Affirmative Action Would Do The Trick For This Chick

The Sunday Age

Sunday March 19, 2006

As a woman first, and as a self-employed woman in a male-dominated industry who partners men in business, but mostly just as a chick, I felt great compatibility with the words of Catharine Lumby ('For women in office, gender still the issue', Extra 5/3).

In global politics andbusiness, where relationships between communities, countries and leaders are formed or disposed of, compassion and understanding are clearly required.

So why are women still overlooked as the natural sources of these delicate and necessary diplomatic qualities?

Leadership, strength of mind and even physical strength aren't exclusively masculine qualities. Women lead as mothers, and they bear children with mysterious strength.

Instead of promoting our unique strengths and differences, our high-powered mental-emotional-social processes, our capacity for forgiveness, instead of placing importance on and utilising these attributes, we spend generations competing with men on their level.

Consequently, our own expectations of ourselves, as women, are narrowed, since, in a war-ridden world, our unique feminine approach is greatly ignored as an ethical and productive strategy.

We got the vote, and that was hard enough!

Slogging away at fair pay has been demoralising.

Tragically, generations of young women are instructed that, in order to contribute any worth to society in business or politics, they must assume the posture and attitude of a man, especially when entering a male dominated work environment.

Affirmative action for women in governance and politics everywhere! If you erect it, they will come.

JESSICA BROWN, St Kilda