Women's Voices, Challenges and Choices

Thank you UNIFEM for the opportunity to be with you today to celebrate International Women’s Day. I have celebrated this day for many years, but this is my first as Minister of Women's Affairs. With my union background I know that this day used to be called International Working Women's Day - not to diminish the status of women outside the paid workforce, but rather to acknowledge the struggles of women in the paid workforce seeking recognition alongside their male counterparts for the right to decent wages and conditions of employment.

The theme for 2006 is "Women’s Voices, Challenges and Choices," which pretty much sums up the issues we face today:

• how do we ensure our voices are heard as women?
• how do we deal with the challenges that still confront us in the workplace?
• how do we ensure all women have real choices in their lives?

The answer to these questions is one of the reasons why we have a Ministry of Women's Affairs. It is their function to:

• provide advice on policy solutions to improve the status of women
• recommend suitable women nominees for state sector boards and
• manage New Zealand’s international obligations in relation to the status of women, in particular under the United Nations Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

The policy work of the Ministry is guided by the Action Plan for New Zealand Women, a five-year whole-of-government plan launched in 2004. Because they are a very small Ministry they focus on areas they can add value to by bringing a gender perspective to bear. For example, an understanding of the labour market would be incomplete without knowledge of gender segregation around work and pay, a consideration of work-life balance would not be complete without an acknowledgement that most women still take primary responsibility for childrearing, and a consideration of family violence would be misleading if it didn't identify that although both partners may both use violence, the dynamics and consequences of male on female partner, or former partner violence, are quite different.

The Action Plan contains strategies, some of which I have highlighted to indicate the areas the Ministry seeks to influence in terms of policy and implementation:

• increasing women’s earnings through pay and employment equity initiatives, initially in the state sector;
• improving and increasing women’s participation in employment, as well as promoting work-life balance through extensions to paid parental leave and improved access to early childhood education and care
• achieving greater gender balance in decision-making in the social and economic sectors by increasing the number of women participating in leadership roles
• improving the co-ordination and provision of government services, particularly in rural areas, including access to health and justice services
• reducing the incidence and impact of violence on women and children
• improving women’s health, particularly sexual and reproductive health and mental health, as well as implementing targeted initiatives to prevent and reduce obesity, smoking and unplanned pregnancy.

These have been written off as a politically correct agenda by some who describe the Ministry as nothing more than a report-writer about "how more taxpayer dollars need to be spent on women as opposed to men". That individual went on to say:

"The problem is that it doesn't do one thing for the woman who has to: get up early, get ready for work, get the children's breakfast, get them washed, dressed and their bags packed for school, drive them to school, get to work, work in her paid employment, rush home (having already arranged for the children to be collected), wash clothes, get sports clothes ready for children, oversee homework, cook dinner, do dishes, get children to bed and then spend quality time with her husband ...

For the Wimin in MoW, this litany would be most strange. It would be proof positive that women work harder and longer than men and are at the bottom of the social heap. For other women, it's life. It's also a life that we happen to like very much. It's not a chore; it's not a bore. Most women get a huge amount of enjoyment out of looking after their family and we don't want to be paid by some Government agency to do that. We are quite capable of paying our own way and choosing to be the best mother and wife that we can. We don't need saving and we don't need protecting by a bunch of really ugly socialists."

But, if policy makers don't understand how women are affected by the policies being introduced, then there is a real chance that we may lose some of the choices we now have and that includes the choices that many of our forbears didn't have.

The person concerned has identified in an unwitting way exactly why we need a policy Ministry that understands the gender implications in the many policy areas her example highlights - and they happen to be all the areas that the Ministry has prioritised.

My maternal grandmother didn't have a life like the one she described because she didn't go back to the paid workforce after she married Grandad and had her two children. In fact, she didn't go back to the paid workforce at all, because as Grandad said to me "no wife of mine was going to go out to work". The bottom line is that she didn't have a choice.

I remember the day she realised she was going to get her pension paid directly into her account because it was her money - her 60th birthday. She couldn't believe it. She would never have to ask Grandad for money to spend on herself ever again. She had her own money.

My paternal grandmother, on the other hand, struggled with the reality of a husband who expected her to accompany him to the North Island, away from her friends and family, with a newborn baby 21 years after my Dad was born. There was no Domestic Purposes Benefit to support the inevitable breakdown in their relationship. Although she did re-enter the workforce and was able to support herself, she couldn't support her son, who she had to leave with one of her daughters to raise with her very large family. She didn't have a choice either.

By talking about the very different experiences of my own grandmothers I ask myself what would their lives have been like if they had had choices:

• If Audrey could have had a career
• If Bertha could have raised her fifth child

And, that is what I want us to reflect on. I loved both my grandmothers, but I don't know if they achieved their full potential, because neither of them had the choices that we take for granted today.

"Raising Women's Voices, Challenges and Choices" should not present any particular problem in 2006, but there is a climate of fear being built up around being accused of political correctness. It means people may not stand up for what they believe in for fear of being labelled. I know that was my initial reaction to the "Blokies Award" in the Fire Service magazine. Of course, it was tongue in cheek, but I said that the publishers had to be careful because it is how it is received that matters.

Imagine being one of a very small number of women in a male dominated workplace and knowing that they don't really want you there. Go and see North Country if you have any illusions. I am glad those women didn't go for advice from the person I quoted earlier - she probably would have told them it was the price they had to pay if you want to do and earn what a man does.

I remember when I was a union official I walked into a male dominated environment and ripped the Playboy pictures off the wall on the basis that they were against Federation of Labour (FOL) policy. I went into a male dominated environment in the same region recently as Minister for Small Business and saw a calendar showing women in lingerie. I wasn't representing FOL policy so what could I do? As the firm published the calendar for its customers, I said to the manager that I was impressed that the men's wives and girlfriends were prepared to pose in lingerie for their company's calendar. He thought that was funny. So did I.

Looking around this room it’s easy to see what women have to offer this country, but our voices are not always heard in the places where they can make the best contribution.

I often hear it said that "women are running the country," usually citing a short-list that includes Rt Hon Helen Clark, Dame Sylvia Cartwright, Dame Sian Elias and Theresa Gattung. Now, it’s great that the Prime Minister, the Governor-General, the Chief Justice and the Chief Executive of our biggest company are all women, but these women are remarked upon largely because it is remarkable they are in those positions. If it were the norm for women to be found in equal numbers to men in leadership positions, we would all be talking about something else. And, where are the women coming through - what does next layer look like?

The fact is, in business, and in many other areas, women are not given the opportunity to contribute in leadership roles. This is particularly true at the board level in private sector companies.
The most recent data shows that only 5 per cent of board members on NZX-listed companies are women, and that they make up only 16 per cent of New Zealand Alternative Market companies’ board membership.

That’s a waste of women’s talent that the New Zealand economy can’t afford. Emerging trends in international research are indicating a positive correlation between diversity in board membership and strong company performance. That is because having a wide range of perspectives brought to the board table broadens the ability of a board to identify risks and opportunities. The more narrow the range of perspectives, the greater the risk a board will not anticipate potential risks and opportunities. That is the danger in surrounding oneself with a group of yes-men. Diversity is good for business.

Happily the state sector is doing a lot better. The Nominations Service of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs recently undertook the first whole-of-government stocktake of membership of state sector boards and committees and found women represented 41 per cent of the total Government-appointed membership of those boards. The government has set itself a target of 50 per cent representation by 2010, and the Nominations Service is helping us achieve that by putting forward suitably qualified women who have registered their details in its extensive database.

I suspect there are people in this room with board, or other suitable experience, who are not on that database, but who are interested in being considered for service on a state board. If so, I urge you to contact the Ministry or check out the "women on boards" section on the Ministry’s website.

It is not unreasonable to expect that by the time some of the talented young women here today are ready to serve on boards, the state sector will have achieved gender balance in this area, and private sector companies will have far more female voices around the table. Established women leaders, and there are many in this room today, also have a role in opening the doors to the boardroom, so that the younger women here today can follow them.

Like much of the progress towards achieving gender equity, changes in this area are gradual and unremarkable. Largely we should be happy that that’s the case - because we are truly successful when people change their behaviour without compulsion, and when what we have been fighting for becomes the new norm.

Such quiet success, however, is not without risk. When I talk to younger women today, I find that not too many know how hard, and how recently women had to fight for things they take for granted today. Many think that because this is the way things are, they do not have to do anything to either protect or enhance those rights. It is important that we all acknowledge the importance of younger and more established women leaders continuing to work together to bring positive change for other women in their families, workplaces and communities.

Everyone knows that New Zealand led the world in giving women the right to vote, but many of the other rights we take for granted have been legislated for in my lifetime.

Until 1976, industrial awards contained separate pay rates for men and women for doing exactly the same work. It wasn't just women first when it came to lifeboats on sinking ships either; a friend reminded me recently that some industrial agreements actually provided for women to be made redundant before men, regardless of length of service as an exception to the "last on, first off principle".

Until 1977, there was no law against sex discrimination in the provision of goods and services. Prior to the passage and implementation of the Contraception, Sterilisation & Abortion Act 1977, New Zealand women had to travel to Australia for safe, legal abortions. Until the mid-1980s there was no law against rape within marriage. Until the mid-1990s domestic violence was not treated anywhere near as seriously as other violence and there is still a long way to go before it is. Paid Parental Leave was only introduced in 2002 and it is only this year being extended to the self-employed.

Ultimately the only protection against these rights being eroded is that people are prepared to stand up for them. It would be easy for me to say - "for women to stand up for them" - but as was the case when women gained the right to vote, men are part of the solution and most men want to live in a socially just world free from the strictures of sex-role stereotyping that is just as limiting to them reaching their full human potential as it is for women.

And, what about doing more than defending what we already have? What about advancing the position of women - or do we just fight a rear-guard action and say, this is "as good as it gets". Some of the challenges still facing us are to be found in these questions:

• Why do women earn on average 20 per cent less than men?
• Why do male university graduates start with much higher salaries than female university graduates even when they have the same degree and are going for the same job?
• Why do some couples only talk about shared parenting after they separate from each other?
• Why are there such significant gender disparities in the Modern Apprenticeship Programme, and in trade training?
• Why does a woman die nearly every month in this country at the hand of a partner or former partner?

These are some of the issues we examine in New Zealand’s sixth report to the United Nations on our obligations under the Convention for Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The CEDAW report is produced every four years and could be described as New Zealand’s report card on how well we are doing to protect and promote the rights of women.
The latest report is almost complete and shows a largely positive picture, but with some areas - such as reducing violence against women - where progress is still too slow.

New Zealand was one of the early signatories to CEDAW and is therefore one of the few countries to have submitted six reports. On International Women’s Day it is important to remember how significant such international agreements are in protecting women’s rights around the world.

I’m sure New Zealand’s CEDAW report will make more positive reading than those of many countries and we always need to be focussed on our role as international citizens. That means supporting women in countries that do not offer the same rights and protections that we take for granted. We contribute to their future by supporting women to challenge female genital mutilation, women being stoned to death for being a rape victim, the trafficking of women and children for the sex trade and rape as a tactic of war.

I am sorry to report that this is an ongoing struggle requiring vigilance at the personal, NGO and government levels. In some cases, in the short- to medium-term, success may simply mean that rights already won through international agreements such as CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action are not rolled back - which is what some governments and conservative political and religious groups want. That is why it is important to ensure our voice is heard at meetings such as the Commission on the Status of Women, which has just been held in New York.

When Hillary Clinton gave her speech at the UN World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 - the meeting that gave rise to the Beijing Platform for Action I just mentioned - she stated the simple truth that women’s rights were human rights.

We would do well to remember that on this International Women's Day - Women's Voices, Challenges and Choices - says to me that our choices won't exist unless our voices can be heard and that is our challenge.