Breaking the bias

Breaking the bias

In conversation with the Honourable Mia Davies for International Women’s Day

On 11 March 2022, Year 7 students Ethan Bartholomaeus and Obi Rogers spoke to the Honourable Mia Davies, WA Leader of the National Party, the first woman to ever hold this role. The following conversation was the first in a new Middle School podcast series and reflected on this year’s IWD theme #BreaktheBias and the importance of amplifying diverse voices.

Ethan Bartholomaeus: Welcome to Conversations at Scotch College Middle School. I am Ethan Bartholomaeus, and today I am warmly welcoming the Honourable Mia Davies, Member of the Legislative Assembly, Opposition Leader and Leader of the Nationals WA and Member for Central Wheatbelt.

Obi Rogers: We welcome you just after an important day on the calendar, International Women’s Day. As a woman in politics, how important is this day to you?

Mia Davies: It’s very important. There’s a real moment where, every year, we pause to reflect on the progress that we’ve made as women and the fight for equality and talk about what we can do to actually continue that fight. So, you need to celebrate the things we’ve achieved and always remind people there’s always more to be done.

Obi: I’m sure you’ve done a lot for the world of females, but what’s your favourite achievement?

Mia: I think it’s hard to choose one. I was quite young when I entered politics, and I’m not sure that it was at the forefront of my mind that I had a role to play in being a role model for other women. When I was elected, in my electorate, the agricultural region, there were 10 members of parliament in the agricultural regions. Out of those, I was the only female. So, 50% of the population in that area looked to the people in parliament to represent them and didn’t see someone that looked like them, spoke like them, or debated like them.

It showed me that it makes it very difficult for people to actually aspire to leadership positions if they don’t even see others like themselves in those positions, so just that very fact of being elected allowed me to be a representative, to show people that you can be a female member of parliament in an area that hadn’t seen [a woman elected] previously for a long time was, I think, one of those achievements.

I think consistently, in my 14 years of being a member of parliament, the most rewarding part is when I come to schools. I speak to young people about the opportunities available to them through a life of public service and inspire them to think, ‘Perhaps that’s something that I could do.’ Ideally, I would like to do myself out of a job. I want so many young men and women putting their hands up and saying that I want to be part of making sure we can shape the future of Western Australia; that means everybody gets a fair go.

Obi: Is it at all fair in a group mainly dominated by males. Is it demotivating or more motivating?

Mia: I’m very lucky in the sense that I think it’s both. That sounds like a very political answer, doesn’t it? A bit on the fence. It’s both, and sometimes it drives you to say we can do better, and other times, you know we are surrounded by, I guess, the vestiges of a very maledominated society. And, where I come from, the Central Wheatbelt, the agricultural sector has traditionally been dominated by men. I am in a position where there have traditionally been men in those decision-making processes. But I have also been elevated and supported by men in my professional life as well.

I grew up being surrounded by people in my hometown who took on leadership positions, whether they were male or female. So, whether it is was my Nanna, who is involved in the senior citizens and the CWA [Country Women’s Association], or whether it was my Grandfather or my next-door neighbour or my Mum or my Dad, they all pitched in and got things done. I think coming from a country community, that was just something that was built into us.

To answer your questions about whether it has been motivating or demotivating, there are moments where I think this makes me really angry, and I am going to do more to make sure no one else has to go through the same thing. But equally, you have to reflect on the fact that there are people who are prepared to support women, and I am very lucky I’ve had lots of men in my life who have been there to support and elevate and give me a little push when I’ve needed it as well.

Obi: Is there anything for International Woman’s Day that we as a school or individuals could do to support this cause?

Mia: Well, I think having this conversation is a great start, absolutely! And you know I’ve told a number of people that I was coming to have this discussion at Scotch College, as one of the functions that I have done this week, as part of IWD. Their eyebrows raise, and my response to that is that we don’t achieve change without everyone pitching in. So part of achieving equality in workplaces is making sure women are afforded opportunities where they deserve them – equal pay, all of those discussions they get thrown into this basket – comes from everybody understanding that they are part of the solution and making sure that you are having conversations like this.

When you’re all sitting around a table in a decision-making room, it’s not leaving it to the women to start those discussions; make sure you understand why it’s important. Many business people will tell you that if we take it from a purely economic perspective, it should be about equality. [They’ll tell you] that if you have a diversity of decision-makers sitting around your table, your business will do better. So, there is an economic rationale now for making sure you have balance and equality. But, absolutely, just from my fundamental human base, it isn’t good to think that people aren’t treated the same when they’re doing the same thing, or they are not afforded the same opportunities simply because they are male or female.

Obi: Do you think it is getting better? Females joining male-dominated jobs?

Mia: Yeah, absolutely! I think we make progress every day, but it requires consistent effort, and so that’s why days like International Women’s Day are just one day. But I think it regenerates and reinvigorates people who have been having this fight for a very long time, and it changes every year how we approach it. The more people we bring into wanting to be part of this conversation, the better it will be in the long term.

Some people have been fighting for women’s rights forever, and you know they feel like they have spent their whole lives doing that. I’m very grateful that there are men and women who have done that because it made it easier for me to step into the role that I was in. Part of my responsibility as a leader now is to make sure that I continue that, so hopefully, one day, we don’t have to have that conversation; that we can see the merits of an individual as opposed to their gender and that it doesn’t matter. But I’ve absolutely seen change, even in the time that I have been a member of parliament. There are more women on boards, more women in parliament, and more women involved in traditionally male-dominated industries, which certainly hasn’t come about accidentally. That’s come about by having good policy and intent and people persisting in pushing and making sure that we keep having that discussion, and so it needs to be done on purpose as opposed to just letting it happen.

Obi: As you said, there have been other females that have helped push equality forward. Is there anyone that you looked up to?

Mia: Oh, many! Many people. There’d be too many to list, and that’s a really good question. I think the people and the characteristics I admire in people – particularly in women – are people who are prepared to speak even when it is uncomfortable. So, it is an uncomfortable conversation to be the only person in the room raising the question when you are surrounded by a table of men, and you say, ‘Well, what about diversity? What about the women’s issue? What about a gender balance?’ And, as a woman, you feel like sometimes you are the only one always saying that.

I can give you a really good example – Christina Matthews, the CEO of the WA Cricket Association. She is a fantastic cricketer in her own right, but as an executive who runs the WACA, she has done amazing things in bringing men’s and women’s cricket to the fore. The women and men are treated exactly the same when they are promoted and marketed in career pathways and training. All of those things, it’s not an add on. They have built their business around making sure that men and women are given equal opportunities. Christina is fearless in how she approaches that, and she does it professionally, but it is sometimes difficult to be that person who is always talking about that. And so our task is to bring more people in to that conversation and create those champions of change, men and women.

If you’re sitting in the room and you see discrimination occurring, it’s right then and there that you call it out

Ethan: Life balance has become a challenge for everyone, given the demands of modern life. How do you strike a balance between your role as a politician and your personal aspirations?

Mia: That’s a very good question. I’m not sure that I’ve actually achieved life balance at the moment. It is a pretty demanding job; I spend a lot of time on the road. When I get an opportunity, I prioritise spending time with my family, who I don’t get to see a great deal of. If you ask any politician, no matter where they are from, but particularly if they are a regional member of parliament who has a very big electorate, they spend a lot of time on the road away from home. So, you have to make sure that you’ve got good structures in place to provide that balance.

When talking about work-life balance in a more general sense and from a policy perspective, issues like access to childcare and affordable childcare mean that women and men can participate in the workforce equally.

It’s something that we need to do better on. Certainly, particularly from my perspective in regional Western Australia, it is one of the big inhibitors of people being able to return to work and contribute to their community, so affordable childcare is something that would absolutely change the opportunity for women to participate in the workforce and have a better work-life balance.

Ethan: Have you experienced any gender bias or inequality in your climb to political leadership, and how have you overcome this to become so successful?

Mia: Yes, I think that everybody that is in this role, as a female politician, has at some point in time been in a situation where there’s been gender bias. I have been incredibly well supported and one of the things that I always say to people if they are in roles like this, whether it is in politics, business, community leadership, even if you are the P and C chair, is to find people to surround yourself with who will always give you honest feedback and also who will support you when you get to a point where you are having a real challenge.

I’ve been lucky to have good people around me. We get back to being fearless. Sometimes those conversations are difficult, and when you’re experiencing it, and it’s being directed at you, it’s very difficult to separate yourself from it. You can see injustice easily when it is happening to someone else. When you are in the middle of it as a female, sometimes you don’t always respond how you would like to in that exact moment. When I have discussions with other women, I sort of say, well, we need to learn to trust that intuition and at that moment call it out, and International Women’s Day this year is about breaking the bias.

We’ve talked about the fact that if you’re sitting in the room and you see discrimination occurring, it’s right then and there that you call it out. It’s important to say that it’s not acceptable. We don’t think racism is acceptable. We actually call it out these days, and that’s changed in my lifetime. It still exists, but people are more ready to say we don’t accept comments like that, that are derogatory. It’s the same thing with gender bias or discrimination; we need to make sure everybody is calling it out and making it uncomfortable for people if they think that it’s appropriate.

Ethan: What would be your advice for young boys, like us at Scotch College, and young girls aspiring to be a politician or have any other job in the public eye within this current genderbiased environment?

Mia: Well, I think getting involved. So, where there are opportunities for you to take on leadership positions, sometimes young people, particularly women, tend to take a step backwards. So this is really important for blokes, as much as women in their own processes, to understand that quite often when women make decisions about whether or not they want to take a job or pursue something, they will look at everything and say ‘I can’t quite do all the things that I need to do on that list. I’m not quite confident; there might be someone that’s better. I might wait’, and so they take a step backwards. This is a broad generalisation, but blokes tend to look at the same list and say, ‘I can do most things; I reckon I’ll just have a crack at it.’ And that’s why we tend to see more men in leadership positions than women. There is also such a thing called unconscious bias, where decision-makers choose men over women, but women also take themselves out of the running.

As a younger person, [when] you sometimes doubt whether or not you are ready to take that next step, say, ‘I’m going to have a crack at, it I’m going to put myself forward’. The reason you should do that is because [it’s important] to have a diversity of voices sitting around the table, whether it’s a young person, male or female, or someone from a different socioeconomic background or Aboriginal [heritage]. All those diverse backgrounds give a better outcome, and we are all the better for it. So, my advice to everyone is, when you get offered a leadership position, take it and then find a way to make it work by surrounding yourself with good people who will support you because you will be better for it, and your community will too.

This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full interview on www.youtube.com/ScotchCollegeWA.