Kristine Ziwica

Kristine Ziwica is a Melbourne-based columnist and consultant who has 20 years' experience working in Australia, the United States and the UK on human rights and gender equality campaigns.

The predictable backlash after the recent fallout from the Lehrmann trial can’t undo #MeToo’s momentum | Kristine Ziwica

Reports of the Australian #MeToo movement’s demise, or the suggestion that it has somehow been mortally wounded by recent events following the trial of Bruce Lehrmann, are misguided. The entirely predictable backlash we are currently experiencing – a backlash driven by actors intent on preserving a culture that has always punished complainants – can’t take away from the movement’s many gains.

Why Liberals still don't understand women’s anger

Amid the unedifying displays in Canberra last week, as the Liberal Party relentlessly pursued Minister for Women Katy Gallagher in the Senate, drawing on Brittany Higgins’ leaked text messages in order to claim Gallagher and her colleagues actively conspired with Higgins to “weaponise” her rape allegation — and then engaged in corrupt conduct to ensure Higgins received a handsome payment for her trouble — I had a clarifying moment.

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.”

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

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

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.
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