With feminism being shrugged off by a growing number of young women and men, those seeking gender equality are at risk of alienating the very people they need to keep the momentum going.
Project Rockit founder and chief executive Rosie Thomas believes discussions around equality in their current form are polarising and inaccessible for people outside a work and leadership environment.
"I relate to the leaning in thing, to sitting at the table, because I'm in business and I'm a CEO," she said. "But for many young people it's not about pay disparity, or how different industries are impacted by women sitting on boards. That's irrelevant for them."
Ms Thomas, named a 2015 Women of Influence in the Young Leader category for her work developing anti-bullying programs in schools, said the idea of feminism and gender equality needs to be broken down in to every day experiences.
She said experiences - from being given functionless, pretty, 'girl presents' at Christmas rather than sports equipment or games based toys the boys received, to not thinking she was suitable at maths and science, to being mansplained at events she was speaking at - add up.
"Alone those experiences might seem trivial but when you line them up you see patterns of casual sexism, and that's more dangerous than anything because they can be ignored."
Ms Thomas said the challenge posed by 'feminism fatigue' means changing talk to be about behaviours rather than labels, to do away with 'othering' - men versus women, young versus old - and to remember gender is increasingly viewed as a spectrum.
"I know they are stereotype sensitive. What's important as an older generation is we remember that if a young person doesn't identify as feminist, they're not apathetic to the cause, and it certainly doesn't mean they don't have an opinion, they may just not want to be labelled."
Westpac's national operating officer for Women's Markets, Georgia Stryker, agrees the aim is for continued engagement.
"I haven't really experienced discrimination or inequality in my working life because I've been fortunate to have worked at Westpac my whole career."
"But from working with women across Australia, it's very evident gender inequality still exists and women face challenges in the workplace on multiple fronts. We can't take our foot off the pedal because if we do, inevitably things will go backwards."
Ms Stryker makes a point of providing informal mentoring for Westpac's young graduates, to complement the bank's formal mentoring program.
"One of the difficulties for this generation is that we have been told that we can have everything, but at the same time we have heard that we need to also be everything. That can be quite challenging."
She said the key is to understand you may not be able to have or be everything, at the same time. "You've got to work out your timings and work out what's important in that moment."
Ms Stryker was chosen to represent Westpac at the One Young World Summit in Dublin, in 2014 and says the experience was life changing.
"I was in a forum with 1,500 other young people from every country, all with their different experiences," she said. "Things we take for granted here in Australia are often what others wish for the future."
This content is generated in commercial partnership with Westpac Group as part of the 100 Women of Influence Awards.
