The token female effect - why our approach to feminism is resulting in lip service and not equality.

Now that gender representation of stick figures on pedestrian crossings on international women's day somehow equates to gender equality, the suddenly overwhelming futility of the feminist movement in our country has tipped me out of the tongue biting grandstand and into the scrum.

I fully expect to be labeled as a white privileged silver spoon gen-y know it all for saying what I'm about to say. But what's another couple of stereotypes right?

I've worked in construction for close on a decade now and I've yet to come across any 'real-deal' female discrimination on a construction site, nor within the industry network that I adore being a part of. In fact, the only inequality that I can think of is that I get a special toilet just for me on most jobs, although on one job recently I did share with one lady tradie. Yep, women working on site are that rare.

I have never requested special treatment at work (I certainly didn't request my own toilet), but I've never had to demand basic human decency either. I have always believed that the moment you play the woman card you might as well pick up your shovel and get out of the sandpit. And that means mucking in on every job and doing your bit, even the dirty stuff.

So I'm not looking for discrimination, I don't talk about it, and it hasn't influenced me nor held me back. That's not to say that it doesn't exist.

I have however seen serious inequalities in adjacent industries, particularly in law, from pay inequality right down to the modern day dress code for Court appearances. In Court it is perceived as a mark of respect to dress accordingly for your gender - because our Court system is still deeply rooted in tradition, which is based on legal history.

So there's a difference between tradition and discrimination, and I think it's founded in consent and willingness to participate.

This is a good parallel to draw, because modern day feminist activism seeks indicators for progress (naturally), and based on our overwhelming requirement to attend to parity in gender ratio for things like traffic light stick figures, I'm convinced that we (society, women, feminists, everyone who wants gender equality) are measuring success based on lip service performance indicators instead of measures of actual equal opportunity and choice.

Here's another example, The Ugly Truth of Children's Books showed up on Facebook yesterday (right in time for International Women's Day) and there is a big song and dance about how women are portrayed in fairy tales. What the video doesn't say, is when the books were written - who knows maybe it's still an issue.

But, are we really proposing that we rewrite fairy tales with modern day political correctness just so that we can balance the quota of princes and princesses?

Nobody is denying that there was (and still is in some instances) major gender inequality that needed to be addressed, but why are we measuring today's equality standards based on the indicators of historical events and the records of generations prior?

To me, the fact that we look back at those records and conventions and bawk is indicator in itself that we're making progress.

Obviously, there are industries and cultures and places that still have a long way to go. But what I don't think will make one iota of a difference is lip service token representations like the female tradie in the advertising photograph above.

Whoever dreamed this one up has gone looking for a pseudo masculine looking lady tradie, told her to roll up her (short?) sleeves and stood her in the center of a bunch of miserable looking men. (For contextual fairness, this is an advertisement for tradies who haven't been paid, which is why they are unhappy looking).

Lip service achieved - they've covered race, age and gender, and nobody can accuse the QLD Government of discrimination. This type of token representation is a chronic symptom of our approach to feminism, and it epitomises the very reason that I believe we will continue to hinder and stall progress in battle areas of real importance if we don't stop wasting energy on battles for superficial victories.

These superficial indicators are undermining the importance of the actual issue at hand.

While the token representations are the symptom, the real disease is the assumption that women should right now be working in jobs (or assuming roles) that culturally and historically men have serviced, so that we can count them. What if women don't want to work in those roles? If we measure progress based on gender ratio statistics and we simply don't want to wield tools... we're doomed to fail!

Yesterday, Master Builders Australia (MBA) chose international women's day to announce the appointment of their first female CEO - and she's got a ripper of a CV to bring to the role. I'm really excited about this, good on MBA for snapping her up!

Women on boards is another gender ratio indicator constantly in the media, and as a result, I'm aware of token appointments where existing board members readily admit they 'needed' a woman for PR and image in the media. Let me be clear - I am not suggesting MBA have made this appointment on this basis - just a snippet of Ms Wawn's credentials disproves that.

Having personally been the recipient of a QLD Master Builders Women in Building award in 2014, I know first hand that the association both nationally and at a State level do a great job of providing really good resources to women in the industry (and to the men). So I don't want to come off as a complete ingrate as a recipient for going here, but have a look at what Morgan Freeman thinks about Black History Month. I could not agree more with his opinion.

It must have been a dichotomous hippopotamus who decided that creating special categories for minority groups would promote equality in any context.

So if street signs and award categories and special mentions and women on boards won't breed equality, what is the answer? I think the creation and preservation of equal rights, obligations and opportunities is surely the answer. And that is measured by policy, legislation and governance. (#retch)

And then we (everybody) just need to be willing to stand on our own two feet.

This means that if I want to win an award, I've got to do better, be better, better qualify than everyone else who enters - even the other women! If I want the same amount of superannuation in my superannuation fund at retirement, I've got to attend work for the same accrual period as whoever it is that I'm comparing myself to.

Demanding more and more and more until equality becomes inequality on the other end of the see-saw is not gender equality - and its not feminism.

I'm about to have my first child, and the Government will provide me with eighteen weeks of paid maternity leave to 'compensate' me for my time away from work, so that I can assume the mothering role that I was anatomically designed for. Consequentially, my male Partner doesn't qualify for paid 'paternity' leave unless I'm incapacitated or grossly negligent, because he's not female.

That to me is too much lady bum on the see-saw.

*********************Gender equality for men too!************************