Write it right

The COAG Reform Council has released a report looking at education, employment, housing, health, disability, and homelessness outcomes by gender: Tracking equity: Comparing outcomes for women and girls across Australia (127 page pdf). Basically, it says women are being fucked over in most parts of their lives.

This is how it’s being reported in the Sydney Morning Herald: COAG report: girls ahead at school but women lag in pay stakes:

It is the “baffling contrast” in gender equality in Australia: girls generally outperform boys at school, and are more likely to hold a bachelor degree, but men continue to earn more than women in the workplace and overwhelmingly dominate leadership roles…

…But in the workforce a significant gender pay gap still exists, with women paid about 17.5 per cent, or $266 a week, less than men. The disparity exists even within the same profession in many cases, and once the different average hours worked by men and women are taken into account.

At dailytelegraph.com.au (I don’t know if it’s in the paper): Women paid less than men for same job:

GIRLS outshine boys at school and are more likely to graduate from university – but are still paid less to do the same work as men, a damning new report reveals.

The Council of Australian Governments Reform Council report, shows that young male dentists earn $14,000 more than women in their first job, while male architect graduates earn $9000 more and male lawyers $4300 more…

…”Financial disadvantage starts as soon as women enter the workforce,” the official report says.

“Graduate starting salaries are overall significantly lower for women than men.”

And at abc.net.au – COAG equity report finds Australian women still lag behind men in pay, care more for disabled – it was the same general summary of the findings, with this detail at the end:

The report also found women continue to bear the brunt of caring for Australia’s disabled and that they often pay an economic and psychological price.

The report says women are almost twice as likely as men to be the primary carers for people with a disability.

Nearly 40 per cent of women who are caring for a person with a disability are not in the workforce, with many suffering physical and mental health impacts stemming from their role.

The report also states Indigenous women continue to face a significant homelessness problem.

The rate of homelessness of Indigenous women is more than 15 times higher than it is for non-Indigenous women.

Only the ABC mentioned Indigenous women and women who have caring responsibilities. None of the stories mentioned the fact that Indigenous women have a life expectancy of 72.9 years, compared with 84.2 years for non-Indigenous women. And that women with a disability are less likely than men with a disability to be working, and less likely than men to use disability services.

Now, I understand that a single news story doesn’t do justice to a report like this. It’s possible that these journos have saved some of the other issues for more stories over the next few days. Mind you, that doesn’t seem to happen very often these days. Once the report has been released, it’s old news and will sit on the pile of other reports about “women’s issues” that no one with any power does anything about.

But what if we flipped it to put the focus on the real problem?

What if these stories were about the Australian employers who are discriminating against female employees, in a clear breach of the Sex Discrimination Act? It becomes a different story then, doesn’t it? One that’s not so easily dismissed as a women’s issue, for women to sort out.

What if, rather than just numbers per 10,000, the stories about homelessness focussed on family violence being the main reason women report using homelessness services?

Flipping the stories to focus on the cause and not the outcome will help change the way people think about these issues. We know from decades of research into framing, agenda setting, and priming, that not only does the news media shape what issues people think about, but also how they think about those issues. So as long as journalists keep writing about women being underpaid, instead of employers underpaying women, then people will keep thinking about it as a women’s issue.

We know, from report after report after report, that women are paid less than men. We know, from report after report after report, that carers do not have the support that they need. We know, from report after report after report, that Indigenous women have a much lower life expectancy than non-Indigenous women. We know all this, and yet nothing happens.

Many journos will say the reason they became journalists was to change the world. To write the big, important stories that make a difference. Well, these are those big, important stories. It’s time to write about them in a way that forces action, that changes the way people think. It’s time to write about them in a way that wins you a fucking Walkley.

Every fictional female doesn’t need to be a role model

When I saw this opinion piece by Sacha Molitorisz in the Sydney Morning Herald I prepared to get my grrr on: To kick goals, girls need fewer bad teachers and more grand tourers:

Seeing Bad Teacher at a session packed with teenagers, I wondered: did all the girls in the audience want to be this woman? Did all the boys want to be with her? Is this the sort of female role model my daughters are destined to emulate when they’re older?

One female character in one movie who doesn’t act like a “proper woman” and there’s gnashing of teeth about role models and about how women are supposed to behave. I don’t recall people saying that boys and young men needed better role models when The Hangover was released. I recall words like “edgy comedy“, “clever script“, and frothing about it being hilarious. If you thought it was hilarious, then you should read The Lazy Misogyny Of The Hangover: “The Hangover, Phillips’ most recent (and successful, both comedically and commercially) work is arguably the worst of the lot, presenting women as warm-hearted whores, nut-cracking bitches, or spectacular-looking dum dums“. (For the record, I haven’t seen The Hangover. I saw a little bit on the weekend and it looked like utter shit. However, as was pointed out to me, I’m not exactly their target audience.)

Molitorisz writes:

Our culture needs more female protagonists, but not like this. We need fewer rap pretties gyrating like porn stars, fewer Elizabeth Halseys exploiting their appearance. Predatory as they are, these women are no more emancipated than ’50s pin-up girls. Their identity is defined entirely by their looks.

I agree when he says we need better female role models in our culture, but he’s only interested in the same three devils: glossy mags, rap music videos, and one female movie character. He’s blaming women, black men (although the gyrating women get most of the blame), and women. Phew, the white men who control the record labels and the movie studios are off the hook. Anyhow, it’s hard to argue that a gyrating woman in the background of a music video is a role model.

So, you want to talk about female role models in movies? Sure. Let’s start with female visibility in films. I’ve blogged before about the dearth of female characters in Pixar and Disney films, but here’s a quick summary:

* In the top 101 G-rated films from 1990 to 2005, only 28 per cent of speaking characters were female.

* In the 400 top-grossing G, PG, PG-13 and R films in the US between 1990 and 2006, only 27 per cent of the characters were female.

* In family movies, only 17 per cent of the people in crowd scenes are female.

* Female characters in G-rated films wear the same amount of skimpy clothing as female characters in R-rated films.

In The Shame of Family Films, Julia Baird writes:

A study commissioned by the advertising group Kaplan Thaler showed that 68 percent of those who watched Commander in Chief were more likely to take a female president seriously. Yes, even though it was just a TV show. That’s the point of all this—what we see on our screens matters. It shapes our imaginations, and sometimes limits them. “The more we see female characters who are hypersexual, one-dimensional eye candy, sidelined, or not even there,” [Geena] Davis said, “the more it affects the way boys and girls think about girls.”

It is a disgrace that we are still teaching girls that they should be onlookers in a world where boys do interesting things. Too many females on screen are inaction figures: watching, waiting, applauding, and baring flesh.

Every film does not have to be everything to everyone. But the film industry does seem to be just for boys and menn. I dare anyone to argue that all animated cars have to be male. Look at the twenty top grossing films in Australia this year and show me the female characters:

1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part Two)
2 Transformers 3
3 The Hangover Part II
4 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (3D)
5 Fast Five
6 Bridesmaids
7 Tangled
8 Cars 2
9 Kung Fu Panda 2
10 Thor
11 Rio
12 X-Men: First Class
13 Black Swan
14 Yogi Bear
15 Mr. Popper’s Penguins
16 Hop
17 Water for Elephants
18 Rango
19 The Green Hornet
20 Just Go With It

A few hot chicks and a few crazy hot chicks who have a lesbian sex scene. And Bridesmaids, which caused a heap of famous douchebags to write about how women aren’t funny. There was also some gnashing of teeth about the female characters behaving badly.

Remember at the start I said I agreed with much of what Molitorisz said? Yeah, well his final paragraph ruined that:

And besides, Ellyse is so much more attractive than Elizabeth [Halsey – the Cameron Diaz character in Bad Teacher]. That’s the ultimate irony. Much more than a sex object, Ellyse Perry is a fascinating subject.

He’s reduced one of Australia’s most talented athletes to a sex object. To whether he finds her attractive. Her sporting achievements – representing Australia in soccer and cricket – are nothing compared to whether or not a 42-year-old writer finds her hot. She’s 21, by the way.

The Opposition is no place for women

The Opposition’s spokesman for defence personnel made me laugh so hard I almost forgot I want to punch him:

THE Federal Opposition has declared the frontline of war is no place for women but insists it supports gender equality in the Australian Defence Force… Bob Baldwin said psychological aspects of battle made the frontline unsuitable for women.

“The Coalition believes in the equality of opportunity for women in the defence force,” he said.

“The Coalition, however, doesn’t agree with the placement of women into forces such as the SAS, clearance divers, commandos or frontline combat engineers.”

Ha ha ha, fuck off. You can’t believe in equality only in certain positions.

I’m not interested in joining the army – when my little brother was talking about it during the Howard years I felt sick, but that was more to do with my disgust with the Government than being opposed to the army itself. I realise we need one even if I don’t agree with what they’re sent to do. Oh, and I know a guy in the army and he’s a wanker. But I’ll argue for my right to join. It’s not like they let any old fat male slob into the SAS, so if someone’s up to the job, regardless of what’s in their pants, then what’s the problem?