Address Association for Women in the Sciences

Womens' Affairs Minister Ruth Dyson
Address to Association for Women in the Sciences
School of Forestry, University of Canterbury, Christchurch
7.30pm, Thursday, 30 September 2003

Rau rangatira maa,
tenei te mihi ki a koutou i runga i te kaupapa o te ra.
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

[Distinguished guests, greetings to you gathered here for this purpose today. Greetings once, twice, three times to you all.]

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you this evening. In particular, I want to acknowledge Lisa Langer, who has organised this event and gathered us all together.

I bring greetings from my Christchurch colleagues Lianne Dalziel, Tim Barnett, Clayton Cosgrove and Mahara Okeroa.

I’ve been asked to talk about firstly, issues relating to women in science, including how we engage women in science and encourage girls to take up science at school; and secondly, the work of CEDAW, the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, to which I presented New Zealand’s five-yearly report card in June.

Engaging women in science
In April 2000 the Ministry of Research Science and Technology commissioned a paper on engaging women in science. The ministry did a limited literature review and consulted women scientists working in a range of contexts including private enterprise, a crown research institute, a university, a college of education and women who are members of a professional association. Particular efforts were made to seek the views of women working in information technology and engineering, areas in which participation rates for women are particularly low.

Six consultation meetings were also held with women scientists in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin.

Many of the women participating in the consultation did not consider that they had faced any gender-specific barriers to entering their scientific profession. However, most agreed that there were sufficient indicators, both in the form of participation rates and other women’s experiences, to confirm that the issue of women’s engagement with science does need attention.

Those indicators included:
·lack of appeal of science subjects at secondary school and university for girls and women (by contrast, the teaching of science in primary school was seen to be broad-based, interesting, and meaningful in children’s lives, and made connections with other areas of the curriculum);
·the need to have PhD level qualifications, and the cost incurred in study;
·rates of entry to, and advancement in, scientific professions;
·differential pay rates;
·lack of proportional representation of women among recipients of scholarships, awards and grants;
·lack of interest of women in management positions in scientific workplaces; and
·lack of effort of scientific workplaces to accommodate women’s need for flexibility and family-friendliness.

The participants in the consultation agreed that women had much to offer science, but were not certain that science had much to offer women. They expressed frustration that there is much attention given to the need to attract people into science but that, for those already working in science, there are few jobs, few alternative career paths, poor pay and a male-dominated culture. There was a strong element of questioning why any woman would choose it. The issue of job satisfaction for most of these participants did not compensate for some of the disadvantages outlined.

At the same time, women were seen as bringing a breadth of perspective and an appreciation of context that is unfamiliar to traditional scientific pursuits, but which has a lot to offer, particularly in some of the key environmental science debates.
In addition, women were seen as having a more collaborative and co-operative style than men. This style offers some opportunities for reaching solutions that individuals will not reach alone.

No one theory was thought to account for the problems identified with women’s engagement with science. An interplay of factors was held responsible, and the
solutions similarly were seen as multi-faceted.

At most of the consultation meetings, participants shared their stories of the factors that had influenced their own choice of a career in science. Common themes included:
·fathers who treated girls as equals and expected them to succeed in non-traditional areas;
·strong female role models in science education;
·being good at maths and science at school;
·families who expected girls to pursue a professional career (although a number of participants indicated they were the only one in their family to have done this);
·someone, somewhere, conveying the message ‘you can do this’.

Lack of recognition of women scientists was brought home to me by the exhibition now running in the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, which resides on the ground floor of Bowen House, (where I too resided until I was upgraded to the Beehive a couple of weeks ago). The exhibition is called ‘Science for Survival – People Who Care’ and, of the 22 New Zealand scientists featured in this biographical show, only three are women.

They're all botanists:
·Dr Wendy Campbell-Purdie (1925-1985), who found ways to grow trees and enable cereal crops to survive in the Sahara;
·Dr Margot Forde (1934-1992), who established AgResearch's Forage Germplasm Centre in Palmerston North; and
·Dr Lucy Moore (1906-1987), who became known as "the Mother of Botany", and whose work with agar from Bay of Plenty seaweed during WW2 meant Kiwi soldiers still got their cans of bully beef, and hospitals and scientists could still study bacteria and other micro-organisms.

There's also a separate display of current science communicators. In this case, six of the 19 portraits and write-ups on display feature women – a better representation, but still only 30 per cent.
One of those featured is Vicki Hyde, described as a 'science populariser and editor of the SciTech Daily website’, who is in the audience tonight, I think. In a conversation with a Labour staff member today, she identified "the tent problem" as a practical barrier facing women scientists. Until as recently as the 1980s, I understand, women couldn't get the okay to go on field trips because authorities couldn't bear the idea of them being in the same tent as the men! So women had to work to get enough of them together to justify a two-tent trip!

You have solved the tent problem, and we are making progress on other issues like pay equity, paid parental leave and family-friendly work policies, which were all identified in the MoRSt report as important issues for women scientists.

CEDAW
I’ll come back to these issues during my comments on the government’s report in June this year on the status of New Zealand women for the United Nations CEDAW committee, which I’d now like to turn to.

Last time we reported to CEDAW, the New Zealand government had two reservations:
·The first was on the paid parental leave issue, which I am pleased to say we removed this time.
·The second was the restriction of women in the armed forces, which will be reviewed in 2005.

The other key points on the status of women in New Zealand that I reported were:
·our emphasis on the halting of privatisation of publicly funded social and health services;
·replacement of the Employment Contract Act with the Employment Relations Act - this change recognises the inequality between employers and employees and promotes collective bargaining;
·the ‘whole of government’ approach called ‘reducing inequalities’ to reduce the inequities between Maori women and other women in New Zealand;
·the commitment to implement the Treaty of Waitangi;
·changes to human rights legislation which mean that all government legislation is now subject to the non-discrimination standard in the act;
·the Action Plan for Human Rights, being developed by the Human Rights Commission, which will promote a wide range of human rights, including civil, political, economic and cultural rights;
·the requirement that all papers going before our Cabinet Social Development Committee includes gender implications statements (and my intention to include this requirement for papers to other Cabinet Committees);
·establishment of a dedicated Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner within the Human Rights Commission;
·the inquiry into the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act;
·the passing of the Prostitution Reform legislation – aimed at safeguarding the human rights of women in prostitution and protecting them from exploitation;

I reported that women in the paid labour force has risen over the past years, but that challenges to this include the persistence of a gender pay gap, occupational segregation and the increasing difficulty of achieving work-life balance.
I noted our change in approach to single parents and widows, which helped them into paid work rather than adopting a punitive approach.

I reported on our changes to property legislation and the Te Rito Family Violence Prevention Strategy.

So what did they say?

Well, the committee members were very engaged and engaging – it was an excellent discussion!

They “cautioned against complacency in a seemingly ideal situation” – which is a genuine reaction which we often take for granted in New Zealand. In spite of the difficulties you face as women scientists, we are well ahead of other countries with regard to our valuing of women.

They said New Zealand had a good chance of becoming a good practice example to many countries of the world through ensuring respect for the cultural traditions and development of indigenous communities.

They also said they were impressed with the exceptional presence of women in constitutional and political offices - but as the first country to grant women the right to vote, that was to be expected!!

The committee said that, among the areas that still required attention were the issues of gender stereotypes; the situation of migrant and indigenous women, in particular, Maori and Pacific women; the financial repercussion of wage gaps; and high suicide rates among young women.

They particularly noted our lack of affirmative action programmes – targets and measures.

So, in spite of the progress we have made, the future continues to pose challenges for New Zealand women.

There is still significant inequality between men and women and between different groups of women.

We need to recognise the special place and role of Maori women. Persistent inequalities continue to face many other groups of women, including Pacific, rural, refugee and migrant women, women with disabilities and low-income women.

Work-life balance
At the same time – if we are not to burn out – we must tackle women’s family/whanau responsibilities. We have worked hard in this country for women’s participation, particularly in the paid labour market and there have been great improvements in that area.

What we haven’t done yet is get the right balance between paid and unpaid work.

As a measure of our commitment, our government is setting up an inter-agency steering group, chaired by the Department of Labour, to develop family-friendly and other policies promoting work-life balance. All policies and practices that have an effect on the ability of employees to balance paid work and other activities will be considered, and public consultation will occur.

Work-life balance is not just an issue for women. Overall, a decade of a deregulated and competitive environment has reduced the quality of life for many workers of both genders. A lot of men have more stress in their lives than is healthy. But women have paid the greater price because of the additional level of stress that accompanies our role as carers.

Maori and Pacific women face particular stresses because of their broader family responsibilities, concentration in low paid work, higher level of community work and the younger age structure of their population groups.

Pay equity
Pay equity is another issue where there is still a lot of work to be done.
I am delighted that the issue is back on the political agenda for the first time since the National Government repealed the Employment Equity Act in 1990 – its first legislative move after its election.

It is obvious that, left to its own devices, the market is not going to close the income gap between the sexes. But it is also obvious that the structures that we had to deliver pay equity prior to 1990 are no longer available to us.

Pay equity – equal pay for work of equal value – is about much more than simply weighing one job against another. If true equity is to be achieved in the paid workplace, the undervaluing of women’s work in general needs to be addressed, as do the particular inequities that face Maori, Pacific, migrant, young workers and workers with disabilities.

There are two main contributors to the gender pay gap:
·the time women take out of the paid workforce to bear and rear children; and
·the lower levels of pay for the caring, education and people professions where women are more likely to work.

But this isn’t the whole story. The gap exists not just when women reach the age when they spend less time in paid work because of their children, but right from the beginning of their careers.
University graduate surveys show that male commerce graduates start out in their careers earning on average nearly $5000 a year more than women of the same age with the same qualifications.

The same applies in the legal profession. So what is it about commercial law that makes it so more “valuable” than family court work?

Some of the gender pay gap comes down to gender stereotyping in pay rates and negotiations.

The taskforce recently established by Margaret Wilson will look at the overseas work studied by the Department of Labour and the submissions on the pay equity document from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

It will make recommendations to the government soon about how we can implement pay equity in the core state sector, and health and education sectors. We will then look at how that model can be extended to the private sector.

Women’s Action Plan
It’s because of issues like economic independence, general well-being and work-life balance that we need a women’s action plan. Consultation meetings were held throughout the country earlier this year, and I want to take the opportunity to thank all those involved.

If we want to make sure that all women have information and are empowered, we need a clear and whole-of-government approach to the issues that concern us now and agreement on action for the future.

Nominations
We need to look at the number of women we appoint to statutory boards. Fifteen years ago, the figure was 20 per cent - now it’s around 40 per cent, and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs’ goal is to increase it to 50 per cent by 2010.

The ministry’s Nominations Service database, which currently has almost 1000 women registered on it, is one vehicle to achieve this. It receives requests from me, other ministers, government departments and NGOs for nominations of women to a wide variety of bodies – and I encourage you to add your names to it if you have not already done so.

We need better data in key areas to monitor our progress.

We need specific affirmative action programmes for women.

We need a Minister of Women’s affairs to be our advocate around the Cabinet table.

Ministry of Women’s Affairs
And we need a separate Ministry of Women’s Affairs to lead these issues. When I took on this portfolio, I found the ministry less focussed than is ideal, and less in touch with women throughout New Zealand than I wanted them to be. I was also concerned that they didn’t have the respect of other government agencies, or the links that were necessary to support and encourage departments’ active participation in policies and programmes impacting on women.

This is not surprising, given that they had gone through nearly a decade of being ignored under the National Government. So it was a key task for me to ensure that these issues were addressed.

Following a recent review, our government has decided the ministry will be retained and strengthened. We are advertising for a new chief executive, who will be charged with the particular role of addressing capability issues - improving policy development, management systems and processes, organisational culture, and cross-governmental relationships.

My goal is that, within a year or so:
·the ministry is leading and driving policy change for women;
·its reputation and credibility are enhanced; and
·it has close links with women’s organisations like your own, and other organisations, both inside and outside government.

Conclusion
Many of the issues are the same as those we faced years ago – but the solutions are not.

Our successes to date – and there have been many, well worthy of celebration – have been due to the women of New Zealand working together, setting priorities and making strong and steady progress to achieving them.

I appreciate the support and challenges that women give me and as your minister I look forward to continuing to work with, and for, you.

Thank you