What does invisibility look like when you live in a regional area? In this episode of The Invisible Woman, Fiona Doorman explores how geographical barriers compound existing issues for women living outside of metro areas. Fiona Dorman is the President of the National Council of Women South Australia and National Vice President of the National Council of Women Australia. Join us as she outlines the power of diversity, and what we can do better to ensure everybody has a seat at the decision-making table.
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Grace Packer
This is a Just Gold podcast.
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Carley Bishop
Captured on the lands of the peoples of the and call a nation. We pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging. In this episode, we continue speaking to Fiona Dorman, president of the National Council of Women, South Australia, and National Vice President of National Council of Women Australia, about how geographical barriers compound existing issues for women living outside of metro areas.
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Carley Bishop
Here's Fiona.
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Fiona Doorman
A lot of it for me, in my point of view, comes back to building really strong communities. Women are really good. It might sound like a generalization, but we are really good at looking after each other and we have lots of advice and we have lots of life experiences where we would like to share and we would like to raise each other up and support each person in whether it's in their time of need or just to be champions for each other.
00:01:09:05 - 00:01:21:11
Fiona Doorman
And I think as we if we continue this conversation about building strong communities, then then we realize that value in each other all of the time.
00:01:21:22 - 00:01:27:19
Carley Bishop
We asked Fiona, what are the primary issues that women face in regional and metro areas and how do they differ?
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Fiona Doorman
The difference between regional and metro and probably across the country and across the world is isolation and isolation from services, isolation from from government services and isolation really physically from each other. So and especially if there might be situations that there might be domestic violence or there might be health issues, it really can compound the effects that each individual or family unit or a community together.
00:01:54:21 - 00:02:13:16
Fiona Doorman
So, look, I think there are similarities across across the world about just really that geographical divide. And that geographical divide compounds. One of issues might you might be saying what even if it's in the metro area.
00:02:13:22 - 00:02:22:23
Carley Bishop
We asked Fiona what she thinks is currently being done well to engage women of different backgrounds and what we as a society need to be doing better. Here's her thoughts.
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Fiona Doorman
Do you know what? That that is actually a really fundamental question to to women's organizations, especially. And I think what we are saying now and it's very exciting is the growth and the expansion and the sheer number of organizations that are focused on specifically for women. And all of the organizations are perfectly relevant in this in our age and day 2022, that we might say that we don't need them now, but there are women and girls across the world that still need our help and I hope that's probably not the right word, but they still need support and that's women among us.
00:03:07:09 - 00:03:34:01
Fiona Doorman
We all need help at different times. And so what we're doing Will, in championing that and making sure that women's voices are heard, we're not there yet. We're simply not there yet. We are saying and we're more ahead, especially in Australia. We're very lucky. But as as time goes on, we can't forget those rights have been very hard won and hard fought for and we do need to continue to do that.
00:03:34:01 - 00:04:00:13
Fiona Doorman
So look, I think there's there's an element that we just can't give up, give up the fight. We have to just keep going and make sure that that we make it a point. We make it a point that diversity and diversity across all all spectrums is really important so that everybody has that seat at the table and everybody's voice contributes to decision making and just that community around us.
00:04:00:18 - 00:04:27:15
Fiona Doorman
For me, there's a real positivity in having diversity and as a number of university and I think universities around the world and the big colleges who show unequivocally that with more diversity, every society, business, corporation, parliament does better. So if we're looking at it even just from the purely economic point of view, there'll be lots of people that will say, Why do we need more of this?
00:04:27:17 - 00:04:54:01
Fiona Doorman
You it should be a meritocracy and all of these things. You know that that is true. But that also includes women. It includes women of color. It includes women from regional and remote areas. And just having that seat at the table. So so yeah, I think it is showing the value in diversity. And we learn that whether it's at school, we learned in our sporting clubs we should be seeing it on our TV, we should be seeing it in our media.
00:04:54:01 - 00:05:28:07
Fiona Doorman
And that will get her arms around each other and embrace the diversity that makes our our communities like, I really love people. So I really love to meet and get to know every individual that comes past me in whatever walk of life or whatever situation I am. So I always hope that that I can see through perhaps what it is in visibility and value each person.
00:05:28:19 - 00:05:39:11
Fiona Doorman
So exactly who they are and and hope that they will feel valued and seen and heard when we have a time together. So stay visible.
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Carley Bishop
The Invisible Woman Project, funded by our Social Enterprises Impact Program, promotes awareness and actions for women and gender diverse people to age with dignity, security and safety. Find out more on justgoldwomen.net or on our socials at @JustGoldWomen.
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Kyriakos Gold
This was a just gold podcast. Find out more about our social enterprise at justgold.net