Understanding the links between women, violence and poverty for Anti-Poverty Week

Anti-Poverty Week is an event held every October to raise awareness and understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty in Australia, and to encourage action to end it. In today’s analysis, researchers at the Life Course Centre (@lifecourseAust) are highlighting the links between women, violence and poverty, and the structural inequalities that must be addressed to stop it. A summary of this analysis is presented here by Dr Alice Campbell (@ColtonCambo) and Professor Janeen Baxter (@JaneenBaxter7); you can read their full report here.

Anti-Poverty Week runs from 17-23 October this year.

Serious about women’s safety? It requires broad policy reform

The Women’s Safety Summit has sparked multiple conversations about best practice and effective policy for the next National Plan to End Violence Against Women and their Children. In today’s analysis, Emma O’Neill of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (@GoodAdvocacy) makes the argument that wider policy decisions during the term of the first National Plan reduced women’s economic security and ran counter to women’s safety, and that these need to be reversed under the next National Plan.

Youth partnership in suicide prevention research: A co-designed GP guide for young people with self-harm or suicidal experiences.

Young people with lived experience of self-harm or suicidal behaviour should be at the forefront of designing, evaluating and implementing suicide prevention research.

Controversial? Unfeasible? Risky?

You name it. As a suicide prevention researcher I have heard it all…by funders, ethics committees, Higher Education Health and Safety committees to name a few.

In this blog, I (Dr Maria Michail) share my experience of working in partnership with young people with lived experience of self-harm and suicidal behaviour to co-design of a guide titled “Visiting your General Practitioner: A guide for young people with lived experience of self-harm and suicidality”.

Appearance at work: The future of workplace dress codes

In this punchy piece about gender discrimination and employee dress codes, Dr Briony Lipton (@briony_lipton) discusses work clothing in the time of coronavirus. With reference to the Department of Home Affairs’ attempts to ban sleeveless blouses from video calls for employees working at home, Dr Lipton explores changing norms of workplace attire and the confusion they can entail…

IssuesPower to Persuade8 October 2021dress codes, women, gender, women and work

Improving biodiversity conservation outcomes with relational value

In this short but powerful piece, PhD scholar and ANZSOG researcher Patrick Lucas (@paustinlucas) discusses how nature is valued in very different ways by different social groups, and how current policy frameworks struggle to account for this diversity. He explores the emerging framework of “relational values” and its potential to lead to more equitable and just outcomes in biodiversity conservation.

Policy and governance, IssuesPower to Persuade8 October 2021biodiversity, conservation, environment

Young People, Lowering the Voting Age & COVID-19

Without representation, young people are struggling to get their voices heard in the decisions that affect them. Lowering the voting age to 16 is one integral way the government can reinvigorate the interest of young people in their democracy, argues Jordan Maloney, ANU Political Science and Sociology student and policy adviser

Debt collection practices and women’s safety

As pandemic impacts continue to be felt across much of Australia, changes in personal debt, particularly for women and lower-income households, is increasingly concerning. In today’s analysis, Dr Lucinda O’Brien (Melbourne Law School), Dr Vivien Chen (Monash Business School), Professor Ian Ramsay (Melbourne Law School) and Associate Professor Paul Ali (Melbourne Law School) report on research recently published on how under -regulated debt collection practices are contributing to women’s lack of safety.

Australia's First Charter of Rights for Parents and Families

Advocacy, Innovation, Policy and governance, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade28 September 2021Children, family, Policy making, human rights

Suggestions for non-restrictive measures to help slow COVID-19 spread and ease restrictions

Today’s long read post is a discussion piece by a disability advocate based in regional Victoria. The author, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, is living through the COVID-19 pandemic with insecure housing and significant health risks. This post is republished with permission from the author’s blog Disability Advocacy Truth Telling.

Power to Persuade19 September 2021

The gendered nature of JobSeeker

The Federal Government’s Women’s Safety Summit indicates a keen interest in doing more to keep women safe; however, social security settings were not a focus of the agenda, despite the central role that financial security plays in securing women’s safety and agency. In today’s analysis, Lily Gardener and Policy Whisperer Susan Maury of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (@GoodAdvocacy), and Frances Davies of the National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) argue that the JobSeeker Payment, originally designed for younger unemployed men, is disproportionately exacerbating poverty for women. This analysis is part of the NFAW (@NFAWomen) Gender Lens on the Budget series, drawing on the income support analysis.

Womens Policy Action TankDr Susan Maury16 September 2021JobSeeker, Social Welfare, Gender equality, Gender Inequity

Explainer: Why JobSeeker is below the poverty line, and why it matters for gender equality

Gender inequality takes many shapes, embedding into systems and structures in ways that may be hidden. In today’s analysis, Policy Whisperer Susan Maury (@SusanMaury) and Lily Gardener of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (@GoodAdvocacy) and Frances Davies of the National Foundation for Australia Women (NFAW) provides a thorough analysis of how Australia’s social security settings, by maintaining the sole use of the CPI in most income support payments is disproportionately exacerbating poverty for women. This analysis is part of the NFAW (@NFAWomen) Gender Lens on the Budget series, drawing on the Indexing analysis, as well as on Good Shepherd’s submission on the adequacy of the Newstart Allowance.

Womens Policy Action TankDr Susan Maury15 September 2021Social Welfare, JobSeeker, Gender equality

How social security works against women’s safety

The Women’s Safety Summit was noticeably silent on the social safety net. As an area over which the Federal Government has complete control, it represents an accessible lever for policy change. In today’s analysis, the paper that was tabled jointly by the National Council for Single Mothers and their Children (NCSMC) and ACOSS (@ACOSS) is presented, detailing eleven ways that social security works to harm women. Terese Edwards (@Terese_NCSMC) of NCSMC provides a preface.

Data collection, femicides and policy change: Lessons from Mexico

One woman a week is murdered in Australia, but there has been little to no progress on reducing this grim statistic. In the wake of the Women’s Safety Summit, it is clear a multi-pronged approach is needed. In today’s analysis, Brenda Gonzales of the Data Feminism Network (@DataFemNetwork) provides an example of how a private citizen in Mexico initiated policy change to make women safer through contextualised data collection of feminicides.

Do you know what you don’t know? Aboriginal people on the problem of ignorance

‘Closing the gap’ is a major, and highly visible, government policy goal, with the intention of reducing disparities between Australia’s First Nations peoples and White communities. Despite many years, however, there has been little demonstrable progress. Today’s analysis utilises critical race theory, with important lessons for intersectional feminism. Penny Skye Taylor (@PennySkyeTaylor) and Daphne Habibis (@dhabibis), both of the University of Tasmania (@UTAS_), identify white ignorance as an overlooked key factor. This analysis is drawn from their research into Aboriginal views of White Australians and the dominant culture.

The Batty Effect: a case study on the influence of victim-survivors, and an argument for purposefully engaging and empowering diverse voices in the development of public policy

Why are victim-survivors of gender-based violence such powerful agents of change? What perils do they face? New research published in the journal Violence Against Women (@VAWJournal) presents findings from an in-depth study of domestic and family violence advocate Rosie Batty and the significant social and policy change she helped to drive in Australia. Lead author Lisa Wheildon (@wheeliebinit), from BehaviourWorks at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, shares a summary of the findings from the study, co-authored with Professor Jacqui True (@JacquiTrue), Associate Professor Asher Flynn (@AsherFlynn), and Abby Wild.

It’s a patient’s right to be involved in decisions about their healthcare – so why aren’t we doing it enough?

We expect to be included in decisions about our care, yet one in three patients report not being included as much as they would like. Health services are working to include patients in decisions through Shared Decision Making (SDM) but lack robust research evidence to support implementation in hospitals. In today’s analysis Alexandra Waddell (@WADDELLAL) of Monash University (@BehaviourWorksAustralia) shares a summary of her recently-published paper, co-authored with Alyse Lennox (@alyselennox), Gerri Spassova, and Peter Bragge (@BraggePeter). It is the first publication to explore insights into barriers and facilitators to SDM faced by patients and clinicians, specifically in hospital environments. It also goes beyond past research to include other crucial stakeholders such as health service decision-makers and administrators, and government policymakers.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade1 September 2021public health, health, behaviour change, public policy

Fixing Parliament for women: Five dimensions that help explain why it’s an entrenched masculine workplace

Earlier this year, Australians were shocked to hear Brittany Higgins’ story – not only of her alleged sexual assault in Parliament House, but also the lack of a process to report and address her allegations. More recently, Annabel Crabb’s series Ms Represented showcased the historic and continuing barriers to inclusion and respect that women face in Australian politics. In today’s analysis, Josefina Erikson (@Josefinaerikson) of Uppsala University (@UU_PoliSci), shares a summary of her recently-published paper, co-authored with Cecilia Josefsson (@CeciliaJsfssn). It provides a framework encompassing five dimensions, explaining how parliaments fail to operate as gender-sensitive workplaces despite increasing numbers of women working there.

Unpacking Australia's gender pay gap

Last week we learned that the gender pay gap widened in the first half of the year, with men earning on average $260 per week more than women. In today’s analysis, economist Leonora Risse (@LeonoraRisse) of RMIT, the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard (@wapppHKS), and the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia (@WLIAus), parses the numbers to provide a more nuanced understanding of where the pain points are most acute, and provides policy remedies for this seemingly intractable issue.