Female Politicians Explain Why Australia Is Governed By Men

To celebrate International Women's Day, we're screening a marathon of WOMAN tonight. Tune into SBS VICELAND, channel 32, from 8:30 PM.

On 1 January 2017, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) announced—to no one's great surprise—that the Australian Government is disproportionately dominated by men. In its report, the IPU ranked Australia 50th in the world for equal representation of men and women in Parliament. This is because out of the 150 members of Parliament, only 43 are women. That puts our female representation at a meagre 28 percent but the major parties remain split along partisan lines when it comes to talk of gender quotas. If this divide continues, it's estimated gender equality won't be reached in Federal Parliament until 2046.

In honour of International Women's Day, we asked three women in Australia politics to weigh in on this issue of inequality and to share their thoughts on what should be done.

VICE: Hi Emma. Have you experienced sexism during your career?
Emma Husar: There have been a couple of small incidences where a government member has accused me of being part of the party's "Handbag Hit Squad" [a famous insult levelled at the first female Prime Minister in this country, Julia Gillard]. I also had a female in the current government say to me, "Well at least I'm here on merits and not on a gender target strategy."

There's also been trolling and harassment on the internet about what I wear, or my hair. Which is, you know, whatever! At the end of the day, I don't really care what you think about my hair. And I don't think I've heard anybody accuse men of having expensive haircuts or wearing dry-cleaned suits.

How do you think female politicians should react to these kinds of things?
I think it's important to call these things out—whether it's racism or people being sexist. It's important to call it out and shine a spotlight on it. Because it is discriminatory, and it doesn't matter in which form that comes in or who the victim is.

How do you think government can deal with the sexism faced by female politicians?
If we're talking about reducing sexism in parliament, it's pretty hard to do that if women aren't walking the corridors or occupying the offices of the building. If we're not there with a seat at the table and in a position of authority then it's going to be pretty hard for our voices to be heard through those walls. But we need the men on this journey as well. We don't want to better than them, we just want to be equal. And when we do have gender equality in our parliament, naturally some of these things will come to an end. Some of them.

Hi Cathy, how have you personally responded to sexism in your career?
Well, it's not that [sexist language] isn't there, but my way of handling it is that I very rarely take offence. And I usually go and talk to the person who in any way, shape, or form has shown me lack of respect around gender. And for sure, people have a go at me because I'm a woman and they always have. But how I transform that into a positive experience for me and for the person is, I think, a different approach. For me, there is no sense at all that the world is equal. You have to learn—regardless if you are a woman, or gay, or short, or black or whatever your identity politics are—that you have to be able to operate in another dominant paradigm.

Can you give me an example of what that means?
Sort of. I just think it's important part of my role to be a regional woman in politics and to be able to do that effectively. Regardless of my gender I have to be able to do that, but because of my gender I think I do that really differently from how a man would. The way I work as a politician is absolutely informed by my want to be an effective female leader for my community.

So you're saying there are positives to being a woman in politics?
The positive spin for me being a woman is that I get to be an ambassador and a champion for topics I know a lot about because I am a woman. There are incredible opportunities for me because I'm a woman, and because I know this material, I can argue for it. And the really good thing is that when I stand up and speak, I have everyone's respect. They know I'm right, I've done all my research. They might not agree with me, but they won't argue with me on the difference. And even though there isn't a huge number of women in the Australian parliament, the women who are there, the large majority of them, stand up for women and just are fantastic advocates.

Hi Terri, can you give us an example of how you've experienced sexism during your career?There are certainly sexist things that happen in Parliament. You hear women being called "shrill" from time to time. That's an old favourite. There are still some old-timers who talk in openly sexist language as well. Sexist language is designed to de-legitimise female power. It's like when Peter Dutton called journalist Samantha Maiden a "witch." The insult "witch" is not really about anything other than whether it's legitimate for a women to hold any power. Also when I first ran for Parliament, I was the first woman to run for Griffith. That should probably give you indication that it can be quite difficult as a women to get pre-selection to stand for public office.

You came from a law background. Did you experience sexism in your previous career as well?
Yeah but that was the early 2000s and the world was a lot more sexist than than it is now. I think there have been improvements. Nowadays, it would be really rare for someone to speak over me in a meeting. Whereas, when I started my professional career, that was pretty common.

How do you think female politicians should react to sexism?
I tend to just mute people who say those kinds of things to me online. I don't block them, because I don't want them to have the satisfaction of knowing that I've thought that anyone on my staff has noticed what they said. I just don't see why I should provide a platform for other people to be disrespectful to me. My advice to other women in politics is to get rid of them and mute them. You don't have to see that kind of stuff. If you started spending your life calling out sexism, you could probably do nothing else.

How can government act against the sexism faced by female politicians?
The only way that you can really fix it is with a critical mass of women. The more women there are, the less sexism you see. As there are more and more women in politics, we will end up in a situation where we have that critical mass who won't put up with sexism or just don't practice sexism. There is also a role modeling effect. This all makes it more possible to focus on other things and to not have to worry about that sort of malarkey.

Interviews by Sami Emory. Follow her on Twitter