I joined 6 other speakers, each sharing a different reflection on that dateful moment in 2012. When it was my turn to speak, I stared into the dark and took two deep breaths, before sharing why I had spent the past six years working to progress gender equality, why I’d founded Raise Our Voice Australia, a social enterprise aimed at mobilising young women and gender diverse people to transform policy and politics, and the legacy of that now famous speech for young people.

The audience was full of women, many of whom had brought their daughters, eager to share intergenerational reflections on this visceral rallying call as our highest political leader spoke up against treatment women had experienced for decades. In conversations afterwards, I heard both their optimism, and their frustration in how far we still had to go.

As part of my role leading Raise Our Voice Australia, I speak to young women and gender diverse people every week. Overwhelmingly, these young people, aged between 12-32 from across Australia, are smart, driven, and have a clear idea of the future they want to create – a future centred on climate change, equality, positive mental health, and support for education. Their message is clear: we’re passionate, can lead important change, and we don’t want to run for office as we don’t want to be in the firing line. Because, despite measures to get more women into politics, the lack of media accountability is stark.

I founded Raise Our Voice Australia in 2020, after years lamenting the absence of young women and gender diverse people from the seats of Australia’s parliaments. Years before, I co-founded a campaign to help young people ask “why not me?” when looking at their political representatives. After working in domestic policy and foreign policy as a senior policy officer, it was clear to me that those with the most at stake – young people – were missing from this decision making. Raise Our Voice Australia started with a training program, sharing knowledge on and networks in these key areas, before launching campaigns to connect young people with their elected representatives, running research, and building our community.

At Raise Our Voice Australia, we talk about how politics for women is shifting, and yet, this week was a visceral reminder that despite some positive shifts since 2017, some things haven’t changed.

You don’t have to look far to find a negative media story about women in the public eye, especially near the campaign trail. While gender was a key talking point in the 2022 federal election, media reporting of women remains reliant on outdated tropes. Who’s taking care of her family? Variations on “she was too emotional”. And recently, when I saw that Nine edited Georgie Purcell’s photo, enlarging her breasts and editing in a non-existent midriff, I was irate.

When Nine blamed its editing of Georgie Purcell’s photo – the youngest member of Victorian Parliament and a young, passionate woman who’s upset many on the conservative side of politics with her progressive views and her tendency to challenge the status quo – their excuses seemed laughable. It takes no stretch of the imagination to believe that the photo editing was deliberate.

After Adobe denied Nine’s claims of “but it was the AI,” the final insult was The Australian newspaper describing Purcell as a “ former stripper,” seemingly aimed at devaluing her worth and status as an important female politician based on her prior employment. In 2022, research conducted by Raise Our Voice Australia in partnership with the Body Shop Australia New Zealand, found that 13 per cent of young women and gender‑diverse people felt represented in politics, with just 35 per cent saying they would consider politics as a career.

Interrogating the media’s treatment of women in the public eye, 87 per cent of respondents reported that representation of women in politics by the media is mostly negative. Respondents cited the treatment of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, alongside the commentary surrounding Brittany Higgins, and Grace Tame. Other respondents noted the additional vitriol levelled as women of colour, First Nations people, gender diverse people, disabled people and sex workers.

In Australia, many of our media companies lack integrity. Too many rely on manufacturing outrage and printing stories that devalue women. When Georgie is described as a “former stripper” whether we like it or not, people click on the stories, and media companies know this. It’s gross and demeaning, reminiscent of a bunch of boys jeering and letting the woman know that they don’t value her achievements.

Like many media subjects before her, Georgie is an impressive MP, and a role model to so many young people, myself including. In the age of TikTok, too many articles are the product of the attention economy and drive click-bait journalism. What happened to pieces that are fact checked and rigorous? What happened to quality journalism? Some might even argue the public must also be held responsible for the maintenance of these tropes – after all, it’s us in the comment sections driving these debates. But, where are the media organisations leading a nuanced discussion on issues of policy rather than publishing the same tired,misogynistic click bait?

Four years into running Raise Our Voice Australia, I’m often overwhelmed by the scope of the problem we’re trying to fix. I’m frustrated. Frustrated that with every step forward, there’s someone – a journalist, editor or media outlet – who refuses to move. That we continue to ask women to “just put their hands up” or “lean in” while we tear them down in the media and in comment sections. The business case for diversity is strong: when we have more diversity in leadership, better outcomes are reached. And who doesn’t want better outcomes for all Australians?

Last year, I completed Pathways to Politics through Melbourne University. I’m determined that these hateful bullies do not win. In a cohort of 30 women, I received training on how to run for office and hear from incredible women political leaders.

If we truly want a better future, we need change, and we need accountability. It’s time that media outlets took some responsibility, and we the public voted with our clicks. If you’re sexist, I won’t subscribe. Newspapers are a declining medium, so if they want Gen Z, millennial and Gen X subscribers, they need to refocus their stories to meet our modern standards of inclusion and diversity.

As for Georgie? I couldn’t have more admiration for her courage, and for calling out this misogyny. But she shouldn’t have to. It’s time for change. The stakes are too high not to.

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For the last five years, I’ve focused on getting more young women into politics, building on a further five years leading youth movements creating political change. I’ve been recognised on a domestic and international level, have run workshops at the UN, and been invited to speak to international audiences on youth engagement with politics. But not once have I seriously considered running for office (despite being asked many, many times), nor have I ever been tempted to join a political party. To be honest, I’m not sure that our political system will let me create the change I wish to see – and I’m terrified of the way women in the public eye are treated, a concern often reflected to me by the young women and gender diverse people I work with.

So, it was no surprise to my team at Raise Our Voice Australia when our recent survey of young women and gender diverse people, conducted in partnership with The Body Shop ANZ, showed young women and gender diverse people are disgusted with the culture of politics and want to influence decision-making, but are avoiding the toxic halls of parliament with a barge-pole. But this group is not to be underestimated: young women and gender diverse people are ready to wield their votes at the coming election, with 83% of female and gender diverse respondents aged 30 and under reporting that they are far more likely to make an informed vote. In 2020, an estimated 3.2 million young people aged 15–24 lived in Australia, making up 12% of the Australian population. Young women and gender diverse people make up about half of this. While this might seem small, if we were to be represented adequately, we would see just over 13 politicians sitting in parliament, enough to make or break a bill. Candidates: ignore this group at your peril.

Further to this, 44% of respondents said they’d be less likely to pursue a career in politics in response to the events of the last 12 months, with 61% of this cohort indicating that media discussions have been a discouraging factor. 37% of respondents said they were less likely to become a member of a political party. This should give us cause for concern; whether we like it or not, political parties are the home of the leaders who must lead and drive our national structural reform, including around gender issues.

The last four years have seen a groundswell in discussions on the absence of women from politics. We haven’t been as good at having the conversation about the absence of young women and gender diverse people.

The thing is, we’re a force to be reckoned with. We’re leading climate protests and demanding action. We’ve recently been successful in securing a commitment for securing consent education in schools. We’ve redefined conversations around sexual assault and the strength of survivors. As we consider our recovery from the pandemic, it’s critically important to have young people as the architects for the country we will lead – and are already leading.

This election, please listen to our voices, the voices of passionate young leaders, and recognise that political engagement is more than just running for office. We need to recognise that the issues facing young women and gender diverse people – that face young people – may overlap with those of our youth-adjacent counterparts, but they are decidedly different. As young women, we not only faced the gendered impacts of the crisis, including higher volumes of lost employment due to the pandemic and increased caring responsibilities, but the challenges faced by young people, including higher rates of COVID cases, higher rates of psychological distress, and under-representation in JobKeeper access. And we’re ready to vote.    

A democracy which creates the best outcomes is one which reflects the population it represents. It incorporates the lived experience of the people who are at the forefront of the issues it’s seeking to solve. And if we don’t ensure that this election, we risk leaving a significant part of our population behind.

So, candidates: listen up. Young women are listening, we’re researching, we’re deciding. And you need to take us seriously this election.

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Gillian was one of the young Australians who contributed over 600 submissions to the Raise Our Voice in Parliament campaign earlier this year. The campaign invited those aged 21 and under to submit a 200-word speech for the opportunity to have their voice amplified in our Federal parliament. Of these submissions, 61% came from young women, many of them expressing frustration with our lack of progress on gender equality, including in our parliaments. All of them called for change, and for a better future for young women.

Numbers aren’t everything

Last year, Annastacia Palaszczuk became the first female Premier to be elected for a third term. This wasn’t Palaszczuk’s first time in the history books either, in 2012 she became the first woman to be elected from being the leader of the opposition to being Premier. In mid-October 2020, the ACT elected a majority female Parliament– shortly followed by the appointment of a female leadership team of the ACT Liberal Party. Across the ocean, Jacinda Ardern led New Zealand Labour to a majority rule for the first time in almost 50 years, and in the US, Kamala Harris made history as the first female Vice President-elect.

Even in Victoria’s 2020 local Government elections, 43.8% of councillors elected were women – the highest of any State or Territory, and contrasting NSW, which has just 29.5%. 23 Victorian councils elected a majority of women, with 47 councils have more than 40% female representation, and only one council, Mansfield, with no women at all.

But, as the last eight months highlighted, we have a long way to go before we will see gender equality in our political spaces.

Of the major parties, The Greens is the only party with a woman in its leadership team (Senator Larissa Waters as co-deputy leader). Neither the Labor Party, Liberal Party nor the Nationals has a woman in their leadership ranks. Unless these parties conduct a reshuffle prior to the election, it is highly likely that our next Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister will be men, leaving us with just one woman in a line-up of 47 Prime Ministers.

Victoria, South Australia and WA continue to be led by a male Premier and Leader of the Opposition. Recently, New South Wales saw Dominic Perrottet succeed Gladys Berejiklian, emerging victorious from a grouping of white men who were vying to step up as the next NSW Premier. While the NT, Tasmania and the ACT have female leaders of the opposition, all their Premier counterparts are male.

So what’s going on?

Despite the conversations we’re having about the benefits of diversity in leadership, we’re just not seeing the shift away from a pale, stale, male status quo.

The last year has shone a bright light on the unique challenges female politicians, staffers and candidates continue to face, including masculine cultures in parliamentary workplaces, and gendered commentary in media outlets. Too many remain challenged by women in leadership, and have no hesitation denigrating women for their ambition. These challenges are exacerbated for people of colour, those who don’t identify on the gender binary, First Nations persons, persons with a disability, or from migrant or refugee backgrounds. And yet, we continue to hear that “women just don’t want to be leaders”, a claim often made by the same men who close ranks around each other to keep women out.

Young women are watching these discussions. They’re listening to these comments. And they’re calling for a better standard.

It’s time for change

In September, Raise Our Voice Australia had its second cohort graduate from our training program, which focuses on getting more diverse young female and nonbinary voices to lead conversations in policy and politics. Working with this group, I was reminded every week that young people are passionate, engaged, and want to be included. But in their drive to make change, young women are also weighing up their way forward, deciding which pathway to tread, and evaluating the spaces they want to be in. And their feedback was clear, “politics doesn’t feel like a place where I can make change.”

Polling conducted by Plan International Australia in April 2021

Young women want to be leaders. We want to influence the future – and are already doing so. Young women are on the forefront of the climate movement, and have been making strides in the campaign for consent education.

If we don’t change our political culture and actively welcome the next generation of young women, we will further alienate these passionate young leaders — leaders who have a vision for our country and who want to be part of the change.

In her submission to the Raise Our Voice in Parliament campaign, 16-year-old Arya wrote “We need, as a society, to change our perception of women in politics – that we foster an inclusive environment that lifts them, rather than one that tears them down. It is through education, equity and positive role models that will allow that young girl of colour in 20 years to represent the great country of Australia.”

I couldn’t agree more. Young women deserve better. And we owe them that change.

The post Young women are still being deterred from political careers. It’s time for change. appeared first on Women's Agenda.

A woman’s body found on the corner of Little Bourke St and Celestial Avenue in Melbourne.

I wanted to throw up.

Any act of violence against a woman, particularly one which results in the death, is sickening, reprehensible – as is the rhetoric that comes with it.

Last year after Eurydice Dixon and Qi Yu were killed, I felt despair. I was scared, I was angry, and eventually, I had to turn off the news, step back from social media and disengage.

What hit me most about the news this morning was how much it felt like a near miss.

I was in that exact part of town with my two best girl friends from high school on Saturday night. I walked through there with one of my male friends the day before yesterday, and again, the day just gone.

But this isn’t just about me. That woman represents all women. That could have been any of us and, statistically, it might be. Every death is a near miss.

In a country where more than one woman a week is killed at the hands of a current of former intimate partner, we’re all a walking statistic. In 2018, 69 women were killed, 16 more than in 2017. If it’s not you one week, it might be you the next. That’s absolutely terrifying. But more than that, it isn’t good enough.

Every time I see a piece of news detailing violence against women, it fills me with dread and fear. Because, like many other women and non-binary persons, I wonder how I can continue to exist in a world which is rigged against me.

A world where I need to be looking over my shoulder all the time, where I shouldn’t walk home, but I shouldn’t catch an Uber (Shebah isn’t always available) as that puts me in a confined space with a man.

I shouldn’t be out in open public spaces, but I shouldn’t be in the home – after all, that’s the place I’m statistically most likely to experience violence or be killed.

Be aware of how you dress, make sure you cover up so as not to tempt unsuspecting men – but don’t cover up too much, because then they’ll be curious and equally as likely to target you to see what you’re hiding.

Women and non-binary persons already spend a significant portion of their brain power on personal safety.

Why are women and non-binary persons continually hearing judgements around what they should or shouldn’t be doing, when these incidents (against men, women and non-binary persons) are overwhelmingly committed by men? Why aren’t those same voices telling men NOT to rape and murder?

How do you reconcile living in a world where you can’t win?

I don’t have the answer, but I have dedicated the last three years to creating change, to contributing to a world where women can embrace equality and exist to embrace their infinite potential. It’s not easy. It will take a lot of hard work, and we need our leaders to come with us. We need more action from persons at all levels of society and leadership to create the change we need.

So, no, not all men. But, yes, all women. It’s got to stop. We don’t want your condolences, your rhetoric or recommendations. We want change. And we need it now.

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