Sexism In Australia

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We may not live in the harsh society our grandmothers and great grandmothers grew up in where career choices were so limited. We have grown up in a society with basic rights and opportunities; however, there is still a real problem that needs to be addressed. Technology has advanced, fashions have changed yet Australia is going backwards on females in politics. Currently women only compromise 29 per cent of Australian parliamentarians. Why is this? Overwhelmingly there are still sexist and misogynistic views in the 21st century. More importantly, these views which are more dominantly held by men have had a significant impact and influence over women’s choices in the political career pathway. What is even more disturbing is the media coverage…show more content…
Journalists constantly focused on her private life, such as her being barren, her appearance and what she wore rather than her public sphere. In 1959 the term ‘sociological imagination’ was coined by an American sociologist C. Wright Mills. The sociological imagination refers to the ability to ‘think yourself away from the familiar routines of everyday life’ and look at them from a different…show more content…
For example, going back to a time period when women’s jobs were to stay home and clean, cook and look after the children while their husband went to work. This has enormous implications on today’s society as women feel they’re not good enough to receive higher positions because of their gender. These sexist and misogynistic views are carried down from generations in society and shown predominantly by men, which give women in society today the mindset that they can’t achieve certain things because of their gender. Tony Abbot states that “it would be folly to expect women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons”. Abbot’s cabinet has one woman out of 19 members (5%) and there are five women in the Abbot ministry (17%) which further exemplifies the misogyny and sexism in society, especially in parliament. Compared to other countries, Australia ranks poorly with the equality of women and men in parliament, coming in at 45. With Rwanda topping the list with 56 per cent of women in

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