Women are taking charg g our way into power,
and we’re doing it on our s. It s a given that we are all
feminists and can wear millennial pink, Celine block heels and
eat cinnamon swirls – but now, we can be world leaders and
talk abortion law, maternity-leave legislation and our sexual
abuse histories, too. The question should never have been,
“Who runs the world?” Rather, we should have been asking:
“When are we running it?” So, how about now?E81
“Women
AREN’T AFRAID
to say they beca
candidates
BECAUSE THEY’R
ANGRY”ge and forcing our
terms It’D
meRE
“We’ve had
enough of theBOYS’ CLUB and we
do have a right to
participate FULLY
in government”imitating a white male approach to
politics, but instead running as themselves:
young, old, racially, ethnically and
religiously diverse, women who’ve had a
variety of jobs and who aren’t afraid to say
they became candidates because they’re
angry.” The result, she says, is a change in “the
mass understanding of what politicians are supposed
to look like, what they can sound like, how they can
present themselves. It helps us adjust our eyes and ears to a more
broadly representational group of candidates.”“WHO RUNS THE
WORLD?”
Call me a spoilsport, but it’s far too early to hail this as the end of
the old white man in power. But with worldwide revulsion at
Trump and Weinstein and their kind, and a new confidence
among women in the wake of recent successes, there surely is
a new opening for women – and woke men – to challenge the
traditional power structures. Banks says of this year’s general
election, “I hope there will be equal men and women running
because from the feedback I receive, I believe there’s an equal
number of men and women who feel strongly about this.”
As Traister puts it: “We’re in a period where we’re
acknowledging how fucked up and unjust it is, and thinking about
how to start chipping away at it.”
So go forth and chip. Politics needs us; it’s time to get involved.
There are plenty of opportunities to volunteer with a campaign
group or political party. Try going to a city council meeting or
volunteering for a neighbourhood cause that matters to you.
Work with your own MP or for a charity – everyone needs help.
And most of all, vote for female candidates. Hanson-Young says,
“This is an issue for voters regardless of who you vote for. More
and more voters want our Parliament to be better, they want
politics to be better, and that starts with ensuring women are
treated properly. Women across Australia need to get out there
and get more women elected to Parliament. That will
fundamentally shift the way our Parliament operates and the
attitude towards women that it represents.”TO QUOTA
OR NOT TO
QUOTA?
You may have heard the argument that we
live in a meritocracy, where the best person for
the job will naturally get it – so we don’t need to
make sure the candidates are gender-balanced
(known as a having a quota of women).
Former Liberal MP Julia Banks, who left
the party over its treatment of women, says
that’s rubbish. “We’ve seen the meritocracy
[argument] is flawed because there are
two things that get in the way of it. One is
discrimination. The other is unconscious bias.
We all have unconscious biases, men and
women – biases that women shouldn’t be away
from home, should be looking after the kids, that
a man is best for the job – all sorts of biases. The
meritocracy argument just falls down in a heap.”
And the Liberals’ thanks-but-no-thanks attitude
towards quotas isn’t doing them any favours. In
November they experienced what Banks calls
“a blistering defeat” in Victoria, replaced by
a Labor government that’s composed of
50 per cent women, 50 per cent men.
Ah, Melbourne: always so on-trend.