🧵About the “professional women” who determined this election narrative. Can we please not. Two reasons…(1)
It credits a dominant strain of corporate feminism in Australia for this outcome that, in my opinion, has been complicit in the lost decade we’ve just seen in relation to gender equality. (2)
If the voters of Australia have seen for to turf out the Coalition and their “Lean In” faux feminist mantras (just have a look at their #GirlBoss women’s budget statement) we should likewise turf this out from our feminist discourse. (3)
Which leads me to my next point: it flattens/ simplifies the narrative about women’s anger, and prevents us from learning the lessons from this outcome. What they are collectively demanding and why. (4)
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@Raecooper1@FayCalderone@UnrollHelper Watching that press conference again the spin is noticeable. The attempt to claim the (limited) response in last year’s budget supported the inquiry’s “key recommendations”. Just not true. The positive duty is THE key recommendation. They funded some training and a website. 🤦🏻‍♀️
@Raecooper1@FayCalderone@UnrollHelper@SenatorCash was also disingenuous about the positive duty at the press conference. It was the first question she and the PM were asked by a journalist, indicative of the extent to which the media understand it is the central principle of the inquiry. (1)
@Raecooper1@FayCalderone@UnrollHelper@SenatorCash She said “we do accept the principle of that. And as we have noted, a positive duty already exists ... under the WHS act. So that positive duty does exist. We want consistency and we want to reduce complexity, so we’re now going to look at how you could implement that...(2)
Seriously? Again ... seriously? Partly as a result of the gender pay gap, a figure that represents the myriad of workplace injustices women experience, women over the age of 55 are the fastest growing portion of the homeless population.
And @andrewprobyn The PM clearly still doesn’t understand the gender pay gap. It is a composite figure that represents the myriad of ways women are disadvantaged in the workplace. Not just men and women paid differently for doing the exact same job. That’s the bloody point of it.
If the PM can’t get to grips with that — undervaluing women’s work, the impact of unpaid caring responsibilities disproportionately felt by women, occupational segregation etc — he has a LOT of catching up to do before the budget.