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Feminism has failed

After generations of effort, women still bear a disproportionate burden of domestic labour. Women are under-represented in the senior ranks of politics, business and the professions.

Women continue to be denied equal pay for equal work.

Perhaps more troubling still is the fact that the basic structures of power and influence bear the cultural marks of masculinity. In all significant ways, it remains a man’s world.

However, it could be argued that If feminism has failed, then it is because it has failed to mobilise women and that female acquiescence rather than male determination has preserved the status quo.

Or should feminists be celebrating a deeper victory in which a new generation of young men and women take equality for granted thanks to feminists who ushered in a deeper concern for justice – irrespective of gender?

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Speakers

For:

• Jill Singer is a prominent social commentator, newspaper columnist and co-host of a morning program on ABC radio. She lectures in Journalism at RMIT University following twenty-five years as a reporter in print, radio and television. As well as winning awards for television broadcasts on architectural and medical issues, she won the Walkley Award in 1992 for best television investigative journalist and the Quill award for best television current affairs report in 1999. Jill studied science, and has had a book published on IVF. A new book on journalism is in preparation.
• Stephen Mayne is a Walkley Award winning journalist who for almost 10 years worked as a reporter, business editor, gossip columnist and chief of staff for newspapers including the Herald Sun, The Age, The Daily Telegraph and The Australian Financial Review. Stephen launched www.crikey.com.au in February 2000 – right at the top of the dotcom boom. After many battles, including the loss of his home in a defamation battle, Crikey was sold in March 2005. These days Stephen is a humble Crikey contributor who is also pursuing shareholder activism through his corporate governance ezine www.maynereport.com. Stephen has been an active campaigner for more women on public company boards over the past year, raising the issue several times at AGMs and in the media.
• Gay Alcorn began her career in Queensland, and joined The Sunday Age before its launch in 1989. She worked as the Darwin correspondent for four years, and was The Age's Washington correspondent from 1999-2002, where she covered both the 2000 presidential election and the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. She has won three Walkley awards, the latest in 2004 when she was part of the investigative unit which profiled former ALP leader Mark Latham. Her other Walkleys were for news and feature writing. Gay was appointed Sunday Age editor in March 2008 after two years in the position of deputy editor for The Age.

Against:

• Wendy McCarthy has been an educator, advocate and commentator in Australian public life and company director for the past forty years. Her corporate advisory practice McCarthy Mentoring specialises in providing mentors to major corporations and the public sector and assisting these organisations with issues around diversity and women's leadership. She was a founding member and co-convenor of the Women’s Electoral Lobby in 1972. She is a former CEO of Phillips Fox, former Chancellor of Canberra University, and a former director of the ABC. She is currently a member of many boards, is Chair of McGrath Estate Agents and Chair Accreditation Advisory Board of the Advertising Federation.
• Monica Dux is a Melbourne writer. She studied and taught history at the University of Melbourne, and was the Founding Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Traffic. Monica later worked for Melbourne University Publishing and on The Monthly magazine. She is a regular contributor to The Age and has published widely on women’s issues. In 2008 she co-authored the book The Great Feminist Denial. She is currently working on a book about modern motherhood.

Chair:

Dr Simon Longstaff is Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre. Simon spent five years studying and working as a member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Having won scholarships to study at Cambridge, he read for the degrees of Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy. He was inaugural President of The Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics and is a Director of a number of companies. He is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Foreign Policy Association, based in New York. Simon has been Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre since shortly after it was founded.