Finding hope when progress feels slow
From new policies to long-overdue transparency, it’s been a milestone year for gender equality. But progress has not been without its setbacks. Here’s what gives us hope.
In many ways, 2024 has been a milestone year in the gender equality sector.
🔸 While it might seem like a long time ago now, in February, Australian companies employing 100+ people are now having to publicly release their Gender Pay Gaps.
🔸 On March 7—the day before International Women’s Day—the Australian Government unveiled Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality, a comprehensive 10-year plan aimed at addressing systemic gender disparities across various sectors.
🔸 For the first time, we reached some semblance of gender parity in the Order of Australia awards, with women comprising 50.5% of recipients.
🔸 Australia improved its Global Gender Gap Ranking, advancing to 24th out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, and up from 26th in 2023 and 43rd in 2022.
🔸 The Government announced that it will soon be offering superannuation to parents accessing the paid parental leave (PPL) scheme, and increasing the scheme from 20 weeks to 26 weeks by July 2026.
🔸 The national gender pay gap decreased to 11.5% in May marking the lowest level on record, down from 13.3% the previous year, and 18.7% almost a decade ago.
🔸 While the total remuneration average gender pay gap rose slightly to 21.8% (from 21.7%), the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) started collecting age data as a mandatory requirement for the first time, so that we have more insight into what happens to the gaps as women close in on retirement.
🔸 And speaking of closing the Gender Pay Gap, throughout the year GenderWorks Australia has been working alongside dozens of organisations to ensure they’re ready—not just for reporting, but for actually tackling the gap in tangible and meaningful ways, even if it’s bigger than they expected.
🔸 We’ve also been lending our support and amplifying the calls for intersectional pay gap reporting on Equal Pay Day through the Out of Sight, Out of Pocket campaign, and seeing the power of platforms like equidi in helping companies track their progress towards levelling the ledger in real-time.
And yet—while there have been some significant steps forward, there have also been some pretty hefty leaps backward. It’s cracks in the ceiling but chasms on the ground.
Sobering realities
None of us have to look very far for evidence that the fight for gender equality is far from over, and the fact that we even have to ‘fight’ for equality at all is infuriating at best and inhumane at worst.
As the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence draws to a close for another year, we’ve also been reflecting on the sobering reality of why this work is still so needed. And particularly in light of recent election results, it seems harder than ever to believe that what we’re doing is making any sort of difference.
▪️ It seems like every day, we are mourning the loss of a woman to men’s violence.
▪️ There have been pushes to repeal abortion rights, breaches of privacy laws protecting sexual assault survivors, and controversies surrounding gender-affirming healthcare.
▪️ Despite years of advocacy, Australian workplaces continue to fall short for women of colour with Women of Colour Australia’s Workplace Report 2024 showing that 67% of women of colour have faced workplace discrimination, of which 93% are linked to racism.
▪️ There has been significant rollbacks of DEI efforts from major corporations, signalling the fragility of hard-won DEI progress.
▪️ We know that First Nations women continue to be 33 times more likely to be hospitalised due to family and domestic violence than non-Indigenous women.
We could go on, but we won’t. Not now. When will enough actually be enough?
What gives us hope
We know we’re not alone in feeling like this. In fact, we hear similar sentiments from colleagues and peers almost every day of the week. But here’s what gets us through.
🧡 It’s that we don’t have to look far for workplaces who are taking up the challenge of creating safe and equitable environments. In fact, 90% of employers now have a policy or strategy to support gender equality in the workplace.
🧡 According to WGEA, there has also been a significant year-on-year increase in the number of employers who have undertaken a Gender Pay Gap analysis, from 55% to 68%.
🧡 More employers are taking action on the results of their Gender Pay Gap analysis (75%, up from 60%), and more of the employers that are setting targets are doing so by focusing on reducing their pay gaps and increasing women in management and governance.
🧡 What gives us hope is that we also don’t have to look far to see dedicated champions who are making it their mission to challenge entrenched inequalities and rewrite the rules of what’s possible in their industries.
🧡 From officers at Maroondah City Council who have embedded Gender Impact Assessments (GIAs) in their ‘business as usual’ processes to leaders at Alpine Shire Council who have been on a journey to unpack the role they each play in promoting a gender equitable and inclusive community.
🧡 These champions—whether they’re leaders rewriting policies, teams tackling pay gaps, or individuals calling out harmful behaviours—remind us that change is not only achievable but it’s already happening.
🧡 There is more demand for workplace gender equality training and accessible resources than ever before, and it’s in these stories of action and impact that we find hope and momentum.
Every workplace that steps up to confront inequality is a ripple in the larger wave of systemic change, and every step forward—no matter how small—brings us closer to a world where safety, equity, and inclusion are the norm, not the exception.
The power of the micro-step 👣
Institutional and systemic change can feel agonisingly slow and overwhelming, but it’s important to remember that micro-steps provide a tangible way to foster progress.
Together, these small, intentional shifts help break down the barriers that hold systems of inequity in place, which creates the conditions for larger, systemic transformations to flourish.
They might seem small, but they have the potential to shift mindsets, dismantle biases, and promote inclusion in ways that ultimately lead to lasting change.
Where to from here
As we close out the year, we’re taking a moment to acknowledge the weight of this work. But we are also pausing to celebrate the progress we’ve seen and the partnerships that make it all possible.
To all of you—our colleagues, clients, and peers—thank you.
The road to gender equality can be unrelenting at times, but we keep going because the price of inaction is too high. We keep going because anything worth building takes time. And we keep going because we know we’re not walking it alone.
To accelerating gender equality together.
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