1. AIS International Women’s Day Debate
Is being a woman Do some women
in a warzone more really get fired Why are women
risky than being a because they are still the poorer sex?
soldier? pregnant?
Do men still get Why are women Why are more
better pay than still dying having women than men
women? babies? at risk of HIV?
When will we know
that men and
women are equal?

2. International Women’s Day – Why?
The first International Women’s Women and men came together
Day events were held in March to talk about the need for
1911. Meetings, events and women to have basic rights
protests were held across afforded to them – the right to
Europe with the largest vote, the right to work, the right
demonstrations attracting more to speak out in public and the
than 30,000 people. right to earn an equal wage.
While many of those basic rights have now been
afforded to women in developed countries, there are
still many women all across the world who are not
legally allowed to own land, who are not permitted to
work in certain jobs and who experience violence at
home every day.

3. Why celebrate Women’s Day now?
International Women’s Day is Women perform 66% of the world’s
celebrated across the world on work and produce 50% of the
Women earn 17 cents per dollar less
March 8th to promote the food, but earn only 10% of the
than men
importance of gender equality and world’s income and own only 1% of
women’s empowerment. the property.
Women retire with half the 1 in 3 women will experience Only 2% of CEOs of major Australian
superannuation savings as men physical violence in their lifetime companies are women
Women continue to be under-
Young women continue to
Young women will finish school with represented in all leadership roles in
experience violence in their
higher grades than young men, but communities world wide. Raising
homes, in school yards and in
will earn 17c less per dollar awareness of the issues facing
relationships. Cyberbullying has
throughout the course of their women across the world among
been linked to mental health issues
careers. school aged students is a first step
and school drop-out rates.
towards achieving gender equality.

4. 5 main barriers preventing women from participating in the
workforce in the same way as men:
•The informal sector is where employees do not receive basic working rights such as minimum
1 Workforce wage, sick leave and protection from being unfairly fired. Women make up the majority of
employees in this sector.
participation •Within the formal sector, women still experience discrimination because of their gender, and
are not given the same opportunities and support as men to take up leadership positions.
•Despite doing the majority of the world’s work, women across the world earn on average
2 Equal pay between 10 and 30 percent less than men. In Australia, the pay gap between men and women
doing the same work is 17 percent.
3 Financial • Women have far less access to resources, decision-making and business and land ownership
than men. This means women cannot rely on a steady income in the same way as men.
independence
•Although new laws have given women the right to own land, cultural pressures, traditional
4 Access to land courts and a lack of information being made available to women restricts their ability to
become land owners.
• Women often miss out on promotions due to child raising duties and it is harder for men to
5 Child-care take leave to care for their children. Additionally, child-care is often so expensive that
sometimes having a stay-at-home parent is more cost-effective.

5. Get the facts
2% 10% 70%
In Sub-Saharan Women earn less
Africa, women own less than 10 percent of 70 percent of the
than 2 percent of the the world’s wages, world’s poor are
land, but produce more but do more than women.
than 90 percent of the two thirds of the
food. world’s work.

6. Renata’s Story
Like many women across the
Pacific, Renata is the sole provider
for her family, earning an income
by selling produce at the local
markets in Naursori, Fiji.
Renata cannot afford to send her
children to school and there is no
one at home to take care of them
while she works. It takes Renata
almost an entire day to walk to the
marketplace where she spends the
weekend selling produce.
At night, Renata and the other
women vendors sleep huddled
together under their stalls in the
unlit open air marketplace, in
Q2 What so you see are
constant fear of being harassed or Q1 If you were in charge
the challenges facing
Are there similarities
sexually assaulted. of Renata’s village what between the women of
Renata as a worker and
would you do to change Fiji and the women of
as a mother? How could
her situation? Vietnam?
After an exhausting weekend of work, these be overcome?
Renata often returns home without
enough money to feed her family.