Now in the past 40 years we as women have made astronomical gain
we’re running companies
countries
and also Beyonce exists… so that’s always nice
But don’t let Beyonce make you complacent. Getting to where we are now wasn’t easy & some big wins happened pretty recently
Whilst women could vote in all Australian states from 1908, Indigenous women couldn’t vote until 1962
women couldn’t even get a bank loan until 1971
Bank of NSW became the first to loan to women without a male guarantor
One year later the government  finally coughed up for childcare and women got the right to equal pay for equal work
before that employers could legally pay women just 75% of what the men got
But it would be another 3 years until it became illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex
But what does that all mean for women today? How is my life, better than my feminist, bra-burning mum?
One of the real success stories for women in 2017 is education
We are ranked number one by the World Economic Forum for our education of women and girls
And our women's labour force is one of the most highly educated in the OECD
Well we definitely live longer now according to the ABS, with a life expectancy of more than 84 years
That's eight years longer than in the mid 70s
We’re also much more educated, with only 30 percent of women in the 80s continuing education after school
But 60 percent doing so today
same goes for employment with 60 percent of adult women currently working compared to less than half in the late 70s
Seems like we’ve come a long way
So what are us meddlesome women still fighting for?
There are many women who I think are being left behind, people such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women
The lowest paid jobs in our economy are very feminised jobs
Areas such as aged care employees, childcare employees
And we see gaps in pay from the very first moment young women start their careers
That compounds across the life course and that's one of the reasons the majority of people who retire into poverty are women
So there we go women - there’s still a lot of reasons to maintain the rage
But also a lot of reasons to be happy we’re born today
and to give your mum a call
Hi mum! Happy International women’s day
Same to you, what are you doing today?
I'm hosting the show
