Blog

DCA's own Cathy Brown has teamed with RMIT's Raymond Trau to look at the consequences of workplace environments where employees choose to hide their sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status for fear being “out” could damage their careers.

Last weekend, I joined thousands of other women in Sydney to march in the Women’s March, Sydney. I did this not only to show solidarity with other citizens of the world but because I believe, when it comes to issues around gender equality, we still have a long way to go in Australia.

The third year of data collected and released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows that across Australian workplaces, women continue to be under-valued and under-represented at senior levels. While there is progress, the pace of change is much too slow.

Successful businesses are ‘innovative’ and ‘creative’. They ‘do things differently’, or claim to. Quite often, however, we expect ‘out-of-the-box thinking’, yet expunge any form of expression.

Our #WordsAtWork campaign is not telling people what they can and can’t say. We are simply asking people to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and look at what they say from another perspective.

My kids are big fans of Macklemore, and his album The Heist is on high rotation on our family road trips. We’re all up for putting our hands in the air and car dancing.

Recently I had the privilege of speaking at a conference in Sydney alongside a good friend and advocate, Maria Dimopoulos. Of the many insightful things she said, these stood out to me particularly.

As Age and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, I am committed to ensuring that older people and people with disability, including those from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, are included in every way in our society and enjoy equality of opportunity with all Australians.

Female scientists and women in STEM should never ever have to deal with another eminent male professor mocking their contribution and asking for gender segregated labs again – even if their intelligence, determination and workplace contributions are #distractinglysexy!