Women told to support each other with a smile
Women were encouraged to support each other within their sisterhood and encourage each other with a smile at an International Women’s Day event at Lardner Park on Thursday.
About 300 women attended the event, organised by Women in Gippsland.
Guest speaker Ruth McGowan encouraged women to support each other as sisters in a powerful sisterhood with diverse backgrounds.
She said she had lots of sisters in her sisterhood including Muslim, refugees and the LGBTI community.
Ms McGowan said seeing 300 women together in the room was powerful.
“When women get together there is amazing energy in the room…when we get together things happen.
Ms McGowan said a recent world economic forum indicated it would be 217 years begore gender parody is achieved.
She paid tribute to the mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers that were the red thread of women.
“I have been surrounded by female energy since the womb and I was entangled with a twin sister.
She said she was born into a family of 12, with nine sisters.
“I have a lot of mentors and marvellous women in my life.
But, Ms McGowan said her greatest inspiration was her daughter Ivy.
Ms McGowan said she and her husband raised their three sons to be equals, shared the parenting and encouraged them to play with all toys when they were younger.
Three years ago, she said her second son declared “I am not a boy, I am a girl – I am Ivy.”
“That was an amazing time for my daughter.
“She is the most amazing, powerful woman I know because she doesn’t take being a woman for granted.
“It is not just black and white. With all our sisters out there, there are different ways to be a woman.
“Ivy is my biggest inspiration. If we can be open and bring our sisters with us, it won’t take 217 years to get to equality,” she said.
Ms McGowan told the audience she was 16-years-old when she was first hit with discrimination.
She said she was a work experience student at an agricultural research centre and at morning tea time she and the male staff went into huts for their break.
“It was wall to wall of pin-up girls and for the first time I felt like I didn’t belong.
But, she said, she pursued a career as an agricultural scientist and she “pushed forward for progress.”
“We have to press fast forward, we can’t just press play. If we just press play we are going to go backwards.
“We are already going backwards in political representation. We used to be ranked 20th in the world for women in parliament, we are now 50th.
Ms McGowan said she was passionate about politics because that’s how things got done.
But, she said, Gippsland had been represented by only three women in state government – Susan Davies and current members Harriet Shing and Melina Bath.
“At a state level (Narracan) and in McMillan, we have never had a female representative.
Ms McGowan, an Order of Australia Medal recipient, said she now worked with a program Honour a Woman to ensure women were rightly recognised in annual honours lists.
“It’s about putting amazing women forward,” she said.