We have been critical (reasonably so, I hope) of International Women’s Day in this publication in the past – about the way the day of action unfolds in Australia and how companies use it to make money off women with fluffy initiatives, commercial events and empty social media posts. Call it the Hashtag-ification of women’s equality. It’s a stance best summed up in our article about the mysterious InternationalWomensDay.com website, exploring why it creates its own themes for IWD rather than uniting in solidarity behind the UN Women’s theme.
I didn’t plan to write anything new about it until someone sent me a DM about Glenda Slingsby, the London-based Australian woman who runs InternationalWomensDay.com. She used to go by a different name: Dr. Glenda Stone.
Glenda has created multiple businesses all centred around advocating for women in the workplace. She built a career and personal brand as a champion, which lead to her holding influential positions in the U.K. She was the co-chair of a UK government task force on women’s business; a member of the government’s small business advisory panel; on the board of women’s rights charity, Womankind Worldwide; and was interviewed in major publications, including the Guardian, often about improving the treatment and opportunities for women at work. This is clearly the type of person you would expect to be running the #1 ranked presence for International Women’s Day.
But while governments, the media and non-profits were eager to hear Glenda’s voice, there was a different story unfolding within her business. In 2009, Glenda (with the surname Stone) was found by an employment tribunal to have bullied multiple employees at her company, Aurora Gender Management. The case was brought by a male employee, David Collier, who was ultimately awarded £28,500 for unfair dismissal. In the tribunal hearings, multiple staff members gave evidence of Glenda’s bullying, intimidation and verbal abuse. One staff member developed a nervous twitch; others told the Daily Mail that Glenda created a culture of fear so intense that staff members communicated by passing notes rather than using their email. David said that while men were subject to bullying, “I saw her absolutely pulverise the women.” For what it’s worth, after the ruling Glenda told the Financial Times that while she accepted David’s dismissal was not handled correctly, she was worried that “bullying could become the new sexism or racism” and would force managers to walk on eggshells with their staff. At some point the business transitioned to its new name, Aurora Ventures, and to this day continues with consulting work and operating the IWD website.
I’m detailing all of this not to talk specifically about Glenda – my beef is not with her or the 14-year-old tribunal. But this story highlights an issue with who we – the public, government, companies, and advocacy groups – choose to elevate as the faces of feminist movements. Are business savvy and palatability enough to qualify? If we’re serious about wanting to achieve women’s liberation, we need to be more thoughtful about the women we push to the front.
In Australia, International Women’s Day events still lack inclusivity. There are glaring problems with intersectionality – a survey by the campaign ‘More Voices, More Representation’ found that 83% of respondents don’t feel represented by those chosen for panels, talks, events and media. To be honest, better representation won’t improve the state of gender equality in Australia if we remain tied to commercial ideas of ‘success’ and feminism.
Focusing on women’s empowerment instead of liberation means the biggest platforms and opportunities go to women who fit a commercial idea of success: CEOs, entrepreneurs, big influencers, politicians, entertainers, athletes, celebrities and media personalities. TIME Magazine’s ‘Women of the Year’ list for 2023 included Cate Blanchett, Angela Bassett, Quinta Brunson and Phoebe Bridgers. Their achievements are impressive, but their work doesn’t create tangible change improvements for other women in the same way as Ayisha Siddiqa (a Pakistani climate activist) or Masih Alinejad (journalist exposing the treatment of women in Iran). Having them all on the same list is weird, but accurately represents the confused moment in time we’re in.
We do this kind of thing in Australia a lot. During the 2022 Federal election campaign, the media branded the ‘teal’ Independent candidates (now MPs) as leading a feminist force in Australian politics – they were even collectively named one of Marie Claire’s 2022 Women of the Year. But as we wrote at the time, the successful MPs don’t represent a huge demographic change from the types of people who have always been in Parliament: in their 40s and 50s, white, educated, wealthy (including generational wealth) and in some cases with generational ties to politics. Can you be all those things and be an effective leader of a women’s movement? Absolutely! But not if you still subscribe to the same ways of thinking that created these problems in the first place.
We see examples of this already: Allegra Spender, who represents one of the country’s wealthiest electorates, is vocally against Labor’s proposal for concessional taxes on people with more than $3 million in superannuation (less than 1% of Australians). The policy would raise $2 billion that could be used to help in other areas. And Dr Monique Ryan, who knocked former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg out of his seat, is being taken to Federal Court over her treatment of Chief of Staff Sally Rugg. Rugg claims that Ryan asked her to work excessive hours, had unreasonable expectations of workload, humiliated her in front of other politicians, and created a work environment so hostile that she was too scared to leave work to get a tampon.
Absolutely hating the media coverage of the Rugg/Ryan case that suggest it’s simply about Ryan expecting Rugg would work more than Rugg was prepared to. The documents reveal the realities of care work were routinely dismissed by Ryan. For example, these excerpts: pic.twitter.com/V6RKERv76Z
— Hannah McCann (@binarythis) March 4, 2023
That’s not to say these women don’t deserve to be in politics. They were elected and have every right to represent their constituents. But to me, these aren’t actions we should expect of a person being elevated in the media as a champion of equality or recognised as a game-changer. Like when mental health celebrity ‘ambassadors’ directly contribute to the poor mental health of others, you don’t end up seeing much change.
There is hope, though! We are starting to see some recognition of a different breed of Australian leaders who are less concerned with commercial appeal. Some of the women I’m looking to these days: Teela Reid, Wiradjuri and Wailwan academic and lawyer who specialises in Aboriginal Land Rights litigation; Varsha Yajman, climate organiser and paralegal at a firm that specialises in climate change law; Kristin O’Connell from the Anti-Poverty Media Centre; Nina Funnell, the journalist who created the #LetUsSpeak campaign that successfully changed sexual assault victim gag laws in three states (you’ll probably be more familiar with the unofficial ‘face’ of the campaign, Grace Tame). Although they focus on different areas and come from different backgrounds, the most important trait all women share is disruptive thinking.
I’d like to see them get their flowers, be given bigger platforms to build their movements. More people should know their names. We need to ditch the idea that female leaders must be financially successful, palatable, and attractive if we want to accelerate real change on women’s issues.
Comments are closed.