Lawyers Weekly reports
While COVID-19 seemingly opens the door for parity in legal workplaces, the former PM is worried there may actually be setbacks.
Speaking virtually on Monday, 8 March 2021, at an International Women’s Day breakfast hosted by legal practice management software provider LEAP, former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard said that the past year has allowed the marketplace to “re-imagine the world of work” in ways that are far more gender-sensitive, and thus, gender-equal.
In law, for example, employers will have the capacity, she said, to “mix the online environment with in-person collaboration”.
However, Ms Gillard qualified, the profession will have to be “pretty thoughtful” about what happens next. She said she is “very concerned” about the possibility of exacerbated inequality that indirectly arises from allowing employees to work from home if they so wish.
“I am very concerned that, in five years’ time, we will wake up and find that, disproportionately, men have chosen to go into the office, while disproportionately, women – particularly women with young families – have chosen to work from home. And unless there are purposeful structures in place, that means that the men will be incredibly visible when it comes to promotion time or training opportunity time, and the women will be invisible,” she espoused.
“[If that happens], we’ll all be saying to ourselves that we thought this was going to be good for gender equality, but it’s actually set us back.”
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