This section provides material on Zonta topics as well as some of general interest regarding the status of women.

Please respect the moral rights of the originators of any intellectual property. If you have an information request, or would like to send us something to add to this page, please email us at pr@zontabotanybay.org

Area 1

Zonta International districts are made up of Areas, each of which has multiple Clubs. Area 1 of District 24 covers inner city & suburban locations from the mid-Central Coast around Gosford to the Sutherland Shire south of Botany Bay. Presntly, there are 11 Clubs including ours.

Carolyn Evans is the Area Director and would be pleased to receive your enquiry about Zonta activities elsewhere in this Area.

Zonta District 24

District 24 takes in about half of Australia - being Queensland, NSW & the ACT. At this site, you can read about Zonta Clubs around the District, District activities and service initiatives and other things being done by Zonta in this part of Australia.

Zonta District 23

The rest of Australia is in District 23 - for the full story on Zonta District 23, visit this web site. For information on their Birthing Kits project (recently endorsed as a project for District 24 also), see the separate link on this page.

It's along way to the top if you want to wear a skirt ...

The Economist, perhaps the leading professional journal for the perpetrators of the dismal science, in 2005 ran two pieces on women reaching the senior ranks of corporate life. One quotable quote:

“More flexible working hours are also helpful. Many women are happy to work at home after they have put their children to bed. But they like to leave the office to collect their children from school in the late afternoon. This should no longer be an insurmountable obstacle. Many management tasks have been freed of time and geography by electronic technology. Firms keen to keep women on their payroll need to send out the message that employees will not be penalised if their car is not in the executive car park after 6pm, nor will they be rewarded for sporting air-miles like battle scars.”

Read the two articles in full:

The Economist, on getting women to the topic, 22 July 2005

The Economist, on the glass ceiling, 22 July 2005.

Australian women in senior management

Now working as an associate at a management consulting firm, Sharna Wiblen was an early winner of the Club’s YWPA Award in 1998.  She went on to receive first class honours for her thesis about women in senior management in Australia. Sharna is also tutoring in organisation and management subjects for undergraduates at the University of Sydney and in July 2007 was promoted to senior tutor responsible for 500 students..

Completed after a double degree in commerce and arts, Sharna undertook her honours year in work and organisational studies at the University of Sydney.  Her thesis examines the biographies of eighteen women through the lens of identity theory to uncover the factors that contribute to women’s ability to be successful in reaching top level management positions. She drew connections between the existing literature concerning women in management, and identity theory, to show how childhood, education, gender & career orientations all contributed to the women’s identity. Sharna showed some of the ways in which public and private identities intersect and combine to make the identities of women in senior management.