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Top countries leading commitment to bold action are: #1 US, #2 Australia, #3 UK, #4 India https://t.co/WZb1GdNRLg #BeBoldForChange #IWD2017 pic.twitter.com/wS0XgttTYd
— Women’s Day (@womensday) March 8, 2017


Add your voice
Top countries leading commitment to bold action are: #1 US, #2 Australia, #3 UK, #4 India https://t.co/WZb1GdNRLg #BeBoldForChange #IWD2017 pic.twitter.com/wS0XgttTYd
— Women’s Day (@womensday) March 8, 2017
A Solidarity Movement for Gender Equality
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UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, Emma Watson [ @EmWatson ], delivers her remarks during the HeForShe Special Event at United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 20, 2014.
At a time when Gender equity is so prominent in much media coverage, both within Australia and across the Globe, it is also sobering to consider the structural challenges faced by girls entering the workforce and adult-hood for the first time here in Victoria.
This graph shows Vet is Schools [VETiS] enrolments for Girls as a ratio of the Boys enrolments. 0% would mean there is an equal percentage of both boys and girls enrolled. A negative percentage [i.e. Building and Construction] shows girls are under-represented. A positive percentage [i.e. Community Services and Health] shows girls are over-represented.

Where are future opportunities for girls?
Where are the proposed cuts being made?
The current and proposed cuts to TAFE programmes, listed here [PDF] by the AEU, further enforces an already structural disadvantage for girls and young women. Compounding rural and regional disadvantage and the already stark labour-market inequities that have occurred over the last twenty years, there is little or no defence in my view for the changes as I understand them.
These changes do not encourage or address the growing lack of job-ready individuals and further solidifies a structural bias that I doubt few inside “urban” policy contexts seem to really understand. Given the responses to these announcements, it does not appear Gender issues were considered appropriately. This is a matter of both social cohesion and stark regional economic development that should be reconsidered with the highest priority.
There is nothing like good public policy to improve regional and rural competitiveness; these proposed cuts are nothing like good public policy.