As we approach International Women’s Day, it is time to stop and reflect on how far we have come and how far we still have to go in gaining true equality.
Take a moment to ponder this image – so many questions….
My grandmother actually continued to wear just such an outfit as this well into the 1980’s, heels and stockings as she uncomplainingly prepared each meal for us ungrateful grandchildren. She wasn’t smiling this much at the time as she muttered about the overcooked beans, but then again this woman may have her finger on an atomic bomb detonator… enough already with the high heels and completely pointless apron. And who can blame her?
It seems extraordinary to me that it took until the mid 1980’s for the Sex Discrimination Act to be passed by the Commonwealth parliament. I was already half way through high school and blissfully unaware that there were any hurdles at all to women in their professional life. When I first began practicing as a lawyer in the early 90s, stories abounded of magistrates’ and judges refusing to “hear” submissions made by women lawyers wearing trousers so there we all were properly attired in our navy “skirt suits” and pantyhose ready to be “heard”.
In the 1960’s my mother was obliged to repay her Commonwealth teaching scholarship once she married, condemned thereafter to iron my father’s underwear out of abject boredom as she waited to get pregnant and truly fill her days with mind numbing domestic chores.
So this recent history is anecdotal and wryly amusing and whilst formally as a society we would no longer tolerate institutional sexism, here we are shouldering more than half the housework and grumpily reading the headlines about vast gaps in wage parity. I read today that there are more American companies run by men called ‘John’ than there are women run companies. “WTF” I ask demurely?
And this is just here in Australia, the position and treatment of women around the world has barely progressed from medieval times. How will it ever change?
And the answer is always in small stages – small gains, larger victories, brave crusaders and small actions for the greater good. One day we may have equal pay, freedom from domestic violence for all women and girls who say “what’s a glass ceiling” or “I never go near a dishwasher” but in the meantime I will continue to show my sons how to use the washing machine, cook a decent meal, wash the dishes and walk them around the house of an evening to see what it looks like before they go to bed compared to when they wake up and to think about how all that happens and who has to do the work.
And here at the Little Space we are proud to have created a “room of one’s own” for women so they don’t have to fight for a corner of the kitchen table to run their business or build their dream.
So stop by today for a glass of bubbles to celebrate the gains and toast the future.
Liz and Rachelle.