Our whole system is built on work done outside the office

So, you blokes who claim to be allies? Bake me a cupcake and show your friends your pay slip. Especially your women friends. Especially especially the ones who do exactly the same job you do.

Right. Got that out of my system, although believe me, more equality tips to come.

Now I'm pretty sure the Coalition is holding its own IWD breakfast.

The absolute best way to honour the International Day of Women is to give said women a giant bollocking. Obviously. Makes sense, right?

That was clearly - clearly - the intention of property developer Peter Dutton and his sidekick Jane Hume who this week insisted we must all return to the office for the sake of productivity, especially you lot in the public service. No goddammit! Return to the office full-time for the sake of the nation.

Hume even cited a paper from Stanford University, the university ranked number seven in the world, backing up her claim. Hey, Hume staffers, may I request that you please read right to the end of papers before you put them in your boss's public utterances? The good bits are often at the end. To give Hume credit, she did apologise for her inaccuracies.

These days, it's almost impossible to trust what comes out of a conservative politician's mouth. It's not just the US Secretary for Contagion RFK jnr, who this week recommended vitamin A and good nutrition as a way of avoiding measles. It's also homegrown manure spreading. Apparently, Temu Trump (expert description, courtesy of the Australia Institute's Amy Remeikis) loves a bit of copycatting.

But there are reasons for this particular round of manure. For what seems like an eternity now, Dutton's been spruiking the necessity for us all to return to the office. Now this must honestly be the bidding of the Property Council of Australia, no bloody joke, which must be sad the investments of its members are tanking because no one wants to rent office space any more. And even former Liberals are in on the game. This week, Giulia Jones, former Liberal member of the ACT Legislative Assembly, told us that working in the office full-time was good for mental health.

Here's what the research really says. Hybrid working works for everyone. Sure, have glue days if you must, those days where everyone comes into the office and gets interrupted more times than you think is humanly possible. And then you have to talk to people over lunch when really what you want to do is eat while you work so you can leave the office on time. I'm sure that's not what Elon Musk would want to hear - but most of us have real relationships we want to last.

So let's see what Danielle Wood, chair of the Productivity Commission, in the actual business of improving productivity, says about part-time working from home.

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She told the Australian Financial Review that a growing body of research revealed what works for workers and bosses: three days in the office and two days at home, were a "sweet spot" for public and private-sector workers.

"It looks like the productivity impacts of that are pretty negligible or slightly positive, and that's before you factor in the broader benefits to the employees that flexibility brings," she told the AFR.

God forbid we think about the broader benefits because the Coalition clearly doesn't.

Here's the other thing about Dutton. His edict can't be acted on because current work-from-home arrangements are in actual enterprise agreements which don't run out for two years. Then we'd have upheaval. Then we'd have another election. Just thinking about potential mayhem (as featured in the US right now) depletes my productivity.

As Melissa Donnelly of the Community and Public Sector Union wrote yesterday: "The reality is that flexible work and working from home is important to lots of workers - especially women. Which is why there have never been more women working full-time in the APS, instead of part-time, than right now."

In my last year of full-time work, COVID era, we all had to work from home. I didn't love never being with my colleagues. Many were wonderful human beings and good companions, in real life, on Zoom or phone. I wonder about the people who claim they can't make connections other than face-to-face. Phone calls are so personal, so close. There are things people say on the phone which I doubt would ever be revealed in person. But yeah, if the research says hybrid work makes women's lives better, let's go for it.

Elise Stephenson, deputy director of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership, was asked to speak to the folks at ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, to celebrate IWD. I love that they held it online so everyone could catch it (and I hope everyone also got cupcakes).

And she said that thing that I wish every politician would say, would feel in their heart: "We want to fix systems, not women."

I asked her what she meant exactly.

"Instead of telling women to speak up, lean in, and buck up in a system that doesn't support them, we should be strengthening hybrid and flexible work provisions, not dismantling them," Stephenson told the group.

Thing is, hybrid work is critical. It's really the best way that women can deal with their multiple competing priorities. And here's another way men can be allies.

Turns out that men are still slacking in the housework department. Yep, it has not increased since 2002, according to the annual Household Income and Labor Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) study. As Stephenson told me this week: "Even working women still do substantially more unpaid domestic work like caring for children or elderly.

"For economies to run, someone has to pick up this labour, which can be on average nine more hours per week that women spend on care."

Hey allies, this IWD, pick up a toilet brush and use it. Show someone your pay slip. And confirm to any politician who asks that hybrid work works.