While Liberal politicians were munching on their International Women’s Day cupcakes, we weren’t prepared to sugar coat reality.
If Morrison wanted to sweeten the millions of women going to the ballot boxes in a couple of months, he should have had a second look at his own track record.
Hundreds of women marched from Spring St in Melbourne to the Victorian Trades Hall on Tuesday evening, joining simultaneous marches around the country.
ACTU Secretary Sally McManus spoke to a roaring crowd, highlighting the Morrison Government’s inaction on paid family domestic violence leave and the gender pay gap.
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“History only gets us there if we walk there or if we’re pushing there,” Ms McManus said.
“It’s not going to happen by itself.”
The first port of call in the march was the Melbourne Club – an infamous private club with an almost two-hundred-year history of excluding women from its elevated circles.
Individuals in white hazmat suits burst from the crowd and rolled out rows of yellow caution tape between trees and bannisters in front of the club.
Like the Melbourne Club, our political leaders have not updated their attitude towards women since the 19th century.
And these marchers were prepared to show what they thought about it.
As much as Morrison would prefer it, women’s issues are not for only women to solve. When patriarchy is the problem, that means it’s also the patriarchy that has to act.
So much of what we face is rooted in this structural inequality. As these smaller protesters demonstrate, climate change is also a feminist issue.
Women-heavy industries such as healthcare, teaching, and aged care have been long undervalued and taken for granted by Liberal Governments.
Gender equality across the world has meant that climate change disproportionately affects women who make up most of the world’s poor.
Morrison’s failings on climate change will hurt everyone and are already hurting communities across Australia.
As women marched through Melbourne, union members where helping those affected by climate change caused floods raging through the north of the country.
And it was only a couple of months ago that the very same Government decided to use trans lives as political fodder as it attempted (and failed) to push through the Religious Discrimination Bill.
Workers have been at the front of International Women’s Day for almost one hundred years.
When the first International Women’s Day was held in 1928, women gathered together to demand equal pay, paid leave and an eight hour working day.
We can thank union members for the working women’s rights so many of us take for granted whether it be parental leave or universal superannuation.
Union members have been standing up for women’s rights for more than a century and we’ll be doing the same for years to come.
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Melbourne’s elitist men-only club wasn’t the only one getting cautioned on International Women’s Day