In the lead up to International Women's Day today, I have heard varying versions of the following statements from three different people: "When is International Men's Day?"; "Why is there even an International Women's Day? They're not a minority, they make up half the population last time I checked."
As I sat down yesterday to write this piece to mark IWD, my phone buzzed with a news alert that a man had been charged with murder over the disappearance of Samantha Murphy, the 51-year-old Ballarat woman who went for a run last month and never came home.
I had wanted to write an uplifting piece about what it's like to become the first woman to edit this masthead in its proud 166-year history. About what a privilege this role is. About how I have been supported at home by my husband and sons and in my career by many great women and men. A piece that might honour the women who went before me, paving a way that would eventually allow me to take this challenging, but endlessly interesting position. I wanted to call out those women and the men who encouraged me early in my career, who did not allow my gender, time off with my children, or anything else to hold back my progression.
But instead I must dwell on the things that make me despair.
I must dwell on them because of Samantha Murphy, who last month police said they believed was unlikely to be alive. I need to dwell on them because of the 64 women whose lives were lost to violence in Australia last year. I need to dwell on them because, like every woman I know, I still clutch my keys between my fingers, or speak on my phone, when walking alone at night, in some vain hope these will provide some sort of protection. I also need to dwell on them because of the comments we all hear this time every year (often other times too).
To answer those who questioned me this week, and anyone else who is wondering: International Women's Day is important because today, even with greater involvement in the workforce, women still do 21 hours more of unpaid work a week than men.
It is important because, while women make up 51 per cent of the population, they hold 19.4 per cent of CEO positions.
While they make up 51 per cent of the population, they hold just a third of board positions.
While they make up 51 per cent of the population, they hold 39.1 per cent of seats in federal parliament.
While they make up 51 per cent of the population, they earn 12 per cent less than their male counterparts.
One of us is killed every 15 days by an intimate partner. Every 15 days.
Many, many years ago my grandmother bravely stood up to her abusive spouse and demanded that her four daughters remain at school and not leave early to become housekeepers. Most of those daughters went on to complete university degrees and have fulfilling careers, either while raising or after raising their children.
Women like my grandmother changed the course of their daughters' lives, by not only dreaming of a brighter future for them, but taking the action she could to make it happen. In doing so, she changed the course of my life, and my children's lives too.
We owe a debt to the women who have gone before us, but we also have an obligation to the women who will follow.
There is no doubt women in Australia are more fortunate than our counterparts in some other nations, and women of Caucasian background even more so. We have more choices available to us than our grandmothers ever did, mainly because of our grandmothers. But the gender pay gap report, out this week, is just another example of how our progress to equality has stalled. How far we still are from taking up 50 per cent of leadership positions in companies, boards and parliament. Our progression is faltering. If anything, I fear we are going backwards.
And those harrowing statistics, with similar numbers of women being killed by men in Australia every year, year after year, show that for all the rhetoric, for all the IWD cupcakes (likely baked by women late into the evening), for all the columns about juggling parenthood and careers, we are still not safe.
And for those still wondering, International Men's Day is on November 19.
