First there was Julia Banks’ shock defection to the crossbench.
Then Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer announced she wouldn’t seek reelection.
And then it was Julie Bishop - one of the most electorally popular members of the Liberal Party.
The Liberal Party were losing women left, right and centre.
And the ones who stuck around weren’t pulling any punches on the challenges of being a female MP.
You’d have thought we’d learnt something in the last 117 years.
You see - Australia was among the first countries in the world to grant women the vote.
White women were granted the vote way back in 1902, a year after Australia stopped
being a bunch of colonies under the British empire,
and started being an independent country.
Unless you were Aboriginal, that is.
Aboriginal men and women were forced to wait until 1962 before they were granted full
rights to vote in federal elections.
The right to vote came hand-in-hand with the right to stand for office.
And despite that, it would take four decades
before we actually had any women in Parliament.
That was in 1943, when Enid Lyons was voted into the House of Reps,
and Dorothy Tangney into the Senate.
They were groundbreakers, elected while women in other parts of the world -
like France and Italy - were still fighting for the right to have their voices heard.
Given our impressive history, we must be absolutely killing it in the equality stakes now… right?
Mmm, not quite.
Unfortunately, women in Australia have a long way to go before we reach parity in federal politics.
Only one in three parliamentarians at a federal level are women.
The big question is why?
Women in politics - and especially those in leadership positions - have often been
the target of criticism that’s based more on their gender than their policies.
"Which - If I can finish now."
*meows*
"Oh yes, why don't you meow when a women does that?"
"Ah, I think I can say (they) have a bit of sex appeal."
"He confirmed that he had yelled 'You should stop shagging men, Sarah'."
"Shocked, I told him he was a creep. His reply was to tell me to 'F… off'."
You can see why maybe politics isn’t an attractive option for a lot of women.
Working in Parliament isn’t exactly an easy ride,
and the hours and demanding workload
are especially difficult if you have small kids.
Back in 2009,
Sarah Hanson-Young was ejected from the Senate for bringing her two-year old in with her
because her toddler was deemed a “visitor”.
In fact, it wasn’t until 2016 that parents were allowed to bring infants into the chamber.
Greens Senator Larissa Waters gave multitasking a whole new meaning,
when she breastfed her daughter
while addressing the Senate in 2017.
But what if we applied a bit of a heavier hand to fixing gender disparity in Parliament?
Labor’s paving the way using quotas - that is, affirmative action where a percentage
of seats or candidates are set aside for women or other under-represented groups.
They’re different from targets, which are aspirational rather than set in stone.
Back in 1994,
Labor announced it would set aside 35 per cent of winnable seats for female candidates.
That was later increased to 40 per cent, with a target of parity by 2025.
They’re pretty close - right now about 46 per cent of federal Labor parliamentarians are women.
"There are seven women now in Cabinet."
"That is the highest number of women ever in a Federal cabinet in Australia."
Scott Morrison may be playing up the number of women in his cabinet, but the Liberal
party itself isn’t doing so well.
It has half the rate of women as the Labor party - 23 per cent.
"I have no problem filling seven slots for women
in my cabinet and potentially more, because I have so many great women to choose from."
The Nats fare even worse - only 2 of their 21 Federal parliamentarians - or 9 per cent
- are women, as they themselves acknowledge.
"Both the women in my party - Bridget McKenzie, my deputy leader, and Michelle Landry - are ministers."
About half the world uses quotas or designated seats for women.
The country that’s leading the way isn't one you'd expect.
In the 1990s,
Rwanda was in the middle of a bloody civil war, and fewer than one in five parliamentarians
were women.
After the bloodshed the country drew up a new constitution,
and in it proposed a bold new initiative -
that 30 per cent of seats should go to women.
In 2019, that’s more than doubled.
So we know that quotas have an impact.
Why then is there so much opposition to them?
It boils down to this:
"I believe in any political organisation it should be a matter of one's own
Merit.
The concern is that by promoting someone based on their gender,
they’re not choosing the best person for the job.
But when you look back at some of the behaviour women in Parliament have been subjected to
in recent years, it’s worth asking ourselves if the current system really is choosing the
best people for the job.
"Peace out."