Sorry, wrong number: get with the times and try again
We didn’t need calculators to do the percentages. We had enough
fingers to do the maths. There was Cate and there were nine men, 10
if Glyn Davis, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s 2020 summit,
was counted.
For a moment Kevin Rudd’s lofty ambitions for a national
conversation on the nation’s future descended into a debate about
numbers - numbers and gender. There are to be 10 co-chairs at the
April talkfest, and all the faces staring up from the morning
newspaper were of high-profile men, except for Cate Blanchett.
Numbers, numbers, numbers. We should be beyond counting. It’s so
boring. It’s soooo 1970s. We should have no need to calculate
gender imbalance in 2008. We should be able to put our minds to the
high-minded topics the Government wants us to address - the future
of the environment, social inclusion, the cities, the economy
%26#133; instead of acting like a bunch of accountants.
But unfortunately someone has to do the counting. And it is
always the minority. Every time women stop adding up, someone
subtracts them. Every time women plead feminist fatigue and put
their calculators away, the rate of increase slows down.
Funny how the gender once considered hopeless at maths is fated
to do the sums. Every woman I know wants to dispense with the
number crunching. For decades we have kept tabs on pay equity, the
numbers of women on boards, in cabinet, in Parliament, in local
government, in the trades %26#133;
But if women don’t keep a tally, no one will. I bet that photo
spread of Rudd’s hand-picked summit leaders seemed perfectly normal
to the men who read the morning paper: David Morgan, ex-Westpac;
Tim Fischer, ex-National Party; John Hartigan, News Ltd; Warwick
Smith, ex-Macquarie Bank and ex-Liberal MP; Roger Beale, ex-public
service chief ; Tim Costello, World Vision Australia; indigenous
surgeon Kelvin Kong; and a couple of distinguished academics,
Michael Good and Michael Wesley. They were the sort of blokes you
would expect in such a line-up. Throw in the beautiful, smart and
well-liked Cate, who is, nevertheless, untested in any field but
acting, and all would seem right with the world.
I bet it was only women who thought something was wrong. It is
the outsiders who notice exclusion, not those in the inner circle.
Men don’t see gender imbalance unless it is pointed out. Most think
harping about numbers is trite and a distraction from the important
stuff. “We need the best brains, what does gender matter?” I could
hear men, even progressive men, argue: “We’re over that.”
But merit was not the sole criterion for making the PM’s cut.
Clearly someone was doing the numbers - only it was not gender that
was a consideration. A good deal of calculation went into ensuring
political conservatives were well represented to allay howls from
the right. And probably someone mentioned the states to ensure not
everyone came from NSW and Victoria. No one would be so foolish as
to omit an Aborigine.
But that is where the diversity ended, as if the old concerns of
party politics and geography are the main game, and the 35-year
struggle for women’s representation an irrelevancy.
In this post-feminist era, it is sometimes argued that women
don’t need special attention. Indeed, it is insulting to women to
consider gender. Today it is only talent that is supposed to count.
And women can rise on merit, they say. But even if the strict merit
principle had applied in this case, Australia has many talented men
and women, all capable of co-chairing a discussion. The business
leader Heather Ridout, the medical specialist Fiona Stanley, the
banker Gail Kelly, for a start, would all have performed
capably.
Unless those in charge make a conscious effort to add women, it
will not happen. Unless women in the community keep vigilant, the
count can go backwards. It is not so many weeks since people were
applauding the Rudd Government for the inclusion of a record seven
women in the ministry. But that should not be the end of the
matter. Labor has an opportunity to raise the profile of women by
counting them in wherever it has the power to do so.
Women will not be better than men, nor even act differently. It
is simply that women have a right to play a role in public life
unfettered by conscious or unconscious discrimination. Young women,
outsmarting boys at school and out-graduating them at university,
need to know equal opportunity is real. If they decide to go for
it, their gender should not count against them.
The maths is not yet right. Business in particular is dragging
the chain. In 2006 women comprised only 8.7 per cent of board
directors in the top 200 companies. This is virtually unchanged
since 2002 despite a now-sizable pool of women with board
experience. As well, only six of the top 200 companies had a female
chief executive.
Another reason for vigilance is women’s pay. Relative to men’s
it has gone slightly backwards in the past seven years. The current
pay gap is 15.8 per cent (based on full-time adult ordinary time
earnings).
While this is the story, someone has to keep counting. Those in
power can’t be trusted to get the equation right.
