“For most women ageing means a humiliating process of gradual sexual disqualification.” Susan Sontag

Second wave feminists in the late 20th century simply did not see older women. We were essentially advocating for feminism for younger women. Older women were invisible to us, just as now that we are older, we have become invisible to the rest of society.

But there was one woman who in 1972 did write about women ageing. It was Susan Sontag, a highly esteemed and controversial American essayist, critic, novelist and filmmaker.

I have been a feminist all my adult life. In my personal and professional life I have campaigned to fight discrimination against women.

But now I won’t be celebrating International Women’s Day 2024 as I choose not to identify with international women’s organisations.

You see, I don’t believe you can ever ‘contextualize’ rape. I don’t believe you can ever ‘contextualize’ sexual atrocities. I don’t believe that ‘by any means’ can justify the sexual brutalisation of women. And yet this is precisely what has happened regarding the rape, sexual atrocities and massacre of Israeli girls and women by Hamas on October 7th.

Now, 5 months after October 7th, a report to the U.N. Secretary-General by the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict has finally confirmed widespread sexual violence by Hamas during its October 7 attacks, as well as ongoing sexual violence against Israeli women hostages.

We need to take the time to reflect on the heroism of Dr. Lowitja O’Donoghue who passed away on 4 February aged 91.

Consider the odds against her.

She was stolen from her Aboriginal mother when she was only two years old in 1932.
Lowitja was stolen from her siblings and her extended family.
Her identity was stolen from her when she was forcibly placed in a mission home, her name anglicised.
Her heritage and her culture were stolen from her as she was prohibited from speaking her own language and removed from contact with her mother or with any Indigenous community.
Her agency was stolen from her as she was left alone and powerless.
Her education and prospects were stolen from her as she was trained for a life of servitude.
Her sense of self worth was stolen from her as she was repeatedly told by the matron of the home that she would never amount to anything.

And yet.

Against impossible odds, Lowitja O’Donoghue took her place as a truly great Australian woman.

October 7th had a transformative impact on Israeli society. But it was probably not the impact that Hamas had intended when it launched its meticulously planned massacre of 1200 Israeli civilians and the taking of 240 hostages. A key element of the Hamas plan was the assault on Israeli women and girls. “The torture of women was weaponized to destroy communities, to destroy a people, to destroy a nation,” said Cochav Elkayam Levy, the head of a nongovernmental commission investigating crimes of murder, rape, sexual atrocities, beheading and mutilation perpetrated by Hamas. 

But instead of destroying a nation, it unleashed a dramatic upsurge in ‘the power of the people’ civic activism and an intensification of solidarity amongst Israelis. 

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, had been meticulously planned for over a year. It was the expression of a sophisticated strategy designed to implement barbarism as a means of achieving Hamas’ political goals. The primary goal of Hamas, as part of  the regional alliance led by Iran and its other proxies Hezbollah and the Houthis, is to bring permanent war to all Israel’s borders in order to ” annihilate Israel “.   

The timing was targeted to shatter a trilateral deal between the U.S, Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalise relations and change the face of the Middle East. 

There are 5 key elements to the Hamas strategy of barbarism.

It is hard to forget the cries of “intergenerational tragedy” that greeted the latest Intergenerational Report released by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. The lively reaction to a potential “tragedy” in Australia in 40 years time stands in sharp contrast to the failure to deal with Australia’s present generational tragedy unfolding in real time.

The problem is not just the alarmist nature of the IGR with regard to the ageing population. It is that the IGR reflects the ageist thinking of governments and society in general. Older generations are seen as a threat to national wellbeing. They are calculated as a national liability and an unbearable burden on future budgets.

The countries that will be the most successful with ‘generational change’ will be the ones that provide the best integration and opportunities for older people. Put that in an Intergenerational Report, Treasurer.

Google offers over 999 words to describe an old woman, and they are uniformly pejorative. The top 4 are: “ distressingly ancient; squat and dumpy; dismal and lonesome; insanely suicidal.”

Some common names for old women are: old bag, granny, biddy, crone, hag, witch, harridan, bedlam, old bat, old boiler. And if that’s not bad enough, you can also resort to descriptions such as: “withered and bitter; almost well-dressed; unnaturally lusty; crazy and uncanny; entirely uninteresting; exceptionally invaluable.”

What’s in a name, you may ask. The answer is – a minefield. Language reflects and reinforces prejudice and discrimination and has terrible consequences. Arguably, there is a direct link between this gendered ageism and the social crisis that Australian older women are now experiencing. It is a multi-faceted crisis that is distinctive to this demographic. It negatively affects their employment, housing, livelihood, and mental and physical health. Older women are ending up on the dust heap of the nation’s economy.

The theme of NAIDOC 2023 was ‘ For Our Elders’. This theme highlights the connection between the Voice and the Elders and underscores the compelling reasons why we must vote ‘Yes’ in the referendum.

The Elders are the custodians of Indigenous heritage, culture and knowledge handed down from one generation of Elders to another. They have ensured the survival of the oldest Indigenous peoples in the world for 65,000 years. Elders are respected, honoured and listened to by the community.

But current statistics about Elders are very worrying. The ‘gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous life expectancy stands at around 15 years.

Remarkably, it appears that even in official documents there are two categories of Older Australians.

No Australian Government is equiped to close the gap without meaningful, informed consultations with the Voice, and that means listening to the Elders.

There is an excellent TV series ‘Julia’ now streaming about Julia Child, the multi-award winning American chef. With a first-rate cast led by Sarah Lancashire as Julia and an intelligent script, the series focuses on Julia’s battle to put her cooking show on American television in 1963.

From our perspective today this doesn’t appear to be a big deal. But it was. Remember, feminism didn’t really become a major movement until the late 1960s and 1970s. Before that, women were pressured not to enter the workforce if they had someone to support them, not to enter the universities and not to pursue careers. 

One of the distinctive features of Budget 2023 was that for the first time there was recognition that women aged 55+ on Jobseeker had little in savings and little chance of finding work. This was a meaningful step towards recognising that older women in the workforce face distinctive problems. However, Treasurer Jim Chalmers chose to award them only $6 p.d. extra in their Jobseeker payment. Not enough to lift them above the poverty line or out of homelessness.

Government needs to recognise that there is a social crisis that directly affects the present generation of older women and will most likely affect future generations of women. Government needs to formulate an holistic, targeted strategy and measures to address this crisis as rapidly escalating numbers of women continue to fall off the cliff.

The ABS recently released its latest homelessness estimates based on the census of 10 August 2021.

It is necessary to question the current accuracy of these figures regarding the numbers of older women who are homeless.

First, the ABS says that “The rate of homelessness for people aged over 55 decreased from 29 people per 10,000 in 2016 to 26 people per 10,000 in 2021.” 

This census was taken prior to the 11 interest rate rises and the spiralling cost of living over the last year. We know that there has been a massive increase, not a decrease, in the numbers of older women who cannot afford to pay rent or their mortgages. 

WomanGoingPlaces wholeheartedly endorses a ‘Yes’ vote in favour of the enshrinement of a Voice for First Peoples in the Australian Constitution.

We cannot forget, erase or provide meaningful restitution for the injustices committed against the Indigenous peoples of Australia over the last 235 years. But by voting ‘Yes’, we will finally be empowering Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to change the present and improve the future for First Peoples.

It is time for Australia to enshrine the Voice of First Peoples in our Constitution.

A ‘Yes’ vote in the referendum is right, it is just and it is irrefutable.

Between 20,000 to 25,000 Australians died from Covid in 2022, according to Professor Brendan Crabb AC Director & CEO of the Burnet Institute.

“These people would have lived if not for COVID. The scale of the tragedy is enormous. And the silence deafening.”

An Australian is now dying every 30 minutes from Covid.

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the State Premiers have been silent about the alarming death toll from Covid. No emergency National Cabinet meeting has been held. No public health statements or measures have been announced. No reports or accurate official information about deaths and illness have been made public.

Both the Federal and State Governments have adopted a ‘ See No Covid, Hear No Covid and Speak No Covid’ policy.

Forbes ’The 50 Over 50’, is a list of women who have become successful and powerful after the age of 50, with some even in their nineties.

Why is it important to publish such a list?
Because one in two people in the world hold ageist views according to UN figures.
Because the older a woman becomes, the more she is devalued.

This deprecation and depreciation of women as we age, is also deeply entrenched in the English language.

Not every woman can realise the extraordinary success and achievements of many of the women in these Forbes lists. But they can recognise that the debasement of older women is based on lies. They can also recognise that this prejudice is destructive to them individually, and they can reject it.

There is a direct causal link between a woman’s age in Australia and her likelihood of becoming unemployed and homeless.
The Australian Government is to hold a Jobs and Skills Summit in September.
WomanGoingPlaces puts 4 Questions to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and key Ministers.

1. Why is this crisis that is engulfing Australian women aged 50+ not on the agenda of the Jobs & Skills Summit?
2. Will the Jobs and Skills Summit address the workforce experience of women aged 50+ and present programs to provide them with training where required?
3. Will the Government recognise at the Jobs and Skills Summit that the amount the Government pays in Jobseeker is a direct cause of the impoverishment of older women and will it immediately raise the rate?
4. Will the Government use the Jobs and Skills Summit to announce emergency changes to WorkForce Australia?

There is one election issue that has been universally ignored by the major parties and the independents in this election campaign. That is, the social crisis engulfing women aged 50+.

These women make up 30% of the female population in Australia, but they constitute the majority on Jobseeker, the majority of those who are locked out of the workforce by ageism and the majority of the homeless. There were over 400,000 older women already homeless or at risk of homelessness. Now, with the CPI at 5.1%, tens of thousands more will become homeless as they give up trying to survive on the obscenely inadequate amount of Jobseeker at $46 p.d. 

Recently, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg claimed that women were “ better off under the Coalition”. 
This is not true.
The LNP Government has presided over one of the worst social crises ever to unfold in Australia.

The final ignominy is that just as older women are invisible in society, so too are they invisible to the Federal Government of Australia. There is no acknowledgement that the economic insecurity and social exclusion of women aged 50+ is a rapidly escalating social crisis in Australia.

It’s a fairly innocuous sentence, but it reveals a completely different perception of women.

“There is a tendency when you are a 50-year-old (ish) woman, when you are given a mess, to say ‘just give it to me, I’ll fix it up’, “ said Dr. Monique Ryan, Voices of Kooyong candidate. She was speaking about the growing number of 50-ish women becoming independent candidates for the upcoming federal election.

It is the first time we have seen women of this age, as a group, leading the charge to transform Australian politics. These women are putting themselves forward in order to exercise the levers of power. This is at odds with the usual perception of 50-ish women. 

Australia has a massive reservoir of skilled labour that is being increasingly excluded from work – women aged 45 and over.

At the same time we are being bombarded with increasingly desperate headlines about the unprecedented labour shortage facing Australia. The Morrison Government has rushed to announce that over 200,000 temporary visa holders would begin arriving as soon as December.

We know that Batman cloaked in his cape and mask, was instantly recognisable when saving the world. But when older women are literally saving the world during this pandemic, they are cloaked in invisibility and masked by anonymity.

Remarkably, all around the world there is a predominance of women aged over 50 involved in the invention and in the development of most Covid19 vaccines. This applies to AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharma and CanSino, Covaxin, and Sputnik V.

Nevertheless, most people are totally unaware of this.

The Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, in presenting the Intergenerational Report recognised that Australia has an ageing population and a shrinking workforce. The Report finds that one of the best ways of boosting the workforce and national productivity is through the employment of older women, including women over 65.

Surprise! Surprise!

Had the Treasurer subscribed to WomanGoingPlaces he would have seen that we have been advocating for this for some time now. Women over 50 are a massive national resource. They possess vast experience and knowledge as professionals and skilled workers. But the Morrison Government has treated them as a burden on the public purse.

A perfect storm is facing hundreds of thousands of unemployed, underemployed and underpaid older female workers.

The Treasurer said job creation was a top priority in this Budget. It was also promoted as a Budget for women. In this spirit, funds were allocated to childcare for women with young children. And funds were allocated to people in aged care, the majority of whom are women.

But, if you fall between these two age groups, if you are a female worker aged over 50, then the Budget had a clear message – we don’t see you. There are no funds for you and you do not even rate a mention.

It is a spectacular omission given that one of the defining characteristics of Covid19 has been that older women have been the hardest hit with job losses and the least likely to be re-employed.

The March4Justice movement has achieved something remarkable for Australian women. It has transformed decades of private suffering into mass solidarity. 

For the first time, tens of thousands of women ended their silence about sexual abuse and injustice.

The ‘I’ has become the ‘We’.

The March4Justice protests that saw 110,000 people in 42 marches around the nation have not dissipated into silence. 

Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins and Katherine Thornton together ignited this explosion of rage. Their courage set off a spontaneous combustion of deep reserves of trauma, shame and frustration buried beneath silence. Women have had enough.

Don’t fail Victorian women in the upcoming State Budget. The Federal Budget failed Australian women.

It is illusory to think that there can be economic recovery without the full participation of women of all ages.

Affordable childcare has to be a cornerstone of Victoria’s Budget.
Policies targeted at older women are another cornerstone.
So too is social housing.

The progressive exclusion of women 50+ from the workforce is one of the most serious violations of women’s rights in Australia & it is happening on a mass scale. As a result these women constitute the majority of unemployed, those on welfare and the homeless. The Victorian Budget can halt this process of impoverishment with incentives for employment instead of age discrimination policies such as JobMaker.

We need to look at ageing in Australia as a gender issue.

Australian women are ageing quite differently to the majority of men.

Covid19 has exacerbated the significant disadvantage older women experience on every measure of economic and social wellbeing compared to men.

It has also increased their social isolation and exacerbated their precarious financial position.

For women, ageing is a process of devaluation.

” Janine (age 61) is one of a large and growing number of older women who are homeless. Five years ago, she was made redundant from her position as an Office Manager in Perth. Despite great effort she has been unable to find a job and ultimately couldn’t afford to continue paying rent. Since beginning to live in her car 8 months ago, Janine has tried to find relatively safe places to park at night. As a result, she has accumulated parking fines which she simply can’t afford to pay … particularly as these have compounded, had administrative fees added and now total over $3,000. When Janine was pulled over by police for allegedly speeding, she was immediately arrested for these outstanding fines and sent to prison. She doesn’t know what’s happened to her car, which contains all her worldly possessions.”

First Nations women elders are being imprisoned as a direct result of being impoverished and homeless.
Minor non-violent offences, such as not having enough money to pay parking fines, can land them in gaol, and this can turn out to be a death sentence for an older woman.

It’s called Senicide – the custom of abandoning or killing the elderly once they reached the age of 60 or 70. The Inuit abandoned elders on ice floes. If you are ageing in Australia and are financially vulnerable, while you may not be dumped on an ice floe, you are at risk of being abandoned.

The Australian Government fails to acknowledge the scale and severity of an unprecedented crisis facing our ageing population. But confront it we must, because it has become an existential issue for Australia.

In the same way that we need a comprehensive climate policy to deal with climate change, so too do we need a comprehensive strategy to deal with demographic change.

However, the Government is not engaged in strategic national planning on this issue. Instead its policy towards financially vulnerable older Australians can best be described as a policy of attrition.

We, the Matriarchs… are the first generation in history of older, highly educated women to number in the tens of millions.
We are the first ever generation of older women who have spent decades in the workforce in professions and skilled employment, and not in the sweatshops and the fields.
We are the first ever generation of older women who have accumulated independent wealth and economic clout, despite discriminatory wage practices.
And we are the first ever generation of older women who can expect to live into their 90s.

But now we are entering the age of retirement. What next? What does society expect of us?

Well, nothing really.

Wendy Morgan, in her appearance on ABC’s The Drum, showed the true face of Newstart recipients.

The majority are older women and they are on Newstart much longer than younger people, often for four years until they are old enough for the pension.

Wendy is not a drug addict. Nor is she a dole bludger.

She is a science tutor, has a double science degree in physics and chemistry, ran a printing lab and also has a forklift license.

This election is characterised by bipartisan blindness. Both the Coalition’s 2019 Budget and the Budget Reply show that Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten have overlooked a looming national crisis. Neither is prepared to recognise that older women in Australia are ageing into poverty and homelessness in unprecedented numbers.

These women remain invisible to both leaders and to their party platforms.

And yet the statistics are available to those who want to see them.

My name is Ajok. I come from South Sudan (in 2005).
We want to talk with the Australian people. We are good people. We are not bad people. This is kids who take the rule here. This rule is not our rule.
But now our kids not listen to us.
When you see on the TV they say black people do this, they do this, you not feeling good. You feeling like tell your kid and your family to go back in your country. But not safe in our country. That’s why we are here.

My name is Fatma. I come from Sudan. It was very dangerous, very scary. Some people stealing some things, some people steal kids. I’m scared, I say, Oh my God, me alone – no-one to help me. Just me with four boys and all just small.

We interviewed Esther, aged 107, with her daughter Norma. Esther has lived in an aged care facility since she was 102. Prior to that she lived independently. Throughout her long life, she travelled extensively in Australia, especially in the family caravan, with her late husband and her daughters. These trips were a joyful and an important part of Esther’s family life. She and Norma share some of these memories.

I learnt to be on my own later, travelling as an older woman, because I think I have been left alone as an older woman in a way that I never was when I was younger. I used to be followed. Spain was a nightmare. You couldn’t be on the street in those days in the sixties. You could not go to Spain alone. You could not go to Greece alone. And you could not be in Italy unless you wanted to be followed all the time. Now I feel very free because no-one even sees me! Oh, it’s great! It’s fabulous!

I’d never been out of Australia until about 6 years ago. Well, I thought, it’s now or never. And now I’ve been to over 30 countries.