Gender equality

Gender equality is everyone’s business and councils have an important role to play in its promotion as community leaders, service providers and workplaces. Councils also have specific legislative obligations such as those under the Gender Equality Act (2020) and Local Government Act (2020).

Promoting gender equality and encouraging greater participation of women in local government are important policy areas for the MAV. Councils work to achieve gender equality through a diverse range of gender equity strategies and actions, and we advocate for councils to be adequately supported in the work that they do.

Current priorities

Our core areas of activity to promote gender equality are:

• The Gender Equality Act
• Women in Local Government
• The Victorian Local Government Women’s Charter
• Family violence prevention

Values Based Messaging: Introduction to Framing Gender Equality

Listen back to this workshop, held 20 July 2022, to learn how to be a more powerful advocate for gender equality. Delivered by Mark Chenery of Common Cause Australia, he shares his top tips for more persuasive messaging on gender equality that can be applied across a range of council communications.

• Framing Gender Equality Council Workshop - Evidence-based tips for boosting support for gender equality (PDF - 1.8MB)

Engage with us

Newsletter

Subscribe to our Prevention of Violence Against Women and Promotion of Gender Equality E-news to keep up-to-date with sector-wide news on gender equality and preventing family violence and all forms of violence against women.

MAV GE, PFV and VAW Network

The MAV Gender Equality and Preventing Family Violence and all forms of Violence Against Women Network, formed in 2010, is an inclusive group of local government representatives (primarily officers) and key community partners. Further information is available on our GE, PFV and VAW Network page.

MAV contact

For more information about our gender equality policy work, please email genderequality@mav.asn.au.