"Keep Making Noise": I hear you loud and clear!
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 127 No 2, 11 March 2022, page no.17
The theme of this year’s Queensland Women’s Week, which fell across the week of International Women’s Day, was “Keep Making Noise”.
This theme was near and dear to this feminist’s heart. Working day in, day out supporting women and gender diverse members, I know only too well the additional hurdles and barriers they face. We must hold fast to the progression of these matters, not only as a union of which women make up nearly 75 per cent of the membership, but also as workers who are role-models to the next generation.
Our students observe how we are treated at work, who can work flexibly and who holds leadership and positions of power. We owe it to ourselves as professionals, and to the next generation of women, to make progress.
COVID has impacted upon us all. It has affected leave balances, our care arrangements and highlighted the struggle/juggle many of us have with care responsibilities and paid work. The care of parents, partners and older children has come under the spotlight, and there has been resistance in some quarters to the fact that care responsibilities and the industrial frameworks around them are not merely an extension of parental leave and don’t solely apply to young children.
In 2021, our nation commenced a much overdue and timely conversation about gendered violence. Thousands of women took to the streets in the March4Justice campaign. We reeled in horror at the experiences of Brittney Higgins and remain in awe of abuse-victim advocate Grace Tame. Repeatedly we have seen the federal government fail to take real action in response to the recommendations of the Respect@Work report. In Queensland, the state government is currently reviewing the Industrial Relations Act and the anti-discrimination legislation to try to put the onus on the employer to prevent sexual harassment.
Your Union continues to work to raise the issue of gendered violence in workplaces through our Expect Respect campaign. We need the employer to recognise student behaviour as gendered violence and address it. While we welcome the introduction of improved consent education, we need the employer to properly fund the Respectful Relationships program. We need quality professional development for all teachers that unpacks the nature of gender inequity and how it drives gendered violence.
While we made some solid progress on gender equity in the last EB, we need to “Keep Making Noise” as we start our negotiations for EB10. The gender pay gap in education remains, and we still battle daily with the barriers between members and flexible work, part-time, access to leave for family care responsibilities and shared-primary care.
Some of these provisions also have a long-term financial impact. Taking extended leave has an impact on our retirement income and
superannuation, as does part-time work. The wage-gap is most prominent across Australia in the elderly and retired. One key way to address this would be to have superannuation on Commonwealth paid parental leave. The key industry group seeking these changes, supported by the ACTU, has indicated that, factoring in the compounding nature of superannuation, this change would see a woman receiving the payments for 18 weeks having an additional $14,000 in her super balance on retirement.
Internationally, the struggle for gender equity highlights the precarious nature of gains made, with the attempts to roll back reproductive rights in the US and the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan demonstrating that we must never take gains for granted. The need for vigilance and an international lens around basic human rights (such as access to quality and free public education) is always front and centre for us as education unionists.
We encourage young women and teachers to carry the baton of gender equity. We encourage our male allies to join with us, as stereotypes of gender roles and norms have led to an increase in mental health issues for males and prevented them from caring for children and family in a way that they may have wanted to.
There is momentum for genuine gender equity at present in ways that we haven’t seen for decades. It is incumbent on us all to do our bit and learn to be as inclusive as possible. Are we ensuring we hear from women from all backgrounds and encouraging all women to take up space? Are we genuinely making space for First Nations women and women with disabilities and ensuring their voices are encouraged and included?
Let us as a community come together to celebrate the amazing women from the past, many of whom were written out of the history books. Let us celebrate our incredible role models in our communities at present and let us encourage the future leaders to all “Keep Making Noise"!