The sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York over the next eleven days, from 10 to 21 March, 2025. The session will centre on a review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This will include an assessment of current challenges that affect its implementation and its contribution towards realising the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Ahead of the sixty-ninth session, UN-Women released the most comprehensive global stocktake of progress on the Beijing Platform for Action to date, in the report Women’s Rights in Review 30 Years After Beijing. The Report summarises the contributions from 159 United Nations Member States (Australia included, through our report by the Office for Women) to a review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly.

This post looks at these documents and explains some of the picture they present about the state of women’s rights across the globe, and the work ahead to ensure we see the first generation that can live in an equal world.

When some mates and I were in our twenties took a regular trip to what we then called Fraser Island, I didn’t know then that the traditional name for the place we were visiting was “K’gari” (pronounced “Gurrie”).

I have certainly changed in the ten-plus years since spending time on K’gari, including in my desire to learn the stories of the Traditional Owners of the lands that I visit and live on across this vast continent - and my willingness to understand the pain of dispossession and genocide, and the hope of restoration and self-determination.

What has remained with me though - something that will never change - is the sense of wonder and joy that I am privileged to carry when I think of the time I spent connecting with the paradise that is K’gari.

Hopefully, you can see a glimpse of that in my photos shared in this blog post.

Caste requires certain principles (pillars, as Wilkerson calls them) to be embedded in a people’s culture and subconscious for it to be a driving force in how they navigate society.

Wilkerson has identified eight of these pillars through her examination of the parallels, overlaps, and commonalities of caste hierarchies in America, India, and Nazi Germany.

Of these pillars, Wilkerson writes “it did not matter as much whether the assumptions were true, as most were not. It mattered little that they were misperceptions or distortions of convenience, as long as people accepted them and gained a sense of order and means of justification for the cruelties which they had grown accustomed, inequalities that they took to be the laws of nature.”

Just as when I read Wilkerson’s writings, I doubt you will identify even one pillar mentioned here that you don’t recognise as present today. Our modern nations are, after all, built on foundations of segregation, slavery and oppression.

To me this serves as a warning, these eight pillars have no place in a free, equal, and rights-based society. If you come across them in any part of your life – I hope you’re ready to do your part in the work to dismantle them.

In chapter eight of Caste, Wilkerson explains how, on 5 June 1934, a committee of Nazi bureaucrats gathered to debate the legal framework for an Aryan nation during a closed-door (but transcribed) session in the Reich capital. They were working out what would become the Nuremberg Laws.

Do you know what was first on the agenda that day?

Learning from the United States of America.

It was a pleasure to look back and reflect on the adventures I experienced through books over the last 12 months. Hopefully there’s something in it for you too!

Perhaps a new book to add to your to-read list?

Maybe there’s a read that we’ve shared?

Last week, across much of the world, private companies, governments, and a range of community organisations celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD).

It’s not my place to make any judgement or assessment of those celebrations, although I’ve sure read a few of those this year. For me, IWD is an opportunity to reflect on, and write about, the state of women’s rights and gender equality across the world.

So, here I write.

International Women’s Day 2024 is fast approaching.

In the lead-up, I’ve been reading this fantastic book by Mikki Kendall and A. D’Amaco - Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fights for their Rights.

I wanted to share just five of the many stories from this top-notch book that I’ve found compelling and inspiring.

Another year passed, another batch of books read. While in 2022 I somehow exclusively read fiction, all without turning a physical page (Kobo reader), 2023 was my reintroduction to non-fiction and the odd paper book (shock!).

Here is the list of what I read in 2023. I’ve included a little commentary on what I thought of each book.

…this is by no means a top 10, I will save that for another day…but these albums all did have a significant impact on me. I trust you will be able to enjoy them also, and find some hope, inspiration and happiness in what they offer.

some quick snaps from the Canberra Balloon Spectacular

Yeah I read a lot in 2022!

Here is the list of what I read last year, along with a little blurb on what I thought of each of them.

With Transgender Awareness Week ending, I wanted to reflect on some important actions that I read about over the week, which provide some insight/advice on how to be a good trans ally.

“The sea is emotion incarnate….

I’ve been meaning to write about the situation in Afghanistan for a few weeks now. On 15 August 2022, I attended a small rally here in Canberra to remember one year since the Taliban took, or as the Afghan lady speaking at the event said, “were handed”, control of the Afghan government. It was organised by Amnesty International, and the focus was on the Taliban’s swift and forceful wind back of the rights of women and children, along with a range of other significant human rights abuses.

In 1791, Olympe de Gouges published a pamphlet titled ‘The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen’. A couple of years later, she was executed by guillotine as a way to warn other politically active women – to send them back to the care of their homes rather than the pursuit of equality.

hope is defiant

Emerging infectious diseases, climate change, sustainability and SARS-CoV-2? How are they all connected, and what on earth is a vector-born zoonotic disease? Let’s take a closer look.

photo dump of images taken with my lensbaby circular fisheye

Say hello to the art of ‘community consciousness raising’, and it’s potential role in the education system to promote critical thinking and rights-based outcomes.

photos of the beauty that surrounds Canberra