Page 397 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
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women and our need to maintain continued vigilance and action. Indeed, we can hear that in our background music today; celebrations are going on already.
I believe it is particularly a central role as a woman and a parliamentarian to foster or encourage women in the Canberra community to become more actively involved in the political sphere. This is not to say that it translates into lobbying people to join a political party, although I would certainly not discourage this. I would, however, like to see more grassroots campaigning to or lobbying of the ACT government conducted particularly by women on issues that are important from both a social and a gender perspective. On that note I may add as a quick aside that I did, on becoming Deputy Leader of the Opposition, write to the Deputy Chief Minister, Ms Katy Gallagher, asking for ways in which women in this Assembly could work together to achieve some of those outcomes.
I approach the term “gender equity” with some caution. I would like to take a somewhat alternative stance on its application within our community. Canberra has quite an affluent society, and it is safe to say in many ways women have access to well-paying forms of employment, can connect quite effectively with a vast array of social networks or community services and enjoy a quality of life that is higher than in most places in Australia.
I would like to suggest that a key starting point is the education system. Encouragingly, gender equity is now beginning to become a focal point during the formative years of receiving an education. Girls are now more likely to pass their senior school examinations. Girls are more likely to finish by completing year 12 and when enrolling in the same subjects as their male peers are more likely to be successful.
It is important to note here that I am not casting a shadow over the performance of boys in the education system. However, for the first time in some 50 years or so girls are showing signs of improvement in academic performance. This is a crucial point. It highlights that within our society girls are capable of performing in non-traditional subject matter, and are actively encouraged to seek further educational opportunities in areas such as mathematics, science, IT and engineering, to name just a few.
At a lecture conducted at the University of South Australia by Judith Gill and Karen Starr and entitled “Gender equity: a case for moving beyond his ’n hers” I was struck by a quote about what gender equity means when applied by educators:
What is needed is a revisiting of the meaning of gender equity—and possibly its reconstruction or abandonment—in terms of achieving an educational environment in which all young people feel free to engage in a range of activities and expect a range of achievements that are not marked by gender.
It seems that there is a need to uncouple gender and equity, but rather to talk of gender order, gender regime, gender politics, gender dynamics and gender justice to refer to the ways in which people and their institutions perform gender. In this way we would be less likely to be drawn into the ubiquitous comparisons and more likely to be able to stand by the decisions we make daily as teachers and educators in dealing with our students. Of course the ultimate interest is and remains a more socially just environment and one that is more crucially aware of the often unintended consequences of our actions
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