I advocate the status of women through being active within the community. Locally I am involved in activities such as cross-country running, athletics, calisthenics, netball, badminton, choir, musicals, and working at the Lake View. By working hard and staying determined I promote the status of women through defying prejudice stereotypes surrounding females in sport and other related areas. On a national level I actively raise awareness for the efforts made by women throughout WWI and WWII by making speeches and publishing blogs through Awards Victoria and the ANZAC Centenary Website. I have pursued this interest globally by commemorating the sacrifice made by women in Turkey as an ANZAC Ambassador.
There are a number of issues that pose a challenge for achieving universal gender equality, including succumbing to traditional conservative norms where females are considered to be inferior to males. In order to combat this we must empower women through education. Another challenge to global equality is the lack of females in positions of leadership. For example, women only hold 22% of positions in national parliaments globally. This poses a challenge to promoting the status of women as it is perceived to be ‘normal’ for males to hold more power and there is a lack of female role models for women to aspire to. As a result we must make structural adjustments to increase the number of women in parliament. The media can often reaffirm prejudice stereotypes through objectifying women instead of celebrating their achievements. For example, in January The Australian released a tribute to Colleen McCullough (well-known writer and neurophysiologist) stating she was ‘plain in feature, and certainly overweight…’. In order to promote the status of women we must change the ingrained prejudices within the media and society.