I am not miserable. I am not passive aggressive. I wouldn’t label myself a fringe-dwelling leftie. I am not seething with hostility towards other men or women. I do not manufacture outrage and I am not perpetually offended. I am, however, passionate about equality, particularly along gender lines, and I write on the internet. Sometimes that combination is equated with the various labels listed above.
Earlier in the week I read a column by journalist Rita Panahi about ‘mummy bloggers’ and angry feminists (Women’s Agenda was mentioned, peripherally, as being one of many websites that caters to the female market.) The piece, which focused on the spat between Channel 7 and Mamamia, took aim at the collective angst of women feigning outrage at various people and events online.
The idea of being outraged about a column that was written by a woman who is outraged by the collective outrage of another group of women is circuitous, and wearying, enough for me to have considered saying nothing. But I reconsidered. Not because I am outraged, or offended, or because I want to fight with the author or anyone else. I don’t. What I would like is to see gender equality progress and that requires constructive dialogue, particularly around issues that contribute to inequality.
This article illustrates one of the significant and pervasive impediments to gender inequality: an unwillingness — blind or wilful — to see or accept inequity. The idea that inequality is a construct of angry women, mostly mummies, created to vent their spleens, presupposes that inequality doesn’t exist. (It also begs the question, why is it only mothers who oppose sexism?) The underlying premise in accusing women of creating controversy to justify their outrage around sexism suggests there is no problem to begin with.
Does the author or the many many readers who agreed with her piece really believe men and women in Australia are on equal footing?
If we lived in a world without a gender pay gap or without any disproportionate representation of women in senior roles in government or business or academia, it would be easier to understand that perspective. But we don’t. Gender inequality exists and that is not my subjective opinion; it’s a matter of fact. It is evident in the pay gap, in the tiny percentage of women who hold senior leadership positions, in the fact pregnancy discrimination is now the number one workplace complaint against employers, in the fact Australia’s female workforce participation rates lag behind the rest of the world.
The prevalence of sexism, or stereotypical attitudes about the roles men and women should play, is obviously much more difficult, impossible even, to measure. But it is not difficult to see that it still exists. (A quick glance at the Ernie Awards highlights sexism at its most overt and it’s a rare woman who hasn’t encountered sexism in one of its more overt guises.) And it’s not particularly difficult to see how those ingrained attitudes inform the statistics.
Men and women in Australia are not on equal footing and because that is something I would like to see changed, regrettably, I do not need to manufacture outrage. The day I need to create some false indignation about the treatment of women in Australia will be a welcome milestone. Until then I will keep writing and speaking about this issue. I do not harbour seething hostility towards other women or groups of men, but I am more than seething with hostility to inequality.