What does it feel like being a postage stamp? Odd, writes Eva Cox, who “accepted on behalf of the stirrers and advocates”. Even if she has to put up with the jokes about people licking her backside.
Articles by Eva Cox 
Super scheme flawed … low-income workers still hit
The super system will still be seriously flawed as the unfair tax avoidance options for high-income earners remain, and the proposed unnecessary rise to 12% will disadvantage low-income earners further.
Eva Cox: put the big society (back) on the agenda
Can we retrieve and renew the idea that we live in a society, and it’s the qualities of how we live with each other than makes life good?
Equal pay sacrificed for the sake of the budget surplus
Equal opportunity as a policy change process doesn’t work if the failed equal-pay commitments of our first female PM are an indicator.
Children still at risk despite income management
Does income management work to make children safer? The evidence is not clearly there in the various evaluation studies that have been done.
Cox: gender blindness and corporate incompetence
The World Economic Forum released its latest gender-gap rankings this week, with Australia ranked 27th overall. We have fallen from 17th in 2007, despite having a female PM, G-G and two premiers.
Government more ready to fund bureaucrats than welfare recipients
Why not do a cost-benefit study on the costs of quarantining income voluntarily or compulsorily versus the benefits of more cash, direct services for children and some widely available financial education for the same groups?
Business missing out by not appointing women to boards
What is wrong with the boards of big business? Their competence in running companies is put in question by their poor record in selecting senior line managers and new board members.
Cox: a form guide to Parliament’s first-week agenda
The PM has listed 42 pieces of legislation for tabling in the first week. They are a very mixed bag but at a very rough glance, less than 15% of items are likely to be controversial and may be debated.
Cox: whatever happened to the women’s ministry?
Privileging the extra input of the women’s perspectives is still necessary because there are still only four women in a Cabinet of 20 and a further two in outer ministry of 10.
Super-sized aim to rort the Independents
One of the many powerful interest groups seeking to influence the independents and the Greens in search of support for policies that may be at risk, is the very powerful superannuation industry.
Underpaid and undervalued: a woman’s work is never done
The problem is that despite nearly 40 years of equal pay legality, there is still evidence that the valuing of jobs is inequitable because there are still gender prejudices operating.
Cox: the weird and wonderful world of Senate preferences
If you want to be sure who you are voting for in the Senate this Saturday, vote below the line and fill in each square with a number. Candidates often have several
The social welfare scorecard: how the parties stack up
Will this election create a fairer and more egalitarian society? Not so far, according to an assessment of the social policy options being touted by the major parties.
Behind the one sided mirror of focus groups
As a long term practitioner and teacher of research methods, Eva Cox wants to set the record straight by pointing out the apparent gross misuse of a very useful tool — focus groups.
Parental leave: Tony still doesn’t get it
Paid parental leave a flagship for the message that Tony Abbott has changed his views on women but there is little other evidence for a serious shift in his policies.
Cox: the tricky gender issue facing Gillard
The PM was pitching her virtue as a highly financial value-driven decision maker, who was there to protect the hard-earned tax paid by decent hard-working taxpayers. Given the two programs in question are from the doubly soft areas of welfare and women, support for them also fits the inappropriate stereotype of women as more caring politicians.
Cox: why gender could be a standalone factor in the election
Maybe if the major parties offered some policies that engage more vision and excitement about the future, gender change alone may not seem so exciting, says Eva Cox.
Cox: vote 1, trust, seems to be the order of the day
The election campaign is on. And the first to be led by a female PM! This is the type of change we once naively hoped would signal more attention to better social outcomes, rather than the economic ones.
Eva Cox: a woman PM — is it a step forward?
We will know we really have made progress when women in top positions become normal and not worthy of comment. It will also mean we get better leaders but not just because many are women, writes Eva Cox.
Women on the Queen’s Birthday honours list weigh in at 34%
There were 159 women recognised in the Queen’s Birthday honours’ list yesterday — but only one out of five were from the top category. Are women undervaluing themselves and each other?
How to discourage more mothers from combining work and family
Despite the Henry Review suggesting increased workforce participation for mothers of young children was crucial, the government and opposition are giving anti signals.
Social welfare: Disadvantaged take a back seat to boy stuff
Those who gained and lost last night illustrate the lack of concern this government really has for their version of “working families”.
Henry Review: Super increase will hurt low income earners
The raising the super guarantee level to 12% is a sop to the super industry, the ACTU, and a return to Paul Keating’s dream. However, it ignores the serious questions of equity that make extra super not particularly desirable for those on low and intermittent incomes.
Hey Rudd, choosing child care isn’t like picking a laundromat
Kevin Rudd assumes that all capital cities are uniform child care markets, that is the ratios of vacancies in any city is counted as one indicator, rather than many and diverse.
