Name: Amy Nield
Community, State: Rudall/Cleve, SA
School: Cleve Area School
Age: 17, Grade 12
Why is gender equality important to you and your community?
I swipe the sweat from my forehead; I stand up straight and look around the shearing shed. Three shearers, four other shed hands… all male, apart from me. When it comes to our small farming community women are the housewives, book workers, nurses, teachers, and the receptionists. Men on the other hand are the CEOs, owners, breadwinners and labourers. There is nothing wrong with being a housewife, or dedicating your time to help out on your husband’s family farm or raising your children, but this life is not for everyone. So for women with different life aspirations they tend to head for the city never to enter the gates of our community again.
Our local sports club is a great representation of this struggle for equality. The footballers are put up on a pedestal while the netballers who put in the same amount of work if not more, receive the scraps of the attention and financial benefits. Saturday kitchen shifts consist of both mothers and netball players, with the occasional man cooking in the back. At the conclusion of each match each junior footballer receives a can of coke, preparing themselves for the numerous free cans they will receive in their future as seniors. Netballers are lucky to receive a free drink if they win the Grand Final. On a normal Saturday, A grade footballers receive three best player awards equating to almost $200. Contrastingly, A, B, C and C2 netball teams receive one ‘incentive’ award per team equating to just $80. The speeches for football are long winded with every coach coming up to do their spill. Contrastingly, one female stands alone each Saturday night calling out the scores and single incentives for both Junior and Senior Netball; usually struggling to shout above the drinking footballers.
In the 21st Century you would think more equal rights would have reached the country. I do not doubt the respect and love the men of our community have for their wives or daughters, but there seems to be a shared regional thinking that women should remain in roles such as teaching, nursing, receptionists, ‘head book worker’, or mother of their children.
Equality is important for our community because if women were put into more dominant roles, we might keep more of them in our regional communities.