Have you ever felt you are being ignored by everybody – or, even worse, treated like a doormat?
If so, then you are probably female!
All generalisations have to allow that there are exceptions, but on a proportionate basis, I stand by my statement.
The vast majority of people who work in the ‘caring professions’ are women. Have you ever stopped to wonder why?
Because, for the most part, few men are interested in taking on the required duties, for the pay that is offered!
Early childhood and primary teachers, nurses and health care workers are among the most obvious – and have been the most needed workers through the COVID-19 pandemic.
How much gratitude have they been shown by government? About as much as the volunteer firefighters who ‘enjoy their work’!
The most important years in a child’s life are the first 5 – with the first 3 being the stand-out years.
Guess who spends the most time with the child, during this period, in most cultures?
The mother, and other female relatives, closely followed, in the case of a working mother, by an early childhood educator.
Increasingly fathers are taking more interest in their children from an early age, but as a broad generalisation, mothers spend more time than fathers – and practically all early childhood teachers are female.
So what – you might ask?
Well, the latest government decision in relation to child-care would never have been made by a woman. In fact, a woman would have been offering higher pay to early childhood educators and ensuring that access to the child care service remains free in the future.
Many are now criticising the government for its poor treatment of those employed in education, whether it be in universities – which have had no support from government – or in early childhood education – which should be a compulsory and government-provided part of state education.
Among women who become national leaders, Jacinda Ardern is a stand-out, having become a mother so soon after becoming Prime Minister of New Zealand, and having so successfully steered her country through the COVID-19 crisis.
OK. She had a lot going for her.
Like Australia, her country is an island – a massive advantage in keeping out a viral infection – but hers is smaller. She has a partner who is willing to let his own career take a backseat to his taking on a larger than usual part of the role of parenting a small child.
Being a woman has almost certainly given the New Zealand PM a greater sensitivity to the impact of the policies she developed, on the people affected by them. After all, that is another aspect of the preponderance of females in the caring professions, who are regularly just taken for granted under male policy-makers! They feel for the pain of others.
It is not enough to do the right thing. It is incredibly important that you work to minimise any adverse impacts your policies have, and ensure that everyone understands how and why the policy was formulated, while ensuring that pressure is relieved as soon as it can be, and resisting pressure to move too soon.
Here in Australia, there are so many occasions when a predominantly male group of decision-makers are clearly tin-eared and lacking in empathy when it comes to making policies which significantly affect certain groups adversely, that I am sure women will have a lot of similar reactions to those of many Indigenous groups.
The assistance packages which the Australian government belatedly implemented have proved incredibly inequitable, again demonstrating the lack of sensitivity in government.
It has often been said that fewer if any countries would go to war if they were governed by women.
I would venture to suggest that a great deal of current policy decisions would be vastly improved if more input from women was incorporated.
Well – maybe not from Bridget McKenzie unless you, too, support the Coalition!
I end as always – this is my 2020 New Year Resolution:
“I will do everything in my power to enable Australia to be restored to responsible government.”
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The New Zealand election is not far away. Will be a night in for me as the kiwis decide.
Great & very timely article Rosemary! I know of a young woman who is a very good stay at home worker in her chosen career, who currently earns about $5,000 less than her equivalent male worker & when she raised the question about wage parity with her (probably male) bosses, she was “politely” told he is a man, & that’s just the way it is! Even though she had been working for this company for 20 years & he had only been there for about 6 years!!Unfortunately, as you point out, this sort of stupid, uncaring & thoughtless ( & criminal?) attitude exists everywhere where women are doing the same–or better!–job than their male counterparts. Even though wage parity is supposed to be in force in our workplaces, it is bloody obvious that almost all male dominated managements still have this attitude that women should receive less pay than men, BASTARDS!!
On net calculation, Women would give the world, more peace, prosperity, sense, decency and safety than the endless load of male deficients who infest history’s pages like the fleas around a dead dog’s date. The Thatcher and Mc Kenzie types turn up, alternatives to a career walking the streets (Thatcher should have tried that in Venice) but the balance of sense, instincts, wishes, policies, is there. Women still do two thirds of the world’s general, basic, essential work, yet have little supremacy in most poitical setups, rigged by men. As an old deficient male, I remember friends who enjoyed being under a magnificent woman…
I love how we once again see the “left intelligenzia” bestow upon us mere plebs THEIR versions and solutions of social engineering…where in truth the answer lies once again at the foot of class-warfare…and I curse the middle-class for it!
From a play about Ned Kelly…:
“Red Kelly(Ned’s father” : But what ails you, mother? To lament the fate of your children? Did you expect less from our offspring?…Did you expect they would live and die as a piece of furniture that serves its owner till no longer useful?”
Mrs Kelly(Ned’s mother): “I….I did not expect to outlive them! and their youth! too young to die.”
Red K’ ; “Life has an expectation, not a duty! See how many seeds the dandelion throws to the luck of the wind”
Mrs K’ (shouts defiantly)”What would you know of my children….I BLED FOR THOSE BOYS!!!..”
Red K’: “And now they bleed for you in payment, every one of our own people’s death secures the levee for all of us. What are we but sandbags against a rising torrent….would you have us men as footstools in the parlor….lapdogs to caress in a moment of indolence? (thrusts fists against forehead in exasperation) I weep, I weep too!…Oh! that it was I who took up arms against such blackguards! That it was I that shamed and mocked and challenged those usurpers of government! Weep not for those boys,….such audacity of spirit and endurance of flesh strengthens a thousand fold the progeny and secures the breed to the future….(stands and points a finger to Mrs K) You wail and lament their fates, but they are builders of civilisations…only the slothful call them criminals, sloths too lazy to risk their own comforts!”
Mrs K’: ” Damn to civilisation! I would rather have my children!!”
Red K’: “Well and good, my dearest, for you cannot have both….and are not women the civilisers of mankind? what persuasions were used to make a man throw away his spear and take up the plough? What reward for such tedious labour?….To see his sons and daughters grow to be slaves to a despotic class of liars and thieves?..to be safe?..(turns and strolls in a circular pattern whilst expounding).Did not the Empress Livia spend sleepless nights poisoning the figs still hanging on the favourite tree of Caesar Augustus ; her husband and emperor, so as to implement her own and HER child’s designs on the purple? Subtle hand indeed, where a man would clumsily use the thrust of a sword and in turn be slain and so gain nothing for his enterprise…ah, no, more enduring are the civilisings of women,..So weep not for them, rather give Ned the courage to face his death with dignity,”
Mrs K.: “Well for you to give advice! you who fed his youthful heart with all the grievances of our race and inculcated vengeance into his spirit!”
Red K: “Ha! Ha!…yes, guilty I plead! A hundred times guilty! But what would you ; rather perhaps I left such injustices fester unchecked over a dozen generations? Such crimes agin’ a nation must be answered or that nation forfeit its right to statehood….but look not for the splinter in mine eye fair maiden, (sarcastically), what sweet serenading did fall like honey-drops into the children’s ears whilst thou cradled them to thy bosom? Quoth I: ” Ah there mother’s little man, hmm? are you mother’s little man?…yes we are, oh yes we are!” (mimics tickling action and tone of voice) Gently doth she finger his brow and fixes the gaze of adoration into innocent eye that so enhances the words and impress deeply the insinuation!……Quoth I: (after a fall or scrap’d knee):”There’s mother’s brave little man, You’ll show your mother how brave you are. ” or words to the effect, so does subtlety shape the spirit of the child, quiet whispe’d while with labour’d hand, the cradle is rock’d so does the wilyness of a woman succeed. where crude aggression of a man fall short…(suddenly stops the mimicry).but I am telling you nothing you do not already know with your own intuition….enough! I have no more business with you, go and give heart to the living, your voice is still heeded, mine (turns sadly away); dead!”
(He slips away).
Mrs K’: ” Wait!..Don’t go (clenches fist) just like a man to clear out when needed! . . .
(From the play : “An Arrogance of power”…)
Men have written most of the Australian histories and so the contribution and achievements of women in Australia have been overlooked and ignored. So to correct the record …..
While John Macarthur was exiled overseas for his part in the Bligh Mutiny, Elizabeth Macarthur was running Camden Park and the Spanish merino sheep flock. Later, while John was entertaining and outraging Camden settlers by running naked down the street after escaping his lock down for porphoryitis in the Camden Park library, Elizabeth was selecting Australian Merino sheep.
Meanwhile, two women were walking around Germany purchasing Saxon Merinos and exporting them to Australia, to Western Victoria and Tasmania.
There is a similar story about Jenny Anderson in 1970s -80s breeding Angora goats and that industry being established for fleece and meat exports.
NEC – Thank you!
Joe – do you simply accept things as they are or do you believe that change is necessary, and that it is worth making an effort to support that change?
Most of my life was spent as a teacher – mainly of mathematics but also by dint of being (as I still am) a parent – while later studying and practising law and mediation, a branch of alternative dispute resolution.
I do not claim to be an expert at anything but I grieve when I see people who need help and do not get it.
I admit I do not come from what – in England where I spent the first third of my life – would be called working class, but neither do I come from a background where I was more privileged than others. My father was a member of the British Labour Party while my mother was conservative, so I lived on both side of the fence.
I have friends from all walks of life, many of them would regard themselves as tradies, and none of them exhibit any chip on their shoulder attitudes.
Class warfare was not very obvious in the England I left behind, was not apparent in the union I belonged to while working in education and seems to live in your imagination in a more vivid state than in reality.
I do not know the answers to our many problems, but I am anxious to work with others who also care about the future, to try to ensure that fewer people are in want or pain through no fault of their own.
I do not seek recognition but to work with others to help those who need help.
Is there something wrong in that?
What do you want to get out of – and put into – life?