Smile and wave ladies: The attempt to silence Grace Tame mirrors the plight of early childhood educators

Whenever our 2021 Australia of the Year (AOTY) speaks out and makes a stand about injustice, a backlash occurs to keep her in her place. Australian early childhood educators can relate because 91% of the sector are female.

Like many Australian women, they are fed up with systems that have kept them quiet, ignored and poorly treated. There are many parallels between Grace Tame's treatment by politicians and media and the plight of educators.

This article uses data from a 2021 international study with 51 Australian educators, another 2021 study with six early childhood directors, and publicly available data. The images used in this article illustrate the reaction to one event when Grace made a stand while meeting the Prime Minister the day before Australia Day, 2022. Along with the data, these have been used to explore four of these parallels.