Death threats over cupcake sale at UQ

The organisers of a university Feminist Week cupcake sale last week received rape and death threats.

The University of Queensland Union and the Women’s Collective organised the sale to highlight the gender pay gap in Australia.

Men were charged $1 for a cupcake. Women were charged depending on how much they would earn in comparison to men.

According to the event page, “if you are a woman of colour in the legal profession, a baked good at the stall will only cost you 55 cents!”

The Facebook event page and the personal emails of the organisers were flooded with hate messages against the “hypocritical discrimination”. One Facebook post read, “females are fucking scum, they should be put down as babies”.

International media picked up the story, shocked by the casual and brutal misogyny coming from within the prestigious sandstone institution.

Women are unequal in the workplace. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, women are concentrated in the two industries with the highest gender pay gap. The financial and insurance services industry has a gap of 29.6 percent, which is followed by health care and social assistance with a gap of 29.1 percent.

On average, the difference in pay between male and female full-time workers is $298.10 per week.

Over a lifetime, this adds up. According to a 2015 Industry Super Australia submission, 38.7 percent of single women retirees live in poverty.

Back at the university, the Women’s Collective held the most successful bake sale ever. Within one hour it had sold out of 200 cupcakes.