Sussan Ley claims to be listening to female voters who turned down the Liberals. But will she pay attention to what they say?

Bringing back women voters for the Liberal Party is a challenging goal for Sussan Ley, the deputy leader of the Liberal Party and shadow minister for women. Given the widespread recognition that they played a significant role in the Morrison government's defeat, this will be no easy feat.

Ley has told the women, "We hear you." She has also committed to visiting many different parts of Australia so she may speak with women.

Ley is a fantastic candidate for the job. From 2007–2008, she served as the women's shadow minister. Due to Marise Payne's position as the previous administration's accountable minister for women in the Senate, she also served in the House of Representatives.

Ley declares herself a feminist. She has long maintained that the Liberals should give candidate quotas for women serious consideration. Peter Dutton, the leader of the Liberal Party, disagrees.

Ley is atypical of a Liberal female politician. She was born in Nigeria but spent a portion of her early years in the Middle East because her father was a British intelligence agent there. She loved punk culture when she was younger after the family immigrated to Australia. Ley also changed her initial name to include an extra "s" after experimenting with numerology.

She later worked as an air traffic controller, farmer, shearer's chef, aerial stock musterer, and employee of the Australian Tax Office. She has a bachelor's degree in economics and master's degrees in tax law and accounting. She is also a certified commercial pilot.

Ley is atypical of a Liberal female politician. She was born in Nigeria but spent a portion of her early years in the Middle East because her father was a British intelligence agent there. She loved punk culture when she was younger after the family immigrated to Australia. Ley also changed her initial name to include an extra "s" after experimenting with numerology.

She later worked as an air traffic controller, farmer, shearer's chef, aerial stock musterer, and employee of the Australian Tax Office. She has a bachelor's degree in economics and master's degrees in tax law and accounting. She is also a certified commercial pilot.

Unfortunately for Ley, the Liberals' "woman problem" is more widespread than its more overt symptoms. It also has origins in the economic ideology of modern Liberals, particularly their support for free markets and opposition to government intervention in the economy.

The party's "woman problem" is not a result of the Liberals' opposition to gender equality, as I showed in a research paper that was released earlier this year. Recent coalition administrations have enacted some admirable laws promoting gender equality, including one that addresses domestic abuse. Economic frameworks that imposed restrictions on their gender equality policy are the issue.

Liberals frequently hold the view that the market may advance women's equality since it is gender-neutral. The key to obtaining better compensation and working conditions for women employees was thought to be making the case that gender equality was beneficial for business.

As a result, the Morrison government rejected more intrusive equal pay policies like those put forth by the previous Labor administration. The government's pandemic budget measures did not include policies aimed at important industries with a female preponderance because officials believed the market would soon assure that women's employment would resume.

In a similar vein, the issue of the high proportion of women in insecure employment was ignored because it wasn't thought to be the outcome of structural discrimination in the labor market. Instead, it was asserted that many women pick part-time employment. Government officials believed that enforcing the Respect at Work report's proposal that companies have a "positive duty" to avoid sexual harassment in the workplace was an unwarranted intrusion into the market.

It makes sense why so many feminists criticized the government for having insufficient programs for women.

Ley was one of those who did not get the rationale behind the critiques leveled. Labor lawmakers, for instance, argued that the pandemic hadn't been effectively supported for female employees, particularly those in the childcare sector. Ley answered:

The opposition keeps repeating a depressing, protracted story about persistent disadvantage. And, well, it's just so twentieth century.

She continued by emphasizing "the prospects for women in the current world" and the wider range of options available to them.

It is undoubtedly premature for Ley to disregard the "entrenched disadvantage" experienced by many women who are less fortunate than she is. Numerous statistics on women's persistent underrepresentation in the workplace are provided by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency of the Australian government.

Importantly, the teal independents who defeated well-known Liberal parliamentarians also argued that the Morrison government's policies were insufficient for women. They did this in addition to Labor and the Greens.

For instance, Monique Ryan, who beat Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, favored carrying out all the suggestions made in the Respect at Work report. Allegra Spender and Zoe Daniel, who both defeated Dave Sharma and Tim Wilson, did the same. The significance of establishing equal pay for women was emphasized by all three.

Ryan backed changes to the Fair Work Act that would have included a goal of equal pay and more stringent reporting requirements for gender pay gaps. Both bills had been opposed by the Liberals.

Rather than neoliberalism, social liberalism is more responsible for the teals' support for such policies. Social liberalism maintains a robust private sector while allowing for a more active ethical role for the government in advancing equal opportunity. Restricting government involvement, particularly in the economy, is a tenet of neoliberalism.

In the past, social liberalism was crucial to the growth of the Liberal Party. However, as the party has become increasingly conservative, its influence has been marginalized. Therefore, for moderate former Liberals who believed the party had lost its way, the teals offered considerable attraction.

Ley is genuinely perplexed as to why so many women thought the gender equality efforts of the Morrison administration were insufficient. It is uncertain if she can think critically enough outside of the neoliberal box to understand what they are saying.