EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A total of 543 women of colour completed the survey, with 7% identifying as being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
Most respondents (70%) were between 25 and 34 and 70% worked full-time. Questions were not mandatory, so some questions had fewer answers than others. The women reported being employed in more than 250 different roles, and those who did not identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander had heritage from more than 60 different nations.
Most of the women who responded had experienced discrimination in the workplace (60%) while 40% had not. While 30% believed their identity as a woman of colour was valued in the workplace, 43 % did not, and the remainder answered “maybe”.
Most respondents (57%) felt they had faced challenges in the workplace related to their identity as a woman of colour, while 21% did not believe so and the remainder were unsure (answered ‘maybe’). While 59 % said their workplace had a diversity and inclusion policy, 22% said it did not, and the remainder were unsure.
The majority of respondents (57.61%) said the leader of their organisation was a man, not a person of colour, followed by a woman, not a person of colour, (25.63%) with just over 2% saying they were the organisation’s leader and 6.58% saying the leader was a woman of colour.
Many of the women responding named ‘mentoring’ as a key need for future development in their careers, and other suggestions included networking, counselling, and structural change.
We exist to champion Australia’s Women of Colour.
ORIGIN OF THE PHRASE "WOMEN OF COLOR"
"Women of Color is not a biological designation. It is a solidarity definition. A commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of color who have been minoritized. It is a term that has a lot of power." Loretta Ross
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WOMEN DEFINITION
Women - Transgender and cisgender, all those who experience or have experienced oppression as women, including non-binary and gender non-conforming people and all those who identify as women. Self-definition is at the discretion of the individual.
Definition credit: wire.org.au
ALLY DEFINITION
A - always centre the impacted
L - listen and learn from those who live in oppression
L - leverage your privilege
Y - yield the floor
*Mnemonic credit: Kayla Reed Executive Director ACTION St. Louis Follow Kayla Reed on Twitter @iKaylaReed
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WOMEN OF COLOUR LTD ACN 643 518 576 ABN 17 643 518 576 is an Australian Public Company Limited by Guarantee. We are a registered charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC).
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We acknowledge the Wallumattagal clan of the Darug nation as the Traditional Custodians of the land upon which Women of Colour Australia is situated. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the strength and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women with whom we stand in solidarity. We acknowledge that as settlers on this stolen Aboriginal land, we are beneficiaries of the dispossession, genocide, and ongoing colonial violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We believe that it is our collective responsibility to help dismantle the structural inequities and systemic barriers oppressing the original inhabitants of this land. We are also painfully aware that the land was taken forcibly, without a Treaty or reparations made. We have taken a practical step towards honouring sovereignty by paying the rent – and we invite you to do so too. This land is and always will be Aboriginal land. Sovereignty was never ceded.