Each section includes a discussion of the theoretical and empirical literature, with practical, evidence-based solutions listed in text boxes, capturing my long-standing career in equity and diversity program management, education and research.

This resource is split into five pages, for the purposes of improving reading experience; however, all five sections are intended to paint a holistic picture for social change. (If you prefer, read this resource as one PDF). 

Explore the themes via this detailed table of contents:

1. Introduction and intersectionality: how gender and racial inequalities are interconnected and compound other forms of social exclusion, such as sexuality, disability, class, age and so on.
   1. Indigenous scholars: racial injustice; and senior leadership
   2. Meaningful career pathways for Indigenous students and faculty
      • Text Box 1: How to use intersectionality to improve equity and diversity strategy
      • Text Box 2: How to promote careers of Indigenous scholars
2. Equity: barriers, issues and solutions to structural disadvantage.
   1. Gender equity in service: “fix the women” approaches; academic service and emotion work; publication; Aboriginal scholarship; public outreach; human rights work by people of colour
      • Text Box 3: How to implement gender equity in hiring and promotion
      • Text Box 4: How to reward public service and activism
   2. “Motherhood penalty”: pay; Indigenous mothers
      • Text Box 5: How to remove the motherhood bias
   3. Fatherhood bonus: childcare and parental leave
      • Text Box 6: How to promote equitable parental leave and part-time work options
   4. Work/life balance: long working hours; impact on family time
      • Text Box 7: Actively promote work/life balance
3. Diversity: protections and promotion of differences to achieve equal opportunity
   1. Workplace culture and bullying
      • Text Box 8: How to create a culture that welcomes diversity
   2. Exploitation of precariously employed workers
      • Text Box 9: Eliminate the exploitation of precarious workers
   3. Support for early-to-mid-career scholars
      • Text Box 10: Retaining early-to-mid career workers
4. Inclusion: actively seeking out, valuing and respecting differences
   1. LGBTQIA scholars: lack of inclusion; engagement
      • Text Box 11: How to evaluate & improve policies for LGBTQIA+ staff
   2. Transgender staff and students: gender pronouns; intersectionality; policies
      • Text Box 12: How to support transition
5. Access: creating, measuring and redesigning opportunities to enhance participation by underrepresented groups
   1. Accommodations for student accessibility
   2. Discrimination of disabled faculty
   3. Curriculum, skills and support
   4. Disabled women of colour
      • Text Box 13: How to begin addressing accessibility
6. Notes
   • Learn more

This project has taken me two years from start to finish, with a lot of heart ache and bumps along the way. This is one of the main reasons I’ve blogged less over the past year or so, as bringing this together took most of my time and energy, when I had these to give. Please share and cite ethically: a lot of people plagiarise my work, and while I publish my knowledge free, please don’t exploit my labour.

Before I tell you more about the talks, I’ll set the scene, looking solely at the adult prison context affecting Aboriginal women being targeted by the criminal justice system.

Over-incarceration is an issue best examined through a lens of intersectionality, a term originally exploring the limitations of dominant definitions of discrimination under industrial law (Crenshaw 1989: 150). Legal outcomes of Aboriginal women are simultaneously impacted by race, gender, class and other systemic inequalities. Lack of legal resources available to Aboriginal women to navigate the legal system is born of concurrent racial justice and gender inequalities. Economic disadvantage, poor access to therapeutic and other health services, and housing insecurity are preconditions of offending; these are class and racial justice issues. Sexual violence and poverty of Aboriginal mothers are typical of imprisoned women’s backgrounds at a rate that is much higher than male prisoners (Stathopoulos and Quadara 2014). Again, these are both racial and gendered issues, which are interconnected with colonial violence and intergenerational trauma.

I am writing on 26 May; National Sorry Day. This day commemorates the truth-telling of the Bringing Them Home report, the documentation of the Stolen Generations. Around 100,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly taken from their families under our racist social policy. The first institution built to ‘civilise’ Aboriginal children through the use of violence was in Parramatta, New South Wales (Marlow 2016). From 1910 to 1970, across the nation, Aboriginal children were forced to forget their culture, language and spirituality. They were placed into neglect by Christian-run missions and into White foster care (AHRC 1997). Today, the state continues to forcibly remove Aboriginal children from their families at four times the rate as non-Indigenous kids (Zevallos 2017). New forced adoption laws in New South Wales mean children placed in care will be forcibly adopted (Zevallos 2019). For Aboriginal women in prison, this will almost certainly mean losing legal rights to see their children. Fracturing families through the imprisonment of mothers is another way in which colonial violence continues in the present-day.

Forced removal of Aboriginal children leads to cultural disconnection, exposure to child abuse, an increased likelihood of entering the criminal justice system, and trauma for mothers. These are gender, race and class dynamics unique to Aboriginal women, their families and communities.

Social context of racial injustice

At the national level, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that there are almost 42,800 adults in full-time custody, with Aboriginal people representing 28% of the national imprisonment rate (11,800 Aboriginal people) (ABS 2019). This is in spite the fact that Indigenous people make up only 2.8% of our national population (ABS 2017a). NSW has the highest incarceration rate across Australia (31%), and the highest Aboriginal and Torres Strait prisoner population (28% of NSW prisoners are Indigenous) (ABS 2019). Yet Aboriginal people represent only 2.9% of the total NSW population (ABS 2017b).

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC 2017) reports that Aboriginal people are seven times more likely to be charged with a criminal offence and brought before the courts than non-Aboriginal people.  But they are also 12.7 times more likely to receive a sentence of imprisonment. They are additionally over-represented in prison on remand (that is, denied bail and awaiting sentencing). They’re 27% more likely to be denied bail than non-Indigenous people. The remand rate for Aboriginal women is 104.3 per 100,000 compared to 6.7 per 100,000 for non-Aboriginal women. The overrepresentation ratio for Aboriginal women on remand is 15.7 (per 100,000) compared to overrepresentation of Aboriginal men (10.9) (p. 106).

Despite the justice system over-penalising Aboriginal people, they’re more likely to be given short sentences, including for their most serious charges (acts intended to cause injury). This is partly because they’re often spending more time on remand than they would’ve been sentenced. In half of the cases, the most serious assault does not result in injury (pp. 101-102). This in no way excuses violence; the justice issue is that Aboriginal people are more likely to be imprisoned even when they do not cause grave harm. Conversely, the system is more lenient with non-Indigenous people even where serious injury is involved. Three of every five Aboriginal people (60%) receive a custodial sentence for acts intended to cause injury compared with only one in three non-Aboriginal people (30%) (p. 108). With this over-policing and recurring sentencing, it’s no wonder that the rate of recidivism for Indigenous people is 76% (p. 119).

Table 1: Offence profile of people who appeared in court (2016)

Source: ALRC (2017). ABS data, ‘Criminal Courts Australia, 2015-2016’ (2017). Data for men and women charged before the court

Table 1 above shows that Aboriginal people are most likely to appear before the court due to acts intended to cause injury (24% of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander defendants in 2016). This is followed by public order offences (17%); offences against justice (14%); and theft (12%). For non-Indigenous people, the most common charges are: illicit drug offences (comprising 23% of all non-Indigenous defendants); acts intended to cause injury (20%); theft (13%); and offences against justice (12%). These patterns are distinct because Aboriginal people are more likely to be charged for petty offences.

The ALRC writes:

‘With respect to over-policing, the evidence indicates that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are more likely to be charged and arrested for public order offences and other forms of minor offending than non-Indigenous women. These offences include offensive language and behaviour, driving offences, and justice procedure offences (such as breach of a community-based order). When compared to non-Indigenous women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are also more likely to be subject to “preventative” detention regimes—such as the Alcohol Mandatory Treatment regime (AMT) in the NT [Northern Territory].’ (p. 363)

You can see the charges versus remand differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people below (click to enlarge).

A prior offence is more likely to lead to a sentence of imprisonment. With Aboriginal people being targeted by a racist system since youth, specifically beginning with separation from family (p. 73), our criminal justice system is almost assuring that Aboriginal people end up in and out of jail, thanks to the current sentencing and remand patterns.

My previous research shows that most justice and rehabilitation programs for vulnerable people have an overly complicated eligibility process that reproduces stigma. These services lack culturally meaningful approaches and input from Aboriginal experts (BIU 2018).

Inadequate responses to recidivism reproduces racial and gender inequality and contributes to our burgeoning prison system. Making wrap-around services easier to join and customised to individual and community needs of clients is one part of the puzzle. Addressing systemic racism across our justice and other social institutions is the primary answer.

Injustices against Aboriginal women

Looking now more specifically at women, in the most recently available data from 2018, the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) found that the number of women being imprisoned in NSW over the past six years has increased by 50% (from 682 to 1,021 women) (BOCSAR 2018). This is mostly affecting Aboriginal women, whose imprisonment rate has increased by 74% (from 195 to 340 women), compared with a 40% increase by non-Aboriginal women. The two biggest factors impacting this pattern is the number of women appearing before court and over-policing of women. The number of women held on remand has doubled (again: this means they’re languishing in prison awaiting trial, without conviction).  BOCSAR finds that these women are not committing more serious offences. They are just being processed more vigorously by NSW Police, who are charging 405 women each month; a rate like never before.

At the state and national levels, this is a gendered and racial justice crisis. Up to 90% of women prisoners are victims of domestic and family violence (Gleeson and Baird 2018). The injustice is compounded by the fact that these women are not provided support to begin with and then are revictimised by harsh police and criminal justice action. Perpetrators also use the criminal justice system to seek revenge, by misidentifying women as primary aggressors (Women’s Legal Service Victoria 2018). Aboriginal women victims of intimate partner violence are over six times more likely to experience mental health and other health burdens when they’re of childbearing age (18 to 44 years;  over five times for other ages) (Webster and Zevallos 2016). Eighty percent (80%) of Aboriginal women in NSW directly identify their history of sexual abuse as a precursor to, or otherwise impacting, their reoffending (ALRC 2017: pp. 351-353).

At the time of arrest, the majority of Aboriginal women who are incarcerated were under the influence of drugs (68%), alcohol (14%) or both (4%) (Lawrie 2003: 47). Alcohol and other drugs (AOD) are often used as self-medication to cope with sexual abuse and other intergenerational trauma. Eighty percent of Aboriginal women interviewed by Wakka Wakka and Wiradjuri woman researcher, Rowena Lawrie, said that their drug use was a contributing factor to their incarceration (Lawrie 2003: 48).

‘If we had more support, then we wouldn’t need alcohol or drugs, we need housing when we get out of custody.’

‘If there were more rehabilitation centres available to me earlier in life, maybe I would not be in the situation I am today.’

‘When I was first convicted at 18, I was shoplifting to sell goods so that I would have money to buy drugs… I have never been offered drug rehabilitation. I wanted to go to drug rehabilitation but have never had the opportunity.’  (Lawrie 2003: 49)

AOD use often leads to homelessness or precarious housing for Aboriginal people because of few rehabilitation and housing options available to them. Indigenous people were more likely to be homeless prior to being imprisoned (27%) compared to non-Indigenous people (24%). Indigenous people were also less likely to have their own long-term accommodation organised by the time they were discharged from prison (56%) compared with non-Indigenous people (62%) (AIHW 2015: 28-30).

Without stable housing, children are taken from Aboriginal women, and they have little resources and legal recourse to get their kids back. This ensures the cycle of poverty, forced family separation and intergenerational trauma of the Stolen Generations will be passed onto the next cohort of youth (AHRC 1997).

Lack of trust in legal and medical institutions impact on the help available to Aboriginal women caught up in the criminal justice system. The women’s distrust is warranted, due to historical injustice, discrimination, and cultural disrespect embedded into these institutions. Other barriers to Aboriginal women finding adequate support include:

• institutional racism, poverty and social isolation;
• previous adverse family experiences;
• lack of understanding of their rights and options;
• fear of losing their children due to traumatic experiences with human services and related agencies; and
• poor access to interpreters and culturally safe support (ALRC 2017: 353; see also Zevallos 2017).

In 2017, the Women’s Legal Service NSW made the following recommendation to the Australian Law Reform Commission:

‘Legal reform is needed to reduce the criminalisation and over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly women. There must be a whole-of-system approach which addresses the underlying causes and drivers of the offending behaviour with a greater focus on prevention and early support.’ (WLS NSW 2017: 3)

Let’s now hear from the Sydney Law School panel.

Impact of over-imprisonment

Ms Vickie Roach, Yuin woman and former prisoner, spoke about the need to abolish the prison system and redirect funding to support women and create better programs. More from her soon.

Ms Gail Gray of Corrective Services NSW, Aboriginal woman and former prisoner, discussed the Miranda Project, which provides reintegration and other services.  She reports that there are 996 women currently in prison in NSW and one third (34%) of them are Indigenous.  This is in spite the fact that Aboriginal women make up only 1.5% of the total NSW population.** Gray says Aboriginal women are 21 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Aboriginal women.

Gray points out that most women in prison are in a constant state of being re-imprisoned. A quarter of all women in prison had been placed in state care as children (24%) compared to 13% of men. These women have complex support needs, such as:

• co-occurring mental health issues (61% are diagnosed with depression and 51% have anxiety);
• almostly three-quarters have witnessed a traumatic event (70%);
• the same proportion of women have experienced intimate partner violence (71%);
• half of current women prisoners have been previously incarcerated (51%); and
• half of the women in prison (54%) have at least one child under the age of 16.

(Data for both Aboriginal and non-Indigenous women)

Gray explains that the first three months post-release from prison leave women most vulnerable to reoffending, homelessness, re-imprisonment, and self-harm. These women lack a sense of purpose, life skills and an ability to adjust to life (“gate fever”) due to being over incarcerated for prolonged periods. Having become institutionalised, they lack structure to anchor their progress. They are sometimes released without identification, belongings and may only be given a fare back to the place where they were arrested. Given many are homeless at the time, this takes them away from community they know. They are socially isolated and many have lost family and community ties. The death rates for women ex-prisoners are 10 times higher than the rest of the population. Other common issues for women post-release from prison include:

• Homelessness or unsuitable accommodation (especially to help them get their kids back);
• Outstanding debt, financial hardship and lack of employment opportunities;
• Multiple health problems alongside alcohol and other drugs dependency; and
• Few options for rehab and other limitations due to parole or community sentencing.

Other issues faced more specifically by Aboriginal women post-custody:

• Loss of kinship and cultural connection due to incarceration;
• Intergenerational trauma due to colonisation compounded by prison;
• Lower life expectancy;
• Multiple health complications;
• Lower rates of education; and
• Higher rates of disadvantage along multiple axes.

Differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women

Next was Ms Kelly-Anne Stewart, who is the Principal Advisor on Women Offenders at Corrective Services NSW. She is not Indigenous. She discussed how one of the key differences between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous women is Aboriginal women are mostly sentenced for offences against criminal justice procedures. These are not violent offences. For Aboriginal people, this is mostly breach of community-based orders (62% for all Aboriginal prisoners,) and breach or violent and non-violent order (30%) (see ALRC 2017: 113).

I note that in the case of apprehended domestic violence orders, offenders do not understand conditions of their orders due to convoluted legal language requiring a high level of education (BIU 2016: 22-24). This may also contribute to other breaches by Aboriginal people who may not understand what’s required of them, or perhaps they are distrustful of ongoing engagement with criminal justice due to previous negative experiences. These dynamics might contribute towards offences against justice procedures.

Table 2: Top most serious offences for women sentenced 

Source: reproduced from Kelly-Anne Stewart (2019)

Aboriginal women in prison are twice as likely to have both their parents also in prison. They have suffered psychotic disorders. They are less likely have any visitors whilst in prison. Aboriginal women are also half as likely to have been employed prior to prison. Stewart reports that the reoffending rate for Aboriginal women is 52.6% versus 42.2% for non-Aboriginal women. The most damning is that Aboriginal women are five times more likely to have been imprisoned over 11 times.

Table 3: Issues affecting Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women in prison

Source: reproduced from Kelly-Anne Stewart (2019). Data from AIHW 2015

Stewart recounts that 70% Aboriginal women in prison have been sexually abused as children (cf. Lawrie 2003: 33). I note this abuse includes post removal from family (WLS 2017: 6). Stewart explains that a further 44% experience sexual violence as adults (it’s likely both rates are under-reported). Additionally, 78% of Aboriginal women in prison have experienced other types of violence (cf. Lawrie 2003: 54).

Stewart adds:

‘We also know that exposure to and histories of prolific abuse can be linked to women’s offending and act as a barrier to accessing rehabilitation and support services.’

Programs of support

Louise Lynch, Kamilaroi woman, is Principal Manager of the Aboriginal Strategy & Policy Unit at Corrective Services NSW. She talked about various Corrective Services programs including cultural reconnection on Country, life skills, mental health, mums and bubs, and employment qualifications. Below is an example of the Gundanha employment program that provides job readiness and qualifications for Aboriginal women who are incarcerated. The program aims to provide:

• Employment readiness skills;
• Pre-release employment pathways, post-release planning and tailored mentoring;
• TAFE construction industry competency qualifications;
• Contact with Aboriginal community and culture;
• Social and emotional wellbeing programs; and
• Post-release mentoring for up to six months.

Lynch then discussed the Aboriginal Mothers Work Readiness Program. It provides parenting support and transition into housing, education, vocational training and employment. The aims are:

• Positive parenting skills;
• Accredited barista training;
• Interagency care services for women with complex issues;
• Trauma-informed therapeutic interventions; and
• Pre- and post-transitional support and reintegration services.

Motherhood on trial

Dr Jane Walker, who is a non-Indigenous academic, shared her team’s research on women and their babies (the project includes both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal prisoners). Seven of eight Australian states and territories allow babies and toddlers to live with their mums in prison (South Australia being the exception) (cf. Rosemary Walker, Baldry and Sullivan 2019). This is seen as a ‘privilege,’ which is tightly regulated (not a right, as it should be). Processes differ, however, and recent research shows only 13 prisons around Australia have the facilities to house children. The amenities are often inadequate, with basic necessities such as nappies not being readily available (Rosemary Walker, Baldry and Sullivan 2019). Dr Walker says:

“Motherhood should be a visible factor in sentencing.”

But it isn’t.

Mothers who have their babies with them in prison are poorly supported. They’re harshly scrutinised by guards and other prisoners. They’re constantly afraid their kids will be taken from them. In order to have their children with them, these women must sign a contract saying they take full responsibility for their children. This effectively means they and their children are left vulnerable in prison and they are denied rights other mothers have outside of prison.

With the formal presentations complete, we moved to questions from the audience.

The panel was asked to comment on the staggering figure that 65% of Aboriginal women in custody are mothers. The speakers discuss that most of these mothers are affected by intergenerational trauma, lack parenting role models, domestic and family violence.

Once they are incarcerated, many of them don’t know where their children are placed or how to find them on release. Most of these mothers have lost their parenting and visitation rights. (Bearing in mind the short but repeated sentences Aboriginal people are given, two things jump out at me: how swiftly the state moves to remove Aboriginal children from their mothers after mostly non-violent offences and the repeated disruption to families when mothers are constantly being imprisoned for petty offences.)

The panellists tell us that some Aboriginal women are fighting to get their kids back from domestic and family violence perpetrators (or their partner’s / perpetrator’s family). Other women want options to heal past relationships with perpetrators who are the fathers of their children, as well with these extended families. Support services and programs need to understand the complex histories and deep community and family ties that Aboriginal women navigate. They need different solutions that will suit their cultural, family and spiritual needs.

Technology, education and housing

A lengthy comment about the lack of laptops for prisons leads to fruitful discussion about the connection between technology and educational opportunities for inmates. A senior male executive from Corrective Services answered these questions, saying Corrective Services is ready to trial phones in each cell. They will also be testing providing prisoners small wireless tablets in two NSW sites. He noted that this is not a working solution for education, but Corrective Services is looking for other options by the end June 2019. Panellist Vickie Roach expressed her frustration at these trials, because she says this technology has already proven to improve the wellbeing and future prospects of prisoners in other parts of the world and in other Australian states, such as Victoria.

Roach got her Masters in prison – in spite of her experience in prison. Her professor delivered laptops “sneakily” so all the students could study. (Later their computers did get all necessary securities.) The technology is also immensely helpful to prisoners preparing their defence.

Prisoners have access to computers in common areas but these are underdeveloped for education needs. First, there are not enough per person. Second, education officers have to print all education materials for postgraduate students, making the study process cumbersome.

The final question of the night is simple but effective: what’s the best way to spend funding to prevent Aboriginal women going into prison?

The panel is unanimous: housing, housing, housing.

Where Aboriginal women in NSW can get help

For Aboriginal-community controlled legal and community services around New South Wales

• Aboriginal Legal Services provide a custody notification service ensuring Aboriginal people have access to quality 24-hour legal advice. They also specialise in family law and other services
• Visit AbSec for a list of Aboriginal community controlled organisations

For Aboriginal women in the Central Coast of New South Wales

• Contact Yerin, they are an Aboriginal-controlled organisation providing culturally safe health and family services, including piloting a new program to preserve families whose kids are in out-of-home care
• Reach out to Yamurrah. They provides trauma-informed healing and theraputic services.  They also provide training, consultation and other services

For Aboriginal women in the South Coast of New South Wales:

• Get help from Waminda. They provide health and holistic support for women in prison, referrals and other community and family services

Ways to help Aboriginal women impacted by injustice

• Donate to the Free the People campaign. Run by Debbie Kilroy, CEO of Sisters Inside, donations are used to free single Aboriginal mothers in Western Australia, who are being overwhelmingly impacted by unfair fines
• Donate to Djirra (formerly the Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service Victoria – FVPLS Victoria). They provide practical help to Aboriginal women and their children who are victims of domestic and family violence
• Donate to the Tangentyere Womens Family Safety Group. They are an Aboriginal-women controlled Town Camp in the Northern Territory providing early intervention and support to women experiencing domestic and family violence

Notes

*The majority of Indigenous people in NSW identify Aboriginal (95.9%) or as both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (1.9%). The proportion of people identifying as solely Torres Strait Islander is smaller (2.2%) . This is why the speakers and my post use the term ‘Aboriginal’ in the NSW context. I’ve written otherwise (e.g. ‘Indigenous’) where the references or speakers use a different term.

** There are 7,480,228 people living in NSW (ABS 2017a). This includes 216,170 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (ABS 2017c). Of these, 108,811 are women (Angus 2018: 18). This means Aboriginal women make up 1.5% of the total NSW population.

References

ABS (2017a) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 2016. Cat. 2071.0. Canberra: ABS.

ABS (2017b) 2016 Census QuickStats New South Wales. Canberra: ABS.

ABS (2017c) 2016 Census: Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples QuickStats. New South Wales. Canberra: ABS.

ABS (2019) Persons in Corrective Services. Cat. no. 4512.0 Corrective Services, Australia, December Quarter 2018. Canberra: ABS.

Angus, C. (2018) Indigenous NSW: Findings from the 2016 Census. Statistical Indicators 02/18. Canberra: NSW Parliamentary Research Service.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) (2015) The Health of Australia’s Prisoners 2015. Canberra: AIHW.

AHRC (Australian Human Rights Commission) (1997) Bringing Them Home. Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Sydney: AHRC.

Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) (2017) Pathways to Justice—An Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Sydney: ALRC.

BIU (Behavioural Insights Unit) (2016) Behavioural Insights in NSW. Update Report 2016. Sydney: BIU.

BIU (2018) How to Increase Voluntary Participation in Programs Using Behavioural Insights. Sydney: BIU.

Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) (2018) Recent Trends in the NSW Female Prison Population. Sydney: BOCSAR.

Crenshaw. K. (1989) Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1): 139-167.

Gleeson, H. and J. Baird (2018) ‘Why Are Our Prisons Full of Domestic Violence Victims?,’ ABC News, 20 December. Last accessed online 25 May 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-20/womens-prisons-full-of-domestic-violence-victims/10599232

Lawrie, R. (2003) Speak Out Speak Strong: Researching the Needs of Aboriginal Women in Custody. Sydney: Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council.

Marlow, K. (2016) ‘Explainer: the Stolen Generations,’ NITV, 1 December. Last accessed online 25 May 2019:

Stathopoulos, M and A. Quadara (2014) Women as Offenders, Women as Victims. The Role of Corrections in Supporting Women with Histories of Sexual Abuse. Sydney: Corrective Services NSW.

Walker, J. R., E. Baldry, and E. Sullivan (2019) Babies and Toddlers are Living With Their Mums in Prison. We Need to Look After Them Better. The Conversation, 17 May. Last accessed online 25 May: http://theconversation.com/babies-and-toddlers-are-living-with-their-mums-in-prison-we-need-to-look-after-them-better-117170

Webster, K. and Z. Zevallos (2016) ‘Study Confirms Intimate Partner Violence Leading Health Risk Factor for Women.’ The Conversation, 1 November. Last accessed online 25 May 2016: https://theconversation.com/study-confirms-intimate-partner-violence-leading-health-risk-factor-for-women-67772

Women’s Legal Service NSW (2017) Submission to Inquiry into Incarceration Rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Sydney: WLS NSW.

Women’s Legal Service Victoria (2018) Snapshot of Police Family Violence Intervention Order Applications. January-May 2018. Melbourne: WLSV.

Zevallos, Z. (2017) ‘Stop Another Stolen Generation,’ The Other Sociologist, 14 February.

Zevallos, Z. (2019) ‘Stop Forced Adoptions,’ The Other Sociologist, 13 February.

Here, I show why the study is flawed and why the conclusions are premised on dangerous heterosexism. Heterosexism is the prejudiced belief that heterosexuality is ‘natural’ and ‘normal,’ and that heterosexuality uniformly structures all aspects of social life.  Heterosexism also presumes that gender is a binary (there are only two groups, men or women), and excludes the lived experiences of transgender people. Heterosexism brings to light the social construction of sexuality, and in this case, the values and social dynamics that impact on what is taken-for-granted about heterosexuality.

I focus my discussion on cisgender heterosexual and homosexual people as the authors of the study have presumed men and women can either be homosexual or heterosexual, to the exclusion of other gender and sexual identities. They have done this without explicitly saying so (it is a facet of heterosexism to reinforce binaries, because variations of sexuality disrupt the idea that heterosexuality is natural and normal). Experiences for transgender lesbians would vary, however, the authors presume a gender binary in thinking about lesbian desire.

With these cautions in mind, let’s dive into the study.

https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/868139704226635779

Ignoring the history of sexuality

Apostolou and colleagues’ paper begins by arguing sexuality is about reproduction. This is incorrect. Human behaviour is complex. One of a range of possible motivations and outcomes of sexual behaviour may be reproduction, but it is not main reason why people have sex.

Throughout human history, various societies have managed sexuality and reproduction in diverse ways. The main commonality is that sexual behaviour is socially controlled, however, how that manifests can vary greatly. For example, various technologies have been used to sequester sexuality from reproduction. In Western cultures, reproduction, sex and intimacy have increasingly become distinct, in large part due to the wider availability of birth control medicine, especially the oral contraceptive pill.

Throughout history, homosexual relationships have been linked to elevated social status in many cultures, especially for men. The spread of Christianity and colonalism changed this, as homosexuality became criminalised during the Victorian era. The French sociologist Michel Foucault showed that, as legal attention began to increase attention towards homosexual behaviour, the term ‘homosexuality’ became falsely associated with mental illness, and it was contrasted with the so-called ‘natural’ and ‘innate’ attraction between opposite-sex people.

Let’s go back to the evolutionary psychology study. As you see, the premise that sex is primarily about reproduction is flawed, reflecting bias from Western culture, which problematically sees homosexuality as ‘unnatural.’  This is a moral, rather than a factual construction. The study at hand seeks to explain why homosexual attraction exists, given homosexual sex does not (directly) lead to reproduction. This ignores many factors, such as:

• Many LGBTQIA people also want—and have—kids
• Not all heterosexual people want kids (the same is true for LGBTQIA people)
• Asexual people don’t desire sex and yet they may have romantic relationships and children.

And so you see, sex and procreation are not just the stuff of biological drivers, but of social organisation and individual life-paths.

Sexual identity, attraction and behaviour

The study cites proportions on sexual attraction for Greece (where study was conducted), which do not match other OECD nations like Australia. This is in itself an outcome of culture, as sexual behaviours vary across time and place. For example, the study quotes 3% to 8% of Greek men are homosexual, but in Australia, up to 15% of people who identify as heterosexual also experience same-sex attraction; and in Australia up to 5% of men and up to 4% of women are bisexual.

At the same tie, the study picks up the same trend we see in OECD nations; that more women report same-sex attraction in comparison to men. The researchers want to know why and jump to assumptions about human evolution without addressing the complexity of social influences on sexuality, which requires valid sociological data.

There is plethora of research that already explains this pattern: it is relatively more socially acceptable for women to admit to same-sex attraction in an academic study. It is another thing to act on this attraction and another thing again being openly accepted for varied sexual behaviour, subject to gender, cultural and other social norms, as well as the legal context, which may prohibit or otherwise socially police homosexual relationships.

The sociology of sexuality studies three broad elements of sexuality: identity, attraction and behaviour. These three elements of sexuality do not always match up in the ways some people might expect. People may have a heterosexual identity but experience desire for others of the same gender, or they may have one or several sexual encounters with people of the same gender, but not necessarily identify as homosexual.

Heterosexual women are more willing to report homosexual attraction and have acted on it. Heterosexual men are less likely to act on homosexual attraction. Heterosexual men experience higher psychosocial distress when they have same-sex attraction because homophobia has a comparatively more overt restriction over men’s sexual behaviour.  The rates of sexual identity, attraction and behaviour below show there is a broad range of experiences (more on my Sociology of Sexuality resource). Data are drawn from a nationally representative sample where all respondents identified as women or men, and chose not to identify as transgender, intersex or other identities (see why in the original study).

Sexual scripts and social control

Norms about desire in Western culture have changed over time, shaping sexual behaviour. Women’s sexuality was once pathologised as being excessive, whereas now Westerners think men are insatiable. Policing of sexual norms have inverted these perceptions as sexual scripts (or societal narratives of sexuality) change over time.

Foucault’s work shows that laws governing the age of sexual consent today are different for heterosexual people, gay men and lesbians because of the legacy of Queen Victoria.  The word ‘homosexual’ was invented after the Queen became troubled by gay men. The word heterosexual was invented afterwards. These sexual identities were constructed in association with one another, through the perceived otherness of the former.

The Queen would not consider that women would have sex with women, so the medicalisation of homosexuality initially focused on men, and more punitive laws prohibiting sex between men, specifically by making sodomy illegal across Commonwealth nation states. In Australia, Tasmania was the last state to reverse sodomy laws on 1 May 1997. At that time, the age of consent for all genders and sexualities became 17 years. In some countries, there remains a higher age of consent for homosexual sex.

Social construction of sexual desire

Women’s sexuality is culturally restrained. Attitudes to lesbians was not always the stuff of fantasies. In the early 1900s, one woman’s public knowledge of the clitoris generated tremendous controversy. Over time, as fiction and pornography changed, heterosexual male norms appropriated women having sex with other women as a sexual fantasy.

Back to the study: it asks: why do more women report attraction to women? Well, sexuality studies have answered this: sanctions have changed.

While it is more socially acceptable for heterosexual women to report same-sex attraction, the sanctions are tougher on lesbians and bisexual women. Lesbians face taboos and social punishments that impact their belonging and safety (see Barbara Baird’s chapter in Perspectives in Human Sexuality). The United Nations finds that transgender and bisexual women face greater levels of domestic and sexual violence than other lesbians and gay men.

Heterosexual women may fantasise and act on same-sex attraction, but they do so because it doesn’t really disrupt heterosexual identity, as defined through patriarchal fantasies that women exist to please men. As long as heterosexual men are conditioned to see lesbian sex as ‘sexy,’ and they control the (erroneous) mainstream perception of what this sex involves, heterosexual women face less stigma where they ‘experiment’ sexually with other women. Lesbian and bisexual women, however, are subject of homophobia, harassment and violence, as their behaviour is not predicated on male approval.

The study by Apostolou and colleagues does not take this into account. Instead, it argues that men’s desire and approval of seeing women together is an evolutionary driver of lesbian sex. This hypothesis is already flawed: it forces an evolutionary perspective that does not take into account history and culture, as I’ve shown.

The study begins by considering that homosexual attraction in women may be a genetic mutation. To put it another way: that it’s abnormal. They do not provide any credible data to establish this stance, especially given that there is no specific gene that determines sexuality. The study does not consider gay men’s sex using empirical data, nor do they consider how gay men’s sex fits in with this evolutionary theory.  The study does not ask (under their warped logic): has gay men’s sex evolved to satisfy heterosexual men’s evolution? Consider why this was not hypothesised: homophobia prevents a male-led team to apply same problematic evolutionary psychology logic to gay men.

The study then admits that gene mutation is not the whole story, even though the references cited do not have empirical validity. In fact, of the seven sources cited, three are general textbooks on sexuality that do not provide proof of gene mutation and rest are the first author citing himself, again without valid empirical evidence.

The patriarchal myth of cuckoldry and heterosexism

The study then develops its ‘male choice hypothesis’ for homosexual attraction among women using the non-scientific concept of cuckoldry. Cuckoldry is the idea that heterosexual men need to protect themselves from women who may trick them into raising children that aren’t biologically their progeny. Apostolou and colleagues’ study twice argues there are two ways to deal with cuckoldry: violence or having a partner who is attracted to women. Violence is therefore normalised as science. For example, the authors argue:

Paternal uncertainty gives rise to considerable selection pressure on men to evolve mechanisms that would enable them to reduce the risk of cuckoldry… It has been argued, for instance, that jealousy, that motivates aggressive behaviour toward a partner, is a mechanism that has evolved to serve this purpose. By imposing a heavy cost on their partners for infidelity, men discourage them from cheating.

Cuckoldry is a historical idea that stems from Christianity and colonialsim. This irrational fear of women’s promiscuity transformed the institution of marriage, in order to protect men’s assets. Cuckoldry is a myth. Research shows that only 1% to 3% of paternity is misattributed, and largely not due to deliberate deception, but due to overlapping sexual relationships at the time of conception. So again: Apostolou and colleagues’ study is flawed, by continuing to reproduce the myth of misattributed paternity as fact driving human sexuality. As Professor Michael Gilding writes:

Evolutionary psychologists believe that high non-paternity rates provide independent evidence of their theory of human behaviour. They are responsible for very badly designed studies that arrive at high estimates of misattributed paternity.

Apostolou and colleagues argue that since violence against women is tough to maintain (!), having a same-sex attracted partner increases evolutionary fitness. The authors argue this is because women who have sex with women don’t get pregnant, so they won’t trick men into looking after extra babies. The study also argues men have access to twice the number of sexual partners with little effort, increasing his changes of having children. So the rationale here is governed by pornography, not reality. To be clear, lesbians don’t have sex with one another to invite men into their bed, no matter how much heterosexual auteurs and viewers may wish otherwise.

This is where we see how the researchers have absorbed patriarchal constructions of lesbian sex:

1. Women have sex with women to please men
2. Men are welcome to interject in lesbian sex as they see fit, and
3. Lesbians are 100% compliant with heterosexual men’s needs.

This is dangerous scientific heterosexism. Have you ever seen surveys, forms, letters and invitations that are addressed to a household as ‘Mr and Mrs’? Have you ever met a woman and asked if she has a husband or boyfriend? The presumption that people are heterosexual, unless they say otherwise or appear to conform to stereotypes, is driven by heterosexism. See two examples below from my travels through regional New South Wales, Australia.  In the first, we see how a restaurant menu conceives of a romantic couple’s banquet in heterosexual terms and the second example shows how stereotypes of heterosexual couples positions women as financially dependant on men. Examples of heterosexist assumptions are everywhere, from the presentation of food, to shopping, to science.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba3cxD_hHuW/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba3fXDhBrVO

Invalid science

In all scientific studies, including sociology and psychology, in order for research to be valid, the methods must match the research questions and conclusions. The methods of Apostolou and colleagues are invalid, as they claim to establish an evolutionary connection between modern lesbian behaviour to human evolution over time. In order for this to be true, they would need credible biological and anthropological data establishing this link. They do not have this. Instead, their study is based on a four-question survey and four demographic measures (sex, age, marital status, and sexual attraction). The questions are as follows:

1. I prefer a mate attracted to: only same-sex or opposite sex; predominately opposite sex but sometimes same-sex or vice versa; both sex equally
2. In a long-term relationship, I prefer that my partner has sexual contact with people of same-sex: never/occasionally/frequently
3. The question asks the same of casual relationship preferences
4. Scenarios of finding long-term and casual partner with the opposite sex vs the same-sex are measured against infidelity.

There is much wrong here: hypothetical scenarios are not the same as reality. For example, studies show long-term partners more forgiving of infidelity than short-term relationships. Additionally,  the sample is skewed towards young people (mean age for women is 28 years, and 31 years for men). The same is predominantly drawn from psychology courses, a phenomenon that has long been critiqued as a sample of convenience and undermines the universal applications of such research. For example, the ‘truisms’ of economics, that were long-believed by Western researchers as evolutionary, are not held up in cross-cultural studies of human cooperation.

Apostolou and colleagues’ study finds that around half of the heterosexual men surveyed report preference for a partner who is sometimes attracted to women, but only around 10% heterosexual women say the same. Heterosexual men in short-term relationships are more likely to want their partner to sometimes have sex with women than those in long-term relationships. The study does not explain this in light of pornification of heterosexual sex, but instead concludes that having some women evolve to sometimes have sex with women is beneficial to men. Bear in mind they don’t have data to support this claim.

In order to make the case for evolutionary drive, they would need longitudinal data over generations. Instead, they have 590 psychology students in their sample. Also, the fact that women reported being less interested in seeing their imaginary partners with other imaginary men is seen as evidence of evolution. Why? This is not really explained.

Western popular cuture—from romance novels, to erotica, to pornography—produces less materials appropriating gay men’s sex for heterosexual women than it does of lesbian fantasies for heterosexual men.

So there you have it: a poorly designed study, with self-referential hypothesis, skewed data, and problematic conclusions steeped in scientific heterosexism.

Bad science is dangerous. It promotes acceptance of stereotypes that protects the status quo. In this case, the media tells the public what it already believes: that lesbians exist for male consumption.

Don’t accept bad science. Media should publish more thoroughly researched articles vetted by experts, especially when it impacts minorities.

Note: a version of this post was first published on Twitter on 30 May 2017.

I share with you two events I attended that highlight the role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in academia, journalism, business, law and social policy.

#SetTheStandard

Hosted by Yawuru woman Shannan Dodson from the NAIDOC Committee and Kara Hinesley from Twitter Australia, this event began with some tips for how to use Twitter more effectively, as well as highlighting how Indigenous people have shaped national conversations and social action, such as through #IndigenousX, #IndigenousDads and #IndigenousMums, to counter racist narratives and overcome a focus on deficits, and instead focus on community strengths.

The evening then led into a truly wonderful panel of highly accomplished women across law, academia, media and business.

Teela Reid is a Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman and solicitor who started the panel by discussing the diverse views of Indigenous people. Twitter has helped non-Indigenous Australians understand different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s voices. Reid gave advice to young Aboriginal women on Twitter, saying, ‘Make sure what you say, you can back it up.’

Shelley Reys AO is an Indigenous woman of the Djiribul people, CEO of Arrilla Consulting and partner at professional consultancy giant KPMG. Reys said: ‘There’s a lot of pressure on young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people be a certain type of person.’ Due to forced removal, young Indigenous people have different experiences that may not fit in with non-Indigenous people’s ideas of what it means to be Indigenous.

Bridget Brennan is of Dja Dja Wurrung and Yorta Yorta heritage on her father’s side, and works as the National Indigenous Affairs Correspondent for the ABC. She said that social media created new opportunities for Indigenous people who are rediscovering their heritage and communities. ‘There are other spaces to connect with Aboriginal people.’

Professor Bronwyn Carlson is an Aboriginal woman who was born on and lives on Dharawal Country on the South Coast of NSW. She is a sociologist and Head of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University. Prof Carlson has done extensive research on Indigenous people’s online experiences. She notes that nearly every Indigenous person in her studies have experienced online racism. Yet Aboriginal people are also caring for one another using multiple technologies. Aboriginal people support others in need, including for suicide prevention. She shared amusing anecdotes from her research on online dating, which included one person being matched with a cousin (Aboriginal kinship ties are extensive). Sexual racism impacts negatively on Indigenous people using dating apps.

Prof Carlson discussed the mandate in academia to disseminate research findings, and how Twitter has helped her tremendously in making contacts here and overseas, as people read her op eds shared on Twitter. Twitter is also a useful way for her to share her work with Indigenous people without the pay-wall that otherwise restricts academic journals. Prof Carlson shows that Twitter is ‘monumental’ to academics. It acts like ‘an open database.’ She notes that we need more academics online. Some of her colleagues are scared to open themselves up to critique or online abuse. At the same time, Prof Carlson sees that many non-Indigenous academics are surprised to learn Aboriginal people are so prolific online. Prof Carlson says there are many excellent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics are doing amazing work online, such as Professor Bronwyn Fredericks, Dr Chelsea Bond and others who have co-hosted and published on Indigenous X.

Prof Carlson’s research shows that Aboriginal public servants tone down their opinions, or they are otherwise afraid to speak up on Indigenous issues, when using social media. Public servants ‘keep it beige,’ she says, if they speak up at all. As an academic, Prof Carlson doesn’t feel this same restriction. She speaks openly and even critiques her university. In late 2017, Prof Carlson made waves in the media, when she raised the colonialism embedded in the name of her institution, Macquarie, named after one of Australia’s early colonists who targeted Aboriginal people for genocide.

Reys talked about common misconceptions about Aboriginal people in the business world (and in other areas). The fact is, what they look like and their connection to culture varies greatly. Non-Indigenous views are usually incorrect. These often-negative stereotypes limit opportunities for Indigenous people.

‘Corporations like to call it unconscious bias. I think I’d rather call it racism.’

In her consultancy, Reys has run many cultural competency workshops for CEOs and other executives. Most of them will rate their understanding of Indigenous issues as seven out of 10. By the end of the workshop, they rate themselves much lower, recognising they overestimated their knowledge. Reys is the first Indigenous partner at the elite KPMG agency. She says: ‘This is surprising, given the tremendous talent out there.’ She challenges corporations to rethink ‘who they consider a talented person to be.’

Prof Carlson is currently studying the mental health outcomes of online racism. She was asked how Indigenous girls and women might manage the online racism they encounter. She says: ‘It’s nice to know you’re part of a bigger community. Don’t internalise this rubbish – speak to other people.’

The panel humourously discussed the American hashtag #WhiteNonsenseRoundUp, which is used on Facebook to encourage White people to respond to racism rather than leaving Black people to do all the work. Online abuse makes it tough for Indigenous people to feel safe online. ‘They drain you – you want to engage, educate and defend yourself.’

An audience member talks about some backlash she’s seen about this year’s NAIDOC theme, Because of Her We Can, which some men say alienates them. Shannan Dodson, who is a committee member with NAIDOC, says that the theme reflects the reality that, when most people think of prominent Aboriginal people, they largely think of men. This year, the focus was on providing women a platform.

Lorena Allam is from the Gamilarai-Yawalaraay peoples of north west New South Wales (NSW). She is the Indigenous Affairs Editor at Guardian Australia. Allam talked about how Indigenous women’s leadership is rarely recognised even though they lead in multiple ways. ‘Indigenous women lead from behind,’ she said, including through support for their families, community organisations, doing emotional labour for many others, and coordinating social and political action.

Reys adds:

‘Indigenous women are overqualified but not recognised.’

Brennan notes that Indigenous women have a tough time at work because they carry a high cultural load. They deal with multiple responsibilities and issues. They need better support and recognition.

Finally, the panel is asked if they could use Twitter to poll the Australian public on any question, what would it be? One panellist jokes she can only think in swear words and declines to answer; two women refer to the outcome of last year’s national consultations with Aboriginal communities around the country (summarised under the Uluru Statement from the Heart); and two panellists would similarly ask non-Indigenous Australians to face the truth about our national history. Their collective questions were:

• Do you support an Indigenous Voice to Parliament?
• Can we face up to our history?
• Why is it you don’t know? [more about Indigenous cultures and history]

The event ended with Reid reading the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which was on display in the room. It was an honour to see it up close.

Honouring Indigenous Women in Public Service

The other event I wanted to briefly share with you is a panel held at Tranby College (the National Indigenous Adult Education and Training centre).  Our MC was young social policy officer Hayley McIntosh. The panel began with Kristy Masella, a Murri woman from Rockhampton, Dharumbal country in Central Queensland. She worked in Aboriginal Affairs for 25 years in New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory. She previously led a review of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act. She now works as CEO of a national Indigenous recruitment agency and she is the Chair of Tranby.

Masella shared personal stories about the women in her life who helped her thrive. She spoke about the need to remain focused on structural inequalities that shape the lives of Aboriginal women, including domestic and family violence. Her key message was about not judging Aboriginal women through stereotypes and instead taking the time to hear their stories.  She also spoke with reverence for Lynn Riley and co-panellist Sonja Stewart. Stewart was a trailblazer in the New South Wales state government. With hardly any Indigenous women before her, Masella said Stewart encouraged other Aboriginal women to learn from her, despite her busy schedule. She kept them safe in the bask of her shadow and modelled empathy as a leader.

Michael O’Loughlin is a Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri man and a champion Aussie Rules footballer. He was a star player with the Sydney Swans when they clawed to victory. He has been inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame, but he says that pales in comparison to the feeling of accomplishment when he was able to buy a house for his mum. He co-founded ARA Indigenous services, a business that finds viable employment for Indigenous people.

O’Loughlin paid homage to his mum and gran, who encouraged him to keep going as a 17-year-old who left his impoverished home in Salisbury, South Australia, to move to Sydney to play professionally. His mother taught him the value of hard work and giving back to his community once he found success. O’Loughlin also paid his respects to Stewart, who has been an encouraging colleague to him and many others across multiple fields.

Finally, Sonja Stewart, a senior executive in the NSW public service, spoke beautifully about the central role of her Great Aunt, who helped her mother raise her and her siblings. Stewart noted the limitations that non-Indigenous society places on family. We do not listen to the importance of kinship and have narrow labels for important family relationships that are formative for Aboriginal people’s wellbeing and success.  Stewart also spoke with admiration for NSW politician and Wiradjuri woman Linda Burnley.

The panel told the crowd to always take the time to walk in other people’s shoes, and to take special care with Indigenous people, who have a history of not being properly heard and empowered.

The day ended with a tour of the historic Tranby College, including its beautiful library, the first and largest of its kind (after AIATSIS).

Click to view slideshow.

I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. It is upon their ancestral lands on which we meet. I pay my respects to any elders, past, present and emerging. As we celebrate the courage and resilience of women and gender minorities on this International Women’s Day, may we also pay respect to the traditional gender balance, leadership and innovation of Aboriginal people, embedded forever within their Custodianship of Country.

Today I’m going to start of by setting the scene with a quick snapshot of women in the tech sector, which I’m sure you’re all well aware of. I’m going to focus a little more on the solutions that come from the empirical evidence about what works in lifting up women in the workplace. I won’t talk too long, so we can have a bit more a discussion about what initiatives have worked well here or in other places where you’ve worked, or if there’s anything else you want to dive into.

Women in tech

While the number of women in other sciences has equalised at the junior levels, the number of women in senior roles remains under 20% for all science, technology and maths – or STEM – areas. Some disciplines do better than others. Engineering and computer science degrees have actually become worse since the 1980s, despite the boom in these industries. While women make up around 60% of women undergraduate students in the life sciences, women make up only 16% of Bachelor-level students in information technology degrees.

When we’re thinking about the academic workforce, at the postgraduate levels, it gets slightly more promising, with 27% of IT students completing a PhD being women, but this still pales in comparison to their male counterparts. The proportion drops again amongst senior IT academics, with only 16% of professors being women (34 women, compared to 174 men).

Thinking about the situation outside academia, women make up around 46% of the entire Australian workforce, but less than one third of employees in technology roles. To be more concrete, computer system design was the top industry employing men in 2016 (122,500 men), but women only make up a quarter of this same industry (40,348 women or 24.8%) (see ABS 2017.0, Table 6). The gender paygap in tech is improving incrementally, however the disparity is still alarming, and the lack of diversity in tech is seen by industry leaders as a ‘crisis.’

You know the situation is not great, so I won’t dwell too much on these figures. I do want to focus on solutions.

End ‘fix the women’ approaches

Many initiatives to support women in the workforce focus on individual-level solutions (Zevallos 2018 forthcoming). Many of these can be very powerful where they help women feel better supported. But many of these approaches miss the fact that asking individual women to do most of the work on equality doesn’t really change the system. Many women are already doing lots of daily things to challenge the status quo.

For example, there is a lot of effort on mentoring programs, as well as other initiatives which I call, “fix the women.” For example, training on how to ask for promotions; being told to be more confident in meetings; and other similar strategies that make gender equality women’s responsibility. Many of these programs have been a hangover from the 1960s and 1970s. Newer focus on manager training, such as on unconscious bias, are not necessarily pitched at the right level.

Nationally representative data show that these initiatives have limited capacity to transform gender imbalance. If they worked, our workplaces would already look more equitable and diverse.

The work of Professors Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbin and Erin Kelly show longitudinal trends over the past 30 years. These data tell us that the old training aimed at the people who are experiencing inequality do little to fix the systemic issues that minority women experience. A lot of programs aim to increase the hiring of women, but they are not as concerned with promotion and retention. This means that people with decision-making power has changed relatively little over time.

Where a few women do manage to make it to the top, they are still largely expected to model masculine ways of managing, and they are conditioned in other ways to stop women operating at their best. For example, being punished for their style of leadership where they are seen as too collaborative (that is, too focused on team building and support for staff). 

Structual reform

Initiatives that work more effectively are focused on changing institutions, not individual women. In particular, the culprit of inequality is workplace culture. Solutions that work for women’s equity and diversity include not simply a gender equity committee that meets to discuss issues and reports upwards. But instead being more proactive, such as creating a diversity task force that includes executives and managers who have clear goals that they are examined against, or bias interruptors that involve continually measuring, addressing and evaluating proactive steps to battle inequality.

Targets and quotas are also important because they work to increase diversity, and, in turn, lead to greater profit and productivity. The old myths that these strategies are unfair towards men presumes that the current model of meritocracy is value-neutral. It is not. The type of work that is seen, recognised and rewarded is the work that men do, or that men have greater access to. The work that women are often tasked with, especially administrative duties, committees that aren’t recognised during promotions rounds – including gender equity and diversity committees – as well as all the additional mentoring that women do informally is not properly remunerated by workplaces.

An equity and diversity task force would be not just collecting data about the number of men, women and gender minorities at different levels, but instead evaluate more meaningful data about what is working and not working in terms of career satisfaction; not just collecting data on workplace culture, but acting on this regularly. Questions to ensure inclusion of White women and minorities might include:

• Do people from underrepresented backgrounds feel welcome?
• Is the culture hostile to White women and minorities?
• What concrete steps will companies take to do things differently based on staff feedback?

Policies that promote equity and diversity are good, but they only meet the bare minimum of legal requirements. Sometimes companies can become complacent, thinking that if no one has made any complaints, there must not be a problem. Policies that are routinely reviewed are more effective. Organisations should ask themselves:

Do our policies work for the people they’re intended to help?

Transparency is a key tool to women’s empowerment in tech and in other industries. We need managers and executives to walk the talk. It’s not enough to simply say they believe in equality. How will they actively work towards it? Well, as I’ve noted, research shows that having key performance indicators for managers that have clear and measurable goals for equity and diversity make a big difference.

Equity and diversity training is important because this provides all workers and managers with a basic level of awareness about our individual rights and responsibilities. Unconscious bias training is a useful framework for people to unpack their biases and belief systems which they may not be aware of, as they may be unwittingly contributing towards a hostile work environment for White women and minorities. But evidence shows the effects of attending these courses can be fleeting, particularly when courses and training don’t give people clear actions they can work on. It’s not enough to know we all hold internal prejudices. We need to know how to counter these in positive, every day ways in the workplace. As Joanne Lipman puts it:

For men as well as women, it doesn’t matter how sincere companies are in embracing diversity if their own policies work against it–and in particular if they make it impossible to balance work with family.

The other flawed aspect of training-centric approaches is that men are not part of the solution. Women must change themselves: be more confident, be more assertive. But research shows us that managers are more likely to react negatively when women are assertive. An assertive man is seen as a go-getter. An assertive women is a trouble maker, she’s rude, she’s aggressive. In short, women are often trained up to exhibit some masculine traits, presuming that these traits are normal and best for the organisation. This is simply not true.

Valuing women’s diversity

Research shows that managers undervalue women’s focus on team work. This is often seen as a weakness. Women are more likely to use the pronoun, “We achieved this outcome,” whereas men say, “I achieved this outcome.” The presumption is that men are more confident. But this undervalues the importance of team harmony and the skills involved in making teams work productively.

Where mentoring is the default strategy to help women, this is only useful to a small number of White middle class women who are more readily poised to get along with the types of mentors they are matched with: namely, other White middle class women. Mentoring can be fraught for minorities, especially when mentors are not culturally aware of how to best support minority women.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and other minority women of colour need sponsors. They need advocates who can link them in with extensive job networks, and who will actively make introductions that might lead to new career opportunities. Sponsors make minority women’s success at work their personal and professional mission.

There are other useful tips for making workplaces more supportive of women that benefit other people with caring responsibilities. For example, actively promoting flexibility and work/life balance. Does the workplace have core hours that are useful for carers? For example, a standing rule that no important meetings happen before 9.30am or after 3.30pm. This is especially useful for women who do the bulk of childcare, so they are not constantly rushing after dropping off and picking up dependents. Of course this also benefits men and other gender minorities who also have caring responsibilites.

Research shows that simple changes, such as greying out calendars outside of core hours, is an effective technique to discourage meetings at unfriendly times, and thus entices people to be more flexible in their start and end times. Making sure that all calendar time spots before 9am and after 5pm are greyed out has been shown to significantly reduce people scheduling unnecessary meetings and working overly long hours.

Finally, let’s think about how organisations value the work that White women and minorities often take on to make their workplaces and the world a better place. Many companies might encourage or expect women to join diversity committees, and these are seen as corporate roles. But they are not rewarded come promotion time. They are not resourced properly – these committees are done on volunteers’ time without a budget. What’s more, equity and diversity work is like ‘banging your head against a brick wall,’ as Professor Sara Ahmed shows. It can zap women’s emotional energy, by undermining their authority to act on inequalities they witness. Women are left ‘scratching the surface,’ but with little power to make real change.

Innovation requires investment. Equity and diversity initiatives that recognise the talents, professional needs and career satisfaction of White women and minorities require a similar level of investment. Organisations eagerly invest in the latest technologies and regularly update their systems to stay ahead of the game. Why don’t they invest in women’s potential in the same way?

Note: I gave this talk at the Readify offices in Sydney on 8 March 2018.

What better way to restart our journey, than with the enduring legacy of a strong Aboriginal woman, Barangaroo.

Beginning in the first week of January, Sydney annually hosts the Sydney Festival, with various sites around town housing performances, public art and sculptures, including many interactive installations. The best this year was the artwork, Four Thousand Fish, curated by Emily McDaniel, artist from the Kalari Clan of the Wiradjuri nation in Central New South Wales. The artwork blends sea song, visual story telling, sound, lighting, sculptures, landscape photography, music and of course, a beautiful nawi (bark canoe).

Held at the Cutaway in Barangaroo, every weekend this past January, the site was transformed into a public art sculpture that was set ablaze nightly at dusk. I attended an event hosted by the beloved street photographer, Legojacker (formerly from Melbourne, they had moved to Canberra in recent months).

Barangarro is named after the mighty Cammeraygal woman of the Eora nation, who defied colonialism in Gadigal, her homeland (also known as Sydney).

Fisherwomen

Cammeraygal fisherwomen held central roles as the primary providers for their people. Over millenia, they perfected fishing from their bark canoes (nawi) with lines and hooks. They fished sustainably, only catching what they needed each day. We learn this history as part of the Four Thousand Fish installation:

Senior women would teach the young girls to line fish using a burra – a crescent fishing hook carved from a turban shell, with handmade bark fibre lines, weighted with stone and occasionally a feather lure. They would learn to identify the best fishing places and conditions and to sing songs that kept time with their rowing. Pulling in each fish one by one, they would cook it over the flame in their nawi or surf onto the shore to share the catch with the family

Invasion

The British invaded Australia in 1788, decimating the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. Of those who survived, many were raped, enslaved or kidnapped. One of these was Woollarawarre Bennelong, Barangaroo’s second husband. Kidnapped as a youth, he would go on to become the first published Aboriginal author, and famously travelled to England as a diplomatic envoy. In his early life, he attempted to negotiate with the British colonisers, much to Barangaroo’s anger.

In 1790 British colonists plundered four thousand salmon fish in one day. These fish were presented to Bennelong and other Eora men by the British male officers as a way to establish authority. This was the beginning of environmental damage that continues to this day, and also diminishing women’s status as the main food providers for family and community. Barangaroo refused to meet with the British, to wear colonists’ clothes, and to accept the displacement of Eora women.

It is a sad indictment of Australian history that non-Aboriginal people do not understand Aboriginal women’s central role, which does not fit patriarchal understandings of leadership seen in present-day Australian society. Barangaroo was not just equal to other leaders like her husband. She was, like other fisherwomen, a decision-maker who found many ways to lead a resistance against colonial violence. British soldiers and leaders dismissed women and their knowledge.  Associate Professor Grace Karskens documents this living history:

“Eora women’s control of the food supply would have been essential to their status and self-esteem, as well as their power in society. So, what may have triggered Barangaroo’s anger on first meeting the Whites was fish. This meeting, on the north shore at Kirribilli in November 1790, coincided with a massive catch of 4,000 Australian salmon, hauled up in two nets.

“Two hundred pounds (91 kilos) of fish may well have been far more than the small group could eat – an extravagant, wasteful gift, given from men to men. As an Eora fisherwoman, winning fish one-by-one through skill and patience, Barangaroo may have felt insulted.

“There were ominous implications too: future alliances with these food-bearing Whites meant that women would lose their control over the food supply. Barangaroo must have observed the way the Whites dealt with Eora men, not women. Living with them, relying on their food, plainly meant dependence on men, White and Black.”

Celebrating Barangaroo

This art installation celebrates the mighty Barangaroo’s stance by inviting the public to create ice fish which are then placed into a canoe and set alight each weekend evening of the Sydney Festival.

You begin on the walk towards Barangaroo, where beautiful fish stickers are placed along the pleasant 15 minute walk from the edge of the city to the foreshore site. On arrival, you pick up a bucket and fill it with water. Then you walk to the undercover area, taking care not to spill your water along the brief five-minute walk.

Once inside, you are given a fish mould, where you will pour your water. You are invited into one of two giant freezers to place your fish mould, which you deliver and store into a set of shelves. The water will turn cold and solidify, and become someone else’s fish, later that night.

Having replenished the stock, you are free to take someone else’s fish that is already frozen. The frozen fish is now yours to tend. Place it into your now-empty bucket carefully.

It’s time to walk back outside, to where you first collected the water. You take your frozen fish and place it with love onto the pile. It joins hundreds of other frozen fish, entrusted by other happy members of the public.

The frozen fish are housed in a giant canoe. You will hear the voices of Aboriginal experts and elders talking about the central role of Barangaroo’s leadership, and the valiance of women who fought in battle against the colonisers.

When the sun begins to doze off, the frozen fish are slowly melted, as a fire is lit, to commemorate the bravery of Barangaroo, whose story should be known by one and all.

My video below takes you on the journey.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdmZVyhhzO6

Defiance

Walk back over to the undercover space so you can learn more about Barangaroo’s actions to protect her people and their culture.  Across large, beautiful murals, we learn that the colonisers were afraid of her and that she was deeply disapproving of Bennelong’s attempts to mend diplomatic relations with the British.

We learn that, “The British thought Barangaroo to be intimidating and demanding”:

Even when invited to the Governor’s house, she still refused to be clothed, preferring just a small bone through her nose septum. Barangaroo fiercely opposed her husband’s interactions with the British. When he first visited the Governor she refused to go, breaking his fishing spear in protest. She was outspoken and didn’t hesitate to speak her mind.

Barangaroo died in defiance. Her first husband and two children died of smallpox, brought to Australia by the colonisers. Now pregnant to Bennelong, she declined to give birth in a British-established hospital, and instead went to give birth on Country alone. Sadly, she died not long afterwards, and her daughter would die in infancy.

It is worth noting that, in later years, Bennelong (who remarried) would abandon his attempts to smooth diplomacy. Disillusioned with the ongoing violence, dispossession and broken promises, he would help lead a rebellion, much as Barangaroo had done, in her own way.

Before the evening was done, Legojacker taught us some photographic techniques to play with dimensions, especially size and reflections in the water. A few Instagrammers tried these out using the Lego figurines for which Legojacker is famous. The rest of us sat together and chatted intermittently, and enjoyed the warmth by the water, as the sun went down.

Phillis Steward, the artist who built the coolamon (vessel), which stands as the centrepiece of the installation, says of the exhibition:

I want them to think back and imagine the women out on their canoes and how beautiful it would have looked with their fires going out there… Just how powerful and strong they were, and still surviving today. 

https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/949618799195561986

I was interviewed by Buzzfeed, about a new study by Professor Kate Clancy and colleagues, showing women of colour scientists are more likely to experience race and gender harassment. Women of colour scientists are also excessively critiqued for being either too feminine or masculine enough, they have their physical abilities questioned, and they are more likely to miss professional opportunities like conferences, fieldwork, classes and meetings because their workplaces are unsafe. My comments from the interview:

“The study really reinforces a lot of what the literature already tells us — that women of colour are more likely to experience multiple forms of harassment and feel more acutely the impact of a hostile work environment in the sciences,” Zuleyka Zevallos, a sociologist at Swinburne University in Australia, told BuzzFeed News.

Although this isn’t the first study to show evidence of the “double bind” of racial- and gender-based harassment, some critics continue to deny that the effect is real.

“A lot of the pushback that we see in the individual scientific communities —astronomy or any other science — is that scientists want data,” Zevallos said. “And even though there’s a plethora of data, it’s like they need to see more data for themselves.”

In their study, Clancy and colleagues surveyed women and men from various racial backgrounds, focusing on academics working in the field of astronomy and planetary science. The study finds that 88% of their respondents heard negative language from peers at their current job, 52% from supervisors, and 88% from other people at work. Thirty-nine percent report experiencing verbal harassment at their current position and a further 9% experienced physical harassment. Around a third of the overall sample feel unsafe at their current role (27%), however, women of colour were the most likely group to feel unsafe in their place of work due to their race, gender, and religion (although the latter was not statistically significant).

Breaking this figure down by race, 40% women of colour and 27% of White women, feel unsafe in their current role due to gender. Further, 28% of women of colour feel unsafe due to race.

Clancy and colleagues note a meta-analysis of 343 studies has established that people are less likely to participate in counterproductive workplace research. This suggests that, despite their stark findings, people are likely to underreport negative experiences for fear of professional repercussions. So experiences may be far worse in reality.

The study concludes that astronomy creates an hostile environment with profound impact on junior scholars, White women, and the greatest problems for women of colour.

The study proposes four solutions to workplace inequity.

1. A code of conduct/education for all trainees and employees at all levels;
2. Diversity and cultural awareness training on challenges faced by women of colour and underrepresented minorities;
3. Leaders need to model appropriate behaviour;
4. Swift, just and consistent sanctioning for perpetrators of harassment in the workplace.

Moreover the study concludes that better support networks for women of colour are needed.

Both in the academic literature and in my professional equity and diversity work, experts see a reticence in equity programs to deal with racism alongside gender imbalance. As I’ve detailed elsewhere, the astronomy community, along with other disciplines, deals with sexual harassment and gender inequity in haphazard ways, but still ignores racism. The present study by Clancy and colleagues might be used to better shape policy and programs. Bias awareness training is the bare minimum needed; to make positive changes to attract, retain and promote women of colour, structural reform is necessary.

Too many scientific societies feel that tackling gender equity is “a good start” but still see diversity and inclusion of people of colour and other underrepresented minorities is the “next step.” Some leaders perceive that diversity work undermines gender equity programs. This study, and many others before it, show that intersectionality is pivotal in making lasting change. Intersectionality describes how gender inequality is impacted by racial inequality and other forms of disadvantage like sexuality, disability, class and beyond. We cannot address gender inequity separate from racial inequity as both issues impact one another, as well as increase other problems for minority groups.

Read about the study and comments by lead author Professor Clancy on Buzzfeed.

Photo credit: WOCinTech Chat, CC 2.0 via Flickr. Adapated by Z. Zevallos.

Another separate bill to establish 150 metre safe zones to protect abortion clinics has been introduced by Labor MP Penny Sharpe. This bill works to eliminate harassment and intimidation by anti-choice lobbyists who film and degrade women who walk into clinics.

In NSW, women can access abortions only with their doctor’s consent that there are “reasonable grounds” for the abortion, linked to physical and mental danger. Otherwise abortion is punishable by five years in jail.

This law has been in place since the 1970s, but stems back to 1900. Counter to national myths of our egalitarianism, abortion laws unearth how gender inequality is maintained by White, conservative Christian patriarchal ideology that seeks to control women’s autonomy. Sociological studies show how medical professionals have long been at the vanguard of change, by shifting understandings of abortion from moral arguments, to a medical choice.

Christian lobby groups, who hold strong political power, push back against medical and community views, using emotional imagery to influence abortion laws. This has proven effective over time, and continues to hold back progress in New South Wales (and Queensland, another conservative stronghold). Despite this recent set-back, momentum towards progressive change continues. A better sociological understanding of religiously conservative ideology and tactics may hold the key towards the next legal breakthrough.

History

The laws governing abortion in NSW are founded in the Crimes Act 1900. Getting an “unlawful abortion” carried a ten year prison sentence, while unlawfully supplying “any drug or noxious thing, or any instrument or thing whatsoever” to aid abortion carries a five years sentence. While Australian feminist movements championed positive change on abortion in the 1960s and 1970s, with a state campaign beginning in 1972, legal changes have been led by the medical community.

Beginning with more liberal interpretation of existing abortion laws in 1969 in Victoria, and followed by legal changes in South Australia in 1970, it was medical doctors who compelled changes by framing abortion as a medical issue (rather than as a moral one).

In New South Wales, the 1971 legal case, R. v Wall et al, a jury was instructed to consider the “economic or social stresses” that may impact on women’s mental health. This led to broader changes in abortion practices. It was the first time a second doctor’s opinion was deemed unnecessary to support an abortion as well as the first time abortions became permissible outside of public hospitals. This monumental ruling gave the “green light to openly provide services for the first time anywhere in Australia.”

In the 1995 legal case, CES v Superclinics Australia, the definition of mental health expanded to social or economic stress before or after pregnancy. NSW law has lagged behind most other states and territories thereafter.

Australian women can receive two types of abortion. Medical abortions can be sought up to nine weeks from the first day of a woman’s last period. This abortion requires two medications (Mifepristone RU486 and Misoprostol), which can be taken at home in some states. Surgical abortions are undertaken between seven to 12 weeks from last menstruation. In NSW, services for abortion are further available up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. Abortions are administered by a registered doctor via clinics or hospitals.

Despite ongoing, widespread support from medical professionals and the broader community, moral opposition to abortions by conservative politicians continues to maintain punitive laws.

Unequivocal support for change

The vote to maintain the criminal status of abortions by the NSW Parliament goes against the overwhelming scientific evidence and support of the medical , legal and education communities.

Three hundred doctors signed Dr Faruqi’s petition to overturn the current law. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Women’s Legal Services, and the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties were among a dozen major professional associations that gave “unequivocal support” to the proposed bill. Over 100 law and criminology experts signed an open letter to ministers, seeking their support of the bill.

Research from the early 1970s to the 2000s shows that the overwhelming majority of Australians are pro-choice (81%), only 9% are anti-choice, and the rest are ambivalent. Coalition politicians have more conservative views on abortion than the rest of the public, including Liberal voters. While only 30% of Liberal and National Party candidates are respectively pro-choice, 60% of Liberal and 54% of National voters support abortion.

More recent data suggest these patterns remain, growing in favour of unrestricted access to abortion. A 2015 poll commissioned by the Greens party finds that 87% of people in NSW support abortions, with only 6% opposed. While other voters are more enthusiastically pro-choice, the majority of Liberal and National Party supporters are in favour of decriminalising abortion (75%) and creating safe zones (83%). Despite this widespread support, the majority of NSW residents surveyed (76%) are not aware that abortion is illegal in their state.

Other states and territories

NSW and Queensland are the only two states to keep abortion illegal.

Only recently, the Northern Territory voted to decriminalise abortion (effective from July 2017). NT was the only state or territory where the medical abortion pill was not available. The laws had not been updated since 1974 and forced women to travel long distances to receive assistance. The new laws make abortion legal up to 14 weeks of pregnancy with only one consultation with a doctor, or two doctors up to 23 weeks (and permissable only “to save a women’s life”). Women can also self-administer the pill after a visit to their doctor. Safe zones of 150 metres will be established to protect women visiting clinics.

The debate was mired by sexist misinformation and paternalistic racism. Member for Nelson, Gerry Wood, who is a White man, argued that decriminalisation was tantamount to domestic violence and “another Stolen Generation.”

This egregious characterisation of domestic violence demonstrates the lack of regard for women’s wellbeing by anti-choice leaders. Domestic violence is an issue of profound gender inequality impacting the safety of women from various backgrounds. Likening abortion to gender violence is a misogynistic and unethical statement.

This year marks the 20-year anniversary of the Bring Them Home report, which chronicled state violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, who were removed from their families and sent to live in missions and with foster families (”the Stolen Generation”). Comparing abortion access to this act of cultural genocide is both sexist and racist, and especially damaging to Indigenous people, given the practice of removal continues to this day. Moreover, mainstream White feminist fight for abortion, especially in the 1970s, ignored the reproductive rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, including the removal of their children. Wood has not led any major campaigns for either domestic violence nor for the Stolen Generation. Wood’s tactic is more about preserving White male dominion over women’s bodies, through sexism and racism, than about women.

These discussions show how paternalistic and disingenuous political debates continue contravene women’s rights.

Inequality and abortion medicine

Abortion medicine is another source of ongoing inequality. Surgical abortions are an expensive option which require an anaesthetist and surgeon. Medical abortions, through pills, should be a more affordable option. The pills cost $38.80 after the public health discount, but with varying fees for medical and surgical abortions, the costs can be as low as $250 in Tasmania to $790 in Queensland for medical procedures alone.

The Marie Stopes clinic is the only non-hospital provider of abortion medicine in NSW as well as medical and surgical procedures (within the first 12 weeks). This costs around $500 for surgical, but medical is more expensive ($560).

Women’s reproductive rights in NSW are grossly uneven and out of step with the rest of the country.

Sociological research demonstrates how current political debates remain steeped in patriarchal narratives, supported by White Christian patriarchal ideology.

Sociology of abortion laws in Australia

On surface level, Australia is a secular nation that sees itself as egalitarian and progressive on human rights. Various social issues, particularly regarding gender violence, Indigenous rights, and humanitarianism, show that our nation remains focused on parochial values. As a result, Australia’s laws continue to punish all women, gender minorities and anyone else who is not a White cisgender male. My focus here is on women’s access to abortion.

Patterns of religiosity show that Australia remains a Christian nation, albeit one whose Christianity is less overt, except in cases of otherness. That is, people who are not Christian experience discrimination when they bear visible signs of religious difference (through their clothes or customs). Women’s otherness in Australia also becomes visible through our legal and criminal justice system, such as through abortion laws. In this sense, women are “the Other” of the state, as women’s rights are defined primarily by men’s interests.

Sixty-one percent of Australians identify as Christian; while this religious affiliation has been declining as more Australians identify as atheist, Christianity is built into Australian institutions and inform everyday life. Christian influence over abortion laws in Australia is well documented by sociologists, who show that a strong association between Church and state is obvious in our laws. Historical influences are evident not only in the design and enforcement of abortion laws, but in the ways in which public debates are aired in the media and in Parliament. Under the previous Liberal rule of the Howard Government (1996 to 2007), political discussions of abortion became ultra-conservative, and debates were framed around White men’s patriarchal control over women’s bodies.

With the Liberal and National parties’ control over politics in recent years, the same White male ideology permeates over national discussions, as recently played out in NSW Parliament.

Even in these modern times, when most Australians consistently demonstrate support for a woman’s right to choose, women are still placed in a difficult situation. Women internalise debates about the imagined rights and “separateness” of the foetus versus their own personal beliefs, health and circumstances.

Contrary to misinformation, decriminalising abortion has actually led to lower rates of abortion in Australia. From the early-to-late 2000s, this lower rate is associated with safer procedures, increased access to medical abortions (pills), and greater access to other contraceptive methods. Abortion practices, access and attitudes vary, however, with migrant-Australian women sometimes facing community pressure to seek abortion only in limited circumstances. For example, among Hmong women in Melbourne, abortion is less stigmatised if they already have other children.

Irrespective of cultural norms, religious pressure at the national level is the work of the ever-expanding anti-choice groups that gained prominence in the late 1990s. These networks rely on visual propaganda, from stylised to shocking images of foetuses. These groups supply graphics to politicians who have relied on them in their political campaigns. These groups also held strong influence in the design of pamphlets that were legally required to be provided to women seeking an abortion from 1999 to 2001, under the Health Regulation (Maternal Health Information) Act ACT 1998.

Various other marketing and protest campaigns have shaped the national imagery of abortion, focusing on the artistically enhanced “awe” and “wonder” of foetuses on the one hand, and false images of blood and mutilation of foetuses on the other hand. Both tactics relegate women’s bodies and autonomy into the background. Imagery has been the most effective political tool in subverting progress on abortion law, by making emotional appeals that are especially adored by conservative politicians.

Women’s right to choose

Following this history, the Australian Christian Lobby and the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney lobbied against change in NSW by focusing on hyperbole of later term abortions, which are a rare occurrence and relate only to serious health risks. The Christian Lobby’s director in NSW, Mark Makowiecki, used scare tactics and political pressure, falsely claiming Dr Faruqi’s decriminalisation bill would “permit abortion till birth.” He also focused on the removal of “rights” of third parties, namely “the conscience rights of doctors, and prevent prayer vigils and sidewalk counselling near abortion clinics.” The language here is about denying women’s choices, instead emphasising the authority of doctors (who have attested they support decriminalisation) and abusive protesters (whose scaremongering is not a ethically justifiable concern).

Dr Fauqi’s speech on the day of the conscience vote dispels these misconceptions. She notes the lack of evidence that decriminalisation would lead to adverse patterns such as dangerous late-term abortions. She notes extensive consultation occurred with medical practitioners, lawyers, academics and the community of NSW.  In May 2016, the proposed bill was provided to ministers for comment. Women obtain abortion via a legal loophole, but because of this the majority of abortions occur in the private sector, penalising women in rural areas that have to travel far and pay exorbitant amounts of money (see below).  “Criminalising abortion achieves nothing other than increasing the stigma surrounding the procedure and increasing delays in accessing services.”

The questions before this Parliament today are these: Do we want to remove criminal offences around abortion and leave it to be regulated the same way as other medical procedures? Do we want to make sure that women are able to access a medical procedure in safety, dignity and medical privacy? Do we want doctors who have an objection to abortion to refer patients on to another doctor who does not, and who can give them the full gamut of options available? A vast majority of people in New South Wales and Australia have said: “Yes, we do,” to all three questions… Today is a historic day for women’s rights in New South Wales. This Parliament has had to confront an issue that it has avoided for well over 100 years.

The Ministers who voted in support of Dr Faruqi’s bill predominantly focused on abortion as an issue of human rights.

• “The reality is that it is our right to make decisions about our lives and our bodies.” – Lynda Voltz, Labor
• “As a gay man it might be argued that I have no skin in the game; I can’t possibly imagine the state enacting laws about what [a woman] can and can’t do with her body. Well, I do have some understanding, because as a young gay man both the church and the state forbade me from engaging in sexual activity.” – Mark Pearson, Animal Justice Party
• “I believe that [abortions] are decisions for the individual and not the state and that is the best way to reconcile the strongly opposing views on this issue. There is a significant gap between the words of the law and the lived reality of NSW citizens, and I think it is hard to think of a NSW law where the gap is so large.” – John Graham, Labor
• “Abortion is provided almost exclusively in the private system and there is nowhere else where patients are left without the safety net of a public system.” – Penny Sharpe, Labor

Misinformation

All the Liberal and National members in NSW voted against the bill as well as three Labor members and two independents. As Dr Faruqi notes, only one of these politicians addressed the community about their vote. This was The Nationals member, the Hon Trevor Khan MLC.

Khan referred to 2016 discussions in Queensland that emphasised the need for consultation before legal reform. He curiously quoted extensively from a 2009 academic paper by law academic Dr Kate Gleeson, which shows that doctors are not generally under threat of prosecution under NSW law. The last conviction of a doctor under the Crimes Act was Dr Suman Sood in August 2006 (who was sued for various professional misconducts for failed procedures). Aside from the fact that Khan focuses on the prosecution of doctors, rather than the rights of women, he did not quote Dr Gleeson’s 2013 article which discussed the need to revisit abortion laws, especially medical abortions which are poorly serviced due to constraints on who can perform the procedure. Nor did he quote her praise for the decriminalisation of abortion laws in Tasmania in 2013.

Khan relies heavily on statistics from one study on abortion rates from 2003 by Annabelle Chan and Leonie Sage. Khan erroneously claims the study demonstrates that Australia’s abortion rates are higher than other advanced nations. It isn’t the case, as I’ve shown above. Moreover, that study actually argues that abortion statistics in 2003 were inadequate as there were no accurate data collection methods (and so the researchers relied on Australia’s national health system, Medicare).

Khan also uses subjective conjecture, focusing on the assured safe procurement of abortion services, rather than the right to obtain an abortion under a non-criminal framework, and the hindering need to obtain medical consent.

“I have not heard any evidence that those abortions are performed in a dangerous or unsafe manner, or that they failed to take into account the health and welfare of the mother.”

Notice Khan calls women seeking an abortion “mothers.” This is a tactic that reinforces women as incubators with forced parental responsibilities.

Khan concedes there is a lack of health services for women in rural and remote regions (true), and then incredulously talks about the stigma of buying condoms. He concludes with a dismissal of Dr Faruqi’s bill by calling it her passion; this is a gaslighting term used to undermine the seriousness of women’s professional arguments as an emotional project or personal interest:

I acknowledge Dr Mehreen Faruqi’s passion but I say to her: Let us have a discussion based upon an accurate understanding of history, the law and present day practices, not on myths and anecdotes. For these reasons I cannot support the bill.

I re-emphasise that Khan’s entire argument was based on two papers published 14 years ago, and poorly characterising the data and broader context of the researchers’ arguments. This is decidedly not “an accurate understanding of history, law and present day practices,” nor does Khan’s conscience vote take into consideration women’s rights, medical professionals’ expertise, and the broader community’s pro-choice values.

Anti-choice and anti-diversity

I note that although it was mostly men who upheld the decriminalisation of abortion—overwhelmingly White men—four White women also voted against the collective rights of women in NSW.

Let me amplify this point. Racist and sexist discourses in Australia highlight the otherness of Muslim-Australian culture and religion. Muslims are depicted as being uniquely sexist and “un-Australian.” Yet it is not religiosity per se, nor migrant cultures specifically, that maintain gender oppression in Australia. Instead, the reality is that conservative White Christian politics that sustain the status quo.

All too often, White Australian media and politicians hold up Australian-Muslims as a “threat” to “Australian values” (even when they are high-achieving feminists). Well, Dr Faruqi is a migrant-background woman of colour, born and educated in Pakistan, with a PhD in Environmental Engineering. The first Muslim woman to be elected into Australian parliament, she is just one of many Muslim-Australian women who work tirelessly for gender equality.

It is conservative, White Christian men and women who hold political power that are restraining gender equality. This is not just in abortion laws, but also in continually under-funding legal and community services, shelters and programs supporting women who experience violence; penalising women receiving much needed welfare; failing to fund Indigenous women’s initiatives; introducing higher university fees that will especially impede women from working-class, rural and remote, and minority backgrounds; and the other negative changes unveiled in the national budget this week.

The next time another White conservative politician attempts to whip up Islamophobia in connection to “Australian values” and “oppression of women,” let’s bear in mind that those same politicians—yes, even the women—don’t actually care about women’s health, wellbeing and freedom of choice.

Momentum

In the state of NSW, as with Queensland, women are being denied the right to choose their reproductive autonomy. Dr Faruqi has vowed not to give up the fight for women’s rights: “This is only the start we have created overwhelming momentum and we will only move forward from here.”

As we look to the future with hope and determination for women’s rights to be finally honoured, let’s reflect on this quote from feminist author Helen Garner, whom Sharpe quoted in her speech supporting Dr Faruqi’s bill, on the same day she introduced her own safe zone bill. The quote is from the foreword to the 2006 collection, Lost: Illegal Abortion Stories. The collection of stories represent the estimated 90,000 women who annually had unsafe, illegal abortions year after year, until legal changes in 1971.

Djiringanj Dancers, a group of women cultural performers, singing about the “West Wind” at the Corroboree grounds, during the Yabun Festival.

The Yabun Festival is a celebration for Survival Day. The 26 of January is a national holiday that marks the day British ships arrived in Australia and began the genocide of Indigenous Australians. Survival Day is a day led by Indigenous Australians who affirm the resilience, creativity and excellence of First Australians. This year, the Invasion Day Protests, which aim to change the date and meaning of Australia Day, ended by protesters joining Yabun at the end of the march to enjoy music, stalls, cultural performances, speeches and more.

The legendary singer-songwriter-guitarist Kev Carmody was amazing at the Yabun Festival. He told fun stories, he was self depreciating but very witty, and he was inspiring.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPtlZGYh6AP/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPtsZijBsAJ/

Video and image descriptions:

Video: Aboriginal women and girls in traditional dress and body paint perform a cultural dance, singing whilst dancing around a circle, waving their arms up and down with local plants, symbolising sacred connection to country. ]

Photo 1: large crowd, majority Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. A few have pitched tents – sensible, it’s a long and hot day!

See a live update with video and photos of the Invasion Day protest in my previous post.