Jessica HickmanThought Leader | TEDx Speaker | 2 x Author | Leadership

IWD 2023: Smash Biases, Empower Women! 💥

Name: IWD 2023: Smash Biases, Empower Women! 💥
Uploaded: 2023-04-11T18:30:22+00:00
Duration: 2 min 46 s
Channel: Jessica Hickman
Description: In this International Women’s Day 2023 presentation, Jessica Hickman confronts entrenched gender bias and advocates for women’s empowerment across…

11 Apr 2023 · 3 min

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2:46

In this International Women’s Day 2023 presentation, Jessica Hickman confronts entrenched gender bias and advocates for women’s empowerment across multiple fronts. She rejects the stereotype that women are “ticking time‑bombs” after motherhood, emphasizing that women are business owners, leaders, and frontline workers in construction. Drawing on observations since moving to the Central West in 2020, she highlights four critical issues: (1) the alarming domestic‑violence crisis in Australia, where a woman is killed weekly by a current or former partner and women with disabilities, from culturally diverse backgrounds, or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 32 times more likely to be hospitalized; (2) the persistent gender pay gap, with women earning on average AU$12,000 less per year than men; (3) the “Pink Tax” and period poverty, noting that 1 in 5 Australian women still use unsuitable sanitary products such as socks or tissue, and recent policy steps in Wales allowing schoolgirls free access to sanitary items; and (4) the broader need to dismantle stigma around menstruation and workplace discrimination. Hickman calls for systemic change, reduced stigma, and concrete policy actions to smash biases and empower women.

Chapters

So again, bias is knocking on the door where we assume that after we have children as females in this day and age that we're on a ticking time bomb. But today is about breaking that status quo. It's about looking around the room and saying, as females, we are not ticking time bombs. As females, we don't need to sit behind a desk and only, you know, be the person that makes the coffee or takes the minutes like I've been told before. We are business owners, we are leaders, we are on the front line on construction projects, and we are changing the world. So I just wanted to go through a couple of stats today that are really prevalent, what I've witnessed since moving to the Central West in 2020, it was 2 and a bit years ago now, and some of the things that I have found and I'm passionate about. So when we think about breaking the bias, it's not just about bullying and harassment in the workplace. In orange, we've got a high rate of domestic violence, and when I look at Australia as a whole, every week a woman is killed by a current or former partner due to domestic violence, which is the leading cause of illness, disability, and premature death in women. It's just not okay, and the statistics are far worse for women from— with a disability, disability from culturally diverse backgrounds and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, who are 32 times more likely to be admitted to hospital as a result of domestic violence. Number 2 is the pay gap. While publicly in the media we seem to be doing a lot better than before, on average women take home $12,000 per year less than their male still a long way to go. And something I've really found quite soul-destroying, in fact, in the last— well, in the last couple of months while I've been taking a look at this is something called the Pink Tax. And what you may have seen in the media in the last few days is that the Welsh government have now implemented that young women in schools can have access to sanitary and tampons, which before has not been the case. And when I started to look at and understand period poverty across the world and discrimination around period and endometriosis in the workplace, I couldn't actually believe the stats that still in this country, this affluent country, 1 in 5 women in Australia still use unsuitable sanitary products from socks to tissue papers. So again, this is a step in the right direction that young women can actually access the things they need. And remove some of that shame that's still very much around periods.