The Scarlet Letter | Season 1 | Episode 8 | Tamara Wilkinson

Tampons and condoms – remember when only one of these were GST-free? In this episode, Dr Tamara Wilkinson breaks down the hidden biases in finance, taxation, and venture capital, revealing how these systems often go unnoticed and quietly shape our lives. She also shares what feminism means to her – why it’s not just about equality, but about challenging the power structures that hold people back. Please note this episode was recorded before GST was finally removed from menstrual products in 2019.

First published 2017.

The Scarlet Letter podcast is produced by the Feminist Legal Studies Group. This podcast features interviews with feminists connected to the law, discussing their life, work, and feminist perspectives. It's perfect for anyone passionate about feminist legal scholarship.

Find out more about the Feminist Legal Studies Group

Transcript | The Scarlet Letter | Season 1 |Episode 8 | Tamara Wilkinson

Tamara Wilkinson: [00:00:00] Good morning. We are Tamara Wilkinson and Ronli Sifris. And welcome to this episode of The Scarlet Letter, the monthly podcast of the Feminist Legal Studies Group at Monash University's Faculty of Law. Today, we're joined by Maria Sole de Cristofaro, who is currently visiting Monash from the University of Florence.

Ronli Sifris: Maria Sole is a scholar in comparative law. She completed her degree in comparative law in 2014 and is currently undertaking a PhD in comparative constitutional law at the University of Florence. Maria Sole is going to help me interview Tamara today. Thank you so much for joining us, Maria Sole.

Maria Sole de Cristofaro: Thank you. It's good to be here.

Ronli Sifris: So Tamara, perhaps you can start by telling us, what does feminism mean to [00:01:00] you? That's a really

Tamara Wilkinson: good question. Good question, and it's one that I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about. As for many women, feminism is really personal to me, because it's really provided a system for me to identify and perhaps work against the power structures that sort of govern the way that we live our lives.

And I really think that feminism has actually helped me to put into context a lot of the feelings that I've had growing up and, through my career and explain them a bit in a way that makes sense and in a way that then, having understood, I can do something about. I really believe that feminism should be intersectional, so it should take account of, the different levels of privilege and power that we all have in our lives, so while when I was younger feminism really meant to me.

Sort of a way of understanding [00:02:00] how I had, experienced sexism and things in my life. Now, as I'm a bit older, I am really interested in also understanding how power impacts other groups, whether through race or religion or mental health issues, poverty, class, things like that. It's still a learning process.

experience for me. I'm still learning and hopefully will continue to learn all through my life. But that's really, that, that's the crux of what feminism means to me. And it's it's a very important part of my identity, I think.

Ronli Sifris: Can you identify when you first started thinking about feminism as intersectional, or the intersectional dimensions, of it?

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah that's a fantastic question. I was thinking about that on the way here today actually. I started off, my first sort of engagement with feminism was more pop feminism, Beyoncé things like that. And as I grew older, I started to So understand that while I had experienced discrimination and sexism in my [00:03:00] life as a, middle class white woman who's had the absolute privilege of education There are many people out there who have it a lot worse than me, and I should, be aware of that.

And I think that those issues really started coming to the forefront of my mind, probably after I left university, and started engaging more with feminists who are women of colour queer feminists people who represented those intersectional groups. It was a really eye opening experience for me, and challenging.

It's always challenging to recognize that you have privilege yourself when before maybe you thought that you didn't have as much. So I'd say it was probably, yeah, around the time that I left university and started engaging in a bit more of a critical way with feminism.

Ronli Sifris: Great. So it, can you then I guess identify a point when you first felt like you became a feminist or was it more

Tamara Wilkinson: sort of [00:04:00] progression over time?

It was definitely a progression over time. I think I was aware from when I was very young of the influences of misogyny and sexism on my life. Right from when I was quite young. I remember being aware of those things, but I think I also myself had quite a bit of internalised misogyny.

I was one of those people who said, I, I prefer to be friends with guys because they have so much less drama. It's, that's not true and it's so harmful, but it took me a long time to, to come to grips with that and to realise the harm that I was perpetuating by thinking in that way.

So I think it was really While it had been a progression up to this point, I think it was actually the death of Dilma that really crystallized a lot of the issues for me and made me realize that women can't do anything right. It doesn't matter, what we do, how we dress, how we behave, we are still going to be criticized even when things are done to us.

And that was a really, a moment of real [00:05:00] awakening for me that made me. I don't know, it was almost a call to arms in some ways. And the absolute injustice of what happened to Jill and the horrific injustice of it and the fact that the person who did that to her had previously committed multiple offenses against women who were sex workers and had not really been punished for that.

And so Because the women weren't considered to be, particularly important or particularly reliable as witnesses that just it upset me on such a visceral level, and so I think that was the moment that I stopped hiding in the shadows of feminism and came out and said, no, this is wrong and this is what I believe.

And since then I am quite frequently accused of being a little on the aggressive side when it comes to feminism, but I'm proud of that.

Ronli Sifris: And that point that you make about the how we value the lives of sex workers is really interesting as well in the context of you talking about intersectionality and, that, that is an example [00:06:00] of, a group of women who are marginalized and stigmatized, beyond just being female and the flow on consequences of that can be quite severe.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's a really big issue. Yeah. Yeah.

Maria Sole de Cristofaro: Tamara, can you tell us a bit more how, about how all of this has influenced your area of research?

Tamara Wilkinson: Absolutely. To be honest feminism doesn't come into my current research in a large way, unlike many of the other members of this group. That being said, Obviously, as you may have picked up, feminism is a sort of passionate topic for me so I do have consideration for the feminist issues that arise in my area of research.

So I research on venture capital and specifically at the moment I'm looking at venture capital tax incentives that governments have implemented around the world and I'm comparing those incentives. So venture capital is undeniably a male dominated [00:07:00] industry as many industries are. And you see gender imbalances and outright sexism, they're absolutely rife in the industry.

All you need to do is look at Silicon Valley and some of the things that are happening at startups in that community and even more established companies now to see that the problems are absolutely rife. Even. Beyond that women have more difficulty accessing funding for their innovative ideas.

They are often dismissed when they have new ideas. I was talking to a student the other day who had an idea for a start up company and women were going to be the the primary market for that. And she'd been told by, family members and other men in her life that it was a frivolous idea and no one would be interested.

And I said to her, don't do it. Don't listen to that. Yeah, women make up, more than 50 percent of the population in Australia. So you've, that's a market and don't let anyone tell you that's not a viable market. Areas like that are obviously not viable. [00:08:00] Yeah, really important to pay attention to and, while my research doesn't focus on them at the moment, I would like to move in that direction in the future and I do think it's just important as well to have those issues in my mind when I'm doing my research and not be blind to them.

Ronli Sifris: You mentioned looking at tax as part of your research. Yes. Do you look at all at the tax implications? I Or the implications of the tax system for women?

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah, that's not an area that I have ever looked at in a professional capacity. But in my personal capacity, I am aware of a lot of those ramifications.

And, in fact Interesting anecdote happened to me the other day. So you're probably aware that in Australia tampons and sanitary products are subject to GST because they're considered luxury items. Whereas condoms and even lubricant are considered essential items and are not subject to GST.

So obviously this [00:09:00] is something that affects all people who menstruate, and they're, effectively being taxed on these things, which I don't think many people would consider a luxury item. And so I was with a group of male friends last week actually, and they were I hesitate to say poking fun, but I'm poking fun at a woman they know who had raised this issue of the tampon tax and she'd been very summarily dismissed and so these guys were having a bit of a laugh at that.

And what really upset me about that was not just that they didn't consider this to be an important issue because everyone has their opinion, but it was that they expected me to be in on the joke. Um, not even considering for a second that I'm a woman who menstruates and this is a tax that I am paying.

It affects me. And they didn't for a second consider that and consider the fact that maybe it's not an important issue to them but it is to me and actually didn't really think about it too much until a [00:10:00] few days later and then actually came back to my mind and actually started crying partly.

From emotion and partly from rage which is another sort of thing that I don't shy away from anymore now that I've really embraced feminism. If I feel like crying, I'm gonna cry, and if I feel like yelling, I'm gonna yell. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that sort of issue of the impact that tax laws can have on women and in more ways than.

Ronli Sifris: I mean there's been a lot reported recently on superannuation and how women's super is disproportionately less than men because of, the casualization of the female workforce and part time work and so on. It is quite a big issue, really. Absolutely.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah. And one that, yeah, I think is often dismissed as a woman's issue or as something that's not going to or able to change, which I just don't agree with at all. Yeah.

Maria Sole de Cristofaro: Yeah. And even in the United States, it's the same thing, right? Yeah. They [00:11:00] do have the same problem with the tampon tax. Oh, do they? Yeah, I didn't know that. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yes, in the United States, they have the same thing at federal level.

Yeah. They do something like the GST, they do have. Yeah. And some states. I've taken steps to actually try to address it.

Tamara Wilkinson: Yes. Yeah. Yes. Oh, that's fantastic. Because here they are, multiple sort of activist groups have tried to bring it to the attention of our politicians and have essentially been dismissed in a very perfunctory way.

Maria Sole de Cristofaro: See yeah, the I think the Obama administration have took some serious steps in this direction of detaxing the tampons and feminine products. But then we have, who is the president? Yeah. I don't think we're getting any any advancement or any step forward. But I do know that some states have just they do they try to.

It went in that direction. So yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's great. It's still subtle, [00:12:00] like a state level. Yeah. But, it's got to start somewhere. Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah.

Ronli Sifris: Thank you very much, Tamara. It's always a pleasure to talk to you and to hear about your work. And thank you, Marina Saleh, for joining us.

Maria Sole de Cristofaro: Thank you for having me.

Tamara Wilkinson: Thank you so much. And thank you all for listening to The Scarlet Letter. Please catch the next episode when it comes out in the middle of next month. And remember to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Thanks.