Women in Australian international affairs

ABSTRACT

This article reviews the participation of and challenges facing women in international affairs in Australia, with a focus on three sectors: the media, the civil service and the academy. We review the qualitative and quantitative data available, and share the results of a number of surveys and scans we have conducted ourselves: of the gender breakdown of undergraduate enrolments in Australian university courses focusing on international affairs; the gender break down of academic staff employed in politics and international relations programmes at Australian universities; the gender breakdown of authors published in the Australian Journal of International Affairs and the Australian Journal of Politics and History from 2000 to the present; and trends in the gender breakdown of citations in articles published in the Australian Journal of International Affairs between 2000–2001 and 2018–2019. We argue that although women in Australia are interested and engaged in international affairs in almost equal measure to their male counterparts, serious structural challenges continue to undermine their equitable representation in key fora and their career progression. This has clear implications for the future scholarship, practice and analysis of international affairs in Australia and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Australia
• international affairs
• gender
• women
• publication rates
• citations

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Emily Foley and Gavin Height for the research assistance on a number of the surveys conducted for this project. We also extend our gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers and editors of the AJIA for their encouragement and helpful suggestions. We are indebted to the Transforming Human Societies Research Focus Area at La Trobe University for funding some of this research and the broader project that gave rise to it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Jasmine-Kim Westendorf is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University and a Research Associate at the Developmental Leadership Program. Her most recent book is Violating Peace: Sex, Aid and Peacekeeping (Cornell University Press, 2020).

Rebecca Strating is the acting Executive Director of La Trobe Asia and a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations in the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne.

ORCID

Jasmine-Kim Westendorf http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1543-0719

Rebecca Strating http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7695-130X

Notes

1 Our review included academic staff in politics/government, international studies, global politics, global studies and strategic studies disciplines. It excluded adjunct, emeritus and non-resident staff.

2 Nick Bisley, email correspondence with Jasmine-Kim Westendorf, 17 December 2019.

3 Ian Hall, email correspondence with Jasmine-Kim Westendorf, 3 January 2020.

4 This tool can be found at https://jlsumner.shinyapps.io/syllabustool/.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Transforming Human Societies Research Focus Area Grant, La Trobe University.