This opinion piece by Carol Schwartz published this week in The Age highlights some important differences in recognition of men and women in our communities:  “As in previous years, fewer than a third of the names on the Australia
Day honours list are women. As in previous years, women are given more
awards in the lowest grades than in the higher….” and

“It’s also notable that the areas of Australian life where women are
dominant are almost completely missing from the awards. If we turn our
minds to people who do good for others, just about the first images that
come to mind would be nurses and teachers. Both professions are
weighted towards women. Yet nursing gets a bare four mentions in the
Australia Day honours list, while teaching gets three (all of them in
the field of teaching the arts rather than firing the imaginations of 20
unruly schoolchildren desperate for recess). There’s one therapist on
the list. There are no social workers. It would be easy for a foreigner
to come away with the impression that Australia had more professional
sportspeople than care workers.” 

(you can read the full article here and I’ve written before here about how you can nominate)

So what is it about the roles that women historically play?  Why don’t we recognise that contribution more? And value it?

Or do we?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…