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Australian Women Lawyers join new Gender Equality Council
Legal advocacy group Australian Women Lawyers will be a member association of a new independent national body dedicated to driving gender equality.
Jerome Doraisamy
The Australian Gender Equality Council, which launched on Tuesday, will boast a member network representing over 500,000 women and girls, it said in a statement, “all of whom seek the same rights and opportunities when it comes to pay, superannuation and treatment in the workplace and society”.
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AGEC, in partnership with its membership network (including AWL), will “drive a cultural shift in Australia’s attitudes towards gender equality through national campaigns underpinned by rigorous empirical research”.
Speaking to Lawyers Weekly about AWL’s involvement with AGEC, AWL president Ann-Maree David said the legal profession has made some efforts to redress gender equality imbalances, but there is still a long way to go.
“A 2017 [Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching] undergraduate survey showed that the pay gap starts in the legal world from the word go, with male law graduates being paid $63,000 compared to $58,000 for women,” she said.
“This gap only continues to widen over time, especially as changing work circumstances – notably maternity leave, which is unpaid for many female lawyers, therefore also affecting their superannuation.”
This, Ms David surmised, will of course have an impact at the top end of a firm, where only 18 per cent of partners across the board are women.
With AWL striving for true gender equality within the legal profession, she continued, the formation of AGEC has been some time in the making, as another means to addressing inequality where it exists.
“AGEC has been fortunate to be able to capitalise on the swell of momentum across the globe for gender equality, specifically the continuing #MeToo and #TimesUp movements in the United States, Women’s Marches of last year, the growing participation in International Women’s Day events and conferences,” she noted.
“The recent Australian Human Rights Commission report is yet another example of the need for change within our society, and also highlights the perfect timing of an independent national body such as AGEC, which can provide empirical research with which to influence policy and society.”
AGEC will endeavour to: be an authoritative and independent voice for gender equality, advocate for and raise awareness of issues, develop research-driven policy and raise awareness of the impact of inequality, it outlined in its statement.
