Activism Campaign Appraisal Report - Assignment Solution

Background of Issues

Social movements play an important role in shaping the world as they aim to bring changes on certain issue for the welfare of many (Almeida 2019). It requires a continuous and collective action to ensure the desired outcomes are achieved. Gender inequality and sex discrimination is largely attributed to developing nations and some conservative societies (Stamarski & Hing 2015). But gender inequality and gender discrimination is evident even in an open society like Australia. Women make up for little over half of the Australian population. Women represent about 47% of Australian work force (Australian Human Rights Commission 2015). There have been many women who have taken up leadership roles in many organizations. However, there are reports of sexual harassment at workplace. 

Another issue of gender inequality in Australian workforce is the fact that women are considered mostly for the jobs in industries such as healthcare, old age care and hospitality and are not considered for leader’s role (Australian Human Rights Commission 2015). There are certain jobs, where women are preferred and there are a few, where women are not preferred (Egmond et al. 2010). Such kind of unspoken discrimination does exist in Australian job market. Further, there is distinct pay gap between male and female employees (Huppatz & Goodwin 2013). Women employees take less salaries every week compared to their male counterparts (Equality Rights Alliance 2016). Women also appear to be taking majority of the family workload such as taking care of children as compared to men. Women do this despite their part time or full-time jobs. Australia ranked 35 in a global index measuring gender equality in 2017 (Australian Human Rights Commission 2015). 

There are many barriers to gender equality in Australia. One of the barriers is the segregation of industries such as male dominated industries and female dominated industries (Australian Human Rights Commission 2015). The women dominated industries as mentioned above are hospitality, aged care, community services, childcare and healthcare in general. More than half of women of 18 years age or older would have experienced some kind of sexual harassment at home, school, university or at work (Equality Rights Alliance 2016).  One in every three women would have experienced violence by the time they reach the age of 15.  More women work in unorganized industrial sectors for low hourly pay than men (Equality Rights Alliance 2016). And as such women retire nearly with half the retirement savings as compared to men. 

Movements for greater gender equality at workplace and in society have largely been initiated and led by women. However, in 2010 Commissioner Broderick brought about Australia’s most influential male CEOs and leaders of the industry to fight the cause of gender equality in Australia. This movement is called the ‘Male Champions of Change’ (Male Champions of Change 2019). This movement involves the male leaders actively participating and taking lead in understating the issues regarding gender inequality and sexual harassment of women at workplace. They are also expected to strategize action plans and are held accountable for the outcomes of the such initiatives. The main aim of the movement is to bring about significant and sustainable improvement in the leadership gap between the genders by encouraging more and more women to take leadership role in the organizations (Male Champions of Change 2019).