Crikey • 10th May 2023

This wasn't a budget 'for women' — and women will hold Labor to account

The Albanese government wants you to believe this is its budget “for women”. It isn’t. “Labor is backing Australian women with the most significant single-year investment in women’s equality in at least the last 40 years,” tweeted Minister for Finance and Minister for Women Katy Gallagher. “Because equality for women isn’t an add-on or a nice to have. It’s crucial for our prosperity.”

Crikey • 21st April 2023

The time is now, says bold letter to women’s minister ahead of budget

When I read the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce’s (WEET) pre-budget recommendations and the accompanying letter addressed to Minister for Women Katy Gallagher, both published earlier this week, I was struck — and deeply impressed — by how bold they were.

Crikey • 4th April 2023

Australia's 'great burnout' is here — but we have the solutions

Recently the University of Melbourne’s relatively new Work Futures research initiative launched its first report, which looked at the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 in the workplace. Researchers asked a simple question: how are Australian workers faring into the COVID-19 recovery? The short answer is: not great, especially if you’re a woman, caregiver or from a culturally and racially marginalised group. Media reports have already highlighted what the report had to say about the entrenched discri

Crikey • 26th March 2023

Finally, gender pay gap transparency reaches Australia's shores

Australia has reached a landmark moment in the battle to close the gender pay gap, one I’ve been waiting years for.

Crikey • 5th March 2023

I’ve seen a lot of #IWD clangers but Saudi Arabia sponsorship takes the pink cupcake

Last Wednesday, amid the myriad corporate bluster filling my inbox attempting to align anything and everything with International Women’s Day (IWD), I received a press release that took my breath away. The Council of Australian Tour Operators (CATO) proudly announced that Visit Saudi was the official sponsor of its “sell-out” IWD event.

Crikey • 21st February 2023

We need to talk about political violence against women

In April last year, a 56-year-old-New Zealand man, Michael Cruickshank, was sentenced to one year in prison for threatening to kill then prime minister Jacinda Ardern. In one email, Cruickshank threatened to “personally wipe [her] off this fucking planet”. In another, he said he would “blow her head off”. Over four months he sent Ardern 88 lengthy emails.

Crikey • 8th February 2023

The silence is deafening after 10 women killed in just 20 days. It's time to shout about it

On the first day of December last year, I went for my usual walk around the local park to find a scene that has become devastatingly common in Australia. The night before, police had descended on a house overlooking the park where a 51-year-old woman was found dead in her garage after sustaining significant facial injuries. Later that day, homicide detectives arrested a 52-year-old man and the media reports included this painfully familiar line: “The pair were known to each other.” And so the s

Crikey • 7th December 2022

Quotas alone can't erase the Coalition's legacy of policies that keep women poorer

Two reports came out this week that have me thinking more deeply about the Liberal Party’s “woman problem”. I’m looking at the questions put to party stalwarts as they review their spectacular wipe-out at the last election — and those that weren’t asked.

The Sydney Morning Herald • 29th November 2022

Triumph of the Persisterhood: New laws will make women safer at work

Just over a year ago, writing for this masthead, I attempted to give voice to women’s collective rage – correction, their downright fury – directed at the Morrison government for failing to legislate all the recommendations from Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’ Respect@Work inquiry into workplace sexual harassment. Now I’m back – but this time I have a much happier task.

Crikey • 21st November 2022

The ABC of gender pay parity: no transparency leaves women powerless

Unless employers, such as the ABC, are honest about their pay structures, female employees will continue to suffer wage discrimination.

Crikey • 18th November 2022

The right's woman problem is bigger than 'single young females' and they know it

As a one-time "promiscuously” educated young woman who is now an “older and wiser”, married, home-owning mother of two, I suddenly find myself of great interest to the Liberal Party, in particular the head of its aligned think tank, the Menzies Research Centre. The Australian columnist Nick Cater and I aren't known to each other, but I nonetheless feel uniquely qualified to respond to his notion that "single young females" are the biggest threat to parties on the right.

the Guardian • 26th October 2022

Australia’s women are no longer seeing their calls for change dismissed as lacking ‘credibility’. Good | Kristine Ziwica

In preparation for Tuesday night’s budget, I have been revisiting ghosts of women’s budget statements and women’s economic security statements past, particularly the last two years. And gee, it’s been a bit of a wild ride.

The Age • 26th October 2022

Is it the end of the #GirlBoss era in Australia? That wouldn’t be all bad

Earlier this week, news broke in this masthead that the corporate feminist behemoth Business Chicks was either shutting down or scaling down. For more than a decade, the women’s networking group has been at the forefront of a dominant strain of rah, rah, you go girl, #GirlBoss feminism in Australia. The fact it is in trouble, and laying off staff, is not insignificant. I would argue it’s the end of an era – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That said, for the avoidance of doubt, I take n

Women's Agenda • 12th October 2022

Time to do more for girls than #GirlPower mantras and merch

This week many paused to mark the tenth anniversary of the International Day of the Girl.

Women's Agenda • 6th October 2022

Without meaningful intervention, the number of older homeless women will double

When Emma Dawson took to the stage at the National Gallery of Victoria to launch the latest report she authored on women and homelessness, A Home of One’s Own, she was both a woman on a mission and a woman – understandably – running short on patience.

The Sydney Morning Herald • 10th September 2022

The problem with Girl Power? Feminism isn’t meant to be fun

The history of feminism is often talked about in terms of distinct “waves”. While this is, admittedly, a bit reductive, and each wave of feminism was not a monolithic movement, it’s still a useful tool to understand the movement’s history, where it came from, and how it developed.

Crikey • 31st August 2022

'Know your worth': gender pay gap's big lie, and why the pandemic shook things up

An edited extract from Kristine Ziwica's new book Leaning Out looks at the long history of the gender pay gap and the steps taken to close it.

the Guardian • 29th August 2022

We cannot squander this moment. Australia must tackle the structural issues behind women’s inequality | Kristine Ziwica

“From the early months of the Covid pandemic women have borne the brunt of the economic consequences of the pandemic, largely through their roles as paid and unpaid carers,” Australia’s finance minister and newly minted minister for women, Katy Gallagher, reminded us just last week at the G20 Women’s Summit. “We cannot waste this opportunity to learn from the experience of Covid and shape the care economy for the better in the future.” Had I attended the summit, I probably would have risen to m

The Sydney Morning Herald • 16th July 2022

Fed up with the chore wars, grumpy women are now politically dangerous

Little known fact: women are five times as grumpy about domestic inequality now than they were before the pandemic. And after the May election, we all know grumpy women can be politically dangerous.

The Saturday Paper • 24th June 2022

Labor’s urgent work to tackle domestic violence

On Monday morning, Amanda Rishworth, the new minister for Social Services, convened an emergency meeting of the 19 members of the National Plan to End Violence Against Women advisory group. Rishworth had good reason for bringing the group together with such urgency – she has an acute challenge in her portfolio, and she needs their help to tackle it.