INTERNATIONAL Women’s Day in Midland was celebrated by a coming together of leaders and a sharing of stories on how to balance the scales in society.

Women in leadership roles gathered at ERICA Women’s Centre in Midland on Wednesday to share stories of strength and becoming.

Stratton resident and Noongar Elder Di Ryder presented the Welcome to Country and shared stories of her mother’s involvement in creating a sense of family and home.

“My inspirational mum, Josephine, along with my dad Bill, influenced my life and showed me that with strong work ethics, mutual respect, and commitment to family, culture and community, you can achieve anything you set your mind to,” she said.

“Mum supplemented the household with a veggie garden, fruit trees, chickens and anything else she could manage to help keep the family going.

“Mum cooked everything from scratch like curries, soups, jams, marmalades, cakes and biscuits.

“She made ginger beer and pickled vegetables, and she sewed clothes for the younger kids and in those days everything was done by hand.

“I only have one child and I can’t even imagine what it would be like as a mum with 11 kids but mum coped.”

Ms Ryder was inducted into the WA Women’s Hall of Fame in 2024 for her community service and promoting reconciliation as reported in Stratton resident recognised in WA Women’s Hall of Fame (Echo News, March 9, 2024).

Despite Ms Ryder’s own list of achievements as a Medal of the Order of Australia and a NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, she said her mother was a main motivating force in her life.

“Mum passed away in 2006, but the values she gave us have stayed with all of her children,” she said.

“She devoted her life to her family and she is the most inspirational woman I know.

“I still aspire to be like her and face life head on with courage and resilience and to make the most of every opportunity.”

Ms Ryder said the values passed down by her parents shaped her life and achievements, including 20 years of service in the Army and recognition for her volunteer work.

“We can’t do anything without our community supporting us,” she said.

“We’re only as good as the people around us.”

Key speaker Petal Ashmole Winstanley said balancing the scales in society would require courage and speaking up.

“Use your voice and speak your truth,” she said.

“Virginia Giuffre has single-handedly put Jeffrey Epstein away and this is a woman that spoke her truth.

“She was silenced for so long and she spoke for the women before us, the women after us, for all of us.

“And another is Julia Gillard who famously said, ‘I will not be lectured by this man – not now, not ever’.

“She had been told in our parliament that she was deliberately barren.

“This is shaming and it appals me, and she was told she was not fit for leadership because she was childless and unmarried.

“She survived but it is passed down.

“We’ve got to educate our boys, our young men on good role modelling on how we treat each other – how women treat men, how men treat women so there’s a better understanding.

“This is the role of every adult, not just parents, but to enable those young men to treat us equally and fairly with respect and care and love.”

Midland based MLC Klasey Hirst said she wanted women to learn how to manage their financial independence as, drawing on her past as a banking professional, she had seen too many harrowing stories play out from a traditional home income structure and a lack of a safety net.

“(Some women) have not been supported to understand investment options that help them up,” she said.

“My mother herself, when she was forced into retirement in 2018, due to business closure, had only $40,000 of superannuation because she had been away for a long time when she had kids and only worked part time for most of her life.

“I’ve seen far too often what happens when women are cut out of the banking and it does still happen too often.

“One story is when a woman’s husband died, there was no will and they were a well educated, well experienced couple that lived in Subiaco.

“She was only a signature on one account and she had an additional card and a credit card.

“They had hundreds of thousands of dollars in property and there was no will.

“She came in thinking she was going to get access to all the money and left with less.

“We took the credit card off her and she had no income – just nothing.

“It was harrowing to watch people go through that but I’ve seen it happen many times and it’s truly heartbreaking.

“It always made me think, ‘only if’, but that’s the difference between making sure you’re added as a signatory and being educated on how banking worked.”