Two years ago today we launched Women’s Agenda. The aim was to deliver news, views and advice relevant to career-minded women, and agitate for change on the key issues we believe affect women’s workforce participation and representation.
We’ve since published thousands of articles, undertaken hundreds of interviews and participated in countless passionate conversations regarding opportunities for aiding the career choices, ambitions, health and wellbeing of women.
And while we’d like to say that life for women at work and the representation of women in leadership is better now than it was two years ago — if not due to the fact we exist, then at least due to the passage of time! — we can’t necessarily say that’s true.
You see two years ago we had a female governor general, female prime minister, a number of female premiers and one of the highest proportions of women represented in the Federal cabinet. Today, we have none of the above — just one woman in Cabinet, Julie Bishop, and a number of others apparently “knocking at the door”.
Two years ago women accounted for 15.4% of board positions on ASX 200 companies. Today, that figure is higher, now at 18.2% (as of July 31, according to Company Directors), but the pace of change is still so slow it’ll be decades before we ever reach gender parity at this rate, if we get there at all.
Two years ago, the gender pay gap was 17.6% according to WGEA, today is is marginally better but still over 17% .
Two years ago, workplace discrimination, inflexible work practices, assumptions regarding who should do what at home and unconscious bias were considered some of the major obstacles to a woman’s career and success. Those obstacles still exist and show few signs of abating. As the Australian Human Rights Commission’s recent report into pregnancy discrimination showed, one in two mothers report experiencing such discrimination at some point while pregnant, on leave, or once they return to work. That’s just one example of the types of discrimination affecting women at work, there are many more.
And two years ago we were speaking optimistically about some of the changes that might be ahead for childcare and paid parental leave, a change of government hasn’t improved the likelihood of such reform. While the Productivity Commission’s released it’s draft report on accessible and affordable childcare, we appear in for yet another long and protracted debate regarding what this could look like and how it should be funded. Seemingly, it’s a debate that will pit ‘rich women’ against ‘poor women’ just like it did in the one about paid parental leave.
So while the macro picture hasn’t changed all that much for women at work, we hope we’ve at least touched you on a personal level. Women’s Agenda is a community, with readers who will debate and disagree on issues covered in this publication, but who ultimately celebrate the success of all women.
Two years ago we didn’t exist, now we do. We hope we’ve informed, entertained, connected, touched or helped you all in some way. We’ve worked with hundreds of authors and journalists since launching and one thing that continues to resonate over and over again is the willingness and urgency women have to share what they know, what they’ve been though, and how they’ve not only survived but thrived. They share this in the hope other women will benefit.
We’ll continue to tell those stories and agitate for change.
And because we think a lot more can be done at the macro level, we’ll be running Eight Game-Changing Ideas for Women at Work over the next eight days to get some more challenging conversations happening.
And to help with continually renewing our own agenda, we’ve established an advisory board featuring some of the country’s most interesting and informed business minds including company directors and chairs Wendy McCarthy AO and Elizabeth Proust AO, Juice Boost founder Janine Allis and Marina Go, who will continue on the board after leaving her position as CEO of Private Media (also publisher of Women’s Agenda).