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Balance for Better lecture at UTAS

Being the week of International Women’s Day, last Thursday, I was very pleased to attend the UTAS #BalanceForBetter Lecture: “Why is gender equality so hard to achieve?” where former State Premier, Lara Giddings, was the guest speaker.

Lara spoke passionately and honestly about her career and the hurdles she had to overcome due to gender imbalance. I found her speech to be truly inspirational and extremely motivational. Throughout her childhood, she was always encouraged to try new things and challenge herself, irrespective of her gender.

Her parents were fully supportive and encouraged her passion for politics which saw Lara being the youngest woman to be elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly at the age of 23. Lara was also encouraged by her mentors to take on more challenging roles even if she thought she was not ready due to self-doubt or a lack of experience for those positions. She came to the conclusion that if other people thought she was capable of succeeding in these more challenging roles then she was willing to embrace them and put herself forward for these positions.

Lara explained to us that she had always been self-driven and rarely felt that her gender had held her back from achieving her goals in politics. The only time she felt her gender became an issue was when she was elected as the first female Premier of Tasmania, a position she held from 2011 to 2014.

She explained to us her observations as to how she was treated by the media during this time and that their focus was often on what she was wearing, her lack of a partner or children and more about her appearance rather than the position she held in parliament and the things she was achieving.

She quickly realised that she needed to involve herself in out of office activities such as watching cricket and football matches as many of her colleagues networked during these functions and ideas were being discussed in her absence. She had been excluded from these functions as it was presumed she would not be interested in sport, when in fact she had always loved cricket.

Lara discussed at length gender equality in today’s workforce and the idea of quotas. Explaining the benefits of having balanced male to female representation in politics and how it’s not about disadvantaging one gender over the other or putting people in positions without merit but more about equal opportunity and recognition for what each gender can contribute. The aim is to achieve a true reflection of society through a balanced approach to issues affecting both males and females.

What I took away from her presentation was that we all need to have faith in our own abilities, confront challenges head on and to not allow our own inner voice or others to discourage us. We need to put ourselves forward, grasp opportunities that come our way and be the drivers of our own career paths.

If we feel that we have hit an obstacle or glass ceiling we need to take a step back, re-evaluate and approach it from another perspective rather than being discouraged and possibly giving up.

So many influential and strong women have paved the way to help ensure greater opportunities for women today. Listening to Lara Giddings reminded me that endless opportunities and fulfilling careers in any industry or field are always available to those who want to embrace the challenge.

Annalize Moase - Siena Academic Captain 7-10