WHY WOMEN SHOULDN'T BE DISCOUNTED

Four game-changing women share why they want economic empowerment included in the conversation this International Women’s Day

- BREE PLAYER

CARLY FINDLAY WRITER, SPEAKER AND APPEARANCE ACTIVIST

Disability is almost always the forgotten aspect of diversity. Very rarely is disability considered or mentioned in conversations about women or broader diversity. Yet disabled women are disproportionately economically disadvantaged and disempowered compared with non-disabled people.

El Gibbs, director of policy and advocacy at Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA), says, “Disabled women are often shut out of employment at higher rates than disabled men, and we don’t own our own homes or have the same rates of education as non-disabled people, leading to a lifetime of poverty and disadvantage.”

About 20,000 disabled people work in Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs). It is still legal to pay disabled people working in ADEs below minimum wage, as well as short-changing ADE employees on their superannuation. Workers in ADEs often do menial tasks such as packing boxes, assembly and even picking worms out of pig manure, as reported by the ABC in 2017.

The Disability Royal Commission found people working in ADEs are paid as low as $2.27 an hour (the national minimum wage is $23.23 per hour). Commissioners recommend that workers be paid “at least 50 per cent of the minimum wage, moving to the full minimum wage by 2034”.

Christina Ryan, founder of the Disability Leadership Institute, says there is little research into data or policy about disabled women in the Australian workforce. “When we start putting that pay gap for disabled people together with the pay gap for women, and then for the pay gap for disabled women, we actually don’t really have any data to tell us what the hell is going on,” she says. Ryan wants there to be less focus on getting a job and more on ensuring a career for disabled women.