Women make up more than half our population, so why are there so few sitting on local councils? Alana Schetzer investigates
In 1920, Mary Rogers became the first woman to be elected to a Victorian local government, the then City of Richmond. By the time Rogers – the daughter of Irish migrants and a campaigner for community welfare – left her groundbreaking post five years later, a handful of women had been elected to other councils in Melbourne.
But the path to equal council representation is still far from even, despite the suffrage movement, feminism and the passing of nearly a century.
Women are grossly under-represented in local government. According to the 2011 census, women make up 51 per cent of the state’s population yet account for only 29 per cent of councillors in Victoria.
On October 27 this year, voters in 78 of the state’s 79 local council areas will elect new representatives. For the women behind the 2012 campaign Think Women for Local Government, it’s a once-in-four-years opportunity to rectify the gender imbalance.
The campaign, aims to attract more than 700 women to stand in 90 per cent of council wards this year.
Local Government Minister Jeanette Powell believes we all benefit when there’s a range of views around the decision-making table.
‘‘Women have different life experiences and different life expectations to men,” she says. “They can make differences in their community, talk about kindergartens, child and maternal health; they can talk about libraries and planning and finances.’’
The Think Women for Local Government campaign has been working with councils across the state since early this year, co-hosting information sessions for prospective female candidates to answer their questions about campaign costs, the work councilllors do and skills required for the job. There’s also a Facebook page and website explaining the ins-and-outs of being a candidate and how to run a successful campaign.
Powell, who started her political career as a councillor in Shepparton in the early 1990s, says women seldom consider running for local office unprompted. ‘‘That’s what happened to me – someone asked me,” she says. “It’s not something I would have ever thought of doing.’’
Lack of confidence is another impediment, she says. ‘‘At my first council meeting, I thought, ‘I’ll never remember this or understand all of this’. But that’s not true. You become more confident and that will help you through it.’’
Although the 29 per cent participation figure is the state average, in some corners of Victoria there are no women at all across five councils. Women are more likely to be elected to local government in metropolitan Melbourne than in regional Victoria. Only one council, Port Phillip, has a majority of women – four out of seven councillors – but two of those, mayor Rachel Powning and councillor Janet Bolitho have announced they will not be standing for re-election in October.
Across metropolitan Melbourne, the ratio of male-to-female councillors varies. In the north, Moreland has a strong showing with five female councillors out of 11. Inner-city Yarra and Melbourne each have three out of nine, as do Stonnington, Glen Eira and Manningham in the east, and outer-north Whittlesea.
Whitehorse has three women on its council of 10 and in Bayside there are two women out of seven. Darebin, in the north, has just one female councillor out of nine and just one of Boroondara’s 10 councillors is a woman.
This latest push to encourage more women to run for local government is nothing new. A similar campaign focusing on female candidates ran for 15 years, then lapsed during the 2008 election. The results of that lapse are telling – female representation dropped from 31 per cent to 29 per cent and no women stood for election in a quarter of all wards.
One of the brains behind the 2012 campaign, Linda Bennett, says the new campaign is a response to the poor showing in 2008. “Even a drop of one per cent is significant,” says Bennett, women’s policy officer with the Victorian Local Governance Association. “At its simplest level, this is about diversity. You get better decisions when those governments reflect community diversity.”
A consequence of the fall in female representation at local government level is that fewer women are elected to state parliament. In the past two years, two councillors – Yarra’s Jane Garrett and Melbourne’s Jennifer Kanis – have made the move into parliament. In total, the current state parliament includes 11 women who were previously councillors.
Powell says the high profile afforded to councillors makes it easier to step into the state arena. ‘‘If you’re the mayor, then you’re the spokesperson for that council, so people know what your views are and how you present,” she says. “They’re much more comfortable voting for you knowing your track record.’’
But being in the public eye can be a double-edged sword. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, once said: ‘‘If I want to get news taken off the front page of the newspaper, I just change my hairstyle.’’
Many female politicians in Australia face scrutiny and attract publicity on issues related to their gender, rather than their policies or comments. Although it’s less likely to happen at local government level, female councillors face challenges solely because of their gender.
Melbourne writer and feminist Clementine Ford says many women stay away from high-profile roles because they see how women are treated. ‘‘Women face an extra layer of scrutiny – you know, Julia Gillard’s bum and the Tasmanian premier (Lara Giddings) being interviewed on being single and whether she’s looking for love,” Ford says. “They are simultaneously diminished and scrutinised. ‘‘We need to work on creating a society in which women are not under threat of being ripped apart based on nothing more than what they look like.’’
But Liz Johnstone, who represented St Kilda and Port Phillip on and off between 1991 and 2004, says the experience was largely positive. ‘‘[Port Phillip] was led by women and had a majority of female councillors and I thought that was normal, but it wasn’t,” she says.
“I was involved in the peak body [the Municipal Association of Victoria] and that’s when I realised that men dominated local government.’’
When she was first elected to St Kilda council in 1991, her eldest children were aged 4 and 2, and she had her third child the following year. Looking back, she says juggling the council workload with the demands of her young family was difficult, and she says it remains so for women with young children.
‘‘It’s a time-hungry commitment you make and it doesn’t happen in family-friendly hours,’’ says Johnstone, now the Municipal Association’s manager of planning policy and projects. ‘‘Meetings start at dinner time and it can be very hard to juggle.’’
Bennett acknowledges there are barriers for women, but says the way to change the system is to be part of it. ‘‘That’s what this project is about – sending this message to women that local government wins if it has the right diversity of women,” she says. “Communities win, too. With resources and support, women can have a go.’’
None of the women interviewed for this article wanted gender quotas for councils, as there are in some political parties. Powell, the only female National Party representative in the Victorian parliament, says women should be elected to council only because they’re the right person for the job.
But campaign leader Bennett predicts that without quotas it will take 50 to 60 years before Victoria has gender equality. ‘‘The odd thing about diversity is that as soon as it happens, it becomes invisible,” she says. “And that’s what we’re aiming for.’’
