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>> to formally begin the eventi'd like to welcome ingrid cumming who will provide the nyungar welcome to country. ingrid is a traditional owner andcustodian of the whadjuk nyungar country and managing director of kart koort wiern. and she's an amazing young woman andwe're very delighted that she's here to welcome us to country, ingrid. >> ingrid cumming: as a custodianand traditional owner of this particular are we call whadjuknyungar country it really is an honor to carry on the thousands and thousands of yearold practice which is welcome to country,
what we call [speaking foreign language]. and the whole history behindthat is when we had new friends, new family come to country we would welcomethem, we would celebrate in ceremony and advise the best ways to move andenjoy their time in this country. so, on behalf of my ancestors past and present,for without them, i couldn't stand up here and perform these ceremonies and i thank them. i'm going to now sing you a song, onethat comes from a place called kalamunda. anyone ever heard of kalamunda, livingin perth, sound familiar to somebody. kalamunda, kalamunda, yea.
so, kalamunda is a nyungar word. yea a lot of people may not have ever hadthe opportunity to understand the importance of that place especiallyin the cultural context. and what it is it's a place of ceremoniesthat take place especially together in these coming together ceremonies asi think is well represented here today. and then i'm going to give out a gift. usually i give out a message stick, but in thisparticular case like i did last year i'm going to give out a women's robe used in the ceremony. and this year for the two speakers they're inthe colors of the female red-tailed cockatoo
and to nyungar people thatrepresents law and healing, yea. so, i'm going to sing to you now. i'll give fifty bucks to anyone whocan translate what i'm about to sing. [laughter] i'm in trouble if there'sother nyungar women in the room or men. but, all jokes aside i'm nowgoing to carry on that ceremony. and in the spirit of reconciliationi invite you all to clap along with me as i sing you to country. [ clapping ] [ singing in foreign language ]
>> thank you. [applause] australia's got talent. i always say that after. oh dear. alright, so what i'm going to do i'mgoing to ask today's speakers jane and catherine to come up and to receive these gifts fromthe whadjuk nyungar community to thank them for their contribution today andto wish them all the very best as i travel through our country and beyond. [ inaudible comments ] [ applause ]
>> lindley lord: i wouldnow like to read a statement from her excellency missquentin bryce ac governor-general of the commonwealth of australia. "my friends, on the occasion of the2012 clare burton memorial lectures, i remember with love a friendshipthat was important and influential across my life, and indeed remains so. it was my great privilege to share withher a professional and personal engagement for over twenty years, to walk and worktogether on issues of the greatest moment, the social justice and human rights.
i recalled so well her vigorous andunrelenting adherence to the finest principles, her pursuit of equality andreform, her advocacy for women. first and foremost clare was a scholarand a scholar of the highest order. the breadth of her publicationswas extraordinary. each one of them soundly based, each oneof them underpinned by strong commitment, each one of them thoroughly practicaland all far reaching in their influence. these underpinned her robustand vocal participation in conferences, lecture series and symposia. for all of us in the women's movement hervoice was one of the best known, most genuine
and trustworthy in articulating whatmattered and what would drive us forward. as i shared the stage with her on many occasionsor watched from the audience, i marveled again and again at the tenacity of herintellect, the power of her argument, the persuasion of her language,the courage of her conviction. the memorial lectures will continue to bean enriching contribution to her memory and to the fields in whichshe so faithfully labored. thank you to the australian technology networkof universities wexdev and other universities for continuing to organize and host theevents and lectures", signed quentin bryce. i think we should thank the governorgeneral for such wonderful words.
>> i'd now like to call upon the deputy vicechancellor of education at curtin university, professor jill downie toofficially open today's lecture. >> jill downie: thank you very much. it gives me great pleasure to represent thevice chancellor today and as lindley said, she sends her warmest wishes andapologies for not being here. in opening this event today i also wouldlike acknowledge the nyungar people as the traditional learners of theland, on whose grounds we meet today and to particularly thank ingridcumming for her warm welcome to country. i think it was inspirational and very enjoyable.
can you join me in thanking her again? >> thank you also to linleyfor delivering the statement from her excellency miss quentinbryce ac, the governor general obviously a very dear of clare's and i guessdemonstrating the warmth of the lady herself. there are many distinguished guests here today and in particular i'd liketo acknowledge just a few. miss jane caro and miss catherinefox, our guest speakers for today and we're delighted to have them with us. miss jenny perkins the director general from thedepartment of communities, miss maria serafini,
chairperson of the women's advisory council,professor majella franzmann, pro vice-chancellor of humanities at curtin university,professor clare pollock, pro vice-chancellor of health sciences at curtin university,professor lynne cohen, executive dean faculty of education and arts pvc engagement communitiesat edith cowan university, dr. lindley lord, director of the maureen bickley, centre forwomen at the curtin graduate school of business and a previous speaker for the2010 clare burton memorial lecture. i welcome you all to thefourteenth annual event to celebrate and commemorate the life of dr. clare burton. it's wonderful to see so many of youhere today representing university,
government and public sectors. many of you have attended theselectures over the past thirteen years and we thank you for your continued support. there are some of you here today who knewclare personally and were touched by her or were influenced by the work that she did. the clare burton memorial lecturewas initiated by the atn wexdev, which is the women's executive developmentprogram established by the five universities of the australian technology network, curtinuniversity, queensland university of technology, royal melbourne institute oftechnology, university of south australia
and the university of technology sydney. atm wexdev is a strategic career developmentprogram designed for senior women, both academic and professional staff withinthe atn universities. as a program, it aims to improvethe under-representation of women in australian universities,particularly at senior levels. a situation australia shares with theinternational university community and the broader governmentand business community. at curtin we're continually aware of the needto promote the equal representation of women at all levels of the organization and acrossdisciplines particularly in engineering,
science and ict and to pursuegender pay equity as well. contributing to the equitable representation ofwomen in society generally is also a priority for us through educationand career opportunities and we provide our female undergraduate andpostgraduate students with such opportunities. clare burton passed away inaugust 1998 and was someone who made a difference during her lifetime. in australia during the 80's and 90's clarewas the intellectual force behind employment equity programs. it was her academic research on gender and racebias and work as a public sector administrator
that became the basis for policy bothwithin the public and private sectors. clare was often referred to asthe guru of equity practitioners. in remembrance of clare these lectures supportthe awarding of the clare burton scholarship which is-- was established by clare's familyand the five atn universities to honor and continue the work of dr. clareburton and her aspects of gender equity. the ten thousand dollar scholarship is open topostgraduate students within an atn university for a research based gender equity project. to date through these eventsperth has contributed more than 17,000 dollars towards the scholarship.
i'd like to acknowledge belindajohnson from the rmit university who was awarded the 2012 clare burtonscholarship for her research on the intersection of work, gender lifestyle andimagined career through the experience of young women employed casuallyin designer fashion retail. we are honored today to have with usthe director general from the department of communities, miss jenny perkins. and later we'll hear from jenny when sheintroduces our guest speakers for today. miss perkins was appointed the director general for the department of communitiesin august 2010.
she had extensive experience in social policyand community development across non-government, local and state and government sectors. she holds a bachelor of arts and a master ofarts public policy from murdoch university and a bachelor of social work in socialadministration honors from the university of wa, with her career spanning non-governmentand local state government roles. we're very grateful to have jenny with us today. i'd also like to welcome andacknowledge our renowned speakers, jane caro and catherine fox authors of, "thef word: how we learned to swear by feminism." building on the rich legacy of clareburton's research and advocacy for women
in the workforce, today jane and catherinewill bring their own particular take on the idea of for love. jane and catherine commenced this lectureseries in sydney on the 30th of october, which would have been clare'sseventieth birthday. their final lecture will take place on thetwenty seventh of november in canberra. and we would like to congratulateyou, jane and catherine, on what i believe has been a wonderfullysuccessful lecture series so far. we've had wonderful accolades from acrossthe country where you've presented already and i believe the abc nationaltelevision is going to pick up the lecture
in its big ideas programto be broadcast shortly. finally on behalf of the australian technologynetwork, wexdev and curtin university i'd like to thank the key sponsors of this event,in perth the western australian department for communities women's interests. your ongoing support has been generous and yourfinancial contribution greatly appreciated. across the state the equal opportunityfor women in the workplace agency and the south australian minister for thestatus of women, the honorable gail gago and their generous contributions. i'd also like to acknowledge the westernaustralian department for communities and eowa,
as they've been longstandingpartners for this event. enjoy your main courses and after thatwe'll hear from miss jenny perkins, the director general for thedepartment of communities who will introduce our guestspeakers jane caro and catherine fox. thank you again for all coming and avery, very warm welcome to this event. enjoy your lunch. thank you. >> it is a pleasure to behere today to introduce and welcome our guest speakersjane caro and catherine fox
for this year's clare burton memorial lecture. the state government through the department forcommunities is very proud to be able to partner with curtin university inthis important lecture series. and i'm very pleased that we're able tocontribute to the debate on gender equity and drive it forward with new information ideas. it's also heartening to think that theproceeds of this event will contribute to the clare burton memorial scholarshipfund, which supports postgraduate-- sorry, research into gender equity. as you know dr. clare burton was a leaderin driving forward the gender equity debate
and strove to ensure that publicpolicy was informed by good research. and her work in the 1980's and 1990's putequal pay on the industrial relation for gender and her book, "redefining merit" becamethe equal opportunity practitioners' bible. given clare's legacy as a leadingresearcher, academic, consultant and author on gender equity, it is fitting thatwe are about to hear from two women who are both passionate andpublished in this field. this year's theme, for love-- all for loveexamines the premise that women's work and their achievements aremeasured against a set of tenacious and traditional assumptions underpinned bythe idea that women should be driven by love
and selflessness in all they do and notthe recognition and rewards that drive men. and to examine that idea today wewelcome jane caro and catherine fox. jane did suggest i introduce them bothas [inaudible 15:43] a couple of sheilas that have come to talk to you on the subject[laughter] but i will follow my notes just to make it a bit more formal incase you haven't read the promos. so, jane caro's an author, socialcommentator, columnist, broadcaster and award winning advertising writer. and i believe also a big producerin timber grove if i was right in terms of what i accessed on the web.
today she runs her own communicationsconsultancy and lectures in advertising creative at the school of communication artsat the university of western sydney. many of you may recognize jane as a regularpanelist on the abc's the gruen transfer. earlier on this week, the department ofcommunities had the pleasure of jane presenting at the sexualization and children'sseminar, which was convened by my department for the commission of the children and youngpeople contributing to some very robust debate on what is a very complex agenda. an award winning journalist catherinefox focuses on the issues facing women in the workplace in her weekly column,
"corporate women" in the australianfinancial review and is deputy editor of the financial review's boss magazine. prior to joining the australian financial reviewin 1989, catherine worked in financial marketing and consulting in sydney and london. catherine has authored a numberof books including co-authoring with helen trinca the book, "better than sex:how a whole generation got hooked on work." [laughter] i mention this only to share-- i mention this only to sharewith you the risks of googling. to help prepare for today i did google,"better than sex" and in just a shorthand way,
which catherine failed to deliveryour book, but did deliver me access to the top ten things betterthan sex and the better than sex cake site from weight watchers, so. and i admit a number of otherwebsites that i suspected result in me being placed in itdepartment suspect list. so, both jane and catherine havepublished multiple books individually and also collaborated on their2008 publication, "the f word: how we learned to swear by feminism." their professional relationship andtheir partnership today in terms
of doing the presentation, my understandingbuilds on a very long term relationship and friendship as they've been neighborsand have done the school runs together. so, it's-- we have the pleasure of being-- having two people who haveworked very closely together and understand each other in that regard. so, building on the rich legacy of clareburton's research and advocacy for women in the workforce jane and catherinewill bring their own particular take on the idea of for love. we could have-- not have betterguides i don't think for a subject
for a subject that's overdue for discussion. so, without further ado i welcome catherine foxto the stage who will be presenting following by jane and then there will be aq&a session, so welcome catherine. [applause] >> catherine fox: my daughters areappalled by the titles of my books. [laughter] thank you very much andthank you for the warm welcome. we're delighted to be here as wealways are, because we are sheilas and we do love banging on about this topic. i want to first, of course, thank someof the people who organized this series.
so, we have in fact been australia doing gigs,our last one being on coming tuesday in canberra at the wonderful, who's based their etsin sydney who helps the atn wexdev group to put these talks on at thelecture series every year. anna not only had two very busy womento wrangle, but at the beginning of the proposed time frame that we were lookingat, i had twin daughters doing their hsc, the hideous end of high school exams innew south wales, which was not much fun. but, i managed to absent myself most ofthe time because i'm that kind of mother. [laughter] it gets worse. and look it's always a delight forme and an incredibly engaging topic
of course i've spent a lot of my life talkingabout this, both professionally and personally and jane and i have certainly done ourfair share of that load haven't we. and i just always find it's one of thosetopics that just has an extraordinary impact. one of my colleagues at the financial reviewwrote something we call talking point, which is-- can literally be aboutanything, an opinion piece in the paper, last week about her marriage to a divorced man. and she wrote about some of the issuesaround that and was absolutely amazed by how much feedback she had,some of it positive, some not so. and we were saying at work how wheneveryou write about these issues you sort
of unleash a torrent of commentary. and it's a very emotional topic and not justfor us, the ones who are meant to be emotional. i've found in fact, a lot of menfind this a very emotional topic. in fact, a couple of monthsback i was in canberra when liz broderick the sex discriminationcommissioner was releasing the second part of her very in depth study on women in defense. and during the morning we-- i sawher in the evening at a meeting and during the morning she had been at one ofthe launch events and a very irate man said to her, "you are the greatest threatto australia's security ever."
[laughter] so, that's what can happen. of course, i also want to thank the wonderfulclare burton who i actually never met, but i feel as though i almost know. i suspect she'd be incrediblyproud to see the depth and nuance of the research into women and work these days. and i think she'd quite rightly appreciate,i hope she would, the progress owes much to her groundbreaking efforts onthese-- on areas such as, indeed, the ones that were mentioned earlier,merit systems and gender pay equity; two of my favorite topics i must say.
but, this is now a topic of legitimacy inacademia and in fact in the business sector and other arenas, shouldnot be taken for granted and i do think we owe her so much in that area. today as has been mentioned jane and i want tospeak to you about the notion that women work for love namely and not somuch for money and status. we believe there's a fascinating storyin examining why women are still regarded as inherently motivated by caringand ideally a form of selflessness in all their activities whether it be inpaid work or unpaid work or elsewhere, while responsible men workfor money, status and respect.
translated into some sort ofbroader beliefs this is actually about who does the supportivesoft supplementary stuff versus the mainstream importantwork in the world. it struck us as a useful, timely andfascinating topic for this forum. in fact, even more timely thanwe had originally thought given that we were knotting this out,two and half, three months ago. and we also thought it touched on some of thoseovert and covert beliefs and norms that continue to define women, their workand their standing in society. clearly we've each tackled the topic
from our different perspectives,but with some core themes. but, first i wanted to make-- well, can't resistmaking a few comments about a watershed moment that has brought the topicof women and workplaces and their treatment onto the national agenda. the prime minister's recent speech about sexism,which has left some scratching their heads in bewilderment, others fuming atparadoxically the injustice of it all, and many cheering here and internationally. the reception of her commentsrevealed a gap, a startling one really, between formal political commentary and thereality of life for many people in australia
and clearly in other parts of the world. but, the ensuing debate, which at timesdevolved into the semantics of sexism versus misogyny also showed there'sstill a strong belief that the topic of gender equity is a special interest orside issue to the important stuff in society. this attitude is deeply familiar to me asi've said when i was asked about on my one and only appearance on q&a recently,a nerve wracking experience. for more than two decades on the fin review,if i managed to get an interview with a ceo or senior executive about the lackof women in their senior ranks, something they find fairly hard to deny.
i was assured they're simply was no problem. that response by the way alwaysreminded me of how i felt when early in my first pregnancy a male doctor told methat childbirth didn't really hurt that much. [laughter] he was wrong. if women wanted the top jobs these executiveswould tell me, then they'd get them. they obviously just didn't want them becausewe're always being offered them too aren't we. and the gender pay gap was due to womenworking in part time jobs and so on. so, julia gillard's comments validated theconcerns and silent frustration of many women in all walks of life and kinds of workplaces.
like other women who have tried to raise thisissue as a genuine concern on many levels, i found hearing her commentsgratifying and vindicating. and it was clear that she was standingup for something that she did believe in and condemning what has been anextraordinary litany of abuse that she's faced in the two years that she's beenour first female prime minister. but, many business women i've spoken tosince then, regardless of how they vote, have said they found it quiteinspirational and uplifting too. they felt her comments at last promotedsome recognition of what they have endured on many occasions in their formerworking lives and elsewhere clearly.
i also think that the work of anne summersin researching the level of abuse directed at the prime minister in her recent speech, "herrights at work" which i do recommend you to read if you haven't already done so,should also be acknowledged. i was at a forum earlier this yearwhere anne was speaking and a woman in the audience congratulated anne on hersignificant work as a writer, political activist and obviously supporter ofwomen's rights over many decades. she responded by laughing andsaying, oh well, its self interest. but, it got me thinking that distinguished womenlike anne and clare burton have also inspired and led by example in their dedicatedresearch and writing on women and paid work,
the double standards theyconfront, the bias they face in their careers simply for being female. these distinguished women have helped to makeit clear that our capacity to really contribute and be recognized in the work we do hingeson how women's efforts are judged and valued and the gender effect on the statusand therefore access to things like careers and leadership roles. this was no peripheral issue. it was about the right forwomen's work to be taken seriously. i've often heard my writing on corporatewomen referred to as a special interest.
i've been told i must love the topic. this apparently of course justifies myinvestment in something, which often rubs people up the wrong is clearly notseen as a popular topic by some of my colleagues and even a bit old hat. if i never hear the expressionpost-feminist again it won't be too soon. it's as though this issue ofequality for half the human race and nearly half the australian workplace,so that workforce of course is a sidebar to the mainstream wheels of commerce withlittle recognition that my gender continues to play a key role in not just how iam viewed and my identity is formed,
but how my total contribution as a journalist,whatever i'm writing about is assessed. no wonder i'm interested. in particular i've been focusing in recent timeson teasing apart the rhetoric from the reality about women's work and examining thegap between the evidence we now have about women's workforce participation,their qualifications and their efforts and the tenacious mix still beingrecycled in the business community, which is why i wrote my recent book, "7 mythsabout women and work" fairly self explanatory. during my career i've spoken to many women frommany different backgrounds, educational levels and age groups and i've been repeatedlystruck by how their formal working lives
and how they feel about their jobs,whatever they may be, simply don't stick to the script pedaled about our efforts. sadly, however, till women for long andoften enough that what they do is somehow not up to scratch or they have a special femaleapproach that just doesn't cut the mustard and they too start to believe it. show them that mentioning sexism by the waywill get a bucket of bile dumped on them along with accusations of playing victim to cover uptheir failures can also be slightly off putting. my observation after many years of businessreporting and 30 years in the workforce is that women discover there are many informal andunhelpful assumptions made about why they are
in paid work and the quality of what they do. these gendered assumptions have a massivelynegative effect on their employment prospects, sometimes cutting off theiroptions to apply for certain jobs or for progression beforethey even know they exist. if i had a dollar for ever angry woman i'veheard fuming about being given a poor score on leadership or ranking on their ability tonetwork and thus being overlooked for a new role or a promotion while a bloke with lessskill was promoted, i'd be a wealthy woman. so, my research on the 7 myths and indeedfor the column, which clearly i should say, focuses on a mainly well educatedand white collar workforce,
clearly being in the fin reviewhelps to reveal why the notion that women get a sufficient warm inner glow fromhelping others and don't need as much in the way of status or reward is still potent. i've examined why women aretold they work in a meritocracy, so if they succeed or fail,it's all their fault. they lack ambition and if they had anyit disappears once they give birth along with half their brain. they are their own worst enemies. they should behave more like men to get ahead
and that time will heal allthese irritating gender issues. we are also told regularly that there are simplynot enough women for serious management jobs. i find that extraordinary that we'restill hearing that one recycled. this also feeds into a widely held belief thatusing legislative quotas for example for women on boards carries a real dangerof tokenism and shock horror and i've had ingle wagging expressionsfrom very senior businessmen. you'll backwards they say becausewe've gone so far, clearly. [laughter] the idea women work for loveand have a predisposition to care helps to reinforce most of these myths i've realized.
i think they are a legacy of women'sintrusion into the male domain of paid work where their presence has still notbeen normalized all these decades on. this continues to be supportedby the old fashioned, but still alarmingly widespread notionthat women are somehow temporary workers or supplementing the main bread winneruntil they marry and tend to the family or risk becoming lonely,sad, work obsessed spinsters. i'm surprised how often this kind of narrativeis informally expressed by men and women and even by people in theirtwenties and thirties that i work with who i'm often told are muchmore enlightened about these matters.
for example, if women return to work afterkids it's still almost necessary for them to justify their presence is a sad consequenceof the cost of paying off a home loan. their heart isn't really in it the thinkinggoes and they should be darn grateful to be allowed back into their jobs too. their lack of seriousness for example, beingunavailable twenty four seven, i mean who is, but anyway is seldom linked to the fact thatthey continue to subsidize their husband or partner's career by shouldering thedomestic load and that really hasn't shifted. but, just what does the research tell us aboutwhat motivates men and women in the workforce? it's a hot topic of course,motivation in the management literature
and over the years being o a magazine likeboss i've interviewed a host of the gurus, tom peters, jim collins, gary hamel, johncarter, charles handy and written many features for the magazine about whatmotivates us at work and why. since the days, in fact, of frederick taylorwho of course became well known for talyorism, a really dirty word in management and hisinfluential work with henry ford on how to ratchet up the productivity ofmanufacturing production lines. the mechanics of how to motivate workershas been the subject of much attention. it's kind of the holy grail for businesses eagerto work out the switch to flick when it comes to getting more effort out of employees.
these days it's slightly different. there's talk of employee engagement, asearch for meaning in our work, intangibles, inclusive corporate cultures andbringing the whole self to the job. i never realized we only broughthalf of ourselves to the job. i never realized we only brought half ofourselves to the job, but there you go. while some of this rhetoric is greetedwith a certain amount of skepticism, yes by people like me, there is some broadconsensus that cash alone, cash alone, is not a sufficient incentive tomake us work harder and better. of course, it plays an important basicrole, but satisfying and stimulating work
that is appropriately recognized and rewardedis what drives most of us regardless of gender. and it turns out the major studies on workplacemotivation don't actually reveal a significant gender split. as i quoted in my book, australianresearch also shows men and women have not only similar ambitionlevels, but when they do leave a job and we do have dotter about thisfrom exit interviews and so on, they leave for much the same reason. so, they leave because thequality of work's not good. they have a lack of development opportunitiesand career progression and they have--
they feel that they're management--managers are not very good. whoa, that's a strange one hey. particular issues labeled as female suchas blending job and family responsibilities for example are much further down thelist and are cited by both men and women. ambition levels according to several majorstudies are also pretty much the same for men and women up to mid career with youngwomen actually registering higher levels of ambition than young men. yet again it is par for the course to hearthat women somehow generically lack ambition and of course that other favoriteswere being generalization actually
that we lack confidence and of course we do. but, once again the latitude to expressambition and a desire to succeed and attachment to the job, not the people, the teamor the community, the work community, i believe is circumscribed for women and oftenladen with judgment while women are expected to be caring and sharing colleagues, expressingdedication to your job or the technicalities of it or a career can befraught with danger for women. once they become mothers, many women findthey run the gauntlet of condemnation if they don't express some form of thatsocially acceptable desire to be at home with the kids rather than at the workplace,regardless of their income needs or their skill
as patient childcare is whichwas clearly not really my forte. these expectations are simplynot applied to men or fathers. and also this is where there that veryunhelpful expression of "having it all" is used as a weapon to remind women to get backinto the box and stop being so greedy. imagine telling a man with a joband a family he's having it all. it's a ludicrous idea. anne-marie slaughter's recent article in, "the atlantic" the u.s. magazinehighlighted how even very smart, well educated women have beenswept up and made to feel guiltier
by this particularly maliciousand sexist rhetoric. women who run into the motherhood penalty soonunderstand they are transgressing the norms of the ideal worker, which is still based ona male breadwinner model and find their tenure or career path may, indeed, becompromised whether they work fulltime or take the mommy track of part-time work. it's not great for women without familieseither who are sometimes portrayed as having made an unacceptablesacrifice, their skill, career success or strong work ethic are not viewed inquite the same way as their male peers and they may even be seen aspitiful and a warning to young women
about what happens when youabandon love for money. there are few areas where the pitfalls of simplybeing female in the workplace are more apparent than the gender pay gap,which is roughly the same now as it was 25 years ago depressinglyat just over 17 percent. and i know jane will also talk about this. in my book i examine the sheer misinformationpeddled about the topic, which is highly emotive and leads to significant denialabout the size of the phenomena. what we find in most studiesthat it's acknowledged that most people think thereprobably is a gender pay gap,
but they don't thing it's very big and theythink there's very logical reasons for it. this is-- certainly the studies i'velooked at more men than women think that. when it comes down to it pay scalesdiffer for men and women in similar jobs because of a series of highlysubjective judgments made about their skills and thevalue of what they do. these i believe are underpinned by thenotion once again that women don't work for the same reasons or rewards as men and cansuffer from a series of female only deficits to emotional, to detail oriented and to soft. it's bizarre how some of thesethings have become negative isn't it.
of course they're expected to use thesetalents to nurture their workmates, but are not usually rewarded for it. and in fact, they run therisk of being penalized if they don't conform to the stereotype. it's a bit of a no win. pay negotiations are another area wherewomen's supposed natural nurturing and softer side is used as a rationalefor their failure to either ask for or successfully garner appropriate payincreases unlike their savvier male colleagues. yet, despite all the perceived wisdom on thistopic, several studies including a couple
from the excellent u.s. not for profit firmcatalyst, some of you may well be aware of that firm, have found that the cohort of welleducated women in u.s. workplaces do, indeed, ask for pay raises just as often as men and they're negotiating approachis not strikingly different. they fail, however, to achieve the sameresults, because women walk a fine line in these negotiations, to demanding,they're seen as unfeminine and pushy, too quiet and they lack confidence. and if they lack those female soft skills evenif they are technically proficient and good at what they do, they arealso unlikely to win approval.
it is rarely considered thatmany women fail to assert-- assertively and routinely ask for more pay,despite clearly having the ability to do so because it's probably been apparentto them for most of their lives that the care work they are toldis what they naturally bring to the table is expectedand not usually rewarded. things get really tricky thefurther up the ladder you go. last year's consulting firm bainand chief executive woman's-- women's study, what stops women from reachingthe top, found that men and women agreed on the four highest ranking attributesof leadership, problem solving,
influencing, team building and networking. and i quote from the study, "when rankingthemselves on the same attributes, women undersell their capabilities even thoughthey are deemed to be equally as effective as men at delivering valuefor their organization." so, they're producing the same outcomes. even worse the study says, mencompletely agree with women. men are twice as likely torank other men over women as being highly effective problem solvers eventhough women are deemed to be as capable as men at delivering results thereality is that a woman's approach
to achieving these outcomesis less likely to be valued. our research shows that women are perceived tobe less effective at the leadership attributes, the most emphasized and rewardedby organizations. what a coincidence. the stark fact is women's collaborating style,teamwork and so on, is not perceived to be as effective as men's promoting style, regardless of what they're doingand what they're achieving. the findings reveal a self fulfilling stereotypevery much active still in the workplace and particularly among senior males.
it equates women with caringand support and men with doing. there's an expectation, a woman running ateam for example will help others to shine, which of course is a desirable goal for anymanager, but a particular expectation for women. and if she fails to do so she canfind that she's personally condemned and earn a poor reputation whereas meni've found have been rarely penalized for putting their own interestsin front of the group. i've also long suspected that the naturalnessof women's caring skills, which proves to be such a burden, rather than an advantagein the workplace, needs examination. i'm a major fan of last year'sclare burton presenter cordelia fine
who actually we were delighted tohave at our rmit lecture this year and her work examining superior scientificclaims about the differences between male and female brains and can irecommend her work to you. it is really very, very good andshe's got a wonderful sense of humor. it seems to me some of the skillslong assumed to be inherent in females are actually anacquired survival strategy. i recently interviewed thewonderful u.s. feminist and founder of the women world leaders group, whichis a group set up about 15 years ago. her name's laura liswood andshe's an advisor to goldman sachs.
and i was rereading her book,"the loudest duck." you have to read the book tofind out why it's called that. something to do with squeaky wheels mightput you onto it and came across this quote, "i've always been intrigued" she writes, "bywhere the concept of women's intuition comes from and whether there isevidence to support this notion." president mary robinson the firstwoman president [inaudible] noted that women are often more likely toobserve, have better listening skills, include others not normally included, havemore emotional intelligence and so on. however, she also told me that she felt
that while traditionally thesewere considered female traits, she believes they are traitsacquired most groups or individuals who have been out of power historically. those who have not been in powerwill develop those intuitive skills in the interest of survival. liswood believes that these learnedbehaviors and assumptions can be seen in other non-dominant groupswhose success and survival depends on knowing the dominant groups habits. and i quote, "those with lesspower are forced into this role.
a similar dynamic existed in the relationshipbetween the colonizer and the colonist, the master and the slave,the served and the servant or really any dominant and non-dominant groups." as fine said last year's-- last year, "ourminds are exquisitely socially attuned and surprisingly sensitive togender stereotypes when gender fades into the psychological background men andwomen's behavior becomes remarkably similar." that sounds like remarkably sensible to meand it highlights why the assumptions we make about the nature and valued-- valueof a supposed set of women only skills in the workforce really needs to be reexamined.
given all these factors it's alsoquite bizarre and illogical that one of the favored corporate responses topoor gender equity is remediating women and advising them to behave like men. well, it's not usually put like that,but that's indeed the underpinning to it. a woman behaving like a stereotypicalman, if this is indeed possible, around the boardroom table is still awoman and probably a fairly conflicted and possibly rather uncomfortable one too. while both jane and i believe that thereare more similarities between the genders than differences when you are routinely judgedagainst gendered expectations of high standards
of caring and warmth and love it is risky if not downright dangerous toadvise women to just man up. double standards still abound whenwomen are deemed to work for love. paradoxically the popular managementliterature is full of references to the need for a new style of executive who is aservant leader, a level five leader according to jim collins, with strongcommunication and empathy skills and huge dollops of emotional intelligence. many of these are in fact descriptions of the archetypal femalecharacteristics i've been talking about.
but, men tend to be complimented forshowing their caring side in the workplace with their colleagues or indeed if they do thedaddy run and leave early for soccer practice. most of the moms i know sort ofslink out of the office if we have to go and do something like that. if they don't regularly show their softerside, there are few automatic penalties. women get routinely underpaid and overlookedat this behavior and if they dare to transgress and fail to exhibit appropriate warmthand care they are quite quickly penalized. for example, the dreaded letter pullers,that expression that refers to women who climb the ranks, but fail to nurture andmentor those below, are held up as examples
of what goes wrong for women in senior ranks. and we do burden women with a much higherlevel of behavior, we expect more from them. yet men who behave like this andi personally observed quite a few, that i have been in a newsroom for a fewdecades, are simply not noteworthy or punished. in fact, in some corporateenvironments they are rewarded. of course, as the management gurus andarticles reiterate caring for those around us in the workplace through supporting and advisingothers and mentoring and putting the interests of the team before your own andso is held up in most companies as a really important part of the job.
and i think that they mean that in theory. unfortunately there is much more lipservice than reality about these skills. our conclusion is because they areassociated primarily with women they continue to be poorly recognized and rewardedwhen actually exhibited by women. a driven, ambitious and assertive woman whomakes no bones about her desire to lead is also in danger, likely to fall foul ofstereotypes and be viewed as cold, steely and well let's face, we allknow, she's a bit of a bitch isn't she. is it any surprise women find it difficultand time consuming and incredibly tiring to negotiate workplace dynamics to be recognizedfor what they do or that they struggle
to articulate their motivationor satisfaction in their work when they don't stick to the well worn story. given the penalties they face in steppingoutside the boundaries women often do confirm to the stereotypes and prop up themyths and who could blame them. the funny thing is of course is that just likemen, women wage earners work for a variety of reasons, but the basicone is to earn their living. fear of losing their livelihood means womenoften find they have choice but to be complicit with the idea they are biologicallymotivated more by caring than money or status. no matter how well qualified women in paidwork thus face a very difficult tradeoff,
encouraged to work for love in their jobs andat home of course and be good team players, but then facing a very real risk of failingto be valued or seen as serious workers with management and career potential. everyone knows that we need to love, careand support others, which is why i went away when my girls were doing the hsc. i'm getting over it. whether we are at home or at work, but not everyone is actuallyexpected to deliver and to do it. far too often women fallinto the role of supporting
and enabling others who geton with the real work. it's time we lifted this burdenfrom women and found a fairer model that values everyone's effortswithout the gender blinkers. in short, it's time we shared all the workand asked the question 50-50, if not, why not? >> jane caro: i hate doing that and it's onlygoing to get worse because you know what happens after fifty don't you, you getshorter, fatter and hairier. [laughter] sad, but true. but, here's the good news accordingto a recent study 66 percent of australian women would rather receivea promotion than a marriage proposal.
[laughter] hallelujah. finally working out which sideof our bread is really buttered. we have to butter it ourselves to find that out. this is not an interesting bit of trivia. it is a revolutionary changebecause what it indicates is that australian women are atlast valuing money over love. [sighing] it's a good thing girls don't stop it. for generations or maybe even millennia we'vedivided the accepted spheres of the genders into the public and the private, thepersonal and the political, the nurturing
and the remunerated, those who workedfor love and those who worked for money. women, you'll all have heard this phrase,we're venerated as the angels of the house, romanticized as graceful,beautiful, self sacrificing saints who kept the home fires burningfor their husband and children. even a tough old battle axlike florence nightingale who single handedly not only createdthe modern nursing profession, but reformed the hospitals' hygiene andsanitation systems, yes i mean ditches and drains across the britishempire was sanctified and trivialized as the lady of the lamp, blach.
[laughter] well, she did herextraordinary work not just from her bed, which is a remarkable thing, but also as avolunteer, in other words literally for love. as catherine pointed out, even todaywomen are seen as being motivated by entirely different reasons than men. men do things for rationalreasons, women for emotional ones. women are motivated either by the love of self,vanity, or the by the love of others, sacrifice, trapped by the ancient madonna orwhore dichotomy that can be defined as both the light and the dark side of love. the madonna represents mother love,pure, ethereal and saint like,
a creature to be veneratedand adored from a distance. the whore represents sexual love,earthy, seductive, hypnotic and wicked, a creature to be enjoyed butthen discarded and blamed. and i use the word creature here deliberately;neither of these archetypes is human. in fact, they have little to do withreal flesh and blood individuals at all. they're all about how women are seen by men. this is what we mean when we talk aboutwomen as object rather than subject. we're still largely seen in thecontext of others people's lives, mostly men's lives ratherthan at the center of our own.
catherine's also mentioned this, butwe really can't talk about this subject at this particular time in historyand not mention it twice at least. the recent glaring disconnect between women'svisceral responses to julia gillard's, create a curve, about sexism andmisogyny a response felt around the world and the male dominated mainstreamaustralian media's dismissive response to the same moment is all about theblindness many still have to women being at the center of their own lives. the unmediated access women suddenly had to the public conversation via social media hasdestroyed the joint being a powerful example is
becoming as powerful a liberator in its ownway, i believe, as the invention of the pill. both have brought feminism roaringback onto the stage and ain't it grand? as a society we still struggle with seeingwomen as entirely human and it is interesting to speculate if this is because as love objectswomen are seen as valuable only in relation to others, not simply as themselves. as catherine pointed out,women as a whole have been seen as the servant gender, a slightly less of men. catherine also mentioned that this viewof others existing only to serve the needs of more important others, husbands andchildren certainly, but also parents, brothers,
charities, communities, the church, the lordof the manner, the shopkeeper, the john, the pimp and the brothel has meant thatwe are not used to taking women seriously as individual human right--human beings with the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else. for centuries we've emphasizedthe differences between the sexes, whilst not denying the obviousdifferences as catherine has said. i think we are now making a plea for us to beginto emphasize our similarities and you're going to have to forgive the french accent here,vive le difference to vive la similarite. but why, isn't difference the spice of life,yin and yang, what makes the world go round.
maybe, but the trouble with the idea ofequal but different, the exact phrase used to justify apartheid in south africa by theway, is that it tends to work out really well for the equal, but bloodylousy for the different. [laughter] and when we talkabout the differences between the sexes we mean women are thedifferent ones, that they are different from men, never the other way around. the idea that women are different, naturallysofter, more nurturing, more collaborative, more caring, all euphemisms for more loving inmy opinion, that they're better at detail, read, better at the boring repetitive low statuspoorly paid jobs that nobody else wants
to do is still used to explainwhy they're paid less, own less and apparently don't want the top jobs. the stereotype of the gender that is motivatedprimarily by love creates a handy excuse as catherine said for not takingwomen's contributions seriously. hugh mackay, whose book "what makes ustick" lists the ten desires that need to be met before we can live a satisfying life. he's not talking about [inaudible] horror. he admits he's taking it one step above there. he says that they're listed in noparticular order accept for the first,
which he says is the most important andthat is the desire to be taken seriously. after reading this it suddenly struckme that the whole history of feminism from mary wollstonecraft's original "createa curve" about vindication of the rights of women is in fact a struggle by womento have their own views, perspective, ambitions and contributions taken seriously,but that in essence is what feminism is about. one of the ways we indicate how seriously we as a society take someone is how muchwe pay them, fairly straightforward. the 17.2 percent pay gap between theaverage earnings of fulltime working men and fulltime working women is a clear message towomen, that we regard their efforts, their work,
their achievements and their skills as oflesser value both literally and figuratively. our aim in this lecture is to examine howthis idea of women as more naturally suited to loving sacrifice than ambitiousacquisition continues to allow us to fundamentally trivialize an entire gender. a good example of how this works even todayis the fact that women gps earn between 10 and 35 percent less than their male peers. this striking pay gap between workers with thesame training, skills and tasks was explained by the study that uncovered it, by the differentway female and male gps practice medicine. the study described it asthe tears and smears method.
a classy description if you think about it. female gps apparently spendlonger with their patients and rack up fewer consultations than men. female gps arguably take their patients moreseriously than they take their own income, while male gps do the opposite,taking others' needs more seriously than your own is an archetypaldefinition of love. we see more clear evidence of this in the waythe feminized professions, teaching, nursing, hr, childcare, community care in generalare both underpaid and undervalued. the recent powerful win by community sectorworkers, eighty seven percent of whom are women
in their claim for equal pay where they not onlywon a whopping pay increase of up to 25 percent, if you think about how allgovernments are running around the world going, gotno money, got no money. that is really extraordinary. but, it also forced fair work australiato agree that the sector was underpaid because it was dominated by women. this is not just an importantacknowledgement, but it also forced us all to take systemic discrimination againstwomen seriously for the first time. indeed it was heralded as the firstdecision of its kind anywhere in the world.
the work these women do includes caringfor the elderly, for the disabled, if they do their at homeor a nursing homes and also for very young children as childcare workers. traditional women's work meant to be motivatedby love apparently rather than seen as serious and important tasks thatshould be paid for and valued. until this landmark decision in fact,it was almost like we resented having to pay for such work to be done at all. there remains an entrenched attitude thatmothers should care for their own children and daughters for their elderly parents.
when people mutter darkly about feminismdestroying the family, it's just these kinds of derelictions of lovingduty that they referring to. a mother and daughter substitutes thereforewe punish the female community sector workers by grudgingly paying them very little and fundamentally disrespecting thevery real work involved in what they do. in fact, when the union announcedits win this really got up nose. there was much tut tutting in the mediaabout the fact that this would send the cost in the sector up and the people whowould suffer most for it would be of course, wait for it, working women.
not working parents or workers with elderlyparents in general, no this is just women. apparently men arrive fully formed in the world. they have no parents that they need to takeresponsibility for, it's quite extraordinary and apparently have no-- nothing to dowith the production of children either, it's entirely female responsibility. emily mcguire and in her excerptsay, "the invisible women care as in australian families quotes nursinghistorian marie francoise colliere, i wish i didn't have all thesefrench names in this, i really do. marie-francoise colliere as saying, "care isat the very root of women's history as it is
around care that the main partof women's destiny is woven." mcguire argues that caringis seen as a moral chore or obligation more than it is seen as work. and there's a more insidiousside to this moral obligation. as mcguire points out, carerswhether paid or literally doing it for love cannot just walk off the joband leave their patient or their client or the child they're lookingafter to fend for themselves. there is a real loving connectionbetween the carer and the cared for. nurses, teachers and the above mentionedcommunity workers also face this dilemma
and you'll notice they always make sure thereare people in place to continue the care. they can't just down tools. in fact, it's really weird, the sort of jobswhere you can just get up and walk off the job and okay you inconvenience people are theones that we value and pay very highly because they tend to be done by men. the sorts of jobs where you can'tdo that, where you really have to make sure there are peoplestill there to make the wheels at least turn are the oneswe least value and least pay for even though demonstrativelythey are really important.
we have a bizarre way ofjust missing this stuff. despite encouraging signs like the surveyi mentioned at the beginning of my talk, that 60 percent of women are finallygetting the idea and the courageous and the stubborn campaignby the community workers to have their work taken seriously as real work. this tendency to take the contributions ofwomen less seriously than the contributions of men is not just something men do to women. it is also something women do to themselves. the new desire among many young women to taketheir husband's name, it's probably a resurgence
of the desire to take their husband's nameis an interesting contradiction to the survey that indicates women would rathera promotion than a proposal, or maybe not such a contradictionwhen you think about it. assuming your husband's sirname is a hangover from a time when women were quite literally owned by men andhad no legal individual identify at all apart from as someone's daughter or someone's wife. seemingly oblivious to it's fundamentally sexistorigins young women are happily reinvigorating this tradition and arguing that they'redoing it for, pass the bucket, love. [laughter] the trouble with this kind of loveis that it is about subsuming your identity,
another symbol of how we still see womenas not complete in and of themselves. the visceral power of this traditionis easily understood when you consider that while we can now mostly accept a womankeeping her own name and those families who give their children hyphenatednames, perhaps we are still shocked by the very few women-- few men braveenough to take their wives names. this is seen as literally unmanning them. [laughter] a man's identity must never besacrificed, but we almost expect a woman to give hers up to provethe seriousness of her love. it doesn't always work, however.
princess diana's official title when shemarried the prince of wales was supposed to be, "the princess charles"; i kid you not. as a commoner, she had no right toa royal identity except as his wife. such was her star power. so seriously did the world take thisdeceptively shy and self-effacing young woman that she was never known by anyother title than princess diana. princess michael of kent it seemsis not made of such stern stuff. yet somehow it never worksthe other way around, does it. a man is never expected to take hiswife's name, however important she may be.
it was never suggested, for example, thatprince philip, be called prince elizabeth. [laughter] mind you he was amember of the great royal family, so maybe there was something in that. but, no one every suggested anthonyarmstrong jones become prince margaret. i'd have given my eye teeth tosee that to tell you the truth. again, men are always seen as individualsand their identity taken seriously. women are not. women it seems can and should do justabout anything you ask them to for love. catherine talked about this as well,but the sense many working women have
that there role is illegitimate andmust be justified and defended is all about this sense they are somehowneglecting their womanly duty, particularly if they're mothers to puttheir children ahead of their work. one of the reasons, among many others, themany dual income families are attracted to private schooling for their children maybe explained by the idea that paying fees for your child's education allows workingwomen to neatly combine their desire to work for money, that being the only kind ofwork seriously valued with their need to be seen as good and loving mothers. hence the, i only work to pay the schoolfees explanation neatly resolves the
internal conflict. sadly, i think that that is brilliantmarketing on the part of private schools. [laughter] it is working women who areexpected to take time out when children are ill or in concerts or under high pressure. it is common to see women take a year off tohelp their child through final year exams. not catherine, of course. [laughter] she is slack ass. she got on a plane and pissedoff [inaudible] i applauded. but it is very unusual to seesuch behavior from a father.
it always drives me nuts to heara businessman eulogized as someone who despite working 80 hours aweek always put his family first. let's get real. the only way men like this can work suchlong hours and accumulate such wealth is by having a wife who actuallyputs the family first. don't think we are for a momentdismissing the importance of love, however. we simply want to share a roundabout more with the blokes. in return all we ask is they share a little moreof the stuff that actually generates income. we'll do a swap.
it is, well it's starting to happen. it is starting to happen. it is wonderful to see men with the smallestof newborns in pouches strapped to their chest as they wheel trolleys aroundsupermarkets or simply read the paper over a coffee in a cafe on a saturday morning. they are the lucky recipients of partnerswho gained enough confidence in their right to sometimes put their own needs first andinsist they get a morning off from childcare and so enable their male partner to begin tobuild a real relationship with their children in the only way possible, by doingsome of the actual parenting work.
as you can imagine, if anyonetries to tell either catherine or i that the man is babysitting his ownchildren [laughter] we quickly put them right. what he is doing is parenting themand he should just bloody well do it. this idea that he's somehowdoing is what a favor, uh uh. in fact, we believe that the perspectiveswomen have learned from their 2000 years plus of being expected to do thingsfor love is of enormous value. although we are very wary of the discoursethat eulogizes women intrinsically nicer than men i think that was very much catherine'spoint about this burden we place on women to be nicer then men and we sort ofblame them if they're not you know going
around doing great things for women if theyget into power, which is a sexist assumption. so, we're very aware of that. we don't believe it for a minute. we think the two sexes are just as capableof being nice and nasty as one another. it's just women's experienceand the expectations that society places upon them that is different. an example of perhaps what could be gained if we took women's different lifeexperiences seriously can be seen in the worldwide applaudedfinnish education system.
you're all aware that finland is consistentlyat the top of the lead tables in terms of education outcomes, you know acd comparisons. patsy salberg, director general of the centerfor international mobility in helsinki believes that one of the reasons finland takes it schoolsystems so seriously and pays its teachers, mostly women, so well is because of the highlevel of gender equality in that country. people go to visit finland allthe time to find out the secret of their very high achieving system. and the fins you know they don'thave any standardized testing. they have one set of schoolstudents receiving extra help,
because they have a really forensic specialneeds program and early childhood education for example doesn't focus ongetting the child ready for school. it focuses on understanding the child so they can tell the school how theycan most work well with that child. so, they've got a completelydifferent focus for that. they put equity at the center oftheir education system not excellence. and the funny thing is they aremuch more excellent as a result. so, when american delegation of policymakers andeducators visited finland to look at the reasons for that country's extraordinarily consistenthigh educational outcomes these delegates asked
what political powers were behind finnishearly childhood policies and the central place that well child wellbeing has in their countryschools, because most of the anglo countries like us, we do it completely the opposite. according to salberg the answerwas short and simple: women. they were told how gender quotas,oh yes, the dreaded quota word. at least 40 percent of each gender in publicboards committees and councils have been in force in finland since the 1990s. the finnish parliamentarians who weretalking to the american delegation argued that unless there had been equal representationof women in the finnish legislature
and every political and professional taskforcetoday is advanced maternity and childcare laws and strong focus on wellbeing in schoolwould never have come into being. by extension of child wellbeingnot being regarded as a basic, the finnish education system would neverhave evolved into today's success story. and if you believe, as i do, that acountry's future is predicated on the success of its education system, when people argueto me that women's issues are sidelined to productivity, i like to point that out. in our slow journey towards taking themseriously, we are seeing that when you do so, you also start to take other marginallarge groups in society more seriously too,
partly because we start to valuehumanity, a kind of love over power. children's rights begin to beasserted as we've seen in finland. but there's another reason for that too. it's not just the education system. when children's rights are asserted youknow, we hopefully the jimmy sellers of this world will no longer get away withdamaging and exploiting vulnerable children for their own sexual satisfaction. pedophile priests can no longer expect thatthe mistake in status on them confirmed by their church will offer them a cloak ofsilence and protection if they do the same.
i believe that the open talk about childsexual abuse is directly a result of feminism and directly a result in therise of the status of women. taking women seriously meanstaking what they care about seriously too, likethe rights of children. taking women seriously means takingthe feminine in general seriously. so, it also means the fight for gayand lesbian rights gaining ground. as the work that women dogains status and as much as it remains caring work,caring gains status too. we don't want to banish love as a motivator.
what we want to do is break the cripplingnexus which sees love divorced from money, as if love is somehow devalued by money. perhaps that's the point, not that womenshould give up being motivated by love, but that society should learnto take love so seriously that it realizes just how muchmoney it is actually worth and at last be bloody wellprepared to pay for it. thank you very much. >> we can be grateful today that last night thegender quality workplace act was passed finally. so, i wondered if either of you were madedirector of that agency, what would you see
as the priorities to begin work ontrying to reduce the gender pay gap? >> catherine fox: i think helen conway is thedirector and i think she's doing a great job. so, i don't make any comments that would makeit sound like she's on some limited tenure. i think helen is very driven by addressing that and it actually comes downto taking it seriously. we've known about the pay gap, the genderpay gap in this country for a long time. and we've had really good data around it. there's really robust statistical data aroundthe gender pay gap and has been for a long time. it was a big national study thatwas done almost two years ago.
they're making it fair reportwhich went around australia. it gathered evidence from every-- just aboutevery kind of community in this country and found out that 85 percent of australiansare outraged that there's a gender pay gap. so, it's not as though there was ill will. what i was talking about thoughand it's come through in a number of research reports i've read fromthe business area is there's a lot of denial the further up the ranks you go. and you also probably, you're more than aware that the more senior youare the wider the pay gap.
so, for example, there are veryfew cfos of listed companies, but they earn half what their male peers earn. so, look the data is there. i think what helen and someof her colleagues at, we can't call it eowa now,gender workplace advisory. what they're working on is nowtaking that body of information and starting to get into organizations. so, nab have just spoken to me. they've just conducted a second quite thoroughpay audit and they went into business banking.
so, they've gone into themale dominated areas now, so they've done one previously a few yearsago with the fsu and they've just repeated it. and they did, indeed, findquite a large gender pay gap. so, then you've got to start to establishwhat's going on in your own organization and then you've got to startto look at ways of doing it. and i know that the agencyhas a number of tools. they're starting to put out more information. there's an online informationkit that's available. i think it's making sure thatwe apply the considerable amount
of work we have to our work places. so, i'm actually reasonably optimistic. i think that we can, we can start to do that. it's not easy to do, gender pay out. it's not easy to do. the other thing that jane and i are often askedabout is what can individuals do about it? and we often say to women, you know when youcan, and i know it's not always the case, but when you can bring it up askfor transparency around pay levels. this is still-- we still doit in many organizations.
we have a real sort of wall in front of pay and you know it's often the paygap that arises in variable pay. so, once you get into sort of management ranks, it's not your fixed salary,it's your bonuses or whatever. but you must i think, start to bring it up. >> jane caro: i've got an easyquick solution we just mandate that all women can buy everythingfor 17.2 percent less then-- [ laughter ] >> i think that'd stop it pretty quick.
>> meagan o'conner: i'm meagan o'conner from uwaand we recently participated in the ldw women in leadership program, which is a programthat's been running for quite some time. so, thank you. a quick question about women on boardsand with the new briefing papers from [inaudible] how authentic is the driveto increase numbers of women on boards and how do both of you, either ofyou perceive the authenticity of that and how realistic do youthink that new drive is? >> jane caro: look, i think theone thing we have to understand is that nobody gives up power voluntarily.
no one gives up privilege voluntarily. this idea that the men in the world are going towake up one day, slap themselves on the forehead and say, oh my god, we've been so unfair. quick, let's give the ladies half ofeverything we've got is a pipedream. the only way you get power is to take itand i think one of the reasons in the change of the number of women on boardsfrom 8 percent to 13 percent i think. >> catherine fox: it wentfrom 8 percent to 14 percent. >> jane caro: there you are; it's huge my god. a whole one and a bit woman on every board,but it doesn't work like that, of course,
is because they were asked to report. there was a consequence and itwas now-- and that's the problem. you do not get behavior change. you can get-- this is advertising speaking okay. we know you can change attitudes fairly easily. you can get 85 percent ofthe estranged population to say oh the gender pay cut is a terrible thing or there should be more womenon boards or whatever. actually to change behavior is reallyhard and the only way to change behavior,
those of you who are parents in the room willknow this, is there has to be consequences. so, i mean that's why we put a priceon [inaudible] whatever you think about it, there was a consequence. that's why if you're going to get women intomore positions of power, i suspect there has to be a consequence of not having there. otherwise they'll all go yes, yes, one day, oneday dearie, one day when you're good enough. look have you looked at thequality of most men on boards? it's not that hard to be good enough. [laughter] yea, but boy they're hanging on.
>> catherine fox: i think the efforts-- ithink the efforts were originally genuine but i found it absolutely breathtakingthat some of the bodies, like the institute of company directors started to come out withthis little ownership of getting more on board. it's as those these incredibly wellqualified women can i assure you, women who make it onto listed company boards inthis country are pretty good at what they do. they really have to be. there is no question the bar is higher for themwas sort of not there, that they've done nothing about being qualified andexperienced and able to go onto boards. fifty percent of the women who wentonto boards in the last couple of years
that this effort has been going were already onlisted company boards, so on multiple boards, so we don't have a huge cohorthanging from outside that. the irony being, of course, thatboards and chairs will always tell you, but we name people with board experience. and how are they meant to get it? so look, we've still got a lot of problems. there's-- the whole escalation in the numberof women appointed which went from five percent in 2009 to something like 38 percent in 2011. so, it was a big escalationbut it's plateaued already.
so, we're at the hiddy giddy height,so this giant set of 14.8 percent, which is not the different to the u.s.and the uk, both of which have had around that many women onboards for the last few years. we still have over 60 companies out ofthe excess 200 with no women on boards. i think there might be a few ofthem in western australia, again. look i'm sorry. i'm not baiting you up. you know where i'm coming from. so, there was a bit of past.
there was a bit of-- we are seeing theao6 corporate governance guidelines on diversity now starting to filter throughwith the next-- with this reporting season. so, we will maybe see a littlebit more around that. there are going to be metrics published and anif not, why not regime which funnily enough, even though we have been slightly cynicalabout is being held in places like the u.s. as being an absolute breakthrough. it was certainly used by lord nicholas davis inthe uk when they put together their guidelines on getting more women into managementranks and boards about a year ago. so, in a funny way now we'reseen as being out in front.
the issue of legislative quota is another one. it's as you know, a lot of countriesin europe have moved to that and there's still quite a long push on there. the eu now has a proposal to do something. it's not quite legislativequotas but it's close to. so, whether that will happenhere or not, i'm not sure. the business community here has reactivesavagely to the suggestion of having quotas. they've really-- most of thebig companies have said no way. so, that-- but that has been anincentive for them by the way,
the mere spectra of quotas moves them. >> jane caro: much-- >> catherine fox: it was. it was held up in front ofthem and they suddenly went, oh okay maybe we should do something. >> jane caro: anyone know any chicks? [laughter] >> catherine fox: and that-- cani tell you that actually happened. >> jane caro: oh yea.
>> catherine fox: there were so many womeni know who i said i've been wrung up. they said, will you go on a board? she said, no i don't know anything about it. what are you talking about? jane caro: so, there was a bit ofthat going on, not a great move. so, i've-- lots of blokes get on itwith about as much qualification. i mean-- >> catherine fox: but then what happens is-- you know what happens, becausewomen get scrutinized.
so, if they don't come in with the rightcredentials they're immediately seen as being a bit suspect and then the nextthing you know, oh well she was out of-- >> jane caro: we had a woman. >> catherine fox: she wasn't any good. >> jane caro: yea, she didn't work out. so, now we won't have anymore becauseall women are exactly the same. [laughter ] >>catherine fox: so, got alot more that we need to there and what's happened with many different ranks?
nothing. >> jane caro: nothing. >> a question? >> my question is the impact or maybenot, no impact at all on the growth, growth and more growth ofdivorced women in the workplace. and i'd ask you whether that has empoweredwomen or has it made them more vulnerable? >> jane caro: well, i have to say if you'redivorced and you can't go into the workforce, you'd be a lot more vulnerablei would have thought. i mean we know statistically thatwomen actually are much likely
to you know actually be theone to instigate a divorce. they're much more likely to leave theirhusbands than the other way around. but we also know that when they dothey're financial status suffers a blow, from which they never recover. so, they never return to the same financial. men do, they suffer a financialblow when they get divorced, but they recover within about seven years,they're back to the way they were pre-divorce and then they go on with asetback, but never stuck in a place. so, women who divorce certainly statisticallytake on much more of burden of the child caring
and rearing, which is the-- partly why theygo back to work part-time you know all those that become the sorts of financialburden that have also ended up with us facing a generationof poor old women. we have no super and are going tohave to be on a single pension. so, i think women are choosingto leave bad marriages and sometimes i think they may bechoosing to leave those marriages because what they found themselvesexpected to do is everything for love. and they jack up and they're prepared totake a financial hit to get free of that. and i think we have to applaud womenwho choose not to settle themselves
to a miserable marriage orto a miserable relationship. what we need to do, however, is to help peoplehave healthier relationships in the first place. maybe, i don't know about this, i didn'tchange my name when i got married. all of my girlfriends who changed their namesand particularly the ones who then promised to obey [laughter] now the improvementapparently in the anglican church is that they can submit instead of obey. it's just happened. it's such a generous-- you know isn't it great. i'm not quite sure of the difference.
so, they, who are all divorced. so, sometimes i think going into a marriage withthe idea that you are two individuals who chose to go forward into life together is perhapsa healthier perspective than i'm going to this marriage with you as the adored maleobject, because you know adored male objects or adored female objects are all very well. but what you end up withis a bloke and a sheila. and it's better to expect that from thebeginning as i've told my daughters quite a lot. i'm still married to thesame man 37 years later. >> catherine fox: i think the wholequestion of financial independence.
in fact, i've been having a tussle withsomeone who wrote in and said, oh catherine, you know you're getting all ofthis wrong and you want women to be slaves to the capitalist system. and i said actually no, i just thinkfinancial independence is something that we would never question for a man. why do we continue to question it for a woman? that's just ridiculous and you know the bettyfriedman quote, which we used in the book, where she overhead some women speaking ata i think it was un meeting about the joys of being wives and mothers and homemakersand not being in the paid workforce.
and she said, well ladies, that's all very well but you're one breadwinneraway from the poverty line. and i actually say that notto be you know trivializing. but you've got to be able to earn a living. and can i just tell you now i'm in my 50's and anumber of women who i have known over the years when the kids were in primary and i wassort of running in and out like a mad woman, and trying to juggle you know gettingpaid work and the whole thing. and they said we watched youand we were a little bit smug. we thought you know we don't have to do that.
we'll go to coffee-- and there's so many of them who really wish they'd retainedsome attachment to the workplace. and its-- look i'm not sayingthey're all divorced. some of them are though. some of them are divorced but someof them are going just a bit nuts. you know, they really are. their kids don' t want toknow them, they really don't. and their husbands are still workingand have a life around paid work and i'm not eulogy-- paid word can be gastly.
i know that. i'm a journalist. [laughter] but, but having some money and thewherewithal to earn a living and do a few things with yourself, it's important andwe shouldn't apologize for that. >> jane caro: isn't it interestinghow we've ramped up expectations particularly of motherhood. you know now you have to sleep in theright way from the very beginning. you've got to breastfed them until they're 17. you've got to cook them organic foodthat's been handpicked from the fields
of the himalayas and bla, bla, bla. you've got to go around the clipboardand look at all the [inaudible] and choose exactly the right one for yourchild's gifted and talented specialness. and then the schools and so onand so fort and when can you go out again and learn without the children? not until they're 24 otherwisethey could be scarred for life [laughter] isn't it interestinghow we've done that shit just at the time when women, working women and mothersare going back into the workforce. i don't see it as coincidental.
not a conspiracy but i've been toldin advertising, following the benefit. who benefits from that i wonder? >> catherine fox: yes, yes. >> jane caro: i understandit's a household decoration. of course, bigger houses to becleaned and quite inappropriate to hire someone to help you with the housework. [sniffling] >> following the global financial crisisthere are a lot of credit even in the u.s. to companies that did survivethat and a lot of people pointing
out that women were on those boards. and i think they pointed to sweden as wellthat they didn't do so well in the jfc. do you expect that we'll see any falloutform that in australia in increases-- >> catherine fox: so, that's basically,that's the classic sort of business case about women's representationand the-- it's a correlation. it's not causal. and you know i think we have to bereally careful about this stuff. it's like saying women have the magic wandand if they came in everything will be better. so, i'm wary of those arguments,the way that they're structured.
what we do no, though and there's quitea lot of consistent data around this. if you have a more diverse group around the table making thedecisions, you'll get better decisions. now, we know that. we know that fundamentally. so, when i talk about diversity, ihate, you know i hate by the way, i hate the word gender diversity. there's only two genders, right. it's about gender balance, that'swhat we should be talking about.
so, but when i talk about diversityi mean age, race, you know back-- a whole lot of things so youdon't have to group things. and you know all the stuff onthe jfc, it was classic stuff. you know those people running the banks, h. boss classically it was waxinglyrical the day before it collapsed. now the unanimity on the board, we all thinkthe same, yea that didn't turn out really well. yea, wrong exactly. >> jane caro: so, i think what we haveto be careful about we don't want to go down into this cul-de-sac of women areso different, they change everything.
they're better right. they're not. but they do have different experiences andthey can bring different talents to the table. once we know that an organizationstarts to genuinely look for merit, genuinely i.e. not blink it by, white, middleaged you know pale male in stale group. then we see that they willhave probably a better outcome. the best story i know about what adifference it makes about having a woman in an unusual position making a decisiongoes back to the invention of chloroform in the 1850's around the1840's something like that.
and it was heralded by doctors, all of whom weremale at that time as a boon for birthing women. remember that, women have only livedlonger than men for about 100 or so years, because of improvements in childbirth,which used to kill women like flies. that's why there's so manystepmothers in fairytales. [laughter] so, it's true. it's true. there's a reason and the churchimmediately looked up and said, no, no, no, no it is ordained by god that womenshould suffer in childbirth as retribution for eve's original sin inthe temptation of adam.
that is how-- you know it's all been worked out. they shouldn't be allowed to use it. but just for once in the history ofthe church they head of the church of england was herself a birthing mother, queenvictoria who went on to have nine children and she grabbed onto the invention ofchloroform, said to the priest, shut up, and used it as an extraordinarilygood beneficial thing for women and there was no further question. it was perfectly alright for womento use pain relief in childbirth. apart from the new ramping up ofmotherhood, we're now somehow--
you're supposed to force a watermelon out between your legs totallynaturally with a few well placed pants. yea, but that's-- the best example i cansee of how when you have women in positions of power they make better decisionsin terms of women's life experience. >> catherine fox: and hasn'tit been interesting, i can't resist just the u.s. election. hasn't it been fascinating to see howthat group of republican middle aged males who knew all about rape and contraception-- >> jane caro: sperm and how it works--
>> catherine fox: in the u.s., what would happento their bodies and what they would allow them to do in a-- you know howmany women voted for obama. it was extraordinary, 67-68 percent ofsingle women who voted, voted for obama. i mean you can't tell women what to do. it's just-- >> jane caro: and also, what is sointeresting about that is the rank assumption of those men is that they could go aroundmaking these pronouncements about women's lies and that most women would just go, ohreally, okay we'll walk the way you say. and women just turned aroundand went [sound effects]
>> catherine fox: we've gota question over here. >> hello, i think we've met. look any advice especially youngwomen who are entrepreneurs like myself with a one and a five year old. i come from a culture where ageneral is equally respected. so for me, it's not a strange thing to go offand do that, so any words of inspiration i guess to go off and do that so-- but anywords of inspiration i guess to women who i guess are creatingtheir own workplace i guess. >> jane caro: yes, put your ownrights to have fun as a really,
really important priority in your life. i think what women to do, and againit's this guilt-driven full out stuff, when they're juggling school children, work,a relationship, being a part of the community and all that kind of thing is that they will puttheir own fun and pleasure right down the bottom of the list and very rarely get some. i remember going to tresillian when i had asmall child and wouldn't sleep and all that and it's a sort of carry care place. and the nurse who was talkingto us mothers said, who of you have used a hairdressersince the baby was born.
who of you has gone to the movies? who's done this? who's done that? of course, i was the only onewho put up my hand to everything. [laughter] but none of the othermothers had done any of it. and i so think the reallyimportant thing to remember is that you cannot do all the things you're asked to do unless you are alsolooking after yourself. and there is nothing remotely selfishabout saying you take care of the baby.
i'm going to go out and have some fun. i really think women neglect their own fun. and the trouble with that is you're not a goodfun parent if you never have any fun yourself. you're not a good supplier ifyou never have any fun yourself. it doesn't help us. we get very worthy earnest and a bitboring, we should stop it, have more fun. >> catherine fox: my only advice issomething that jane probably thinks is not fun but i just wanted to say about work, iremember when i joined the paper and i was in like my 20's by that stageand it was just sort of--
it was one of things like i'd alwayswanted to be a journalist and just for various reasons hadn't gotten into it. and i got in there and i justsaid, oh this is fantastic. and about a year later i waspregnant with my first child. and i remember thinking, ohhow am i going to do this? but i knew that i really lovedjournalism and i hung on. and you know i'm not a planner. i don't plan anything. i always write about it buti don't do it myself.
but i just remember thinkingthis is a job worth hanging onto. you know what i mean. it just was something i really loved doing. i'm not saying that i loved the editors i workedfor or the colleagues i was with all the time, because clearly that doesn't happen. but you know when you get into somethingand you think actually this really suits me. i know this is a good job,then do try and hang onto it. it's really worth doing becauseit's not easy to find those things. and sometimes you're right inthe thick of bringing up kids.
i was; i had three kids in two years. so, i know what that's like, hellish. but it was really worth kind of hanging in thereand luckily i worked for a company that even in those days had paid maternity leave. it was an incredible burden. so, stuff like that we shouldnever underestimate. that's really, really helpful. and i say to women now you have alittle more negotiating space, use it. really do.
go and suggest things and say i want towork in this way; this is what i can do. push the envelope and it's worth doing. and remember phillip larkin said,"you will screw up your kids." that is just the truth of it. you will. we all do. we all do. as my mama said to me when i went and toldher about the fact that she'd screwed me up and how'd she done it, becausei was only young and stupid. she said, well you should thank for those.
those are your opportunities for growth. >> jane caro: so, don't try too hard. every time you do something wrong,think that's another opportunity for growth i'm giving my child, excellent. >> catherine fox: they grow up despite us. >> jane caro: that's right,certainly in our case. >> catherine fox: i think wehad another-- other questions? >> am i quite godsmacked regularly asto how often my young, well young to me, students who are about 30, the women who weremaking their way in the workforce and they come
and say the boss has saidcan i go and make the coffee, because i'm the only woman in the boardroom. and i'm hearing it as recently as last week. what would you say? >> jane caro: none of those, really. [laughter] can't you guess, can't you guess? >> catherine fox: you know what you've got to do in those circumstances though,you've got to use some humor. you've really got to use somehumor, but you must stop it.
you must. there is no question yea. so, you've got to stop it and say no,i'm not your mom or you know whatever. you've got to work out the way to do it. but you do have to stop it,because i've seen that. i've seen it around me and it's just horrifyingand i've had, jane said the same thing because we're all-- we've been hangingaround workplaces for a long time. the number of women who havecome to me in tears after one of those incidents, and they'repretty breathtaking. and australia's not good in this regard.
people who come here from overseas areusually a bit godsmacked by the behavior in officers and workplaces in this country. so, you've got to handle it. it's not easy. we can't hand out pad answers, but oneof the things that we've told women and we've had them coming back to usit's been really encouraging and we said, try some humor because you know in australiathe biggest sin is to not have a sense of humor. so, humor can be effective especiallyin a group and you make a bit of a joke of it and then they go, ah.
so, it has to be handled carefully,but yea it's still going on. >> jane caro: another thing you can sayis oh okay i'll make it in this meeting. and obviously fred you'llmake it in the next meeting and bruce you'll make itin the meeting after that. and then what do they say,oh no it's a girl thing. you can say really, i didn't notice. coffee was just something i came outof the womb with the ability to make. >> because my understanding is that in theeuropean context and particularly scandinavia, there was some percentages runaround that said that if you get
to a particular level the problem goes away. >> catherine fox: critical mass. >> there's a critical mass. do we know what that is? >> critical mass theory, it's beenaround for a long time it's around 33. you know like a third, it's meant tobe-- it applies to a whole lot of things, so an under-represented group of any kind,getting about to about a third in a group in a cohort, changes the dynamic. in norway they've got to 40 percent womenon boards because they're legislated.
a conservative government brought that inby the way, which is really interesting. however, it's had no effect on the numberof women in management-- no none at all. so, they're looking at why you know they'revery proud that they've got that quota there. and you know denmark doesn't have a quota. i was talking to the danish economist whoactually advised the norwegian government, i'm not quite sure why, but she did. and she said because denmark doesn'thave quotas all those danish women who are very accomplished go andsit on boards in other countries. so, you know they lose, they lose theip of those women, because they'll go
and sit on boards elsewherebecause they're required to. so, the sky didn't fall in. the unfortunate thing is it didn't have--it's not going to effect the management rank. so, that's yea-- that's another issue. >> the quotas are only on boards? >> catherine fox: the quotasare only boards, yes, exactly. but you know a lot of companieshere have brought in targets. i mean they're not-- yea, they're voluntarytargets and so on, but they have set them and that's within management rank.
so, we're watching with agreat deal of interest to see. and most of them are around 35 to 40 percent. so, yea. >> jane caro: the other thingto remember when anyone puts-- talks about quotas as tokenism and everythingis i always bring up that pesky little fact about the 100 percent quotathat operated for 2000 years. and that we're only asking for like a30 percent quota maybe at the outside. we're really being awfully sweetin comparison to the bloke. and, of course, we alreadyhave lots of quotas on boards.
we have quotas for interstate directors. we have quotas about staff representatives somethings like the ibc board and things like that. and yet they're okay. they're not tokenistic apparently, only assoon as you start putting chicks in there. >> there's a famous article in economicswritten by an australian academic called, "why a badly paid nurse is a good nurse." i'm really interested in what your view wouldbe, the reaction if that article was called, "why a badly paid advertising executiveis a good advertising executive." >> jane caro: that's so revealing ofthe expectations we have of women.
it sums up, in fact, i guess the kind ofsubject of this lecture that we have this view that women should just naturallysacrifice themselves and be glad of the opportunity to do so. and that is very pervasive and very destructive. and what it ends up with is thetragedy of the poor old women who have done everything they were told todo by society who've been the good girls, who did stay home and look aftertheir kids, who did do a kind of job that wasn't particularly well paid because ithad flexibility and who did then get divorced by their husbands and who didn't have anysuper and who are now ending up at the end
of doing everything societytold them to do to the letter, aching out a poverty stricken existence inan unheated flat somewhere, if they're lucky and wondering what on earth is goingto happen to them when they get sick. it is a disgusting thing we didto that generation of women. >> but we started today's lectures withcatherine saying that whenever you raise issues about women the emotions run high and i thinkwe've seen a full range of motions today from a sharing of laughter and rye humorto deep concern about some of the issues that have been raised by today's discussion bothin the lectures and in the question and answers around why is women's contributionso poorly valued.
and why gender equity remains a side dishrather than the main course when we know so much of the research, when weknow as has been pointed out the gender pay gap has just notshifted, when we know the lack of women in senior management positions, there is aneed to i think become much more active again to see that f word back on the agenda. the other f word is around framing and i'lljust share something that took my breath away in terms of how women's successcan be explained. i was at a conference earlier this year talking about women doing some educationin the trades area.
and the women were outperforming the men and weknow in lots of educational fields that happens. the researchers ask the lecturers,male and female why did this happen? and it wasn't because the women are smarter. it was because the women needed to try harder. they needed to work harder. the men were actually smart because they satat the back of the room and read the newspaper. so, it was nothing to do with women's effort or women's intellect, itwas yet again their deficit. so, we've still got a long way to go.
i think i'd just like to, before i offer thevote of thanks reflect on two final things: moving to a 50-50 if not why not and if we putequity at the center of our decision making and our systems what might happen. maybe we would get to a situationthen when it's for love and money. could you join with me inthanking our guest speakers? [ music ] [ silence ]
