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It felt like a turning point. Female athletes and their supporters were saying no, we will not stand by while this happens. That sexual harassment has no place in our game. That female athletes should be able to do their jobs without abuse.
The AFL's announcement that AFLX would be scrapped after two seasons, despite heavy media coverage, was a strong indication of the league's commitment to women's football. It now needs to follow up with commitments that reflect the increasing scale and importance of the women's competition to the league.
To accuse someone of being 'politically correct' has become a fast and effective way to shut down attempts to make public spaces safe and welcoming to all people. It means that those whose words and actions are at best thoughtless and at worst discriminatory can continue to avoid having to think about what they said or did.
It isn't just mothers and wives who bear the burden. Many households outsource domestic labour to nannies, housekeepers and cleaners. These workers are part of a vast global industry that employs 100 million people around the world. They are usually women from poor backgrounds who are rarely paid well for their labour.
The fight for equality is an external, social, economic and political battlefield. Sometimes the fight is in our own heads, and we can internalise some of that misogyny. In between tearing each other down, putting dinner on and exercising some self-loathing while we're at it, how can one find the time to identify all of the ways a person can internalise the patriarchy?
I wasn't born here. My family migrated to Australia when I was young and so I enjoyed the privilege of growing up without the war and discrimination that has marred my birth land, although there is a different type of discrimination that I have had to face being an Asian in Australia. In being here though I know I am living on stolen land.
Employer-led change is happening. But if we want men to take on a greater role in caregiving, what we need is structural change: universal, use-it-or-lose-it parental leave offered to both parents instead of the old primary/secondary caregiver model that entrenches existing gender roles.
I do not believe that most people do accept these violations of dignity, these instigations of shame. But the fact that we as a nation have tolerated these settings for so long makes it look like neoliberalism has crept into our souls, that we accept the institutionalisation of fear and shame.
Women's groups were initially cut out of this year's budget lockup with just two representatives admitted after fighting tooth-and-nail for the privilege. With such hostility to our cause it is hardly surprising to find the budget holds little hope for women in resolving the structural inequalities baked into our lives.
Oh, what I would give to be able to vote for an Australian Ardern, or to see either major party boldly back a woman leader with the grit and humanity exhibited by AOC. Because the 'same-old' bungling status quo of Australian politics is failing us. The lack of support for women looking to become tomorrow's leaders is failing us.
International Women's Day is as good a day as any to take stock of where we actually are in terms of current feminist issues and how much we still need to accomplish. As much as there is to celebrate, a glance at the news is a confirmation of our own worst fears about ourselves.
If the rest of Australia was as brave as those four women who told their stories, and confronted their fears regarding the full extent of what safety, autonomy and equality for Aboriginal women might truly look like — free from racism, sexism and a state which continues to benefit from our oppression — things could actually get better.
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