What’s Your Position on Gender Equity?

The Australian Retailers Association are leading the way for their industry by releasing a positioning statement. This outlines the guiding principles and suggested actions that retailers could adopt to help address gender inequality in the sector. These actions include setting an aspirational gender target for board and executive positions, executing educational and awareness building campaigns, addressing the pay gap between women and men, providing access to more cost-effective childcare options for working families, and removing rigid stereotypes from marketing, product ranges and pricing.

“Gender equality is a complex issue that is quite rightly grounded in inequality between women and men in the workplace. However, we need to remain mindful that equality is a fundamental human right for all people, irrespective of gender identity,” Mr Zahra said.

“We also have to recognise that there are differences between how our largest national and international retailers are addressing gender equality, in comparison to our small and medium sized members who make up 95% of our membership. This is not a one-size-fits-all proposition and we need to help our members pursue the actions that make sense for their business,” Mr Zahra said.

The position statement has been developed and endorsed by the ARA Advisory Committee for Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI). Committee Chair, Elise Sharpley from Deloitte, says that the ARA Position Statement sets a positive example for other industry groups with leaders from Australia’s largest retailers coming together to establish an industry wide response to gender equality.

“Gender equality is a moral and commercial imperative. There is a national call for change across Australia and it’s so exciting to see a group of aligned retail leaders coming together to put intention and action behind an authentic position,” Ms Sharpley said.

Today twenty four of the industries biggest members have signed up to showcase their alignment and share their case studies. What a great example of what an industry can do to drive change.

ARA members can show their commitment to the ARA Gender Equality Position Statement by visiting retail.org.au/gender-equality