We can vote, work and get an education. We can give birth or make the considered choice not to. We can marry, get divorced, have a public voice and write under our own names.
Compared with the lives of many women that marched through the streets of New York City in 1908, planting the seeds for the first ever International Women’s Day, we’re living in another dimension.
So what are we celebrating more than one hundred years later? And what are the real issues affecting the majority of Australian women today? Here’s what you, our readers, said yesterday.
1. Women are worried about the cost of living
Deciding who gets to stay home and who gets to go back to work after the birth of a child in our economic climate comes down to one thing: earning capacity. And it’s different for every woman.
Ree at 10:41am: I agree you should be able to leave your job for a period to raise your children and that it is the responsible thing for either parent to do for a period of time. However, do not then complain about your lack of super or the fact that you are not on the same wage as the girl that used to sit next to you when you left while she continued to work.Time out of the workforce will cause economic disadvantage and you and your partner will just have to suck it up and deal with the consequences of your decisions.
While for other women, financial security has given them the freedom to take another direction in life:
Melly, 10:20am: Guess what? I have a career and I am thinking of giving it up to raise children. It seems to me that every couple who keeps their careers going while raising kids struggles as they are basically doing three jobs between two people. Luckily for us we will be financially stable on one income. I only wish some of my girlfriends had this option, but buying a house is so expensive that they now have to return to work.
2. Women feel guilty. No matter what direction their lives had taken, the general sentiment among readers was that they often felt as if they should be doing more.
Rebecca 08:02am says: My husband stayed at home with our first child and I went and worked full time to build my career. Eight years later we are doing the reverse. I am working part time and staying home with our second child. Looking back I wish I had worked full time, but on the other hand I loved my job for all those years. While all of this highlights that these decisions are never easy, I often feel I am betraying feminism in loving what I am doing now. But I no longer work with any women who didn’t work part time at sometime after having their children and in the female-dominated workplace of teaching that is significant and very different from what was going on almost a decade ago. And for many women it’s a pressure they feel comes from other women.
Catherine, 09:45am says: At work, at home, at the school gate, the level of judgement I find amongst and between women is oppressive, corrosive and just plain tiresome. Stop the comparing, the assessment and the fear that what you’re thinking, doing, wearing, or eating is wrong or isn’t quite up to scratch. Stop comparing your mothering skills. Stop the neurosis about your children and the helicopter parenting. Give yourself (and your children) a break! Stop judging and just be. Breathe!!!!
3. Although grateful for the work that was done before them, women no longer completely identify with the 1970’s feminist ideal
Catching up, 9:33am: Being a feminist means that you recognise that woman are not equal in this society. Much has improved but there is a long way to go, to get the message across, that woman are equal to men, not superior or inferior.My own belief that being a feminist means that I am not put on this earth to serve men.
The biggest fight we have is to get men to acknowledge this. Being a feminist does not mean that you cannot be a mother but the recognition that children also have a father who is equally responsible for raising the child. Being a woman does not mean your life should be any more controlled by rearing children than a man is. Being a woman means that you decide how you will live your life, not a husband or father, the same as men do.
Being a woman is being able to use the skills and abilities you have to the highest degree, not sacrificed to serving men. Women are quite capable of caring for themselves, so are men. As my father used to say, if a man cannot prepare a meal, he deserves to go hungry.
Sky, 07:47am: You say we have choice? I say there is no choice, if you want to eat, with a roof over your head, with clothes on your back… You have to work (male or female). I asked the question - What family can live on one wage, where is that choice?
4. Domestic violence is seen as an issue for both sexes
Sally 8:56am: Nobody is saying men are not victims of violence and abuse. They are, usually at the hands of other men. Women and girls on the other hand are usually the victims of violence at the hands of men, the violence is more likely to result in serious injury or death and they are more often the victims of sexual violence, one of the most harmful and damaging forms of violence that there is.
As for men being more likely to participate and be harmed by war and other dangerous jobs. If you look at history and the state of the world today, it’s violent men who are the cause of war, men most often instigate war. Also, women have traditionally been excluded from participating in war and other dangerous ‘male’ jobs precisely because of men’s discrimination! You can’t have it both ways.
Men also never mention the harm, violence and abuse that is routinely inflicted by men on millions of women and girls in war, ie. forced prostituion, sexual assault, mass rape, torture and murder. There are no marches and memorials for those women. I reiterate, nobody is suggesting that men are never victims of violence or that women never commit violence against men. But the evidence points to a serious, enduring and pervasive problem with male violence. If you want to get defensive and go into denial about it then the problem will persist, to your detriment as well as to the detriment of women and girls for the simple fact that you are much more likely to be assaulted or murdered at the hands of another man.
Dave Sag, 09:35am: Violence is a problem in our society, I think we can all agree on that; and the data suggests that violence against women by their partners is simply nastier, more damaging, and a much greater part of the problem. Women may freeze a man out, or throw something at him, whereas, the data suggests, men will break their partner’s jaw or fracture a skull. Or burn her to death for her inheritance in the case of India.
Here in Australia, we can take comfort in being one of the countries with relatively low rates of domestic violence compared to, say, India, Pakistan or South Africa. But we can work harder to be better.
5. Women in Australia are worried about the progress of women living in developing nations
Angela, 10:36am says: It is well past time we stopped pushing political correctness and started doing something about the real injustices in the world. If we put as much effort into combating the things mentioned in this article (not to mention the multitude for which there was no space) as we put into arguments about numbers of female MPs or the proportioning of housework, we could really do some good in the world.
Jess 09:40am: It once again reminds me of the power of women and how we still have a long way to go before all women are valued and treated as precious.
*Sally and Dave Sag’s comments were shortened. If you’re interested in the full text, you can find it here: There’s no such thing as “just” a domestic dispute.
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