Even with the same pay and same working conditions, who do you think is going to get ahead when one person is brainstorming over drinks after work and the other is screaming out the door to get to day care pick up on time. 

I’m fairly sure most women with a career, partner, and growing family feel this. 

Personally I have lived this, but then there was a new chapter. All of a sudden when I turned 40 I remember having a paradigm shift. 

I started a company as a single woman with no support, living in a rural area, got divorced and lost half of my assets.

I work in a highly competitive, male dominated industry, I’ve been bullied, been frightened, lived through bushfires and now COVID. But I survived and so did my business.

But to be honest, I didn’t even think anything of it at the time. I just kept on going. Because that is what women do all the time - we just get on with it. We adapt to our situations and become flexible because we are resilient and we want to succeed. Or maybe sometimes it feels like we don’t have any other option.

I’m an optimist and I really think 2021 is the start of it all. Because we need this change, and inequality is so entwined in our culture we don’t even see it. Maybe we just needed to see everything fall in a heap before anyone was willing to admit it. 

This behaviour is all over corporate Australia. I’ve seen it first-hand many times. Power freaks. Any aversion to their plan sounds like "ease up love”, “take it easy”, “just let it go”. I don’t know about anyone one else, but I’m tired of the gaslighting. 

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of amazing men out there. The true definition of masculinity to me is a man with empathy. Praise to those guys who, when in a board meeting and someone starts talking over a women, cut in to say 'excuse me she wasn’t finished’. Unfortunately, in competitive environments those guys are rare.

The outdated boys club really needs to go because nothing is changing here and it won’t until we have more women is substantial powerful positions. It’s time to give women the unfair advantage. It’s time for the Prime Minister to take it seriously and for women to step out of the shadows.