‘Creating a truly equal society is a project for men as well as women’

BOSSES who become fathers need to take the offer of paternity leave and flexible working to end the myth that women aren’t serious about their careers when they take it, says former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Speaking on a visit to Wales, Ms Gillard, who chairs Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, said men as well as women must act if equality is going to be won.

The Barry-born politician, who served as Labour leader in Australia from 2010 to 2013, was speaking as she visited Wales to receive an honorary degree from the Open University in recognition of her services to public affairs.

“Part of our research at the institute shows if it’s only women who use flexible working such as maternity leave and working from home and organising others to pick up the kids and job sharing, if only women do that then it’s implied women are not putting in as much at work as they should,” she said.

“It takes leadership in the work place. If a leading male figure in the workplaces uses this flexibility then it’s much more likely that men in general will use them. To change our society and create an equal society is a project for women and men.”

Acknowledging that many women political leaders, including herself, Theresa May and Angela Merkel never had children, Ms Gillard, who was Australia’s first ever woman prime minister, said starting a family should not necessarily be a barrier, but there are obstacles.

“I think work and family life for women, whether they aspire to leadership in politics, the legal profession, the media or anywhere, it’s not impossible (to have children). The New Zealand Prime Minister is proving that to the world.

“But having children puts additional pressure on and there’s public interest in it with women asked how they manage, whereas men will not be asked that because it’s just assumed someone is at home.”

The system, rather than people, should be changed to break down barriers to getting more women into leadership, she added.

One of these barriers is the unspoken view of society and in the workplace that women are not serious about their ambitions when they work flexibly after having children.

“One of the things I focus on is working for the Global Institute for Women leadership and we are interested in looking at every barrier to women. Family life is one of them.”

Ms Gillard, who trained as a lawyer before going into politics, said she focused on her career, but believes balancing leadership and parenthood is possible and achievable.

“I was never the girl who was wanting to hold everybody’s babies and as you go on you make conscious choices and life shapes that.

“I think (lack of women in leadership) is about a set of factors more complex than child care but that is an element. It’s about the way work and family life intersects and child care.”

Ms Gillard, who has spoken and written about the sexism and misogyny she experienced at the heart of political life in Australia, supports campaigns such as #MeToo and Time’s Up, the movement against sexual harassment.

She disagrees with views from some quarters that these campaigns have gone too far saying that, on the contrary, more activism and talking is needed to counter harassment and misogyny.

She is, after all, the woman who delivered a now famous speech during question time in Australia’s House of Representatives in 2012, in which she outlined the misogyny to which she’d been subjected to by opposition leader Tony Abbott since taking over as prime minister in 2010.

The speech, which went viral on social media and she believes it is important to vocalise problems to counter them.

During her time in office comments