From Bangaluru to Balmain: Padma Raman on the battle for gender equality 

When Padma Raman marches into meetings at the United Nations, she’s well aware of the dark reality she is confronting. 

It has been 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – a global plan to advance the rights of women and girls – was put in motion. 

But globally, the gender pay gap will take five generations to close. Approximately one in four Australian women have experienced violence since they were 15. And despite working more hours than ever, women are still doing more household labour than men. 

Despite this disheartening data, Raman, the Executive Director of the Office for Women, won’t be deterred. 

“Change is cyclical,” she says.  

“People working in gender equality or any form of social justice movement know there’s always a few steps forward and a few steps back.  

“But, hopefully, the general trajectory is so that we are moving forward.”  

A career spent making change

Padma Raman has led organisations including Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Victorian Law Reform Commission.  

She says there was no one moment that sparked passion, rather life as a migrant woman has made her inherently aware of barriers to equality. 

“It was always there,” Raman says. “I’ve had very strong female role models.” 

Raman says her grandmother was married at the age of 12, denying her a chance at further education.  

“But she spoke several languages, taught herself how to read English, taught me the rules of cricket when I was four and would tell me what was happening in the news every morning,” Raman says. 

Her own mother was married before she could complete her university degree, only returning to tertiary education once she was in her late forties and had migrated to Australia. 

“Women on both sides of my family would have been very different individuals had they been born now,” Raman reflects.  

“They might have had very different pathways and career trajectories.” 

Raman says her education at The Australian National University (ANU) was a “formative time”.  

She remembers demanding changes to the curriculum as part of a group of students who told ANU professors they wanted to learn feminist legal theory. 

“I’d only been in the country for five years before that,” she says.  

“I got to live away from home and make great friends, and it started my political journey in student politics as well – plus I re-found Indian classical dance.” 

Putting in the work

Gender inequality is a complex problem, but Raman says sustainable solutions exist, pointing to her role in the Office for Women as evidence.  

“Creating my position was a deliberate action and it does make a difference – it’s increased the influence of the office,” she says. While an executive director for the Office for Women has existed before, it has not previously been at the deputy secretary level.  

But Raman knows from experience that law reform won’t be enough.  

“You watch all the changes we’ve made to sexual offense laws – and we did a lot in the early 2000s in Victoria – but the conviction rate hasn’t changed despite all of it,” Raman says.  

“I guess it’s taught me that if we want to get change happening it’s actually about implementation, it’s actually about culture.” 

To change our culture, Australians should march forward together, Raman says. 

“It’s a moment in time where, more than ever, we have to come together – not to cannibalise each other, not to look for our differences. 

“We have to stay united about the progress that still needs to be made.” 

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Padma Raman will be speaking at the upcoming Pamela Denoon lecture. Find out more here.