Women at work
12 May 2018
Australia has come a long way when it comes to gender equality in the workplace, especially since most retirees today started their employment journey. But there is still a fair way to go.
Dame Quentin Bryce. Marie Bashir. Julia Gillard. Kristina Kenneally. What do all these women have in common? Traditionally male jobs. Yet, despite the challenges, they’ve worked their way to the top.
While not all of us can push through the glass ceiling, these women show that it’s possible to find employment in male-orientated fields. And they’ve shown you can do it in style; with poise, with passion, with wit and with intellect.
Where are the females?
Today, women make up 46.5 per cent of Australia’s workforce. Compare this to the 1950s and 1960s where a woman’s job was predominately in the home.
If women did go out to work, it was in jobs that society deemed ‘suitable’ – roles caring for others as nurses, teachers, secretaries or domestic services. And while some women did work in a ‘man’s’ job, they were paid less, earning just 75 per cent of their male co-workers’ wage.
By the 1970s however, the participation of women in the labour force was up to 38.6 per cent. While there has been a steady incline in this figure, women are still being paid less than their male counterparts. According to a recent Workplace Gender Equality Agency report, the full time average hourly earnings for women are 15.3 per cent less than men’s.
Additionally, women are still under-represented in leadership. Women represent just 15.4 per cent of CEOs and hold 14.2 per cent of chair positions. What’s worse is that one quarter of organisations that reported to the Agency have no female key management personnel. According to Lisa Annese, CEO of Diversity Council Australia, the main reason for the missing women in the workplace is that it was never designed for females. “It was designed in the industrial era when women weren't in the workplace,” she explains. “Children didn't have any bearing on the workplace because women weren't there. People didn’t have elder-care responsibilities because people weren't living as long. So, the workplace was designed for men.
“Importantly,” she adds, “it hasn't kept up with massive social change.”
The exceptions
The statistics may sound concerning, but there are exceptions to every rule. Lynne Sheriff is one such example. In fact, Lynne, a member of Cockburn Probus Club in Perth, found success in a job that is very much associated with the male gender – a prison guard. After divorcing her first husband, Lynne found herself raising (and financially supporting) two daughters, on a teacher’s assistant wage that simply wasn’t enough. She saw an advert
in the newspaper for prison officers. Importantly, women’s wages were the same as men’s. “In 1977, that was unusual,” Lynne explains.
Lynne first found herself in Bandyup Women’s Prison. “Working in an all-female environment was difficult,” she remembers. “Women had fights and arguments a lot.” She said the hardest thing to see in the women’s prison was the babies being born. “You wondered what chance the child would have.”
Eleven years after entering the profession, Lynne was asked to transfer to male maximum prison, Albany Regional Prison. “Females had never been employed as prison officers in a male maximum prison,” she explains. “I was to be the first, to help with the new female officers who were locally recruited for the job.” A big ask, and quite intimidating, Lynne decided to give it a go. But she wasn’t well received. “The staff were not happy having
a female, let alone one who held a senior position.”
And then of course, there are examples such as The Hon. Julia Gillard AC, Australia’s 27th
Prime Minister and the first female to fill the job. Indeed, this generation of young girls has lots of female role models, whether they’re in leadership positions or simply working in a job that they love.
There’s also examples such as Pip Marlow, who worked at Microsoft Australia for almost 22 years. For the final six years she was Managing Director before being tapped on the shoulder by Suncorp and offered the newly created position of CEO Strategic Innovation.
Or, love her or hate her, Gina Rinehart. Named by Forbes as Australia’s richest person in March 2017, Rinehart succeeded her father as Executive Chairman of Hancock Prospecting, a mining exploration and extraction company – a traditionally male- dominated industry.
Legally speaking
While many companies have women in senior positions, and some with women at the helm, the representation of women in the workforce still seems to be a concern. And according to Annese, the foundation of this is built in childhood.
“By the age of seven, girls are already starting to see themselves as nurses, teachers and hairdressers, and boys will see themselves as astronauts and rocket scientists,” Annese explains.
This is an issue because with these preconditions, there isn’t a large pool of women going into male-dominated industries. And if they’re not there, how will change actually come about? For those women who do enter these industries, more problems arise.
“But once that small group of people is in the workforce, they're fitting into quite a hyper-masculine work culture and sometimes that may not be very inclusive for a female,” Annese says.
“You can come up against all sorts of issues such as a workplace culture that's aggressive and hostile, a lack of flexible working arrangements, and a lack of support and opportunity for the female.”
But it’s not all doom and gloom.
In fact, Australia has made huge inroads in creating a level playing field for women, especially legally. This is because of the legislation that was introduced in the 1980s to eliminate sex-based discrimination in the workplace – the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and the Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act 1986. Legally speaking, this meant that a woman couldn’t be sacked for being pregnant and women could continue to work even when they were married.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean the culture has changed. But, nowadays, Australia is also focusing on different issues.
“We're focusing on getting women into leadership. We're focusing on closing the gender pay gap,” Annese says. “We're focusing on making workplaces more flexible in terms of accessing leave and it not having a negative impact on your career.”
The times, they are changin’
Of course, as girls grow up, their views change. And today, there are scientists, construction workers, tech pioneers and women in law enforcement. Similarly, there are male nurses, teachers and psychologists.
The children of today’s generation will know no different. They’ll see leaders like Julie Bishop travelling the world and talking to men on
a level playing field. They’ll see CEOs such as Cindy Hook, the Chief Executive Officer of Deloitte Australia and not blink an eyelid at the fact that she is a female.
In fact, Annese says that in Australia, companies and government are recognising that women have a valuable place in the workforce.
“We have examples of women as leaders around the world, just not that many of them,” she begins. “Today, you'll find a lot of big Australian companies and government agencies or public sector agencies that are quite focused on this and have targets in place.”
Importantly though, these women can only succeed if they have partners or help at home to assist with the household chores, raising the children and everything in between.
For Lynne, working in a male-dominated space did have its challenges.
“I flew to Queensland to pick up a male prisoner to bring him back to Western Australia,” she explains. “A male officer accompanied me on the flight and for the first half of the flight, the staff didn’t talk to me. Eventually they admitted they thought I was the prisoner, not the senior officer.”
Working each day in a male prison also had its moments. “Men didn’t fight as much as women, but when they did, it was vicious,” she recalls. “I was in many tense incidents but was lucky to only be attacked once. I received only minor injuries.”
But there were also some very pleasant times. In fact, she met her now husband there.
“When people hear we met in prison there is a sudden change of subject,” she laughs. “But when we explain we were officers, not prisoners, everyone is happy.”
Moving forward
For Annese, there's no reason why work can't be done by a male or a female, regardless of the type of work it is.
It’s just about adapting the workforce for the changing demographic and designing a role so it plays to a person’s strength, regardless of their gender.
Of course, with men stepping up in the domestic space more, it's easier
for women to find their place in the workforce. However, it's been said that women still carry most of the mental load at home.
“Women are 50 per cent of the population. Without gender equality, we have a workforce that's not utilising its talent,” Annese says. “Without gender equality in the workforce, we have untouched potential. And without women in the workforce, we have a generation of children who grow up without their dads. Everything about gender equality is win/win”.
While we do still have a long way to go before women are equal in the workplace, we have come a very long way since women first came on the employment scene. One
only has to look at women such as Lisa Wilkinson, who defected from Channel Nine to Channel Ten, with rumours swirling that it was because she was not being paid as her co-host’s equal.
“There are many examples of conscious and unconscious bias against women but many women provide inspirational examples of how to overcome it,” writes Julie Bishop.
It’s these women who have paved the way for the younger generation, and it’s these women who continue to empower the female population. Importantly though, there should be no distinction between a female world leader or a female nurse. While one is working in a male- dominated area, they are both equally as important. Both are changing the way society views women in employment. Both are role models.
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