In August last year following a number of conversations I wrote my first post announcing the launch of the Wise Women Project that would bring together big picture thinkers to support women and their allies to solve some of agriculture’s biggest challenges.
In the first instance we see an exciting opportunity to reframe gender balance as one of the century’s most obvious business opportunities. But first we have to acknowledge, understand and maximize the complementary differences between men and women. The challenge here is not to treat everyone equally and the same, but to treat everyone equally and different, with a deep understanding of what those differences are.
We need to look at the blueprints of our workplaces, to understand how the policies, processes, structures, employee behaviours, leaders, and culture in our workplaces can value women and their contributions
We started looking at ways we could tap into that as yet great untapped resource in agriculture – women
Women comprise 32% of workers in agriculture (ABARES, 2021). Women are 51% of the Australian population and bring valuable skills to a workforce, such as building empathetic innovation driven systems and early adoption of technology.
And we took on this challenge
And I know that a lot of people who have done the hard yards on this are going to be very excited to learn we are going to get a chance to see if we can make it happen
Watch this space
FYI
Books I am reading and referencing
- Brandsplaining by Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts
- The Fix by Michelle King
- Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox
