Sexism is still alive and kicking in 2020

What we learned was that just over half of all respondents had experienced sexism in the preceding 12 months. For women aged 18-24, this figure ballooned out to 80 per cent.

It is easy to justify the disproportionate experiences of young women as a reflection of their lives; their mobility between social networks or their participation in the night-time economy.

But it actually points to what young women in our city endure and what we as a community are willing to accept.

In a short film we are launching today, young local women share shocking stories of harassment.

One woman speaks of being turned down for a promotion because their boss couldn't afford to pay them "four days' sick leave a month", presumably because a menstruating woman is a drain on resources.

Another tells us how nights out often involve dodging requests for sexual services, an experience of sexism steeped in vulgar racial stereotyping.

When women my age were whistled at or denied promotions in hospitality jobs back in the 1980s, we rolled our eyes and thought it would get better when we got our qualifications or changed jobs.

What was waiting for us, however, was a labour market where our wages and superannuation fell behind our male peers, where the "boys' club" excluded us from contracts or opportunities and where our commitment was questioned whenever we took leave to care for sick children.

These anecdotes and our survey findings are sadly echoed in data Australia-wide.

In 2018 the Australian Human Rights Commission found that 85 per cent of women aged over 15 had been sexually harassed at some point in their lives.

A 2019 survey of workers in the retail sector conducted by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association found young women working in retail endured an average of 7.2 instances of sexual harassment on the shop floor each year.

For all the public grandstanding we've seen on the scourge of gender inequality, remarkably little has changed over the decades.

For 90 years, YWCA Canberra has advocated to uphold the rights, needs and sheer dignity of women in our city.

This International Women's Day we are highlighting the fact that women don't have to endure insidious or horrifically overt forms of violence, because we know how to prevent it.

Since 2015, we have lobbied the ACT government to invest in comprehensive respectful relationships education in ACT schools.

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This kind of education requires more than a one-off conversation about being kind, or not getting into physical fights with friends.

It's about more than a school motto, an inspirational speech, a university policy, a stall at O-Week, or a reminder in an assembly.

It's about implementing evidence-based programs designed specifically to give young people the skills and tools to unpack gender stereotypes, understand what informed consent is, appreciate diversity, and build healthy intimate relationships.

Programs like this exist, they've been evaluated, and they're ready to be rolled out across all ACT government schools and even in universities.

This is an election year and the ACT government needs to do more to demonstrate that this jurisdiction is one of the best places in Australia, and indeed the world, to live, regardless of your gender.

The ACT government can take meaningful steps to make a tangible difference to the lives of girls and young women as they move through our schools, universities, workplaces and city.

Now is the time to take an innovative approach to policy and legislative reform in an area where it's so desperately needed.

A government that leads the charge to prevent violence against women and girls is something that all Canberrans can get behind.

We're here, we're ready.