Professor Miranda Stewart from ANU has analysed the tax and childcare changes to ascertain whether working mothers would really benefit.  Her findings: mothers will have little to show for extra days of work under the changes.  Given that many commercial childcare centres plan to raise their fees on 1 July when the childcare fee changes begin, any benefit to families may simply be converted to increased profits for providers.

BPW Australia campaigned tirelessly for paid parental leave from 2000, recognising that we were then 20 to 40 years behind most countries. Once New Zealand introduced PPL in 2007, Australia became the only developed nation that had neither state nor national provision for paid parental leave.  Several USA states have had PPL for many years, although they still don’t have a national scheme.   Our PPL scheme is still less generous than most countries, and BPW is still lobbying for Australia to catch up.

Rocío Lorenzo and her team surveyed 171 companies to find out -- and the answer was a clear yes. In her interesting talk, Lorenzo dives into the data and explains how you and your business can start producing fresher, more creative ideas by treating diversity as a competitive advantage.

The Stockholm Forum on Gender Equality held earlier this month was a global conference with 600 participants from over 100 countries. It brought together activists, academics, politicians and entrepreneurs who are putting their energies into making the world more gender-equal.  In the opening statement, the hosts acknowledged the efforts of the  women’s movement , standing on the barricades and fighting for gender equality at both national and international levels, and announced that Sweden has launched, as the first government in the world to do so, their feminist foreign policy.  You can access the Forum's keynote speeches and sessions at http://genderequalworld.com/live-sessions/

At the 2018 Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations in New York, Elizabeth Broderick AO was invited in her role as Special Rapporteur of the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women to address delegates. Broderick was appointed to the role by the UN Human Rights Council in 2017 in recognition of her expertise in the area of discrimination against women in law and practice. As Australia's longest serving Sex Discrimination Commissioner (2007-2015), and founder of the globally applauded ‘Male Champions of Change' initiative, Broderick’s commitment to promoting women has helped change Australia's national discourse around gender equality. Now on the global stage, she is helping shift international understanding and commitments.

Elizabeth Broderick’s address at the UN was a proud moment for Australia. She expressed deep concern in her speech that, while recent decades have seen important gains made for women’s rights, overall progress towards an equal and just society where women are free from discrimination has been painfully slow and uneven across the globe. Marginalized groups of women remain left behind while political conflict and natural disasters have created new populations of vulnerable women. The recent resurgence of racism, populism, religious fundamentalism and sexism pose complex challenges for women who continue to battle on many fronts for their dignity and survival.

The 2030 Agenda is clear: there can be no sustainable development without gender equality.  Turning promises into action: Gender equality in the 2030 agenda, a global monitoring report by UN Women, asks: How far have we come in turning this new development consensus into results for women and girls, and what is needed to bridge the remaining gaps between rhetoric and reality?

UN Women’s report uncovers significant gaps for women’s empowerment and puts forth a robust agenda to shift gears. It spotlights inequalities and challenges that are faced by women, and identifies gaps and opportunities for gender equality in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

UN Women has produced fact sheets for regions and subregions. The Australian and New Zealand factsheet offers comparisons with the global data.

Women's Agenda has drawn together an excellent snapshot of women at work and how employers can help shift the dial by 2020, proposing 8 well-described strategies for achieving this goal.  Called Press for (Immediate) Progress, this resource includes useful data and links to supporting material and sources which will be useful for BPW clubs planning to draft resolutions for the 2018 BPW Australia National Conference focused on pay equity, the motherhood penalty, gender-balanced leadership, sharing the unpaid workload, supporting women entrepreneurs or women's economic and housing security through the lifespan.  What is important to your BPW club members?  How should BPW Australia address these challenges and where should we direct our advocacy?

Tasmania elected the first female-majority Australian state parliament on 3 March 2018, with 13 women and 12 men elected to the House of Assembly. The Australian Capital Territory had the first majority female parliament in Australia after its 2016 election.

Tasmania’s Parliament has 52% women: 2 Green MPs and 7 of 10 Labor MPs, but only 4 of 13 Liberal MPs. 

The South Australian election returned 29% women in the House of Assembly with 3 women in the 14 member Cabinet. The Liberals have 4 women out of 25 MPs (16%) and Labor has 7 women out of 19 MPs (36%).

Labor has a policy of assertively encouraging gender balance which is clearly achieving results. 

The OECD launched an initiative on International Women’s Day to help governments, parliaments, judiciaries and public institutions to design gender-sensitive public policies and services and accelerate their efforts to enable equal access for women in public decision making.

The OECD Toolkit for Mainstreaming and Implementing Gender Equality is aimed at speeding up progress on gender equality goals and creating systemic change by incorporating gender goals into hiring, career development and budget cycles.  It identifies proven measures to increase women’s participation across the board and outlines pitfalls to avoid, with examples of effective policies and good practices.

The Toolkit aims to help and inspire government policy makers to apply a gender lens, implementing new ways to promote gender equality and women's leadership. It illustrates how formal and informal practices and procedures in state institutions can reinforce inequalities and gender-based stereotypes.

The BBC reports that women workers in Spain are marking International Women's Day with an unprecedented strike targeting gender inequality and sexual discrimination. Unions said 5.3 million women had joined the 24-hour strike, backed by 10 unions and some of Spain's top women politicians.  Hundreds of thousands of women have joined street protests across Spain, shouting "if we stop, the world stops".

Events marking the day are being held in dozens of other nations.