Break the bias

UQ Vice-Chancellor's International Women’s Day Message 2022

A woman in a beige suit smiles towards the camera. In the background is a colourful stained glass window.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day this week, it’s important to reflect on the many challenges that have already been conquered, over generations, to get us to where we are today.

But, also, to take stock – and to critically consider how we might tackle the persistent roadblocks to gender equality, as we seek to achieve further progress in the future.

In this regard, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day – “Break the Bias” – is a perfect place to start.

I would suggest that one major roadblock to achieving true gender equity in Australia is stubbornly persistent cultural assumptions about gender roles.

In particular, that child-rearing is predominantly a woman’s job. 

We all have stories about how those perceptions have affected our lives and our careers.

The story that I often relay from my own career occurred when I was completing the final year of PhD.

At this critical, early stage of my academic career, I told my supervisor that I was pregnant. His immediate response was shock, and so was mine when he responded by saying: “You’ll never make it in academia – it’s impossible.”   

His expectation was that I would automatically be the primary caregiver, which would prevent me from devoting the necessary time and energy to being an academic. 

While I was shocked by his response, I certainly didn’t let the experience discourage me. In fact, it hardened my resolve to prove him wrong.

Yet, this kind of cultural assumption has led to many women taking lengthy career breaks – far more often than men.

While these embedded cultural assumptions work against the interests of women, they also make it much harder for men to take a greater role in child rearing or full-time caring responsibilities.

Unfortunately, those men who do take on these important responsibilities are still regarded as ‘outliers’ to the perceived norm.

As a community, we are much the poorer for this.  

Journalist Annabel Crabb has written and spoken extensively on this issue, including in her 2014 book, The Wife Drought.

While families, of course, come in all manner of shapes and sizes – nuclear, single-parent, same-sex, blended, extended and communal – Annabel cites 2011 census figures suggesting that only one in 100 households comprised a mother working full-time and a stay-at-home father.  

The 2015 census suggested that the ‘stay-at-home Dad’ figure had reached between four and five per cent of two-parent families. 

But there are indications that even that low number has since plateaued. 

Like all statistics, these should be handled with caution, but the overall picture is clear enough. So, how do we move forward?

Making it easier for men to take a greater role in child-raising and caregiving would be a great starting point.

Women have long advocated for greater workplace flexibility, for better pathways to leave and re-enter the workforce without unfair financial and career repercussions.  

Of course, we need to persevere, robustly, in forging those pathways.

But we also need to ensure that working men are able to access the same flexible arrangements in order to take on a greater share of child-rearing and caregiving.   

At UQ, we seek to be a leader in this area, by offering one of the most generous paid partner leave policies in Australia – 16 weeks’ primary carer leave.

The neutral wording of our policy is very deliberate – it refers to ‘primary carer’, irrespective of which partner performs that role.

Even so, equity in leave policies is merely a first step.

It does not provide a total solution to deeply entrenched cultural perceptions.

A woman in a black and white suit leans against a banniester. She is smiling and there are green ferns in the background.

Cultural prejudices about men’s roles in our society are as deeply embedded as those about women.

Men are still widely expected to be the main provider in a household.

More than occasionally, we see men who do take on full-time parenting portrayed as amusingly inept, as outliers, even outsiders.

For instance, there is another anecdote that Annabel Crabb tells that involves a father who was dropping his children at school – and was asked by women if he had lost his job.

The implication was that he must have been forced to become the primary carer by some life crisis.

This kind of experience – being perceived as an outsider – will be familiar to many women in many fields.

But that must never dissuade us from laying out a very large welcome mat for fathers who are taking the primary role in parenting and caregiving.

In short, encouragement and practical workplace policies available for men will help us achieve a more equitable sharing of this crucial role.

Disincentives, whether impediments in workplace culture, or more subtle pressures, will not.    

Overcoming this roadblock is a challenge at the personal level for all genders.

It is a challenge for leaders and managers in workplaces, for institutions, for governments and for communities.

As a leader of a large organisation, I don’t doubt that it is a formidable challenge.

But I also have the sense that there’s now a growing and fervent desire to overhaul these entrenched cultural assumptions around gender roles.

In hearing stories from across the UQ community – especially this week – I’m optimistic that we can, and will, make real progress in the years ahead.  

And, in doing so, I’m confident that we will create a fairer, more equitable society that is richer in every sense – and for everyone.

Professor Deborah Terry AO
Vice-Chancellor and President