Women’s Network Australia Blog

Paid Leave - Competitive

Just as we’re finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel in regards to taxpayer-funded Paid Parental Leave let’s hope the issue doesn’t end up in the too hard basket, conveniently moved to the side as yet another casualty of the current economic crisis.

The final round of the public hearings of the Productivity Commission’s report are taking place over the next week with the finalised report due to the Government in February 2009.

One would hope that common sense will prevail. The Federal Government is currently talking up an education revolution, but it doesn’t seem much point does it to be educating the population only to lose a significant group of talented women when the reach child bearing age. You can’t fix one problem without the other, it takes education and retention to maintain a competitive labour market.

Lynette Palmen AM, Founder and Managing Director, Women’s Network Australia speaks to for and about women’s issues. www.womensnetwork.com.au

Lessons from the Lion Cage

My daughter Maddison (11) astounds me with what she picks up on. Whilst in Melbourne recently we visited the Melbourne Zoo.  We had a great time,  it’s an amazing experience.

But at one point we were standing beside a couple and their two children, a boy maybe 5 and his older sister around 6. Maddison was in her usual form, she had her eyes on the lions feeding, with her ears flapping listening to what was going on around her. The child doesn’t miss a beat.  This particular couple had caught her attention. She had been watching them intently for some time. Apparently the mother had placed her daughter up on the fence to get a better view of the lions feeding. The husband had then quickly grabbed the little girl from the fence and protectively placed her on his hip,  giving his wife a look of complete disapproval.

This had intrigued Maddison. I might point out there was double fencing around the lion cage and the child was in no danger at all. Maddison starts digging me in the ribs wanting me to take note of the dynamics going on within this family of four. Unbelieveably, two mintues later the husband lifts his younger son up and places him in exactly the same position on the fence from where he had just removed his daughter.

He started proudly pointing out to his son that from this spot he could get a good view of the big cats who by now were tearing apart some sort of animal carcass.  Maddison looked at me in amazement and said, “Why is that man being so strange? How come that little girl was not allowed to have her go? Do you think she’ll ever be allowed to stand on the fence and see the lions? How come the girl has to miss out - it’s just not fair Mum.”

It dawned on me right there and then that there is an entire new generation of young women coming though who are being held back from what comes naturally - eagerly awaiting their turn to stand tall on the fence and get the full view of the lions feeding. You know that whilst there is much talk about discrimination towards women by employers, the subtle messages fed through parenting have so much more to answer for.

It’s a challenge I know, but the greatest gift we can give our daughters is to teach them equality from birth and give them opportunity and confidence to stand tall on the top of the fence. And as parents we need to keep our own fears and failures out of the equation.

Lynette Palmen AM is the Founder and Managing Director of Women’s Network Australia, the leading business and professional women’s networking organisation in the Nation. Subscribe FREE to WNA’s weekly eNoticeBoard service or read more about Lynette and why she started WNA.