“BARBIE mayor”. “Know your place”. These were the types of comments levelled at female council leaders before and after entering politics, a local government forum heard last week.
Former Footscray mayor and Labor minister MP Lynne Kosky hosted the Victorian Local Governance Association Think Women for Local Government forum at Altona on Thursday.
Also on the panel were Hobsons Bay’s women’s charter champion Luba Grigorovitch, Maribyrnong mayor Sarah Carter, Wyndham mayor Kim McAliney, and Hobsons Bay councillor and former mayor Angela Altair.
Women make up 29percent of Victoria’s councillors, and the forum aims to increase that ratio at October’s council elections.
Cr Carter told the forum that women could be their own worst enemy.
“Women I have found to be the most unforgiving … at first it was ‘Barbie mayor’ because I was young and blonde … what could she be bringing to Footscray?”‘
Cr McAliney recalled being told by someone close to her to know her place.
She went on to take her place to become only the fourth female mayor in Wyndham’s 150-year history.
Ms Kosky, a former Altona MP in the Bracks and Brumby governments for 14years, told of her experience stepping from the council chamber to State Parliament. The
former public transport minister said women were expected to show emotion, as she experienced after the 2007 Kerang rail disaster.
“Journos (were) trying to get me to cry as I was talking about what was happening. I think we’ve come a long, long way.”
