FORMER Bendigo Advertiser editor Nicole Ferrie has been recognised as a Woman of Achievement during an evening celebrating central Victorian women.
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More than 200 people attended the Zonta Club of Bendigo's International Women's Day Dinner at the All Seasons Bendigo last night.
The presentation of the Woman of Achievement award was one of the event's highlights.
Ms Ferrie was one of three shortlisted nominees, along with Marian Craze and Sue Ghalayini.
She was recognised for her commitment to creating gender equality through both her career and personal life, and as a visionary leader.
Accepting the award, Ms Ferrie spoke of the harms of patriarchy and the need to act.
"We need to speak up and we need to stop knocking down women who do," she said.
Women at risk
Keynote speaker Dr Airlie Chapman raised some of the ways gender inequality affected the design of products, including those intended to improve safety, during her 30-minute presentation.
The University of Melbourne mechatronics expert started with an observation about the temperature of the room.
"When they decided what temperature to set rooms at, they looked at the metabolic rate of men," Dr Chapman said.
"The metabolic rate of men is about five degrees higher than that of women, which means that most workplaces [women] are in are a bit cold."
She said the new iPhone was about the standard size of a woman's hand, "making it near impossible for an average woman to operate an iPhone with one hand."
Dr Chapman said unconscious biases appeared in a lot of things like safety products, creating consequences for women that were "a bit more dire" than a cold room or using two hands to operate a mobile phone.
"Women are statistically better drivers [than men], but if a woman gets into an accident, she's 47 per cent more likely in a car accident to come across with a critical injury and 17 per cent more likely to die," she said.
"That's purely because the crash test dummies were designed on a male's form, not a female's form."
A lot of testing for medications was historically based on men's physiology, Dr Chapman said.
"They assumed that women were just a scaled-down version of men, so they'd have problems with drug dosages for women," she said.
"A lot of safety equipment, like stab vests for police officers, are designed off a male's body.
"Because the female physiology isn't quite the same, it actually leaves gaps in their suits."
She said such biases were inadvertent.
"But if we have more women in the room when these different products are actually being designed, the chances that these kinds of things will slip through are less," Dr Chapman said.
More people would be put at risk by a failure to achieve gender diversity in engineering - something Dr Chapman said became more of an issue as technology permeated more of society.
While she said diversity in STEM had come a long way, it still had a long way to go.
"About a third of our university graduates in STEM are women, but when it comes to engineering, the balance statistics are further skewed towards males," Dr Chapman, who is a senior lecturer, said.
"As well as having lower numbers of women graduating with the degrees, we have lower numbers of women staying in the degree area.
"Only about 50 per cent of women who graduate with an engineering degree actually pursue an engineering career."
Those who did held positions of less authority than their male counterparts.
Dr Chapman devoted most of her speech to sharing her journey in STEM, finishing with suggested actions to promote careers in STEM.
Ms Ferrie referenced Dr Chapman's speech when she accepted her award - particularly, how a lack of representation in the design of products was affecting women's safety.
"Women have suffered because of [patriarchy] for so long. We are dying because of it in so many ways," Ms Ferrie said.
She mentioned the horrific murders of Queensland mother Hannah Clarke and her three young children, and the work to be done to end violence against women and their children.
"We are here together because we've still got so much work to do," Ms Ferrie said.
Region's women celebrated
The Zonta Club of Bendigo presented five scholarships during the dinner.
Bendigo Senior Secondary College's Alyssa Lai was named the winner of the Zonta Young Women in Public Affairs Award.
Catherine McAuley College Year 12 student Hser Oh Bue Htoo Lweh won the Gwen Symons scholarship.
Sarah Thompson was the recipient of the Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship.
Kim Hopcott was announced as the Heather Winderlich Nursing Scholarship awardee.
Former public affairs scholarship recipient Eva Jan received the Ann Horrocks STEM Award from the award's namesake, who is also the president of Zonta Bendigo.
The information below was provided by the club for each of the evening's winners:
Scholarships:
- Zonta Young Women in Public Affairs Award - Alyssa Lai, Bendigo Senior Secondary College. A snapshot of her outstanding leadership and achievements includes: inaugural Youth Councillor for the City of Greater Bendigo; the only young person on the Sustainability and Environment Advisory Committee of the Bendigo Council; Treasurer and President of BSSC's Student Council and an executive member of the Vic SRC where she promoted the interests of rural students; host of her college 2019 ANZAC and Awards Assemblies; progressing to national level in Lions Youth of the Year competition and being awarded BSSC 2019 Student of the Year.
- Gwen Symons scholarship - Hser Oh Bue Htoo Lweh. A Year 12 student at Catherine McCauley College, who came to Australia from Thailand with her parents in 2008. As Karen is her first language, she has worked very hard to learn English since her arrival in Australia. She plans on becoming a primary school teacher, enjoys sport, reading, cooking and dancing, and is very aware of giving back to her community. This scholarship is established in memory of Charter Zonta member Gwen Symons and is to encourage and assist a young woman experiencing significant challenges to achieve success in her education. It recognises that there can be many barriers to someone remaining in education, and that the benefits of that education can be life-changing.
- Jane M. Klausman Women in Business scholarship - Sarah Thompson. The Zonta Club of Bendigo's recipient of this award is currently in her third year of a Commerce and Marketing degree at Latrobe University in Bendigo, and achieving excellent results. The scholarship program helps women pursue undergraduate and master's degrees in business management and overcome gender barriers from the classroom to the boardroom.
- Heather Winderlich Nursing scholarship - Kim Hopcott. Kim went to primary school in Inglewood, completed years 7-10 at Kangaroo Flat Secondary and years 11-12 at Bendigo Senior Secondary College. She had always had an interest in mental health but did not consider it as a nursing career, until she loved her university placement in mental health at Bendigo Health. She is currently in her graduate year at Bendigo Health working in mental health and has just completed her final rotation. She is studying a postgraduate diploma in mental health nursing with La Trobe as part of the grad program.
- Ann Horrocks STEM Award - Eva Jan. This scholarship is awarded to a young woman undertaking tertiary studies in a non-medical STEM field, to promote and advance the role of woman in this field. Zonta is greatly encouraged by the number and quality of applicants we receive each year for this award, and by the number of female Primary school students eager to participate in our Discovery STEM program. Eva is about to commence a Bachelor of Science degree at Monash University. In her application for this scholarship, her 2019 chemistry teacher wrote that she "has long had an interest in her education, focusing on mathematics and science. From an early age she has been excited by science and all that it offers. She has tended towards various aspects of maths and science / biology / chemistry, and her knowledge of these areas is broad."
Woman of Achievement Award nominees:
- Nicole Ferrie is a visionary leader who has modelled her strong commitment to creating gender equality through her career and personal life. She has mentored journalists and peers to report on and represent gender inequality in all forms. She grew up with parents who value the importance of involvement in the community and she believes you get back what you put in. One of her proudest personal achievements was to be invited to speak at sessions surrounding United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York. Her focus is, through responsible journalism and by example, to educate the community with a human rights lens. Her achievements are many and demonstrate that she is respected by a large number and range of organisations. In media, to mention just a few, this includes a Rural Press Club of Victoria award for the best campaign in collaboration with Annie North Women's Refuge, the Victoria Law foundation award for covering a supreme court trial while editor at the Bendigo Advertiser. Other awards include the Fairfax Media Women of Influence award and Speaker at the 3rd World Conference of Women's Shelters at The Hague. In her spare time, she volunteers in community organisations including National Media Advisory committee, board member at the Annie North Refuge, and guest speaker at La Trobe University. Nicole's leadership and commentary in the media has represented the most marginalised, invisible and voiceless members of our community.
- Sue Ghalayini has devoted her life to helping people, improving the lives of people around her and advocating for those less fortunate. She has enormous empathy and reaches out when she sees something or someone who needs help. She supported a struggling young man with an intellectual impairment, who is now settled with a home and family of his own, a rare personal achievement. She keenly identifies and analyses issues that require improvement and brings people with her to the solution. She has continued her own personal development to become a Registered Migration Agent and earn a master's degree inSsocial Work as well as Postgraduate Diploma in Immigration Law so to have a stronger voice when assisting and supporting refugees. She has become a role model for women of all ages and developed a choir for Sudanese women and girls to recall and celebrate their traditional songs and music. Her other achievements include the chaperoning of a bereft Karen grandmother to return home, organising torches for women in the refugee camps to safely travel in the dark, pro-bono migration advice in obtaining Humanitarian Visas. She continues to volunteer in the CFA and has done so for 13 years as well as providing secretarial duties at the Sutton Grange hall committee. Sue's aim is to empower women, increase their sense of belonging and slowly help them develop equity in as many areas as possible.
- Marian Craze possesses the ability to include everybody, especially women and girls, in all programs she has been involved in throughout her life. When she sees a job, task or activity that needs doing she gets an idea and then invites the necessary people to get the idea implemented. These 'ideas' have been many and varied. Many years involvement in education including early education, Kindergarten Director, and special education at Kalliana Special School have led to school camping programs, bicycle education, programs for children with learning disabilities to enter mainstream schools, staff development, swimming aids for learning to swim, and writing/ producing/ directing three musicals. She is now retired but has not stopped working. Instead she has volunteered and become Chairperson of the Bendigo Bowls Board, developing programs for mothers with babies, disability programs and bowling arms to enable older bowlers. She has been involved in the Girl Guide movement taking on leadership roles for many years and mentoring both girls and adults in guided activities.
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Emma D'Agostino
Covering general news and Bendigo council.
Covering general news and Bendigo council.
