NEWS FROM THE FRONT
Last updated: 9 July, 2004
This page of news about women's equality and related issues is updated regularly. If you would like to be informed by email each time new material is posted, please send a blank email to feedback@annesummers.com.au
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Puff headlines on the front page of the Australian on July 6, 2004: "Greatest Player in the World" and "Boris Becker on the Best Legs in the Business". Each headline was accompanied by a photo of the winners of the Wimbledon championships this year. Guess which headline went with Roger Federer and which with Maria Sharapova!
SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN RISES AGAIN (9 July, 2004)
In 2003 more than 18,000 women reported sexual assaults to police throughout Australia. This is a 10 per cent increase over the previous year. This, sadly, is a huge increase over the 13,500 women who reported such assaults to police in 2001. As I report in The End of Equality (p. 101) this figure represented a 9 per cent rise on the previous year which, in turn, was 9 per cent higher than the year before. In other words, the rate of reporting of assault is rising. This could mean that the actual numbers are rising also. As I state in The End of Equality (p. 102), the Australian Institute of Crimonology estimates that only 15 per cent of women who experience sexual violence actually report it to police. The actual number of women sexually assaulted in 2003 could be as many as 120,000. This is truly shocking.
WOMEN'S ISSUES RATE HIGHLY IN NEWSPOLL (9 July, 2004)
The last detailed newspoll, published in the Australian on 23 June, 2004 showed an interesting rise in the rating of women's issues by voters. The poll indicated that in June 2004, 46 per cent of voters (and 55 per cent of women voters) rated "women's issues" as being very important. This was a significant increase on the 38 per cent (44 per cent women) who rated these issues as being very important back in February. "Women's issues" were rated ahead of inflation, immigration, industrial relations and Aboriginal and native title issues, but behind Health & Medicare (the Number One issue), Education, National Security, Leadership, Family Issues, the Environment, Welfare and social issues, Taxation, Unemployment, Defence and Interest Rates. Interestingly, while 38 per cent of voters (34 per cent women) said Labor would handles these issues best, 23 per cent (28 per cent women) were "uncommitted". The government attracted the confidence of 28 per cent of voters (28 per cent women).
HOWARD PUTS HIS FACE TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN CAMPAIGN (26 May 2004)
You will recall the "No Respect No Relationship" television advertising campaign prepared by the Office of the Status of Women and due to screen prior to Christmas last year. As reported several times in the past on this page, the government canned the series because, the Prime Minister asserted at the time, it referred viewers to a website and not, as he preferred, to a 1800 number. Now he has come up with an even better solution: a personal message - bearing his photograph! - to every Australian - delivered to your very own letterbox. . This was revealed earlier this week in a Senate Estimates hearing and the details have beenr eported by Nicola Roxon, shadow Attorney-General and minister for the Status of women. See her press release...NICOLA ROXON - MEDIA RELEASE - GOVERNMENT CONFIRMS MILLIONS WASTED - 25 MAY 04
WOMEN SOLDIERS AT ABU GHRAIB (26 May, 2004)
If you were horrified by the sight of women soldiers humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib you might be interested to read this view by American columnist and author Barbara Ehenreich (author of Nickled and Dimed among many other wonderful books). See "What Abu Ghraib Taught Me".
CHILDCARE COSTS AND INFLATION (2 May, 2004)
Australia's inflation rate for the March quarter was just 2 per cent, but not all areas of spending benefited from this. According to a report in the Australian Financial Review (29 April, 2004) childcare costs rose by 12.7 per cent. The price of flash digital televisions, on the other hand, fell by 21 per cent.
Comment: No wonder women are having second thoughts about having children! It's cheaper to watch DVDs. When will the costs (and availability) of childcare receive serious attention from the federal government? Why is childcare so expensive? It's not because of the high wages of childcare workers who, on average, receive less than people who work on supermarket checkouts. It's time the whole industry was investigated.
NO RAPE CHARGES AGAINST CANTERBURY BULLDOGS (2 May, 2004)
After a two month investigation NSW police have said there is insufficient evidence to press charges against the six Sydney footballers who were alleged to have raped a young woman in Coffs Harbour during a pre-season break. The police were advised by the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions that the case was unlikely to succeed in court. At a press conference this week, the police in charge of the investigation stated again their view that a sexual assault had occurred. It was obvious the police were not happy that they could not proceed with charges. An exasperated Detective Chief Inspector Jason Breton, who had led the investigation, told a press conference that he and his team would not have worked 18 hours a day for ten weeks if they did not believe that a serious assault had not occurred. The young woman was found distressed and bleeding at a Coffs Harbour hotel early on the morning of February 22 and was taken to hospital by ambulance.She told police she had been vaginally, orally and anally raped by six footballers. The players denied the charges. After it was announced that the charges would not proceed, the chief executive of the Canterbury Bulldogs team claimed to the media that this was proof that "nothing happened". This claim was strenuously contested by the police who were adamant that an attack had taken place. The decision not to press charges has been a very controversial one. In Coffs Harbour, a sign saying "Charge the Dirty Dogs" was hung on an overpass over a local road. And a young woman interviewed in the street by reporters said: "If you speak to her [the victim], tell her she's a legend. Tell her Coffs chicks support her."
EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA (2 May, 2004)
Urgent talks were convened in Parliament House, Perth last week after it was revealed that six women and a baby had been killed in the past four months in domestic violence episodes. The state's 36 women's refuges also reported an upsurge of women seeking emergency accommodation in the months since December 2003. All refuges were full to over-flowing and having to turn women and children away.. The Australian (27 April, 2004) reported that up to 500 women could be accommodated by Western Australian refuges each night but that a snapshot survey had revealed that 334 women and 509 children had been turned away from refuges during September and October. The Minister for Women's Interests, Sheila McHale, has ordered an investigation into the 26 deaths from domestic violence that occurred in the state in 2001-02. It was also reported on the same day by The Australian that last weekend in Brisbane, Jason Dalton, a former One Nation Party candidate had strangled his two baby children (aged 12 months and 13 weeks). He and his wife had separated two months earlier and she had taken our a domestic violence order against him after he had threatened to kill her. Mr Dalton had campaigned against family law reform and the child support agency.
Comment: the WA inquiry is most welcome, but isn't it time we had a national inquiry? Women and children are being murdered and al we get from most politicians is sanctimonious drivel. The federal government would not even run the television advertising campaign against violence in relationships prepared by its own Office of the Status of Women. It's time to get serious and start saving lives.
WOMEN GET THE CHOP IN NSW (22 April, 2004)
See Sarah Maddison's excellent article in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday Sarah Maddisonand Joan Bielski's reply today Joan Bielski letter
YOUNG, FEMALE AND MAYORAL
Comment: It's no longer rare for women to be elected Mayors but the recent elevation of three Sydney women looks like a first because each is thirtysomething - a welcome change from the old image of the big-bellied, sixtysomething guys who used to have a lock on local government's highest office. According to the Sunday Telegraph of 18 April, 2004, last week saw the election of Alice Murphy, 30, as mayor of Leichhardt; Joanne Morris, 31, as mayor of Hurstville; and Julia Finn, 31, mayor of Parramatta. Big jobs in important areas. You go, girls!
MEN'S GROUP SUES FEMINISTS
This alarming report comes to us via friends in Canada where a men's rights group has taken legal action against an academic feminist for her report on the performance of boys in Canadian schools. It has an alarming resonance with our very own "crisis in masculinity" debate. See the following report sent to me via email from a friend:
CANADIAN
FATHERS GROUP SUES FEMINISTS FOR DEFAMATION
I would like to inform you about a defamation lawsuit that has been lodged by
the group BC fathers ( http://www.fathers.bc.ca/sow.htm
) in the
Supreme Court of BC against one of my colleagues, Pierrette Bouchard, at Laval
University. This is a manifestation of the backlash against feminists
in Canada.
Pierrette Bouchard, professor in the department of education and who holds the
Chaire on women status (Chaire Claire Bonenfant sur la condition des
femmes) http://www.fss.ulaval.ca/lef/chaire/index.html
at Laval University, wrote last year a report for Status of Women Canada
on «School Success
by Gender, a catalyst for masculinist discourse» ( http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/pubs/0662882857/200303_0662882857_e.pdf
).
OPPOSITION LEADER USES THE "W" WORD
Comment: anyone who has followed my recent speeches will know that while I have welcomed Mark Latham's friendly approach to children, early child-hood education and family issues, I have been perturbed that he has not - to my knowledge - ever talked about women apart from in their role as mothers. One of the main contentions of my book The End of Equality is that, once again - just like the 1950s? - our politicians are trying to relegate women back to being seen as mothers and nothing else instead of acknowledging and devising policies for the multitude of roles that most women want to enjoy. Yesterday saw a change. According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald (20 April, 2004 p 2.) when Latham was asked by someone at a community group his views on abortion, he said "I support a woman's right to choice in those circumstances". Bravo Mark!
Let's hope we hear more from the Opposition Leader on subjects of interest and concern to women as women. (As citizens, of course we all have a lot of interests in a lot of different subjects but these are not the subject of this Newsletter).
NSW DEPARTMENT FOR WOMEN AXED
NSW Treasurer Michael Egan announced this morning (2 April 2004) that the Department for Women would be abolished and replaced with "an Office of Women elevated to the Premier's Department." The announcement was part of the state's mini-budget and follows speculation within women's circles for the past few weeks that such moves were afoot.
Comment: NSW was the only state to have a Department for Women and will now join the other states in retaining an office but not a Ministry. The Director of the Department for Women, Robyn Henderson, was removed from the job earlier this year in what perhaps should now be seen as a harbinger of what was to come. The move follows another change in ministerial arrangement affecting women, this time in Queensland where, following the recent State election, the Office of Women was removed from the Premier's department was demoted to the Local government department. Perhaps we should be asking Mark Latham what his plans are for the Office of the Status of Women?
More news on this development as it unfolds.
TONY ABBOTT PROMOTES TEENAGE PREGNANCY?
The Federal Health Minister is reported today (Sun-Herald 4 April, 2004) as proposing legislation that would increase the age at which parents can have access to their children's medical records from the present 14 to 16. Mr Abbott wants to do this to prevent teens from being sexually active. "A society where a large number of 15- and 16-year olds are sexually active has a problem," according to the Health Minister. "We are setting these kids up for failure in their later lives if we in any way accept this".
Comment: Mr Abbott apparently figures that teenage girls will be less likely to go to their doctor for contraceptives if there is a risk of their parents knowing. Notice that it is only girls who will be affected by this. Boys can buy condoms over the counter - there is no plan to use federal parliament to curb their sexual activity. Another case of the double standard?
Mr Abbott might feel that teen sex leads to failure later in life. This is a dubious proposition but what is absolutely certain is that a teenage pregnancy can spell absolute catastrophe for a young woman. If girls are not able to easily obtain contraceptives the result is not that they will stop having sex, they will simply resort to unprotected sex. The certain result will be an increase in teenage pregnancies and in STPs.
Australia has been one of the most successful countries in the industrialised world in reducing the rate of teenage pregnancies from its high of 55.5 per 1000 of population in 1971. In 2001 the rate was just 17.6 per 1000 of population. (See The End of Equality p. 29) Teenage girls finding themselves pregnant are most likely to chose abortion, a potentially traumatic experience for a woman, especially if she has to try to do it without her parents' knowledge. Surely prevention is the better option.
But Mr Abbott is one step ahead of us. Just a couple of weeks ago he commented that the 100,000 abortions performed in this country each year were a national tragedy. This was a chilling statement from a Federal Health Minister, the man who has portfolio responsibility for the policy of providing Medicare rebates for terminations. If Mr Abbott were to try to cut back on the rebate, many women would not be able to afford abortions. What would they do? Have unwanted babies who are at a higher risk of being subject to neglect or abuse? Resort to non-medically safe methods of ending the pregnancy? Would we see a return to the bad old days of backyard abortions, where it was not unknown for women to die at the hands of unsanitary and unscrupulous operators? Do we seriously want to go back to all that?
I don't think so. So why is the Health Minister trying to stop young women having access to contraceptives? Why is he making it more likely that there will be an increase in the teenage pregnancy rate? Is this is a (not-so) secret plan to reverse Australia's declining birth rate? Is this Tony Abbott's version The Handmaid's Tale (see The End of Equality p 225) - a world where women are forced to be breeders?
ALP BABY CARE PACKAGE DISAPPOINTING
Comment: The ALP has turned its back on the promise to provide working women with paid maternity leave. The Baby Care Payment, announced last week "delivers on Labor's commitment to 14 weeks paid maternity leave" according to one of the documents in the package. Yet this is not the case. The Baby Care Payment is a welfare measure, not a work-related one. It is triggered by the presence of children, not by the workforce status of the mother. It is means tested on family income at the time of the birth but it is not taxable. In both these respects the Baby Care Payment resembled the old Family Allowance payment introduced by the Fraser government back in 1976.
It is more generous than anything provided by the current government and for that reason is a welcome improvement on present policy. The Baby Care Payment provides for families earning less than $85,702 to receive a payment of $3,000 spread out over 14 weeks (amounting to $428.57 a fortnight for those eligible for the full amount). The payment would rise to $4,000 a year in 2007 ($571.43 a fortnight). The proposal replaces the current inequitable Baby Bonus and the Maternity Allowance. It is a more generous and more equitable scheme than the Baby Bonus and it should be seen, and applauded, as an encouraging step in recognising the costs of having children.
However it should not be mistaken for a paid maternity leave scheme. The Baby Care Payment is set at the Federal Minimum Wage, not at average weekly earnings, which would deliver a higher income during time out from the work force. The scheme does not conform to the International Labour Organisation standards for paid maternity leave schemes (which stipulates that women should receive two-thirds of the income they were getting when they stopped work to have their baby). Most countries in Europe pay between 80 and 100 per cent of the woman's wages for periods varying from 14 weeks (in Germany where women receive 100 per cent of their wages) to up to 26 weeks in France (where the woman also receives 100 per cent her wages).
With Labor's decision to abandon paid maternity leave there is now no chance that Australian women will enjoy this benefit since it is clear the federal government is unwilling to embrace this reform. Australia will join the United States as the two industrialised countries with no national paid maternity leave scheme.
Women deserve better.
Women's Earnings Gap Declines Even Further
Women's average earnings, as a percentage of men's, has declined to 65.1 per cent, down from the 66 per cent reported in The End of Equality.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that women now earn an average of $312 a week less than men. In the three months to November 2003 the average weekly wage paid to men rose $14 to $894.60, while women's rose by only $11 to $582.80.
Congratulations to Australia's first Indigenous woman cabinet minister!
Marion Scrymgour has been sworn in as Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister for the Environment in the Northern Territory government. She is one of four Indigenous women to serve in parliaments around Australia, and the first to become a Cabinet minister.
Australian women first voted in a federal election 100 years ago today.
To learn more about this historic day, see press release by Nicola Roxon, shadow minister for the status of women Read Roxon press release
Another Federal Government domestic violence funding scandal.
It is reported in the Australian today (16 December, 2003) that the federal government has canned a proposed Christmas season television advertising campaign against domestic violence because government members objected to the fact that only men were shown to be the aggressors. The campaign, entitled "No respect, no relationship", was in the planning for two years by the Office of the Status of Women. It will not now be shown due to what looks like political interference by unnamed Liberal politicians on the vetting committee who, it was reported, said the behaviour depicted in the advertisements "was not really violence", and because men were portrayed as the perpetrators.
Comment: It is of course well established that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of domestic violence against women. The federal government's cancellation of this television advertising campaign is yet another example of its refusal to spend even its Budget allocation on domestic violence. For the past two years, the allocation has been underspent. Scandalously, the government used money earmarked for campaigns against domestic violence and sexual assault to fund its notorious anti-terrorism "fridge magnet" campaign in February 2003. For a full account of this scandal, see The End of Equality p. 93
Rape hotline moved from emergency numbers in NSW phone books
It was reported in the Sun-Herald on 14 December that the rape crisis hotline number is going to be moved from its current position among the emergency numbers in the front of the phone book to further back in the Help and Health section.
Comment: Is this yet another signal that women's equality is of no interest to governments around Australia. We know that the rate of sexual assault against women remains high and is probably increasing (See The End of Equality chapter five "A Sex War"). We should be making it as easy as possible for women to report such attacks, not forcing them to flick through a phone book searching for the 24 hour rape crisis hotline.