Change doesn’t happen unless we make it happen. This is something that we often forget, preferring instead to let someone else be in charge of the change. We ask the government to change things for us, or we trust that our bosses will have our best interests at heart. But change isn’t given out like free lollies. It is something we need to take responsibility for.
I’m often surprised at how many people really dislike the idea of activism. I’ve had students nervous about posting political content on social media lest their friends think they are an activist. I’ve had colleagues laugh when I mention joining the union, as if I told a funny joke. Somehow ‘social justice warrior’ is now an insult, as if caring about social justice and equality is scornful.
As someone who studies activism in an academic context, I know that I am more comfortable with it than plenty of people. It is familiar to me, I know the important role it has played in social change for such a long time, and I know that it doesn’t succeed without people actively participating in it. But I’m still surprised at how hard it is to get others to actively participate.
Since 2016, I have been involved in the Gender Equity Self-Assessment Team at James Cook University. Our task was to assess the current state of gender inequity at JCU, develop an action plan to address some of the most pressing issues, and submit an application for that assessment and action plan to be externally recognized through something called an Athena SWAN Bronze award. In the process of our research, we carried out focus group discussions with women, distributed anonymous questionnaires, and interviewed senior staff. As my colleagues began to identify me with JCU’s gender equity strategy, they began to contact me with specific issues. They would say, “Here is a problem; what is the Athena SWAN process going to do about it?”.
And, having spent 3 years working on this project, I hope that the Athena SWAN process can do something about some of these problems. But we can’t make that change happen in isolation. Fixing policy and practice doesn’t work if the culture doesn’t shift with it. Staff need to advocate for themselves and for each other to create the culture change that will enable the official stuff to succeed. Because, while JCU management are supportive and committed to the process, changing a university is like steering a ship – it takes a while to turn it around.
And in most attempts at social change, we are up against people in power who really don’t want to give their power up. They resist the change with everything they’ve got.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Demanding means not asking nicely; demanding means disrupting the status quo; demanding means making it uncomfortable or embarrassing not to change. Society is a pretty stable structure – it will only change if we make it change.
Dr Theresa Petray
The Cairns Institute Theme Leader, Social & Environmental Justice
College of Arts, Society & Education
James Cook University
@ TherseaPetray
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