The wage gap between women and men is increasing, the number of women in poverty is growing, women’s reproductive rights are under attack, violence against women is on the increase, there is no marriage equality for LGBTIQ people and gender discrimination is rife.
The White Ribbon is a public symbol that family violence is a problem. Women have the right to live a life free from gender-based violence. The fact that White Ribbon Day exists is a tribute to the generations of women and men who have campaigned to have family violence recognised as a crime and a serious problem in society.
Communist and feminist Zelda D’Aprano became the symbol of the fight for equal pay when, in October 1969, she chained herself to the Commonwealth Offices in Melbourne, after becoming frustrated at the lack of pay equity for women.
Every day, Australian women face the real prospect of violence.
The demands of the first-ever International Women's Day Rally in Australia, in 1928, were: equal pay for equal work, an 8-hour day for shop assistants, the basic wage for the unemployed and annual holidays on full pay.
It is now two and a half months since budget night. Remember Treasurer Joe Hockey and Mathias Corman smoking cigars, satisfied and smug after doing a job on Australian workers, pensioners and the poor?
Students say report "confirms what we’ve known for decades: that a culture of rape has become endemic through the inaction of universities."
The Socialist Alliance will be running three Hunter-based candidates in the March 23 NSW state elections.
And so it begins — an offensive, on behalf of the Australian ruling class and corporate interests, to steal the future from the majority of Australians, to dismantle what remains of our social welfare system, in order to carry out, in the words of Treasurer Joe Hockey, "the government's solemn duty ... to build a stronger Australia".
Sue Bolton, a Socialist Alliance councillor in Moreland, has come under heavy pressure for refusing to be cowed by the Victorian Police, sections of her own council and the racist right-wing.
We need to keep the pressure up for real solutions, on our terms, which will begin to shatter institutional sexism.
The March in March protests across Australia over March 15-17 were a resounding success – not just because of their size, focus and breadth.
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