Women's Climate Conversations online 2022
#3  12 April 2022



12:00:28 Welcome everybody. This is the third women's climate conversations for 2022, and we're so happy that you will be able to come from you today.
12:00:40 We'd like to start, of course with acknowledgement respect and gratitude.
12:00:45 We're acknowledging that we're meeting on Aboriginal land, which has been unseeded.
12:00:51 I myself, but he on neutral Witter landed the Palo people, the traditional custodians of the island we now call Tasmania.
12:01:01 Land of the Polo people, the traditional custodians of the island we now call Tasmania. So if you know what country you're sitting on now, we'd love to hear it in the chat to go ahead.
12:01:07 We'd also like to pay our respects to all the elders who have come before. And when we say before we meaning 10s of thousands of years into deep time, we pay our respects to the present elders.
12:01:22 There's wonderful people who have joined together and made the statement of the heart. That's a compassionate piece of writing. We also pay our respects to the emerging elders who are going to be here into the future.
12:01:39 We'd also like to express our gratitude to the elders for their generosity in sharing their wisdom, and their compassion and inviting us all to become contemporary custodians of the land, because wherever our ancestry has been.
12:01:56 We come from the land.
12:01:57 We need to care for the land.
12:02:01 And together, we can work for the healing of Mother Earth.
12:02:06 Now in that spirit I'd like to share a very short passage from writer and environmental activist, Terry Tempest Williams,
12:02:18 soul and soul, and not separate neither a wind and spirit.
12:02:29 Water materials.
12:02:29 We are eroding and evolving at once, left the Red Rock landscape before me, our grief is our love
12:02:45 demos will be on doing the collective madness, the patriarchal mind that says aggression is the way forward.
12:02:56 Now that passage is taken from this book,
12:03:00 which is Congress currently has been a list on a book club so you're invited to enjoy joining the book club as well. And I'll put the link to the book in the chat.
12:03:12 Kinda housekeeping link.
12:03:16 talking about check.
12:03:19 We really want this to be conversations.
12:03:26 And, but we do want to engage with your comments or ideas, and any questions put it in the chat. And if we have time at the end of the session will be a brief question and answer to that.
12:03:40 I'm also letting you know that we are recording the session. So if you don't want your face to feel met please stop your video now and we are traveling for the first time closed captions, so hopefully that's working for you.
12:03:55 And lastly, we are going to be sending you a link for feedback we'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts about how we could improve these conversations.
12:04:05 And now without further ado, I'm very happy to introduce you to our host for today's session. Dr. Janet salt spray, who's the founder of the women's climate, Congress.
12:04:21 Hello everyone, and welcome to this April conversation, and you've just heard from Nettie who whose are a wonderful volunteer with the women's congress who joined us earlier this year and his face in Tasmania.
12:04:35 Thank you very much and thank you for that lovely introduction.
12:04:40 So we think our conversation today around working together across different to restore climate balance and I feel like we're a bit of a squeaky wheel on this thing because it's the central theme for the women's climate Congress overall.
12:04:54 And the same thing that we're exploring at our next National Congress of women one day event in a couple of weeks.
12:05:00 and with an election campaign now in full swing.
12:05:03 We want our elected representatives to put aside part of politics and work together to national action on climate change.
12:05:13 In the introduction of that book that Nancy just showed you, and there's a quote from the editors Ayana Johnson and Catherine Wilkinson and they say, all around the world, women and girls are making enormous contributions to climate action, conducting
12:05:28 research cultivating solutions creating campaign strategy curating art crafting policy composing literary works charging for in collective action, and look around you and you will see on the rise climate leadership that is more characteristics a feminine
12:05:47 Look around you and you will see on the rise climate leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist rooted in compassion connection, creativity, and collaboration.
12:05:57 So today, we have two women with us as our guests who are both working in this space of women and girls coming together to overcome past oppression and inequity and take up our rightful place in public discourse and decisions.
12:06:13 So we have with us today, Shana Aguila. There's a social psychologist and facilitator, with a strong expertise and experience and community engagement.
12:06:27 Currently Shana is on the organizing crew of an emerging and very active community network called the shift and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute.
12:06:35 Helen Dally Fisher started out as a solicitor in private practice then moved into community legal sector, and later took up a position as the convener of the equality rights Alliance, which is one of the government funded alliances for women, which we'll
12:06:50 talk about more in the minutes, and she celebrates now 10 years in that role,
12:06:57 and Helen has just finished advising the government on the impact of climate change on gender equality on gender equality for the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York, which is happening every year.
12:07:11 And we'll hear more about that in a minute as well.
12:07:14 So in the first sort of segment getting to know Shana, and Helen, a little better. I'm going to talk a little about the two ends of the spectrum that you both come from more from the community based end of the spectrum and Helen from a platform will organization
12:07:32 with relationships to the Australian Government, and to the UN. So,
12:07:39 starting with the center and the community's end of the spectrum.
12:07:45 You're the organizer of the shift gender equality network, which is very much a community initiative.
12:07:53 And it aims to promote gender equality by connecting women across Australia across policy activism arts, academia and more. And your bio says that you are creating brave spaces for intersection of feminist futures with opportunities for social change
12:08:09 groups to strengthen their practice and harness collective voices, so there's a lot bundled up in that and I just wonder if you could pick a little bit for us and say hey you're working with diversity in this community level, and also maybe how this may
12:08:25 be intersects with the bigger women's organizations like the one that Helen represents.
12:08:32 So I shouldn't do.
12:08:35 Thanks so much, Janet and Hi everyone it's lovely to see you. First of all I'd also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands in which we all meet today and pay respects to elder's past and present, and also for any Aboriginal and Torres
12:08:50 Strait Islander people in our online online room today. I think for me as someone who migrated to Australia from the Philippines. It's something that I'm kind of thinking now as an adult what it means to live on stolen land.
12:09:05 And I guess as you were saying Jenna, how do we bring yeah bring these voices from all walks of life, across difference to make those brave spaces have some brave conversations.
12:09:19 So, I guess, on that note, for those of you who don't, who haven't yet heard of the shift although it is lovely to see some familiar faces here today.
12:09:25 of the shift although it is lovely to see some familiar faces here today. Yeah, I guess for me what really brings me to that particular network and energized to contribute to that community is.
12:09:35 Yeah, I guess the sense that there's always a lot of work, a lot of work that women and gender diverse folks do every single day that don't necessarily make the news.
12:09:47 And so, I guess for a bit of background the shift sort of emerged in a bit of a spiral the way that was very well connected with women's organizations and Helen will be able to speak a little bit more to that as well but it came about in a time during
12:10:02 coven, you know, in these last couple of years where people couldn't meet face to face.
12:10:07 The Commission on the Status of Women didn't go ahead that year.
12:10:11 But there was appetite and a need to come together. And so, yes through iterations over the last couple of years so there have been some informal gatherings, people from policy activists and things like that on to talk about what what does gender equality.
12:10:29 Advocacy actually look like. And then, where I came along, sort of in the last year or so, was knowing that I have a lot of roots, sort of in feminist women's movements in Australia.
12:10:42 I owe a lot to the feminists that have come before me, including Helen, you know I was from the young women's advisory group of that Alliance and that's really shaped my understanding of women's leadership today and for me that is about bringing your
12:10:57 whole self, we can't always, or maybe I don't want to, you know, split myself up with the different hats that I wear so when it comes to advocating and creative brief spaces that is about bringing my whole self to, to the issues that I care about and
12:11:11 the communities that I belong to. So, that's kind of where I come from him wanting to connect other people who are passionate about gender equality may not necessarily be involved in policy and connect those people that are involved in policy and advocacy
12:11:25 together.
12:11:27 Yes, that's a very quick snapshot of of my context in creating those brave spaces to also ask the hard questions of what does gender equality advocacy look like, who is in the room who's not in the room.
12:11:44 You know, as a, as a migrant woman, you know, how many people do I see around me who are doing the work every day but aren't necessarily in the room. So, these are the sorts of questions that, that we're kind of exploring together as well.
12:12:01 Thanks very much for that introduction.
12:12:06 I'll just turn now to Helen, and she can tell us a little bit about her, organizational experience for the equality rights Alliance. Now he the era is it's cool it's the largest of six government funded.
12:12:27 It's the largest of six government funded women's alliances which were formed to ensure diverse women's voices are heard in the policy making processes, the Alliance's advocate for the economic security, safety, and leadership opportunities of women in
12:12:41 So, the RA actually has 65 member organizations, and I'm proud to say that the women's Congress is a member.
12:12:56 And that's an awful lot of women pair.
12:13:00 So, I'm just I'm just asking you to tell us a little bit more about how the organization works because there must be a huge diversity of women across 65 organizations.
12:13:22 So how do you work together to ensure that all the different voices are heard in the policy process. Thanks Jenna, and I like you know I would also like to acknowledge that I'm coming to you from normal people. I'd say uma, which is Hello, and I'd like
12:13:31 I'd say uma, which is Hello, and I'd like to say there were newer door, which is this is not all land, and I would like, in addition to paying tribute, and acknowledging the elders past and present, of none of our people.
12:13:44 Also to acknowledge the massive work that's being done here on resurrecting the normal language, and to just highlight that as an example of some of the really exciting stuff that's happening at the moment because I think it's a little bit too easy, particularly
12:13:58 when you work in an institutional setting like I do, to get caught up in the fact that progress is slow. And it feels like nothing changes over long periods.
12:14:09 And as Jen mentioned earlier. The reason I'm making a fuss about 10 years in my job is that it's 10 years today. So I sort of reflective space where I'm sort of looking around again what changed in 10 years.
12:14:23 And one thing that changed was the structures of the Alliance has changed so equality rights alliances Janet was saying, is one of the six National Women's alliances.
12:14:34 There have been six National Women's Alliance and since 2010, but the alliances, number the last section go back further than that, all the way back to the Howard era.
12:14:44 And to a, an interesting project to try to consolidate funding for women's organizations into a couple of
12:14:55 more efficient was one argument flash more controllable set of structures called Secretariat's and that happened, way back in 2021 so we're actually up to 22 years of era as an organization.
12:15:12 And I think that's really interesting because on the one hand, you've got you know, with the shift here today, which is a relatively new organization that is organic and is growing and finding its identity as it goes.
12:15:24 And on the other hand, you've got era which is in effect gone through an entire iteration and is now trying to work out how to be an organization in an environment that is shifted radically since 2001.
12:15:38 So era itself has 66 member organizations now we just keep getting bigger.
12:15:46 And those member organizations determine era structure and our direct will determine our direction and that strategic work. And we have to work in partnership with our funded the office for women to develop a work plan each year to work out what we need
12:16:02 to do, and the basic idea of the Alliance is, is that we are a battles if you're like sitting between government and the community of women out there in Australia.
12:16:15 And so the idea is that we reach out to women. And we listen, and we find out what it is they have to say. And our membership is hugely important in that because it is a very diverse membership and so quite often we can reach into that membership to get
12:16:28 a great range of voices. And then we bring those voices to government. And then in the other direction government comes to us and says we need to reach out to women can you help us.
12:16:40 And so, it flows in both directions. So a practical example of how that would work is that our membership might tell us that they want us to make a submission on a particular subject.
12:16:49 And so we do that with their input or government might come to us and say, we've got an initiative, we're thinking about implementing, can you run it past your people, and see what the response to it is.
12:17:02 And so there's this interesting two way flow, and what's particularly interesting about it is that it's survived, many iterations of government over 22 years and so it's it's a structure that both sides of politics have a bit of ownership over, but it
12:17:22 is absolutely dependent on a good relationship with grassroots organizations.
12:17:28 So the only reason that this structure works is because we have member organizations that are prepared in turn to reach out to their own memberships, to find what what the voices and what concerns that we need to be bringing forward.
12:17:44 So, I think the best way to think about era. In terms of the sort of environment of government community and structures, is that we're kind of like a tool you use the right tool to engage with government, but it's the community ideally who are doing the
12:18:03 engaging.
12:18:05 They're just using us to do it. That's that's how it should work in practice. However, we often fail at that. And I think it's important to acknowledge that the process isn't a perfect one.
12:18:16 And that there are significant limitations in relying only on structures and formal organizations to be able to progress. Tricky adaptive problems like climate change.
12:18:32 Because really, a screwdriver is used for putting screws in.
12:18:34 It's not something that you can use for lots of different tasks. And so there are going to be points where there are formal organizations and formal structures that are useful to us.
12:18:45 In the process of making change on climate change and of coming up with creative solutions, but it may be different organizations for different tasks, and it may be different organizations depending on who it is you want to be engaging with and making
12:18:58 change with. And so, from an era perspective I see us as being an organization that needs to evolve itself to ensure that it has finished efficient way of getting the voices that aren't getting heard other ones.
12:19:18 But, in turn, is probably not the only organization you'd want to be engaging with the only tool you want to be using.
12:19:25 Because there's a point where with an adaptive problem like climate change which we've got technical problems where you know we know the things you need to do and we can go through those so policy change we know what we need to do on paper I believe we
12:19:41 know we need to make part of it sacrifice double and only available to blokes so they start actually learning skills so we've got a fairly clear issue that set of steps that we can follow that we just have to encourage people to get there.
12:19:54 Yeah right good at that. We're not so great at what we're not so appropriate for generating the creative solutions that need to come with an adaptive problems like climate change.
12:20:08 And that's where the grassroots and the community based organizations are absolutely critical in this area. So I see us as being a tool that we use essentially.
12:20:20 Okay Hello, Thanks Helen and will hopefully come back to that a little bit in a minute but I also want to turn to.
12:20:42 I'm just so hesitating because for some reason my speaker view isn't coming on spotlight myself again.
12:20:39 I just want to turn now to the issue of climate change.
12:20:44 So, a basic inefficient part of the agenda for the many other women's groups is the annual gathering each year of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women, which is the principal global intergovernmental buddy exclusively dedicated to the promotion
12:21:13 gender equality and empowerment of women. Now this is a little bit like the women's version of what copies to climate change, CSW was. So it was established in 1946.
12:21:18 And that's been functioning I think under slightly different iterations since then so the main thing that's just been held in March, this march has just gone past is had the theme, or the priority, achieving gender equality, and the empowerment of all
12:21:35 women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental, and disaster risk reduction policies and programs. So, that sounds really amazing great you know the whole of the world's women are going to be on the task, and in climate change sorted
12:21:51 out. So Helen. tell us a bit of the reality of that process on the ground.
12:21:56 Yeah, this is always the slightly depressing thing is that
12:22:02 the.
12:22:04 They'll give you a bit of background first on CSW itself for those who aren't familiar with it, it's a, it's the UN.
12:22:12 We're talking about gender, and it happens once a year, two weeks and it's helping you. And the idea is that there is a commission of UN member states that 16 of them who formed the formal commission.
12:22:26 Lots and lots of other states also participate you usually have somewhere in the region of 100 states, participating in the meetings, and the idea of CSW is that they watch what happens with the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.
12:22:44 So, the Beijing platform production was the outcomes of the World Conference on Women, but didn't know it at the time but it turned out to be a high watermark document that we've had to defend ever since.
12:22:54 We didn't know it at the time but it turned out to be a high watermark document that we've had to defend ever since. It's a really good document but it's fair to say that this foreign from it is saying become a little bit out of date.
12:23:02 It's references to climate, for example I limited specifically to issues around, pollution, and environmental degradation, and don't mention climate change at all.
12:23:13 So, the Beijing Platform for Action is sitting there as the last time we got a really big consensus on what needed to be done for gender equality.
12:23:22 That job of monitoring the implementation of that Platform for Action was given to CSW, and at the same time they were also well, sometime later they were also given a mandate over the Sustainable Development Goals, to keep those in view, as they review
12:23:37 what happens. He Platform for Action. So it's a way of taking stock each year of how we're doing on gender equality against the standard set in those two documents and the outcomes of CSW is a range of different resolutions.
12:23:55 Plus, a big meaty documents of usually somewhere in the range of 67 pages, which would be agreed conclusions of the Commission.
12:24:02 That's consensus document, in which state sit down and the first part they say these are what we think the issues are on the theme that we're thinking about this year.
12:24:15 And then the second part says and this is what we're going to do about, and everybody who participates has agreed to that document so on one level it's a really powerful process.
12:24:26 This was the first year that we've considered climate change at CSW. And so, that proved tricky in many ways because the court process is running along under its own steam in a separate screen if you like.
12:24:41 And it's only been recently that gender has really made a mark in the process. So there are a number of different players, trying to bring gender into the discussions.
12:24:55 And we did get the Lima declaration about gender.
12:25:00 We've now into the second iteration of that coming out of 26. So, there is a discourse happening internationally, about.
12:25:10 Firstly, what risk, climate change poses to women. And what Miskin poses to gender equality. And secondly, how work that we do on gender equality, could be positively used to improve the work that we do on climate change can be positively used to impact
12:25:29 gender equality. So, how is climate change, an opportunity for us to actually change the way we do things, and do a little bit of undoing of patriarchy.
12:25:38 So that's been going on and will cop stream, and this was the first time we had to talk about it at CSW.
12:25:44 And I think it's fair to say we got mixed results.
12:25:47 So the Greek conclusions contain some really good language, interesting era, around the role of the media, the role of journalists and the role of an independent media, which is absolutely CSW we've never had language about that before, but which I think
12:26:06 reflects concern about the fact that the way that the the discourse around climate change has been so badly hijacked by vested interests.
12:26:15 And the way it's been so hard to mobilize governments to do anything because of those vested interests. So that's an important step.
12:26:23 Another important step forward is that there is significant language around the need to protect human rights, women's human rights defenders and around women's human rights generally in the document.
12:26:33 She's often not a given the CSW space so that was a good thing.
12:26:38 The things that are not quite so positive relate to the politics of the situation and so on the one hand, we've got countries that are normally good airlines in the CSW space, particularly a number of the Western democracies.
12:26:55 The European countries, North America and so on, who often depending on who's in government can be depended on to defend language around gender equality, fairly well, suddenly found themselves in a position where they're concerned about reining in the
12:27:12 cost and the commitments, relating to climate change, spilled over into their, their world of pushing for gender equality. And so we had countries who were for example, removing the word just from the phrase just transition in the, the agreed conclusions.
12:27:31 And we've had situations where Pacific nations have been calling for language around loss damage and reparation for loss of damage and Western democracy states actively preventing that language, getting into the document.
12:27:50 So there are a number of key issues that really haven't been well reflected and Lawson damage is a really important one of the ones that didn't make it into the document, but we would have liked to see more of his stuff around the relationship between
12:28:10 climate change colonialism and industrialization, a bit more of an acknowledgement of that, and an acknowledgement that fairly addressing climate change, and just transitions in employment are going to require states to face those histories, and to be
12:28:27 able to address the history that we all share.
12:28:31 And we see that playing out very strongly in Australia.
12:28:33 But we didn't see I have to say we didn't see Australia go strongly in Tibet, the language like that.
12:28:39 Another thing that became very clear in the negotiations is that countries are divided within themselves. And I think that's a really important thing for an organization like this to understand is that we have allies in Australian government.
12:28:58 Even was headed by Prime Minister who held a lump of coal up in Parliament and frankly fondles it a little bit, very strange to go back and look at it.
12:29:07 We had people in government who had to really fight for language, which I had not sure that we think they were serious conflicts happening within government is what I'm trying to say.
12:29:19 And so that's a useful thing for us to have learned CSW I think because we often feel like the dominant voices are the only voices.
12:29:29 So that's an interesting learning I think for us to know. Just like in the community sector and in our grassroots organizations where their voices that don't come forward.
12:29:39 Their voices that aren't being able to come forward within government as well. So it's been a really interesting time. Yeah.
12:29:54 Thanks. Thanks very much for that explanation. I'll come back to that a little bit I really want to bring Shana back in, I mean I must admit every time I hear about all of those processes that sort of turns me off inside, in a way that makes me feel quite
12:30:02 uptight. So come back in a moment but I'm just bringing Shana back into the conversation.
12:30:11 If I can unmute her Yes, and Shana as the organizer of a new and more contemporary groups and making gender equality and intersection of feminist approaches.
12:30:21 What is your perception of this cedar CSW and the sorts of outcomes and things that parents talking about here.
12:30:28 Yes So um, and thank you, Helen for kind of giving a really rich context, I guess, First of all, out of the people in the room, how many of you had actually heard of the Commission on the Status of Women before few if you'll put your hand up or a thumbs
12:30:43 up or if you've never heard of a puppet in the chat.
12:30:46 Yes, this is a bit of a bit of a mix.
12:30:48 And I guess one of the things for me is, you know, how accessible, are these mechanisms for people who are impacted by climate change every day like how accessible is it to to those groups as as Helens mentioned the ones that that aren't the loudest voices.
12:31:11 And so yeah, I suppose it's for me.
12:31:15 Part, like for me personally, I've been involved in gender equality advocacy in sort of these formal spaces for like, yeah, for at least a decade, but it's only now that I'm starting to engage and learn more about what the Commission on the Status of
12:31:30 Women is. And for me that speaks a lot to a lot of mechanisms and a lot of opportunities to defeat into that not everyone is aware of and also is not necessary accessible like the UN has a ton of, you know, Well, many many places do but but you know the
12:31:48 UN like many places have a lot of jargon and a lot of, I guess, very formal ways and even Jenna as you're saying like, kind of bodily response to, you know, the, the real the real challenges with with trying to advocate for issues that affect people every
12:32:05 day so I suppose for me with my activism and through the, the shift to gender equality, like, one of our principles is around self care and collective care like we need to care for ourselves as we're doing this work, and for me a big part of that is,
12:32:22 you know, the work of a drummer rebrand and pleasure activism like is the work that I'm doing actually bringing me joy and actually sustaining me to keep going for the long haul.
12:32:32 And yeah, I think one of the really the really nourishing things about the shift for gender. The shift to gender equality network is creating space to pull us like we know we know the federal elections just being cold, we know that those are like climate
12:32:48 action is urgent, everything is urgent.
12:32:51 And also we need to sustain ourselves in that process of responding to a constantly changing world so I guess an example that the shift to Don was, you know, last year, a group of us who are really keen to connect and collaborate.
12:33:06 We're exploring you know how can we do that how can we bring gender equality advocates together.
12:33:11 How can we sort of look at balancing reflective spaces with action, you know, because we know that the work never stops. And also we need the space to pause and make sure are we actually doing the things that are helping.
12:33:26 And is it things that are helping the people who aren't in the room as well. So, we originally had looked at different things that we can do and I have to give a shout out to Michelle de Shang who's a real powerhouse First Nations woman who was able to
12:33:45 connect us with June Oscar, the social, the average interest rate all under social justice Commissioner, and do these conversations of just listening to First Nations women really brought to light that we need to we need to stop, like we can't just keep
12:34:04 doing doing doing.
12:34:06 There are ways of thinking and being that have been around for 10s of thousands of views.
12:34:13 There's so much wisdom in that. So that kind of turn things on our head, and. And that's where the phrase, you know, the we need to listen. Think trust and act differently.
12:34:26 And so for us that was really, you know, for non indigenous feminists who are committed to intersection ality and really looking at the ways that we do our advocacy, was we need to create space to stop and listen first so we ended up hosting a one day
12:34:45 convening. So it was hosted by First Nations women in collaboration with a working group of the shift.
12:34:50 And that tagline was really sort of the ways in which we both organize that that that convening and also the thread of what does that actually look like, what does that actually mean.
12:35:01 And so, Nettie posted a link earlier to some of the materials that came out of that convening had some amazing conversations, you know, with June Oscar with Dr.
12:35:14 Jackie Huggins Chelsea water go.
12:35:18 You know, that was really quite confronting for a lot of people who identify as feminists but we really wanted to create a space to have some of those hard conversations and look at what what does that mean for me as an individual, what does that mean
12:35:30 for my organization. And what can we do differently and so so yeah so so having that, I think, won't make the news, but these sorts of spaces are happening every day as well.
12:35:45 And, and what we do with those spaces is really important. So, for me, just naming these, these women if you've never heard of them look them up, you know, be be open to being confronted and be open to learning because that's, that's something that I
12:36:02 guess we all have the power to do.
12:36:05 Yeah, thanks.
12:36:07 Thanks very much Shana and yeah you're, you're rising for me I'm just going to go back to the book, all we can save and there's another small passage here it says, we see women and girls engaging in deeply relational collaborative and supportive ways,
12:36:23 taking the necessary time making the necessary space, investing in the western we've between us.
12:36:30 It is clear that we're in this together and that our fates are intertwined and I suppose.
12:36:35 Some of the bodily reaction that I have to the UN top of processes that it is, it is not that you know, there's all these wonderful women from the world, some of them have given their lives, this sort of thing, who are being asked to act in a space that
12:36:52 is not that is not the natural space that women would thrive in, you know, it would have been put in an organizational situation and I think that happens right across all of governance structures.
12:37:03 So some extent. So I wanted to sort of come back to Helen, and then thinking about that. I mean, Do you think that's the CSW is the right vehicle for this sort of meaningful change that would like to have a really good question Janet because I think it
12:37:20 brings us back to that point I was making earlier about using the right tool for the right job and CSW does some things very well in Australia has there been a couple of comments in the chat which I think are really interesting, particularly from Bob
12:37:35 about how do we better connect the grassroots of feminist activism climate activism, with what happens at the UN, and those, those questions I think go to the root of.
12:37:51 Who needs to be involved in this space. And what does this space actually achieve because Shana says there is that enormous tension between the desire to act and the need to have an effective space and build space and creative space for those new solutions
12:38:07 can be generated.
12:38:09 And that means that we can't act all the time, is you have to choose which actions, you're going to take and so the question.
12:38:16 When you're looking at something like CSW is what does it actually cheap.
12:38:20 And what it does is it sets up a baseline.
12:38:24 And if you fall beneath that baseline as a nation, then you are subject to judgment, whose judgment would question whether you're talking about NGOs, making the point to government or to to voters, or to the community that government has failed to meet
12:38:45 the standard that it's set for itself, or whether you're talking about pressure in between states and that's actually one of the most effective areas at the moment and we're seeing that in the Ukraine, the situation around you praying sorry I dropped
12:38:59 the V, which is apparently Russian.
12:39:04 V, which is apparently Russian. And we're seeing that there are, there is value real value in the pressure that states can exert upon each other. And we are seeing for example that Australian government is fairly sensitive to what's being said and done
12:39:19 by its other members of the Pacific Islands for.
12:39:24 They're not.
12:39:27 At this point, sufficiently uncomfortable to be doing the right thing by our Pacific neighbors, but they are starting to amend what they say and change what they want, what the way that they're presenting what they're doing in a clear reaction to criticism
12:39:43 that they're getting from PS states.
12:39:49 So that's a bit of a sense of what CSW was actually for. It's a tool for us as advocates to be able to say to the Australian Government. You promised gender responsive budgeting.
12:40:00 first for the first time back in 2002.
12:40:05 You haven't got it yet, the federal level. So, when you're going to do it, it was in the great conclusions. So that's a piece of work for us and a potential way we can use that process.
12:40:15 But then the other piece is for us to talk to our NGOs sisters in New Zealand and say, can you talk to New Zealand government about putting some pressure on Australia, and that's that's another way of working in this space, but it's a resource intensive
12:40:35 knowledge specific area. And so this is one of the places where having organizations and institutions that can interface with their spaces, and at the same time to teaching is really essential.
12:40:49 But if you've got a situation where the organizations that can interface with that space. I'm not talking to grassroots women. Then we don't get we get a big disconnect between the UN CSW, and what women actually know about.
12:41:05 and we're seeing that.
12:41:07 So, I think, is it useful is it a good tool. It's one of the tools, and it's one that we can't drop our eye from, particularly because work that's being done by the women's majors group mentors mentees just pop the link up there on the Sustainable Development
12:41:26 Goals, the work that's being done by for example the women's rights caucus at CSW is then feeding into the preparations for clock 27.
12:41:36 And so, is it a good two years is it the tool not so CSW needs to take its place amongst a whole range of tools that we need.
12:41:48 Thanks. Sometimes I can't get past the fact that, you know, women have had to do all this stuff and it's, you know, thousands of women over hundreds of thousands of hours over, you know, 10s of years, decades, the men don't have to do in our life we didn't
12:42:03 have to do all this could be a much more dynamic creative you know ourselves autonomous cells in the community and it frustrates the hell out of me, to be honest.
12:42:14 And I just like maybe Shana to comment on that. Also in relation to, you know, it's this top of it just feels it feels like there's a lot of wonderful work in there but it kind of feels a bit slow you know a lot for our current emergency sort of situation
12:42:30 Shana what what do you yeah well i mean i think i think this really emphasizes the point that there are a lot of conflicting paradigms.
12:42:42 You know the way we talk, the way we think about things.
12:42:46 There are certain structures that there's certain language that you've got to use and how do we, it's almost like how do you translate that so that you can bring your autonomy ourselves to this work.
12:42:57 So yeah, I know Helen and I have previously talked about like the ecosystem of women's organizations and, you know, yeah, CSW is one part, part of that, I suppose, you know, with the work of the shift and other spaces that.
12:43:18 I think one thing to really emphasize is that complexity is really important, like that. It's not about trying to get the answer or the silver bullet, it's like adding more more complexity means that we can actually understand each other more.
12:43:35 That is not a black and white approach to actually know what's working in this context, what's working in that context and then actually.
12:43:42 Yeah, I'll just quickly say I've also studied social ecology.
12:43:47 So that kind of systems thinking of everything that I do doesn't exist in a vacuum it exists interdependent to everyone else's actions and when you see that people are planting seeds every day.
12:43:57 Like, it's a huge, it's it's it you know there's a huge garden of action that's happening so I guess that's another reminder i think you know where certain institutions or, or mechanisms don't necessarily use that language it's like okay we we've been
12:44:15 living in worlds where we're holding different, different, different contexts as well so i think that's that's important, where if, even if it doesn't feel like you're getting anywhere.
12:44:26 We can have both of those realities at once. And so, yeah, I go back to that idea of collective care of knowing that we're often working in systems that harm us or, you know, or we hold a lot of privilege in these systems and we benefit quite a lot out
12:44:40 of it. So how do we hold those conflicting realities as well.
12:44:46 Yeah.
12:44:49 So in the women's climate Congress we're hoping to work towards that we call it our women's charter for change we're not hoping we are working towards that we want to bring some, some different a woman's voice to the table, asking for the sort of change
12:45:07 that we want to see in our governance, particularly in relation to climate change those in relation to our relationship with the earth, I suppose, and actually heard someone say that it should be a me to movement for the Earth Mother Earth you know the
12:45:23 the violence against the earth, I suppose.
12:45:27 So, so we're developing a time to try to bring together some really key thoughts that come from the heart of women. And I was going to ask you both what you might think have to put in that.
12:45:40 But I also want to see what's coming up in the chat I'll just place that thought there maybe you can keep that in your minds and meanwhile we'll ask Nettie.
12:45:54 If there's questions coming in the chat.
12:45:55 Yes So quite a few questions I have a great one for Shanna Shanna, there's an epidemic of lack of trust in politics and politician.
12:46:06 So who do you trust center.
12:46:10 Thank you for the question. That's awesome, I think, and also I might want to link that in with Barb's question around whether it was easy for the shift to make contact with the First Nations women and and and being involved to be yet to be to be honest
12:46:26 I think all this work is relational, and if you don't trust people it's really hard to get anything done.
12:46:33 And that is why I don't put myself in the space of political advocacy like everybody has a role to play, and, and I'm not putting my energy and in advocacy, you know, towards the federal election.
12:46:48 Like I because yeah because I don't I don't have that trust of what might what my voice is best used for.
12:46:56 So the people that I trust, are the people that I get to work with every day who are striving towards making change.
12:47:04 I. The in terms of the First Nations women that were involved in the convening last year that was only possible because they were existing relationships.
12:47:15 To begin with, that open that conversation, and a lot of space, like, you need to make time to build trusting relationships and I get, you know, there was a point made there like there is a lot of urgency and we don't want to miss the reflection, you
12:47:30 know like, place too much time on the reflection that we miss out on the urgent actions, and it is definitely a dance.
12:47:39 and also the relationship building is the work as well.
12:47:44 I can't just extract all the knowledge of First Nations women, you know, in, in a short time frame listen to a podcast and think think I know it.
12:47:55 I guess for me, that idea of being able to slow down in the face of of urgency.
12:48:02 I think that helps me build trust with people and hopefully that people can build trust with me because I am trying to sit and listen.
12:48:09 And, and yeah and that's, and that trust is is ongoing, like, that is the work of be able to do like well we both care about the same things what can I learn from you.
12:48:19 And also what work is there to be done so I suppose you know that the shift had like a really small reading group reading the work of ambling Kwame Molyneux called Living on stolen land and you know we're all non indigenous folks, and that was our time
12:48:33 that we were dedicating to to read her work and learn from it, and then it's up to us as to what do we do now, like having processed and reflected on on some of that work.
12:48:47 So, yeah, it's, it's not. It's not easy, and I think putting yourself out there to trust people as well, is is is part of the process, and to make mistakes as well.
12:49:01 You know, particularly with connecting with First Nations communities.
12:49:05 And that's something that I'm very early in myself in trying to take those steps.
12:49:10 But I suppose, with that generosity of trust. That's what I'm hoping to bring to like, start the conversation.
12:49:23 However you want to add anything to that,
12:49:27 You know just quickly. I think she is right on the money when she talks about trusting something you give, And I think that gets really hard when we're tired.
12:49:36 And we are tired. Those of us who have been thinking about climate for a long time. It's been a really steep hill.
12:49:45 And because it's a long Hill, it can be really hard to say that we did make progress.
12:49:50 And in that environment, being able to summon the energy to be able to offer trust.
12:49:56 And to be able to ask for trust is hard.
12:50:01 It's also hard across institutional lines.
12:50:05 It's hard for a community group to reach out to one ization like era because they might perceive us as being associated with government, or it can be hard for government to reach out to us because we're aligned with feminism, because we are feminist.
12:50:27 But, if anything, if any reflection strikes me the most about having been 10 years in the job, it's that we have moved from, we work on our niche issue to, we need to work together on each other's issues as a concept as a base way of operating.
12:50:49 So we can't silo ourselves anymore.
12:50:53 siloed with what that doesn't work. And so I think that trust then becomes the tool that you use to break down the silos.
12:51:04 But it's interesting that in the parliament women who are there there's all this wonderful networking of women and all these organizations and clearly are issues that women, share and go to great lengths to dig into and write reports about and all the
12:51:21 rest of it and yet and then in the parliament, the women and the different parties are siloed away from each other. And I know, I noticed actually got Alex Marston on the chat here and she's in our organization working on the idea of women's caucus in
12:51:35 the parliament, you know, and I can't the women in hard work together on these issues you know like we were stuck in our part of political silos.
12:51:43 Back to medical the chat.
12:51:48 I have to say that both Shana and Helen are really good at multitasking, and great conversations and they beat.
12:51:56 And the questions.
12:52:00 Because I back to the agenda.
12:52:06 Yeah, so just going back to the clip so. So, coming back to the question about women's charter or.
12:52:25 Do you have any top of the mind things that we could, you know we should be thinking about that are coming out of this sort of conversation, what is it that women need to ask for that are sort of aspirational things that we all feel but that also have
12:52:30 Do you have any thoughts on that.
12:52:48 like a practical aspect to them so that they're not just you know things that disappear into the ether something that women die across diversity can sort of bring to the table you know and say, This is what needs to change.
12:52:49 I'm happy to jump in.
12:53:00 Because one of the things that organizations of people can do is synthesize voices. And so your charter becomes a place where the voices of a large range of women can be reflected in the needs of a large night Ranger women can be reflected so I think
12:53:24 it's actually a pretty cool task thrilled that it's that it's underway.
12:53:21 it's also the way you work out which tools you need, say I was talking earlier about working out with the CSW is your tool to tool so having a counter helps you to work out well where is our, you know from this charter.
12:53:37 What is the action, what period of reflection and we got to move through in order to get to what action. And when we get to the end of that process which tools do we need for that action so a charter is a great way of clarifying that.
12:53:50 in terms of what should be in us.
12:53:53 I would strongly suggest a human rights based model for the charter.
12:54:00 One of the things that we lose sight of really quickly in Australia because we're very bad at human rights here and we lose sight of the need to embed any system that we have in a human rights framework.
12:54:14 And we are talking about systems change here, we are talking about changing our economy we're talking about changing the way we relate to each other, and climate change brings all of those things into play.
12:54:23 And so, we if in the current context and one of the, one of the positives I'd like to note at the moment is that the Human Rights Council has just voted on the right to a clean and safe environment.
12:54:37 That's the first new human right we've had for decades. And it's critically important, because it's a bit that was missing from particularly from the rights under the economic, social, cultural rights, and it's now the next step is for that to go to the
12:54:55 General Assembly at the UN to be voted on there, and it's looking pretty good at the moment. The phrase the right to clean and safe environment turned up in the CSW agree conclusions and made it through the negotiation process.
12:55:08 So there's obviously support for it.
12:55:11 And to see that there is new generative creative work happening in the human rights space, and that is directly linked to climate change, tells us that climate change is not just a massive threat facing us all.
12:55:27 It's also a point in time where we could change things. And so I would, I would say, think about how your charter interacts with the existing framework of human rights, particularly women and girls, human rights, and we're very careful about that language
12:55:44 because some people think there are women's rights and their human rights, and that we've been a different. So women's human rights, and to embed it in that sort of framework.
12:56:06 Thanks Helen shout out to you.
12:56:00 Ah, yeah, just to clarify, is the is the women's charter for change, um, I guess who's the audience for the audience's is, on the one hand the whole of society.
12:56:11 And on the other hand are our government you know governance governance, decision making, decision makers, yeah.
12:56:20 Yeah, cuz i think i think why not yeah in terms of sort of building on what Helen was talking about, that it is a whole system's change that that we're that we are doing, and working towards.
12:56:34 One thing I'd love to see in in it is around
12:56:40 intergenerational conversations, and that the complexity of women's experiences is, you know, really acknowledged.
12:56:51 And, yeah, intergenerational leadership. Yeah, I guess is another tool as well.
12:56:58 If we're if we're looking at creating futures that serve all of us.
12:57:02 Yeah, who's not currently at the table.
12:57:05 So yeah, I guess that that's both for, you know, the women's climate Congress, and also government, and everybody all the systems.
12:57:14 Yeah, and that's that's why I'm here today as well I'm here to learn and kind of connect and see what we are already doing as well.
12:57:22 I think it goes without saying. No climate justice without First Nations justice and.
12:57:31 And yeah, I think.
12:57:33 I think it's both aspirational but it is already what everyone's doing like I've heard it in the language here today that an ethics of care.
12:57:41 You know in previous you know the weaving the, the conversations and the spaces that this that this community is creating is embodying that ethics of care, like in the face of institutions that don't do that.
12:57:57 The, we do that anyway and and we model that.
12:58:02 Yeah.
12:58:03 Yeah, thanks.
12:58:08 I'm sorry we're now getting towards the end of our time together.
12:58:14 And it's been a very rich conversation. I just wonder whether you each would like to make a final comment before I go to my final slides and wind up of the session.
12:58:31 I think the last week number is that when we're talking about systemic level change.
12:58:40 That's not fast. And so we're going to need multiple speeds of response we're going to need responses that were the possible reduce climate change, respond to climate change respond to major weather events, but we're also going to need compassionate work,
12:58:58 that, that builds change that goes down to not just says structures, but to have values.
12:59:07 And you can't do that often.
12:59:10 So this is a unique opportunity, in a sense, I hate to describe climate change as an opportunity but I think that the people around it are the opportunity.
12:59:21 And we need to get it right and it needs to be a change that will last us for a very long time because we won't be able to do it again and so that means Shannon's point about who's at the table is critical, because if we miss people now, they're going
12:59:33 to be missing from everything for a very long time.
12:59:36 Thanks. Thanks, Sarah Do you have a last comment.
12:59:47 Oh, sorry I muted you.
12:59:59 Sorry I muted you.
12:59:50 Oh good.
12:59:53 Can you hear me now. Yeah, great.
12:59:56 Yeah, I think this is an ongoing conversation, and that if we're responding to a world that's constantly changing. Then we also need to be adaptive in that.
13:00:10 And, yeah, I think also that I also just want to point out that we have a lot of resources, you know, at our disposal like everyone in this room, like has been doing the work and will continue to do the work.
13:00:25 So, knowing that we're not alone in that there is a collective community doing doing that is important and sustaining us to.
13:00:34 Thank you, just sharing my screen. And while I'm doing that. I've. Thank you so much, gentlemen Helen for a wonderful conversation today and for giving up your time to come and generously give your time to us at this event today.
13:00:51 I've picked up, you know, lots of stuff about all the marvelous work that happens when women come together. And that, and I feel. Yeah, and a feeling that that can be, if we can pull some fits together the weave in the West, that can come more into the
13:01:09 four of our public discourse, as by the grace time and Brittany Higgins have sort of taught us to sort of up the ante on that language, a little bit of not of insisting that we are our voice is important in the conversation, and that these things were
13:01:26 asking for are not nice to have the essential, you know, to have things that women bring to the table.
13:01:35 And yes intergenerational conversations human rights, no climate justice without client, without First Nations justice.
13:01:43 All of those things right to a clean and sustainable environment, guys of the things that we need to keep speaking up for our charter will capture some of that.
13:01:53 So, on your screen now I'm just saying that our next event, is we're not going to have one of these webinars in May.
13:02:01 We're going to take a break in May, but we have got a date to Congress of women event in any two weeks time or less than two weeks time on the 28th of April, which is a whole National Congress of women has the overarching theme of women rising that was
13:02:18 our last November's event, we've got this event which is about we call weaving.
13:02:24 Taking on the conversations that we've been having today and developing them in other ways. And then our last event which will be in september two days in Canberra.
13:02:33 Were call renewal which is when we really tried to bring that charter together, so please go to the website The National Congress of women if you haven't already registered for day to do that and keep an eye out for registration still open for the two
13:02:46 day event in September.
13:02:48 And then I'm just another thing that we're working very hard on the month is our election strategy and we have developed some of our key messages to be using social media and other conversations in relation to the election and if you go to our website,
13:03:03 women's kind of congress.com, and go to my advocacy paid I think this is going to put the link in the chat, you'll see some documents there that we've prepared and our key messages for the election and some ideas of things that you can do in your networks,
13:03:19 so go there and have a good look there, and there's a couple of messages here on this slide.