COLLECTION of gender information in the Baw Baw Shire’s ‘Have Your Say’ program has been questioned by a resident.
First published in the 10 July 2015 edition of the Warragul & Baw Baw Citizen. Get your copy free from retailers across Baw Baw today.
ADVERTISEMENT
David Lyons of Yarragon asked the council “why does it matter if a respondent is male or female when looking at parking issues in Drouin?”
Mayor Debbie Brown responded to the question during community participation time at Wednesday’s council meeting, linking the program to the council’s annual community satisfaction survey.
“The [survey] findings each year are broken down into a number of categories, including age and gender demographics,” Cr Brown said.
“Using the ‘Have Your Say’ data provides an opportunity to assess community interest in particular projects and initiatives throughout the year.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Collecting age and gender data enables ‘Have Your Say’ feedback to be aligned with the overall Community Satisfaction Survey results.”
Mr Lyons also asked: “in a community with a diverse range of gender identities, why does Baw Baw Shire collect gender data as just male or female?”
“A point well made, we undertake to review this in future iterations,” Cr Brown replied.
Mr Lyons pressed further, asking “has Baw Baw Shire looked at ways to be more inclusive of the community around collection of gender data and has it reviewed [whether] on all the occasions it currently collects gender data, it is useful and important data to collect and not being collected unnecessarily?”
The council skated around the question, replying with: “as mentioned above, this data is collected to provide ongoing review against the annual community satisfaction survey results.”
The council has no right to be asking for Gender on any occasion and I would call this discrimination! It certainly has no bearing on parking issues.
In what way is asking gender specific questions discriminatory?
Are human beings all the same?
Does equality mean sameness?
Are we all to deny nature?
Must we all refuse to accept that there are any “givens”?
I can still be different and yet equal.