Professor Michelle Welsh,
Senior Deputy Dean (Faculty Operations)

I was born into a family of six, with four sisters and one brother.

When I reflect on this year’s IWD theme; Count Her In: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress; I think how lucky I was to have a mum who made sure her daughters received the same educational opportunities as her son.

However, I also want to share a recent story about my eldest daughter, who studied engineering.  In her first job, she was told she was the “quota girl”.

This was only five years ago.

My daughter is no longer an engineer and has moved onto another fulfilling career. But her story reflects how the gains we have made continue to be challenged.

They can be more easily lost than we think. This was notably what occurred in households during the COVID pandemic.

Research conducted by my colleagues at Monash Business School, Dr Carly Moulang and Alessandro Ghio, found what they describe as a “very real regression of power and progress for women”.

They interviewed 31 professional women who are in the auditing profession, about their work and home experiences. They reported an exhausting juggle of full-time work along with homeschooling, primarily responsible for childcare and eldercare.

They were also delegated to pick up the “emotional labour” of staff morale, stoking team spirit and ‘checking-in’ on colleagues  – responsibilities that were not expected of their male colleagues.

We have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.

We know that when women are invested in, it really does accelerate progress. Consider the story of Monash University’s first Professor of Economics, Maureen Brunt.

Prof Brunt grabbed the opportunity of education with both hands and in the process did nothing less than reshape legal and economic systems in Australia and New Zealand.

She came from a working class background; but notably in an era that neglected education for women, her mother insisted she receive the same opportunities as her brother.

Sent to Presbyterian Ladies College, she went on to the University of Melbourne and then gained a PhD from Harvard - after winning a scholarship - before teaching at Harvard and the universities of Melbourne and Adelaide.

In 1967 - just six years after the formation of Monash University -  Prof Brunt became the Foundation Chair of Economics at Monash University - its first female professor.

She was just the third woman to hold a Professorial Chair in Australia and the first one to do so in the field of economics.

Prof Brunt went on to have a storied global career in the regulatory sphere of competition law, where she is still considered a doyen in her field.

Last April, the Head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Gina Cass Gottlieb remarked in her National Press Club speech that she often “looked for guidance” in Prof Brunt’s writings.

Prof Brunt died in 2019, aged 90, but at Monash, her legacy also lives on.

Last year for the first time the University offered the Maureen Brunt Professorial Fellowships, which aims to increase the number of successful women applicants to ARC Laureate Fellowship schemes.

These Fellowships are highly sought-after; but the university identified that far fewer Monash women were applying for them than their male counterparts.

I am delighted that Professor Lata Gangadharan from Monash Business School’s Department of Economics was one of six inaugural recipients of a Maureen Brunt Professorial Fellowship.

As an experimental and behavioural economist, Prof Gangadharan’s wide body of work includes gender and leadership.  She is certainly one of our best.

And thank you to Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Senior Vice-President at Monash University, Prof Rebekah Brown, for championing this initiative.

It is the work of these powerful women and countless others in their league, which has paved the challenging road to gender equity - work of which I am proud, alongside my colleagues here at the Business School, to continue today and into the future.