I am woman hear me rawr!!

Yes well it feels like there is a lot of focus on women and leadership at the moment. Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female prime minister Thursday after Kevin Rudd lost favor over mining disputes and his shelving of climate change initiatives.

So for the Women of NSW we now have a female Premier, Kristina Keneally (@kkeneally), a female Governor-General her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC and now Julia Gillard is our first female PM.

This comes at a time when there is a lot of talk about the level of women in senior leadership roles in Australia, calls for mandatory quotas for women on boards, paid maternity leave for all and again pay equity.

Are we at the point where things are starting to truly shift? Keen to hear your thoughts. I’m not sure to be honest. Sometimes it is hard to differentiate whether people are doing things because they feel obliged or because it looks good, as opposed to believing it is actually important. I think if all these conversations continue to gain momentum, we’ll get there.

On that note, I’d like to share a few things that you might be interested in.

Women, Management and Work Conference

Macquarie University’s Women, Management and Work Conference, on 29-30 July 2010, will be a place to canvas solutions to increasing the number of women elected to parliament, appointed to boards and senior management positions and achieving salary equity.

Leading women speakers will be discussing equal opportunity in the workplace and strategies to achieve higher levels of women in leadership roles throughout Australia. It will encourage and inspire women to succeed in the workforce.

Conference co-chair Melanie O’Connor says, “The conference has been running for 22 years, yet 22 years later we are still looking for solutions to these intractable issues. Although many Australians do not want to hear it, gender continues to act as an insidious barrier.”

“Research by Associate Professor McGraw published in The 2008 Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency Census highlights some alarming statistics which show that women do not form the majority in any category of senior job position in any industry in Australia.”

“Not surprisingly, not a single industry in Australia pays women more than they do men and most pay them less.”

“In 2008, there were four female CEOs in the top ASX200 companies in Australia or two percent, down from three per cent in 2006. 106 companies in the top ASX200 do not have a single woman on their boards,” said Ms O’Connor.

The conference will include presentations, round table discussions and workshops encouraging audience participation run by influential Australian leaders.

Topics discussed over the two days include: how to get on a board, how to get on an executive team, coaching and mentoring, promotion and development in your job, balancing the risks and rewards as well as inspiring leadership success stories. This year also includes topics on starting your own business.

There are over 20 inspiring and leading speakers including:
· The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for Housing; Minister for the Status of Women

· Brigadier Simone Wilkie AM, Director General Training, Headquarters Forces Command

· Heather Ridout, Chief Executive, Australian Industry Group

· Andrea Grant, Group Managing Director Human Resources, Telstra

· Mia Freedman, Journalist, columnist, author and media consultant

The Conference Directors are Associate Professor Peter McGraw, high profile management consultant Melanie O’Connor and Pam Morpeth.
Date: 29 and 30 July 2010, 9am – 5:30pm
Where: Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, 61-101 Phillip St, Sydney
For more information and program details visit: http://www.lmsf.mq.edu.au/wmwc
To register visit: http://www.lmsf.mq.edu.au/wmwc/register_now

You might also like to follow them online:

Web: http://www.lmsf.mq.edu.au/wmwc
Facebook: Women at Work Australia
Twitter: @womenatworkoz
Posterous: http://womenatworkoz.posterous.com/

New Blog- Coping with Jane

Jane Coupland has started her own blog which aims to share the “boom chicka wah wah of fabulous women”.

Jane says “Imagine if we all had access to what makes female innovators and the most influential women of present day, tick. Who would these individuals be, and is there something they could share with us that we could take away and use?”

She will be working towards providing lifestyle and career insights of modern day heroines from the community.

She is also interested in being a megaphone for fabulous 30+ women!

I encourage you to check it out and provide suggestions to Jane if you know any fabulous women with stories worth sharing.

Women in Business Blog

I recently came across the women in business website (I think on twitter or LinkedIn) and thought that there might be a lot of people interested in this. It’s a pretty cool little community where you can engage by signing up as a member on the blog, you can participate in the discussions on LinkedIn, start chatting with people on twitter or become a fan on facebook.

To give you a better idea of what the site is about, the manifesto below pretty much sums it up:

Embrace doing business online
Connect to a likeminded community
Promote your business by sharing value

Clare Lancaster also runs a five week online training course which teaches you the principles of online marketing strategy, SEO, social media and email marketing and how you can apply them to your business.

Finally, one of my favourite females Christina Aguilera has just launched her new album Bionic and I would like to share one of her songs. It’s just beautiful and she often sings about the strength of being a woman.

Have a fantastic week everyone!