Abstract
No Bystanders
Christine Parker, Westpac’s human resources boss, has called on corporate Australia to lead the way in protecting women in the workplace by embracing a positive duty to shield employees against sexual harassment regardless of federal government actions. (Angus Thompson, ‘Westpac exec calls on corporate Australia to actively prevent sexual harassment’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March 2022.) Parker is urging companies to move away from reactive complaints-based systems and instead to embrace further protections as recommended by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins in her Respect@Work report.
What Women Want, a survey released by the Community and Public Sector Union in April 2022 to mark International Women’s Day, found 41.1 per cent of women disagreed that there was adequate training on sexual harassment in 2021, up from 23.5 per cent in 2019. One in five women (21.4 per cent) said they had experienced discrimination at work over the past 12 months, up from 14.3 per cent in 2019.
Lady Justice Without the Blindfold
Lady Justice is an eight-part News Corp podcast – True Crime Australia – that features female trailblazers. (Amelia Saw, ‘Lady Justice podcast: Claire O’Connor SC reveals female lawyers face sexism, harassment in the workplace’, Daily Telegraph, 18 April 2022.)
In episode 7, Claire O’Connor SC reveals shockingly high rates of sexual harassment of female lawyers. When she first entered the law, O’Connor had not expected to find so much abuse in her own profession. She now describes the haemorrhaging of female lawyers – not because of their inability to juggle family commitments, but because of workplace abuse. ‘We’re losing women in the profession because they’re not getting the deal they deserved.’
Brave Women Judges
At the Muslim Legal Network’s Iftar dinner in April 2022 a standing ovation was given to Judge Sheela Zarefi Hassas, one of 270 women judges forced to leave their jobs in Afghanistan when the Taliban seized power in 2021. (Karin Derkley, ‘Female judge who fled Afghanistan starts over in Melbourne’, L IJ & News, 27 April 2022.) Judge Hassas who had been a judge at the Public Security Court said, ‘In a matter of days I changed from being a judge to a housewife living each moment in fear of the Taliban.’ The International Association of Women Judges helped her, and 16 other judges and their families, move to Australia; Judge Hassas expressed her wish the Australian government and other organisations will assist those left behind.
Toxic Masculinity?
As obnoxious as it is, toxic masculinity alone is apparently not enough to explain why men kill intimate partners. (Samara McPhedran, ‘Does toxic masculinity explain why men kill women? Perhaps not as much as we thought’, The Conversation, 21 April 2022.) New research indicates the view dominating current policy-making – that those men who kill intimate partners are distinctly different from other killers, particularly in their attitudes and beliefs about the place of women in society – may require some gender lens adjustment. This research indicates those who kill intimate partners share disturbingly similar traits with men who are violent in other settings (for example, towards people they do not know).
Using the Australian Homicide Project, containing interviews with over 300 convicted homicide offenders in Australia, the study compared: men who commit intimate partner femicide, men who kill female non-intimates and men who kill other men. They found little difference between groups and warn that overly simplistic gendered approaches to complex problems risks oversimplification that will not help in understanding and dealing with these serious problems.
Roe v Wade
During his Presidency, Donald Trump appointed three conservative judges to the US Supreme Court. A leaked draft judgment subsequently indicates the 1973 case of Roe v Wade will be overturned, thereby denying women a constitutional right to abortion services. In a trigger-happy country, itchy fingers are poised, ready to blast off the state ‘trigger’ laws. Will this be the beginning of a war against many other affirmative action laws in the US? Alas, you betcha.