Rather, she thinks about her days as having 24 hours that she can balance between her personal and work lives, and her weeks as seven days that can also be carved up. 

Working across different timezones for Microsoft, she still works more than a 40-hour week but will take time out during the day for a few hours to do something else and catch up on the weekend.

Once a quarter, she blocks out a week where she puts herself on “leave from meetings” to focus on the big picture. She uses the time to focus on strategy, as well as team development and getting across the latest trends in the industry. 

As Director, Specialty Technology Unit at Microsoft, this approach to work is one Wise shares with her team, encouraging them to find what works best for them and being honest about how it’s working out for her.  

“I’m transparent about my challenges and success, and this gives them permission to do the same,” Wise tells Women’s Agenda.  

Microsoft’s approach to hybrid work and flexibility is bucking the trend of the push to get employees back to the office Monday to Friday. Team members can choose between working remotely for less than 50 per cent of their normal work week, or they can work remotely 100 per cent of the time if they have manager approval. 

The flex work policy is centred around recognising individual needs and promoting work-life balance. It also aims to support employees to work during the hours that are best for them in delivering according to expectations. It supports wellbeing and adaptability, but also productivity in recognising that people have individual approaches to getting their best work done. 

A blog post published more than four years ago by Kathleen Hogan, Executive Vic President and Chief People Officer, outlining the approach to flexibility still stands – again bucking the trend of some other tech firms to increasingly get people back to working in more traditional ways. “Moving forward,” she wrote in October 2021, “it is our goal to offer as much flexibility as possible to support individual workstyles while balancing business needs and ensuring we live our culture,” 

Increasingly, we’re seeing how workers want the best of both worlds when it comes to remote working and time spent in the office. Microsoft describes this as the “hybrid paradox”, noting figures from its 2021 Work Trends Index, a study of more than 31,000 workers in 31 countries, finding that 70 per cent of workers wanted flexible work to stay, but more than 65 per cent craved having more face to face time with their teams. 

For Elena Wise, staying flexible on how and when she works enables her to get the most out of her time, and to be constantly thinking about the future. She’ll dedicate headspace for planning, thinking and learning, and try to block out Mondays as meeting-free days – unless she needs to travel or there’s an urgent issue. “I use this time to get on top of key actions for the week ahead, and to upskill on some of our latest AI training, which really helps given how quickly the technology is moving.” 

With a career spanning some of the world’s largest organisations and biggest markets, including AMEX, PayPal and Google and ten years spent in Japan, Wise has developed her work style to be able to respond to needs across international borders. 

Asked how she establishes herself in new cities and markets, she recalls making her first international move and being given the advice always to give such a move at least six months because wherever you go, you’ll need time to adjust culturally and there will be times when you just want to pull the pin. “Patience is key,” she says. “Building relationships and trust is crucial and learning from different perspectives enriches your experience.” 

Wise says she spends time meeting people one-on-one both in work and social contexts, joining local business chambers, clubs and expat groups, and notes the importance of staying connected with current past colleagues and contacts. 

Wise is a pioneering woman in tech, now one of Microsoft’s most senior leaders in Australia and having spent years in senior leadership positions, including as country manager and GM Japan of PayPal and Country Manager of Google Technical Services in Japan and Korea. 

Looking broadly across the tech industry, she wants to see more companies pushing the focus beyond diversity and hiring to focus on inclusion, and understand women’s needs and perspectives. 

“There is a need to provide flexibility and tools for women to work in ways that suit their personal and professional goals, and not expect them to fit into rigid or traditional, often male-dominated or male-created, models,” she says. 

Wise wants to see more male allies getting involved in women’s networks and agendas to understand the experiences women have. She highlights one particularly positive experience of this at Microsoft, where she is seeing strong interest from male employees seeking guidance or support for partners experiencing menopause, which is one of the areas their Families Employee Resource Group is currently focusing on. 

“Companies in all sectors need to support women throughout their life cycle better, not just when they are having children, but also when they are caring for elderly parents, managing illness, or experiencing menopause, for example,” she says. 

Just as there is no one working style that will work for everyone, there is no set communication style for leading a successful team. 

“As leaders, we need to adapt our language and approach for different audiences/team members to help get the best outcomes – be those different genders, cultural backgrounds, or generational adjustments.”

Women’s Agenda spoke to Elena Wise to learn more about flexible work, thanks to our partnership with Family Friendly Workplaces.

This year Microsoft will be measuring their policies against the National Work + Family Standards as part of the Family Friendly Workplace Certification, having been certified for the previous two years already. Microsoft says it’s important employers pursue family-friendly workplace accreditation to demonstrate a commitment to work-life balance, gender equality, and employee well-being, and also for attracting and retaining the best talent and enhancing a company’s reputation. 

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That is according to the newly released Women on Boards’ (WOB) report, Truth Be Told: Cultural Diversity on Australian Boards.

The report audits the boards of 232 organisations across five sectors: Cooperative Research Centres (with 22 boards examined), Federal Government Bodies (top 94 by the remuneration of board members), National Sporting Organisations (60 boards), Research & Development Corporations (15), Universities (41). 

While gender balance was nearly achieved across all these sectors (46 per cent female and 54 per cent male), the overall cultural diversity was only at 12.5 per cent.

Universities performed best overall, achieving a 15.1 per cent rate of cultural diversity on their boards, and R&D Corps performed poorest, with zero cultural diversity evident from the desktop survey.

For Indigenous representation, the Federal Government came in the highest at 5.2 per cent. But further analysis found this to be skewed by the representation mostly coming from Indigenous-focused boards. Seventy-six per cent of Federal Government Bodies had zero Indigenous representation. 

Executive Director of Women on Boards, Claire Braund, said that a 20-year focus on gender diversity in Australia has inadvertently resulted in “replacing the old white boys’ club with the new white girls’ club.”

“Which is not to say this has been a poor outcome, but we clearly need to use the lessons we have learnt in bringing women into the boardroom to springboard to being more culturally inclusive on our boards.”

Claire Braund, Executive Director of Women on Boards

Recommendations for improvement

Following their research, WOB has made some recommendations for organisations to begin addressing the issues impacting the lack of cultural diversity on boards. 

WOB suggests organisations review and establish a consistent definition of what’s considered to be culturally diverse. This goes along with Recommendation 6 of the 2022 WGEA Review13 to undertake qualitative research with relevant stakeholders on the best way to collect more diversity data in addition to gender data. 

Next, WOB points to Diversity Council Australia’s (DCA) recommendation to address cultural gaps by regularly undertaking an annual Counting Culture Survey, which can be extended to Boards.

It’s also important for organisations to report changes in their cultural diversity. WOB encourages the Australian Business Registry Service to add ethnicity as an option category for all people requiring a Director ID, and suggests ASIC to report on the cultural diversity of directors.

On LinkedIn, WOB recommends an added field for showing a person’s ethnicity/culture to encourage professionals to self-identify. 

Boards should include ethnicity in their board skills / experience matrix as well to ensure gender and cultural diversity are part of their recruitment process. And WOB has called for boards to include ethnicity in published director profile information. 

Braund said that “when you consider that more than 50 per cent of Australia’s population was either born overseas or are first generation Australians, there is quite a gap to close in order to better capture the experience and skills brought by our rich multicultural society on boards.”

“It is clear that while we can wait for a formal or legislated agenda, focussed attention from industry and organisations will drive the positive change we need in this area – just as it did gender balance on boards.”

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The target, first reported by Nine newspapers, is for 40 per cent of board positions at each state-owned corporation and public financial corporation to be held by women. When combined, the target is for 50 per cent of positions across the corporations to be held by women.

The NSW government is looking to achieve the targets at state-owned corporation boards by the end of the year, and soon after that for public financial corporations.

State-owned corporations in NSW include Transport Asset Holding Entity of NSW (TAHE), Essential Energy, Forestry Corporation of NSW, Hunter Water, Port Authority of NSW, Sydney Water, Landcom, and Water NSW. There are two public financial corporations in NSW: icare and NSW Treasury Corporation (Tcorp).

The announcement from Kean comes after he recently called out several publicly listed companies for the lack of female representation on their boards.

Earlier this year, Kean announced the formation of a landmark women’s review and expert panel, designed to examine how economic opportunities can be improved for women in NSW. Headed by Chief Executive Women president Sam Mostyn, the expert panel also includes names like CEO of the Muslim Women Association Maha Abdo OAM, and educator Daisy Turnbull.

Last month, Kean put pressure on the federal government to deliver more affordable early childhood education and care, saying the NSW state government would step in to address the sector if the Morrison government did not.

“Universal, affordable and accessible childcare is no silver bullet but it is a necessary step if we are to address the structural barriers that women face right across our country,” Kean said at the time.

“Canberra should lead, but if Canberra does not, this is too important an issue to leave to the policy graveyard of state-federal relations.”

The NSW budget is expected to be delivered in June.

Last week, NSW Labor was quick to point out that women currently comprise 37 per cent of positions on NSW government boards that come under Kean’s own Treasury portfolio.

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According to Realindex’s study on gender diversity in the private sector, companies with more women in senior management teams have about 30 per cent higher profit margins than those with lower gender diversity.

Also, companies with more gender diverse senior management teams generated cumulative return-on-equity almost 30 per cent higher than companies with less gender diversity over a 5-year period.

The study, titled Beyond Lip Service: tracking the impact of the gender diversity gap, is based on global data of 2500 large cap companies in 30 countries, over a period of more than a decade.

Looking beyond board diversity data, the study examined executive and senior management team composition. It highlights that while government enforced quotas have led to higher participation of women on boards over the last decade, without these quotas for senior management teams, women are being left behind in C-suite representation.

Dr Joanna Nash, a co-author of the study, said the data clearly shows more gender diverse leadership teams deliver better performance outcomes.

“To understand the impact of gender diversity on company performance and investment returns, we cross-referenced the gender data with multiple company attributes such as return on equity and profit margins,” Dr Nash said.

“The analysis showed a clear correlation between greater diversity and better company performance.

“There has been a long-held notion that improved diversity leads to better teams and decision-making. Realindex has interrogated a comprehensive global data set to test this notion, and it’s clear that female participation in leadership teams is good for companies, shareholders and investors.”

Globally, investors are missing out because they are not recognising the performance advantage of companies with more gender diversity in leadership.

Investing in “high diversity firms” relative to “low diversity firms” can potentially generate an annual return premium of 2. 5 per cent for diverse boards and a 4 per cent annual premium for diverse senior management, the data shows.

“The gender diversity premium has not yet been priced in by the market, meaning that investors who can identify companies with higher diversity, especially in senior management, may generate higher investor returns compared to the benchmark,” Dr Nash said.

Study co-author Dr Ron Guido said without external pressure, promises to achieve gender diversity “are simply lip service”.

“Analysis shows that quotas are more effective than disclosure in boosting female representation – although both are important,” Dr Guido said.

“This is evident in the higher proportion of women on boards in markets where minimum levels are mandated. The proportion of women in senior management lags in nearly all markets where there are no such requirements for gender balance.”

The report also describes the formation of “pink ghettos”, a phenomenon that sees women relegated to senior management and executive positions outside of the CEO role, often in HR, marketing and legal.

“Even when women do form part of the management team, they are concentrated in several functions outside of the CEO role which are less likely to be a launch-pad into the top job, such as human resources and company secretariat. To achieve equality, we need to fill the CEO pipeline with more women,” Dr Guido said.

In Australia, according to the 2021 Chief Executive Women Senior Leadership Census, there were 18 female CEOs in the ASX 300, and out of the 23 new CEO appointments in 2021, only one was a woman.

Despite the slow progress on women being appointed to CEO positions, Australia was noted in the study for its improvements in board and senior management representation over the past ten years.

Although still sitting at 30 per cent of women in senior management roles, between 2010 and 2021, Australian companies have more than doubled the number of women in senior management. The report says this is likely due to Australia’s disclosure requirements, with large companies needing to report on the percentage of women at board and senior management levels.

“With these numbers more visible in investors’ minds, it puts pressure on these companies to do better beyond the board. It may also have become more apparent to the companies themselves, as they are forced to review these numbers each year and disclose them to staff,” the report states.

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Cricket Australia has made a significant contribution to gender diversity policy by producing a very detailed set of rules for elite-level cricket, and guidelines for community cricket.

They provide much needed clarity around what’s expected of transgender and gender diverse athletes, and what’s being asked of cricket clubs.

Read more:
Elite sport is becoming a platform to target the trans community

On a global scale, including transgender and gender diverse athletes into sport is a work in progress. So far, in top-level competitions, only the female category has been a cause for debate, stemming from the conclusion that male athletes have physical advantages over female athletes in terms of speed, strength and physique.

For men transitioning to women (M2F), sports need assurance that this competitive advantage has been suitably reduced by surgical transition or taking hormones.

In any case, transgender and gender diverse people face social acceptance challenges, to put it mildly. Cricket Australia, along with other Australian sports bodies who are starting to catch on, is providing unprecedented opportunities for people who, while “different”, can fit in and feel welcomed.

For instance, Erica James, a cricketer who returned to the sport as a M2F player after 27 years, shows how inclusive sport clubs can boost mental health and self-esteem, as the video below shows.

A policy drawn from international guidelines

In terms of elite-level competition, Cricket Australia has followed the International Cricket Council’s Gender Recognition Policy from 2017, which was developed to accommodate transgender and gender diverse athletes in international tournaments or series.

From a biological perspective, the International Cricket Council drew on the International Olympic Committee’s Transgender Guidelines. The IOC’s position is that a M2F athlete who aspires to enter the women’s category of sport must:

demonstrate that her total testosterone level in serum has been below 10 nmol/L [Nanomoles Per Litre] for at least 12 months prior to her first competition (with the requirement for any longer period to be based on a confidential case-by-case evaluation).

Read more:
By excluding Hannah Mouncey, the AFL’s inclusion policy has failed a key test

This it what Cricket Australia has put in place. But the International Olympic Committee’s guidelines may change before the 2020 Olympics.

Meanwhile, there is currently robust debate, most notably in the UK, about the efficacy of the International Olympic Committee’s policy position.

Critics are underwhelmed by the International Olympic Committee’s lack of detail about how – from a scientific perspective – the transition requirements meet this IOC mantra:

The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition.

The problem is lack of detail. It’s not clear what evidence the policy is based upon. It may be scientifically sound, but it’s not in the public domain.

Legal frameworks around inclusion

In terms of high-performance sport, Cricket Australia’s transgender and gender diverse policy is, to some extent, constrained by what relevant international bodies put in place.

Cricket Australia has committed to review the policy annually. This means it can respond to any substantive changes to international sport, and fine-tune for the Australian context.

Read more:
Israel Folau’s comments remind us homophobia and transphobia are ever present in Australian sport

Importantly, Cricket Australia’s transgender and gender diverse framework is broadly consistent with recently released guidelines produced by the Australian Human Rights Commission and Sport Australia.

This guide provides critical insights into the legal frameworks around inclusion and discrimination, including exemptions relating to strength, stamina and physique.

Assuming due diligence around these obligations, Australian sports are entitled to form specific rules that suit their own competitive environment.

The AFL, for instance, has independently adopted more stringent requirements than Cricket Australia. For M2F players in elite women’s competition, their diversity policy requires a maximum of 5 nmol/L of testosterone for a minimum of a two-year transition period.

The logistics at a community club level

In terms of uptake of players, Cricket Australia’s new policy is likely to resonate most at the recreational level of sport. As the policy states:

Any transgender or gender diverse person is eligible to play cricket at a community level. A player is required to nominate their gender identity at the time of registration, demonstrating a commitment that their gender identity is consistent across other aspects of everyday life.

Read more:
Why sport hasn’t made much progress on LGBTI+ rights since the Sochi Olympics

This is encouraging to people whose birth sex is different to their gender identity: they can find a place in grassroots cricket. But Cricket Australia is relying on both participants and clubs to manage that process with decorum.

M2F cricketers, like other athletes, need to be positioned in teams at a level that’s appropriate to their ability.

Should the performance of a M2F player be disproportionate to their peers in physical prowess (not merely technique), umpires have the capacity to moderate, especially if there are safety issues (which can be found across different levels of cricket).

Read more:
Hostility to elite trans athletes is having a negative impact on participation in everyday sport

More commonly, though, both umpires and clubs will be asked to monitor performance “mismatches” – something they do as a matter of course in community cricket.

Finally, there are logistical challenges. A common initiative Cricket Australia recommends is for clubs to have a gender-neutral bathroom. Most already have facilities for the disabled, so that process is not new.

Another option some transgender and gender diverse athletes look forward to is a capacity to shower privately.

Reconfiguring existing facilities, with provisions for modesty, may be all that’s needed. And such a renovation could well be in demand by other groups, such as women from cultural backgrounds where bodily privacy is a default expectation.

Funding to allow for these changes would need to be sought, in the usual manner, via grants from local councils, Sport Australia, or indeed Cricket Australia.

Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) has revealed that as at the end of June 2019 women represented 29.7 per cent of directors on ASX 200 boards. This is just below the 30% target established by the AICD in 2015, that was meant to be achieved by the end of 2018.

While gender diversity on these boards has climbed by more than 10 per cent since 2015, this growth was not enough to meet the target and the numbers have not changed since December 2018.

AICD Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Angus Armour said it was disappointing to see gender diversity progress stalling on ASX 200 boards.

“While gender diversity on boards is not sliding backwards, the figures haven’t shifted since December 2018 and clearly more work needs to be done,” he said.

“Boards struggling with gender diversity should ask themselves if their search processes are effective and competitive enough to access the large talent pool of female directors in Australia.The AICD will continue to advocate strongly on gender diversity.”

In 2019, the percentage of female appointments to ASX 200 boards is 29.1 per cent.

The push for the 30 per cent target has been hindered by four ASX 200 companies that still have no women at all on their boards in June 2019. HUB24 Limited, NRW Holdings Limited, Emeco Holding Limited and TPG Telecom Limited are the four companies named by the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Research shows that companies with strong diversity have better competitive performance, talent management and risk mitigation. Further, women having a strong voice in the boardroom consistently translates to better financial performance.

Earlier this year, Future Super became the first super fund to completely exclude investments from companies that have no women on their boards.

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Based on the current pool of preselected major party candidates, it is also clear that Australia lags behind other comparable countries on key diversity markers.

McKell Institute researchers have crunched the numbers on Australia’s major party candidates running for the House of Representatives in the upcoming federal election. It has found that come May 18, Australian voters will very have limited options.

While women make up 50% of Australia’s population, only 37% of candidates from the major parties are women. At this current rate, it will take 8 elections cycles reach gender parity.

Those with a disability are underrepresented and severely lack a voice in the Australian parliament. Only 1% of candidates from the major parties have a disability, compared to 18% of the population. One in three Australian households have a person living with a disability and nearly half of Australians with a disability live near or below the poverty line.

Just 8% of major party candidates are from ethnically diverse backgrounds, compared to 24% of the general population. It is also noted Australia’s legislature is far less culturally diverse than countries like Canada, the United States and the UK.

There is also a lack of Indigenous representation in federal parliament, with less than 2% of candidates being Indigenous, compared to 3.3% of the population.

“Our data shows the new Parliament will not be representative of Australia’s demographics,” said Marianna O’Gorman, Executive Director of the McKell Institute Queensland.

“This is an impediment to delivering a legislative agenda that addresses the needs of everyday Australians.”

While the research indicates that the parliament is very slowly moving in the right direction in terms of gender equality, other key diversity measures are completely unrepresented and unchanging.

“Australians living with a disability, and Australians from ethnically diverse backgrounds are woefully underrepresented in the current Parliament and will remain so after May 18,” said O’Gorman.

Will the next Parliament be as cultural diverse as Australian society? 1 in 10 candidates for 2019 election are from culturally diverse backgrounds (cf 24% of AU population) https://t.co/tkfrnbvUEx #ausvotes

— Marianna O’Gorman (@ogormanmarianna) April 15, 2019

“For a nation that prides itself on being a multicultural success story, we need to look at not only how we can encourage more diverse candidates to run, but also how we can ensure they are made to feel welcome and accommodated when they get into office.”

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A series of appointments announced by Grant Thornton on Monday mean women have gone from comprising 22% of the company’s board earlier this year to 44% by Christmas 2018.

The election of a new chair, Louise McCann, to replace the outgoing chair Tony Crawford who is stepping down after an 8-year term, and the appointment of two new female directors has significantly boosted the representation of women on the board.

Louise has been a member of the board since August 2014 and is the first female chair for the tax and advisory firm.

Grant Thornton’s head of National Specialist Tax, Elizabeth Lucas, and experienced non-executive director, Andrea Waters, will join the new board, with another new recruit, Tim Hands a Grant Thornton partner in Brisbane.

“We are proud to have four women on our Board who are exemplars of our culture, our commitment to diversity, providing our firm with strategic direction and outstanding leadership,” Greg Keith the CEO of Grant Thornton Australia said.

Greg Keith, Diane Grady AM, Mark Phillips, Michael Catterall and Peter Woodley round out the nine-member board.

“I would like to welcome the new members of our Board as well as thank Tony Crawford for his leadership during a time of unprecedented change for Grant Thornton,” Keith said.

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Women in the Workplace 2018 a study conducted in partnership with LeanIn.org drew on data from 279 companies employing 13 million individuals, as well as a series of qualitative interviews and survey findings from 64,000 of those workers.

The results showed that although women continue to surpass their male counterparts on education, ask for pay-rises and promotions at the same rate and stay in the workplace for as long, they are still routinely overlooked. Women remain grossly underrepresented and this is amplified even more when it comes to women of colour.

It has never been more necessary for progressive employers to act purposefully and decisively to shift the dial.

So what can be done?

• Hiring and promotions overhaul

Working toward true diversity and gender equal representation requires a meaningful examination of hiring and promotions processes. Despite more women graduating university than men, women are still less likely to be hired into entry-level positions.

They are also far less likely to be hired into managerial positions, and their odds reduce even more significantly when it comes to promotions into these roles. Because of this, men currently hold 62 percent of manager positions, where women hold just 38 percent.

If this trend continues, the number of female managers will increase by just one percentage point over the next decade, but if hiring and promotions are awarded at equal rates, 48 percent women and 52 percent men will hold managerial positions within the same time frame.

It’s up to companies to start thinking differently and acting fast.

• Acting on everyday discrimination

Some alarming trends emerged from McKinsey’s findings including; bullying, sexual harassment, and abuses of power.

Almost two thirds of women reported that micro-aggressions were a workplace reality. One commonly cited example was being forced to prove their competency more intensely than men as well as being mistaken for a junior employee at twice the rate as their male counterparts.

Lesbian women are significantly more likely to hear demeaning remarks about themselves at work, and are far less likely to talk about their personal lives.

Another stark finding, showed that 35 percent of women in corporate America had experienced sexual harassment at some point during their career. This increased to 55 percent for women in senior leadership, 48 percent for lesbian women and 45 percent for women in technical roles.

This trend is patent; women who do not conform to typical feminine ideals are more likely to be subjected to sexual harassment and assault.

While a growing number of companies boast strict ‘no tolerance’ policies on sexual harassment, only 60 percent of employees felt that sexual harassment claims would be appropriately dealt with by their employer.

It’s up to HR teams and direct managers to offer comprehensive training for employees and rigorous support mechanisms for victims. An audit process would likewise ensure that reports were acted on quickly and investigations thorough.

• Eliminating ‘The Only’ experience for women

Women experience feeling like “the only one” at a high rate in corporate America. This includes incidents like ‘the only woman in the boardroom’, ‘the only woman on the panel’, and ‘the only woman in the interview’.

Women who are in this position are facing greater obstacles than women who work with other women. For example, more than 80 percent reported being on the receiving end of micro-aggressions, compared with 64 percent as a whole.

Most worryingly, women ‘Onlys’ are almost twice as likely to have been sexually harassed at some point in their careers.

Where women are isolated in roles, employers should make a conscious and speedy effort to diversify the sector quickly. Quotas may assist in this instance.

You can read the full report here. 

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In a wide ranging interview with Women’s Agenda, Lyons also spoke about the role of men working flexibly in the push for workplace gender equality.

“Men fear that by more women participating in work, that what they earn or what they do, becomes less,” Lyons said. “It’s actually the opposite, the pie gets bigger.”

The push for gender equality in Australian workplaces is increasingly driving debate on social media, particularly when it comes to what’s fair in a somewhat unequal playing field.

Lyons, whose role is to drive change on gender diversity and data collection for Australia, says fear is playing a role in holding back the pace of progress.

“What we need is that level playing field for us all to have equal choice and that’s what we don’t have at the moment,” she said

“We are a society that has been patriarchal and we have for generation upon generation relied upon men to be the bread winners.

“Women want to help shoulder that responsibility.

“We need to understand that in [men] giving up any responsibility and giving up something that [they] have grown up with and that [they] believe was something that [they] had to do, is hard to relinquish.

“What men must understand is that by women wanting a career, it actually makes the pie grow bigger, not smaller.

“That is of benefit, not just to me, not just to my family but to the community and to the economy as a whole.”

Over the past five years, the pay gap as reported by WGEA has fallen year-on-year, as its collection of data from 11,000 private sector companies with more than 100 employees creates competitive tension and some progress on gender diversity.

But that progress isn’t happening at a national level. The pay gap has hovered between 15% to 20% for over two decades, as measured by Australian Bureau of Statistics data and as reported by the Financy Women’s Index.

Flexible work needed

Lyons says that to achieve gender equality, employers need to be more supportive of men who want to work flexibly.

She also said that WGEA is watching with interest to see what change, if any, occurs in the United Kingdom which recently introduced mandatory reporting, and a harder line stance through the naming and shaming of companies who report on their gender pay gap data.

According to WGEA’s data, around 70 per cent of Australian workplaces offer some form of flexible work.

But it’s mostly women who take up those flexible opportunities due largely to the fact they they’re more likely to care for loved ones outside of traditional in-office work hours.

“Women work flexibly at more than three times the rate of men,” said Lyons. “The key here is getting more men to work flexibly.”

Lyons believes that we need to see employers putting targets in place on the take up of men working flexibly.

“If we know that the normalisation of working flexibly means we will see more women in leadership, then it goes without saying that we need to start seeing more men embracing working flexibly,” she said.

“We know that they [men] want to [work flexibly] but we know also that when a man puts in an application to work flexibly that they are twice as likely to be rejected as a woman. That’s not good.”

Lyons said putting targets in place on flexible work will help ensure men get a better deal — which will consequently see women given greater opportunities to have flexible careers.

Work in the home

Currently, it’s estimated that women are putting in significantly more unpaid work at home than men.

Lyons says we need to shift the balance.

“We need men to take a greater role in that, but we have to help them get there too,” she said.

But sometimes men can feel judged for needing to be away from work to take a greater role in family life, said Lyons.

“If they want to leave work early three days a week to take pick up the children from school or take their elderly relative to medical appointments, they feel like they are being judged and they are being told they are not taking their career seriously. That’s nonsense,” she said.

“In order to get anywhere in this journey, we need men with us. This is not a women’s issue, this is an issue for all of us. This is an issue for the economic betterment of everybody.

“This is not something that women can achieve by themselves.”

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Women in media (and beyond) publicly rebuked the network for a blatantly biased lineup of new programs to be piloted next year in which eight men were at the forefront and exactly zero women.

Jane Kennedy first tweeted yesterday with a picture of the lineup and a sardonic quip about the volume of “clever funny men” who had the “opportunity to pilot their own shows.”

Oh Look!! How very exciting for all these men!!! And look! … There’s a lady in this picture with the remote control so she can watch all the clever funny men who have the opportunity to pilot their own shows @channelten @Colvick @theheraldsun @DailyMailUK @dailytelegraph pic.twitter.com/amzX7N9EJv

— Jane Kennedy (@Jane_L_Kennedy) July 22, 2018

Her post went viral, with other women in the industry adding their voice to the mix of disgruntlement. Meshel Laurie responded first, tweeting: ‘We’re so lucky we have so many funny men to laugh at.’

Jane replied: ‘Here’s the thing. I do have so many funny men in my life. And the guys in this photo (with the exception of Sam Dastyari) are all funny buggers. I am curious to know if any women were given the opportunity to propose a show? I’m also not counting “co-hosts” by the way.’

It’s a very fair point.

Speaking to the Herald Sun, Ten program chief Beverley McGarvey said: ‘The reaction’s probably not surprising but we are a bit disappointed.’

She defended Channel Ten’s decision in this case, saying the pilot lineup was not reflective of the network’s diversity of programs throughout the year.

‘We have so many shows on the schedule that are fronted by women and so many amazing female executive producers running our shows,’ she said.

That may be true (though we’re disinclined to count the Bachelorette in this equation) but in this case, Channel Ten has well and truly dropped the ball. For a struggling network, such a brazen mistake is costly. Not only were women left out of the mix of ‘pilot week’, the lineup–as pointed out by radio host Em Rusciano– was almost entirely “straight, white men.”

My love for @jane_l_kennedy has just reached fever pitch. Channel 10 have a pilot week coming up, of the EIGHT shows they’re trying exactly ZERO are fronted by women and exactly EIGHT are straight, white, men. I’ve got a show idea, so do about FIFTEEN other funny women I know. POOR FORM.

A post shared by E m R u s c i a n o (@emrusciano) on Jul 21, 2018 at 10:37pm PDT

Aside from former disgraced Senator, Sam Dastyari not one of the men included was of a different cultural or ethnic background. They were all straight and no individuals with disabilities were included.

Australia is a diverse place. We have so many different backgrounds to celebrate– 50 percent of which, are female. Channel Ten missed the mark here in a big way, and if they double down on this decision it’ll likely cause them some prolonged grief.

The post Channel Ten is ‘disappointed’ with reactions to all-male pilot lineup. They don’t know the half of it. appeared first on Women's Agenda.

Theatre buffs will no doubt have already purchased tickets to Bell Shakespeare’s latest production of Julius Caesar but for those of us less consistently cultured, there’s another reason to get excited: The play will move ahead with a stellar line-up of immensely talented, ethnically diverse, female performers at its forefront.

And though some may argue that a play originally written in 1599 and chronicling the life and death of the most famous Roman Emperor (and his not-so-loyal compatriot, Brutus) is not one that easily lends itself to central female roles, they’d be wrong.

NIDA graduate, Emily Havea is one of the production’s leads, expertly navigating a double-role as Calphurnia, Julius Caesar’s wife and Octavius, the future leader of Rome. She says the dynamic of this blend as well as Bell Shakespeare’s interpretation of the original characters, makes her role as a performer all the more interesting.

“It’s a really fun double to play”, she tells me, “going from being the wife of a leader to a leader and to just play with that balance.”

With an impressive career already established in film and television (including a recent stint on Foxtel’s acclaimed Wentworth) Emily says she has a unique love for the immediacy of theatre “and seeing the response of people firsthand.”

Maryanne Fonceca, another NIDA alumni who plays the role of Brutus’ wife Portia, says the sheer command of her character in the play was what gripped her from the outset.

“Unlike a lot of Shakespeare’s plays in which his female characters are the love interest and they’re quite subservient, Portia is a character who isn’t afraid to challenge the male in her life and hold a mirror up to him and confront him,” she says.

“Portia only appears in two scenes in Julius Caesar but for me, the relationship she has with Brutus—she packs a punch.”

As young actor of mixed heritage (Anglo Indian/Nepalese) Maryanne’s portrayal of Portia is in line with her greater aspirations as a woman in the industry. “Being surrounded by a strong team of powerful women in the cast,” is hugely motivating and inspiring she says.

“One of my biggest aspirations currently is for the representation of people of colour, women of colour, for those stories to be at the forefront of the industry more.”

Emily agrees, describing the diversity of the Julius Caesar cast as “a blessing” particularly in the current social climate.

“Five out of five women in the cast are women of colour, which is just incredible,” she says.

“For such a mainstage company presenting Shakespeare — which is synonymous with an old, white person—to have such a diverse cast is a blessing and so much fun to be a part of,” she says.

It’s something both women feel distinguishes the ethos of Bell Shakespeare from other performing arts companies.

“I think what’s really interesting about James Evans and the company here, is they take a really strong standpoint on empowering Shakespeare’s female characters, which I mean obviously for the time, wasn’t what Shakespeare wrote,” explains Emily.

Maryanne says the content of Shakespeare’s original works are given new life in this way. “It’s so important for the content of Bell Shakespeare productions to be relevant and hold meaning for young people in society,” she says.

While Bell Shakespeare remains ahead of the curve in embracing diversity, both women feel the Australian industry more broadly still has a long way to go and efforts need to be better than tokenistic.

Drawing on examples of current Netflix productions, Maryanne says that the types of shows common in the UK and the US, unlike Australia, are not about the “otherness” of characters but rather their unique experiences as humans.

“They have such a body of work that represents people from different backgrounds,” she says. “But it’s not about the colour of their skin, it’s about their experience as teenagers or mothers or families.”

It’s a belief shared by her castmate who says the Australian performing arts industry suffers from physical geographical isolation but also its damaged past and complex relationship with its Indigenous people.

“It’s a huge thing that holds Australia back”, Emily says. “If we can’t look back to the genocide of the past how do we expect to move forward in a positive way?”

“Australia is such a young country as well, and we’re still finding our identity and our relationship to each other” Maryanne agrees. “We’re making traction, but there’s still a long way to go.”

In terms of their careers and capacity to excel however, both women have high hopes and cite #MeToo and #TimesUp as watershed movements for an industry historically tainted by sexual misconduct.

“I think it’s a really galvanising time to be a female in any industry and even more so in a creative industry where I think our job as performers is to reflect to society,” Emily says.

“It’s had a huge impact.”

Julius Caesar is playing at Arts Centre Melbourne from 18-28 July; Canberra Theatre Centre from 12-20 October and Sydney Opera House from 23 October  – 25 November.

The post The diverse female cast behind Bell Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar appeared first on Women's Agenda.