attacks on women on the basis of how they might walk or dress is outrageous," he said.

and the backlash... I for one, don't believe his apology is genuine...

wanker...

Muslim leaders discuss Hilaly future

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 26/10/2006
Reporter: John Stewart

Muslim leaders are meeting in Sydney to decide whether to take action against Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilaly, over comments he made linking immodestly dressed women with sexual attacks.

TONY JONES: Australia's most prominent Muslim cleric, Sheikh Taj Din al Hilali, is once again the centre of controversy, this time over remarks comparing women to uncovered meat. The full context of his sermon during Ramadan suggests the sheik used the analogy to excuse sex attacks on women who refuse to stay in their rooms at home with their heads covered by the hijab. His comments sparked widespread condemnation, much of it from within the Muslim community. Tonight the 16 directors of the Lebanese Muslim Association are meeting in a secret location to determine what action, if any, should be taken against the head of the Lakemba Mosque. John Stewart reports.

JOHN STEWART: Sheikh Hilali is one of the country's most prominent Islamic clerics and he has provoked a storm of outrage with his comments about women. Today some of his loudest critics came from his own community.

MAHA KRAYEM ABDO: It's very hard to see that again. This is putting the onus on women, that women are always to blame.

JOHN STEWART: In a recent speech delivered during Ramadan, he compared immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat left outside, saying if cats came to eat it they couldn't be blamed. Sheik al Hilali also said, “then comes a merciless judge who gives you 65 years”. That’s been taken as a reference to the young Sydney Lebanese men recently given long jail terms for brutal gang rapes.

TAJ DIN al HALALI: What is meant by that is anybody who commits a crime of rape deserves 65 years in prison.

JOHN STEWART: Why does he say this mercy?

TRANSLATOR: The intention is that this person does not deserve mercy, that the judge should not show mercy to his women.

JOHN STEWART: Sheikh Hilali says his comments about women have been taken out of context. The Sheikh says he was seeking to impress on women the importance of dressing modestly to discourage men seeking sex outside of marriage. But some Muslim community leaders say he has seriously misrepresented the teachings of Islam.

ALI ROUDE: Muslim women and Muslim men regard comments of this nature as offensive.

SPEAKER: Whilst the Muslim Women's Association we're working very, very hard to really bridge the gap, I feel that now we're about 10 steps back.

JOHN STEWART: To many Muslims especially in Sydney, Sheikh Hilali is mufti of Australia, the nation's most senior Islamic cleric. He played a significant role in the release of Australian hostage Douglas Wood from Baghdad last year but the sheik has also been the subject of controversy in the past. He has been accused of making anti Semitic remarks, resisting arrest for a traffic infringement and allegedly defending the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Several Muslim groups are now challenging his authority in Australia, and say he should be sacked.

SHERENE HASSAN: I think time has come for the Muslims to show leadership on this issue, and stand up and say "Please, leave us alone."

JOHN HOWARD: They are appalling and reprehensible comments. They are quite out of touch with contemporary values in Australia. The idea that women are to blame for rapes is preposterous. It's an appalling concept.

PRU GOWARD: This is about inciting to rape, inciting Islamic men to rape on the grounds that it's not their fault.

JOHN STEWART: Tonight, the sheik apologised.

TAJ DIN al HALALI: I'm very, very sorry for that, people misunderstanding me.

JOHN STEWART: The Lebanese Muslim Association, which employs Sheikh Hilali, is meeting in secret tonight to review his speech and consider whether it will take any action. But early this evening, the association said there was no guarantee it would move against the sheik. John Stewart, Lateline.

The point is you WANKER, women should be able to dress HOWEVER they want and go WHERE EVER they want without men taking this as a 'sign' that they can rape them! What the FUCK don't you understand about that?!

I have a lot of respect for Islam, but I have ABSOLUTELY NO RESPECT for this man. And I'm honestly fed up with his 'mouthing off'.