A Call to Defiance on International Women’s Day
By Sue Barrett
March 8, 2025 – International Women’s Day – isn’t a pat on the head. It’s a fist in the air. A rejection of the stale crumbs dangled by Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison, Donald Trump, Andrew Tate – the old boys’ school brigade who’d rather see women grovel than thrive. Dutton’s latest edict: drag us back to the office full-time, tossing in a “job-sharing” bone pitched at women like it’s 1955. It’s not progress – it’s a leash, a smug nod to a past where half the population gets half a shot. Morrison’s “lucky we weren’t shot” quip at March4Justice? Same playbook: shut up and be grateful. These men don’t lead; they cling to control while the world moves on.
The Old Boys’ School Never Closed
At 14 in 1976, I walked into a boys’ school gone co-ed – eight boys to every girl, a swamp of swagger and sexism. You had three options: fade into silence, fawn over the lads, or fight. I fought. Taunts, groping, entitlement – I faced it all, and my principal, a rare good man, wrote in my final report: “Sue will not be bullied or tyrannised by prevailing views and attitudes.” Boys like Dutton and Morrison hated girls like me. They still do. That school was my crash course in corporate Australia’s resistance to change – a resistance they’re still peddling. But hybrid work? That’s our win.
Hybrid Work: A Lifeline, Not a Luxury
For women drowning in unpaid care and double shifts, hybrid work isn’t just a luxury – it’s a lifeline. The ABS records Australian women spending 4.5 hours a day on unpaid domestic labour – cooking, cleaning, child-rearing – while men get away with 2.8. Add a full-time job to that, and we’re not juggling; we’re drowning. Hybrid work cuts out the commute, frees up hours, and lets us breathe. McKinsey’s 2022 study backs it: 87% of hybrid workers report higher productivity, and burnout is plummeting – especially for women. Why? Because we’re no longer sprinting between school drop-offs, office desks, and dinner prep like some deranged relay race. OECD data backs this up: flexibility reduces stress and keeps women in the workforce. It’s not a perk – it’s a necessity, a hard-won fix to a system that has always demanded we do more with less.
So why is Dutton hellbent on ripping it away? Control, plain and simple. He’s playing the old boys’ school prefect, barking orders to keep us in line. Then there are the commercial property barons – CBD landlords panicking over empty towers, leaning on their mates in Canberra to force us back. Hybrid work has slashed office demand by 20% in major cities, according to JLL data, and they’re not happy. Dutton’s their errand boy, dressing up their profit grab as “workplace culture.” But peel it back, and it’s the same rigid, pinstripe obsession: women belong where they can be seen, managed, and kept in their place. It’s not about productivity – ABS data shows remote work added $34 billion to GDP in 2023 – it’s about power. They despise that we’ve cracked a model that works for us, not them.
March4Justice: The Fight’s Not Over
On March 15, 2021, 110,000 of us hit the streets for March4Justice – 8,000 outside Parliament House – demanding safety, equality, and respect at work. Morrison’s response? “Not far from here, such marches are met with bullets, but not here.” A slap disguised as a compliment. We co-founded that movement in 14 days because women’s rights aren’t a given – they’re a battle. Gen Z, Millennials: don’t sleep on this. The old boys’ club keeps clawing us back. Eternal vigilance isn’t optional.
Good Men, Step Up – Others, Step Aside
I’ve worked and still work with brilliant men – allies who get that fairness lifts us all. Then there’s the Duttons: transactional, narrow, stuck in a 1970s locker room. They’re losing ground, and they know it. This isn’t just Australia’s fight – Trump’s eroding rights in the US, Tate’s poisoning boys online, sisters globally facing the same dross. But we’re not alone. With Gen Z’s fire, Millennials’ grit, and good men who see the stakes, we’re unstoppable.
No Retreat, No Surrender
This International Women’s Day, we don’t beg – we demand. To Dutton, Morrison, Trump, Tate: go fuck yourselves. We’re not choking down your scraps or cramming into your obsolete world. Hybrid work stays. Safety stays. Equality stays. No crumbs, no compromise.
To women worn thin by double standards, to Gen Z ready to torch the old guard, to men who’ll march with us: this is your summons. Dutton wants the Lodge? Trump a sequel? Tate his megaphone? Let them try. We’ll bury them in ballots, voices, and sheer will. The 1970s taught me equality takes bare-knuckle grit. The 2020s prove it’s unfinished. On March 8, we roar and keep roaring – sharp, fierce, a tide no dam can hold.
#NoCrumbsNoCompromise
Onward We Press
Resources
The Phenomenom that is March4Justice, Sue Barrett, 19 March 2021
This article was originally published on Sue Barrett
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It’s part of the manosphere’s appeal to blokes: don’t bother improving yourself, just drag everyone else down into the swamp with you – especially those pesky “femoids”.
Yeah, nah. Never complied, never will. The mere possession of dangly bits downstairs does not entitle you to sex, service, respect or anything else. We’re all human anything beyond the level of basic human rights needs to be earned.