NTEU WOMEN’S MAGAZINE NTEU.ORG.AU/WOMEN Gender stats 2020 Bluestocking Week 2020: Women, Work & COVID Life in a pandemic for precariously employed Women bearing the brunt of women COVID pain in higher education We are Zoomed! Bluestocking women tell their COVID stories ISSN 1839-6194 Volume 28, September 2020 Women’s Action Committee (WAC) The role of the Women’s Action Committee is to: • Act as a representative of women members, at the national level. • To identify, develop and respond to matters affecting women. • To advise on recruitment policy and resources directed at women. • To advise on strategies and structures to encourage, support and facilitate the active participation of women members at all levels of the NTEU. • To recommend action, and advise on issues affecting women. • To provide editorial advice on Agenda and the women’s website. • To inform members on industrial issues and policies that impact on women. • To make recommendations and provide advice to the National Executive, National Council, and Division Executive and Council on industrial, social and political issues affecting women. • Monitor and review the effectiveness of issues, policies and structures affecting WAC 2020 women. Aca Academic staff representative WAC is chaired by the National President and is composed of one academic and G/P General/Professional staff representative one general/professional staff representative from each Division plus one nominee of the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Policy Committee. National Officers Alison Barnes National President (Chair) Gabe Gooding National Assistant Secretary A&TSI Rep Anna Strzelecki UniSA ACT Aca Blair Williams UC G/P Jo Washington-King ANU NSW Aca vacant G/P Julia McConnochie UTS NT Aca Amanda Brain CDU G/P Sylvia Klonaris CDU QLD Aca Lee Barnett CQU G/P Gwen Amankwah-Toa QUT SA Aca Katie Barclay Adelaide READ ONLINE @ G/P Cécile Dutreix UniSA TAS nteu.org.au/agenda Aca Nataliya Nikolova UTAS G/P Jenny Smith UTAS VIC Agenda ISSN 1839-6194 (online) Editor: Alison Barnes Aca Virginia Mansel Lees La Trobe Production: Paul Clifton G/P Karen Lamb ACU Editorial Assistance: Anastasia Kotaidis All text and images © NTEU 2020 unless otherwise noted. WA Published by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). ABN 38 579 396 344 Aca Suzanne Jenkins Notre Dame Australia PO Box 1323, South Melbourne VIC 3205 Australia G/P Corinna Worth Curtin Email: [email protected] Phone: 03 9254 1910 NTEU WOMEN’S MAGAZINE Cover: Charles Deluvio/Unsplash NTEU.ORG.AU/WOMEN Volume 28, September 2020 Australian Gender & Higher Education Stats 2020 Editorial The average gender pay gap is now 14% a rise of 1.6% since 2019 MedianWomen undergraduate of starting letters salaries are 4.9% lower for women 2 COVID-19 TheAlison gender gap Barnes, in graduate medianNational salaries isPresident 9.4% Median superannuation balances at retirement are 21.6% lower for women Study & Qualifications Undergraduate gender pay gap by sector We are Zoomed! 15 Architecture & Built Enviro 15.4% 91.1% 88.8% Law & Paralegal Studies 9.3% Creative Arts 8.8% 44.5% 32.2% Psychology 7.3% A light-hearted look at the perils and pitfalls of working from News Agriculture & Enviro Studies 7.1% 58.7% Science And Mathematics 5.5% home during lockdown whilst caring for young children. Dentistry 5.1% Domestic students in Year 12 Bachelor degree higher education Median 4.9% or above Humanities, Culture & Soc Sci 4.8% Women are bearing the brunt of COVID pain Business & Management 4.0% All industries total renumeration pay gap is 24.2% Health Services & Support 3.8% in higher education 16 Computing & Info Systems 2.5% Full-TimeA sense 20.8% of Part-Time entitlement -4.2% Casual 10.3% Engineering 1.2% 3 Teacher Education 1.2% The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the many fault lines in EducationThe sexual & training harassment sector case of Peter Rathvan,Nursing 0.6% former University of total renumeration pay gap is 10.3% Medicine 0.5% our higher education system. It is of no surprise that women are Adelaide VC, whose actions reek of anRehabilitation entitled0.5% man. Veterinary Science 0.2% feeling the impact more acutely than their male counterparts. Full-Time 10.5% Part-Time 20.6% Casual 5.5% Pharmacy 0.0% Social Work -1.3% Gender stats & higher educationCommunications 2020-3.8% 4 Women in the university workforce Effect of COVID-19 on A&TSI females in WeAll staff takeTeaching our & annualResearch deepTeaching dive intoPostgraduate employment gender pay gap byand sector education full time equiv. Research Only Only precarious employment 18 Agriculture & Enviro Studies 17.4% statistics with a gender lens. AdditionallyHealth Services & Support this year, we 15.7%look at stats 44% 46% 59% Median 14.4% The Government and indeed universities are using COVID-19 showing58% how COVID-19 is affectingBusiness women.& Management 14.2% Communications 12.9% as an excuse to make the most vulnerable in our society more Science & Mathematics 12.2% ACADEMICS by level, excluding casuals Above Snr Lect C B A Law & Paralegal Studies 10.8% marginalised than ever before. LevelAnna D & E McCarron.Level C Level B DelegateLevel A & activistCreative Arts 10.3% 7 Psychology 9.8% 25% We talk32% to UniSA45% member52% Anna ArchitectureMcCarron & Built Enviro about her9.7% role as a Engineering 8.6% More than just gender equity for a better future 19 workplace delegate and NTEU activist.Rehabilitation 7.1% Humanities, Culture & Soc Sci 5.8% Social Work 5.3% As the coronavirus spread around the world, it was obvious that Vice-Chancellors Nursing 5.2% Teacher Education 3.5% women were expected to step up in the home and the workplace female 10 Computing & Info Systems 3.2% 39 male Medicine 2.5% and take on an even greater share of caring work. Pharmacy -9.0% Bluestocking Week Resilient worlds of care 20 A feminising perspective on belonging in capitalist spaces of 31 Aug–4 Sept nteu.org.au/bluestockingweek precarity. Bluestocking Week 2020: Women, Work & COVID 9 Just say No 21 The impact of COVID-19 on women in higher education was the theme for this year’s Bluestocking Week (31 August–4 September) Saying ‘No’ is an impossible task for a precariously employed now in its 8th consecutive year. woman. Our women & COVID 11 During Bluestocking Week, a number of Queensland women members talked about the impact of COVID-19 on their lives. International Women – the great illusion that we are invisible 14 We know that women’s work is double that of men in the usual Visualising women’s representation 22 course of life, then along came COVID-19, and women’s work UN Women have created animated visualisations that take a doubled again. closer look at gender imbalanced over time in various fields. A country rallies to raise the number of women in science 24 The small African nation of Rwanda is working hard to encourage more women to study STEM subjects in higher education. #ChallengeAccepted 26 What did the B&W photo Instagram challenge really mean? Editorial Alison Barnes NTEU National President Women of letters For Bluestocking Week each year, our South Australian Division hosts a dinner and fundraiser for the SA Working Women’s Centre, featuring guests speaking on topics ranging from climate change to educating workplaces about women’s need for support during periods of domestic violence. As the usual dinner couldn’t be held this year, we marked the week by inviting women to participate in a Women of Letters campaign, where union women write a short piece, or letter, talking about what education has meant to them, or their family, and how they see education as shaping their (or our) ability to respond to the environment created by COVID-19. Below is my personal contribution. Dear Sisters, searing insights would haunt me throughout Unfortunately, COVID-19 is exacerbating my year of maternity leave as I took a these negative trends. As you may know, the Blue Stocking sleepless Madeleine for walks. Society began as an informal association of We are well on our way to the loss of more women with the ‘revolutionary’ aspiration I didn’t count on the way parenting – than 20 thousand jobs in higher education. of discussing ideas beyond needlework or mothering – completely envelops your And women are impacted more than men knitting. existence. when universities cut jobs. It was an early incubator of feminism. But of course it’s not about individuals. All Casual and contract positions always And while its participants never discussed of our structures – tax, welfare, workplace go first. And the emphasis is always on anything as gauche as ‘politics’ they certainly – are still built around the mother taking the professional/general areas. Of course supported each other in all manner of role of primary caregiver in the early years women are over-represented in all these intellectual activity. of a child’s life. categories. They were renowned for openness and And we know how this cascades through When you combine this with the increased informality. our professional lives. burden of caring duties in lock down and Hence the name – blue stockings were In universities, we also seem to take on higher economic stress, women are feeling considered informal ‘day wear’ in the more of the ‘caring’ responsibilities. the brunt of the pandemic. And we are of 1750s. course more exposed than ever to intimate Women, by and large, have larger teaching partner and domestic violence. I suspect they would turn in their grave if loads, and are in the majority in student they knew what informal wear was today support services. All of this comes as the latest data shows – in the age of COVID-19 lockdown.