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Last Updated: September 18, 2007
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DISCRIMINATION

On this page: Margaret Thornton; Lynette Dumble; Onnie Wilson
See also: Women's Liberation/Feminism

Professor Margaret Thornton

I was interested in doing Arts/Law but I did Arts as the scholarship people said that Law was not appropriate for a woman.

At that stage, in the sixties, I didn't have the confidence to do it. It wasn't until I had children and was influenced by the women's movement that I started a law degree. When I completed it and was thinking about what to do, it was rather a shock to be told that I was the best qualified but the wrong sex, so I became an academic, which allowed me to critique the system.

I did activist things as well. At one stage in the early 1980's, I remember I belonged simultaneously to organisations called WAM, WAC and WITI - which sound rather aggressive. WAM was Women at Macquarie, WAC was the Women's Advisory Council to the Premier and WITI was Women in Tertiary Institutions.

I was founder of the Feminist Legal Action Group (FLAG), where we wanted to use the law to run test cases and things like that. We made submissions and lobbied for changes to laws affecting women.

For example, we sponsored the first research on women convicted of the murder of their husbands after years of domestic violence. This work was instrumental in having the law on provocation changed in New South Wales.

Subsequently, I went on television with Helen Coonan to talk about FLAG's work. Helen said that FLAG would love to hear from women with problems in family law, etc. The next thing we were inundated with letters from all around Australia. It was just impossible. We virtually sank under the weight of that.

I came to Melbourne in 1990 to take up a Chair in the Department of Legal Studies at La Trobe University, continuing to work on similar issues. There was a strong group of feminist scholars at Latrobe University and a particular emphasis on social justice. I felt happy about working there.

I did a book on anti-discrimination legislation in Australia called The Liberal Promise (Oxford University Press 1990), then a study on women in the legal profession called Dissonance and Distrust (Oxford University Press 1996).

There is still enormous suspicion and antipathy towards women in authority. Only last week when we had a woman appointed to the High Court (only the second), the front-page and lead-story headline in The Australian was

'WOMAN "OF MERIT" JOINS HIGH COURT' (21 Sept 2005)

Once again, we see the suspicion about women in authority: that you can't quite trust them, that they are somehow not going to be as good or as meritorious, that they have been appointed only because of their sex.

Working as a professor I have been interested in this question of the gender of authority. If you adopt a more collaborative style as a woman, there is a suspicion that you are weak, but on the other hand, if you act like the stereotypical male manager who orders people about, that is inappropriate too. You are a 'balls-breaker'.

Authority is an ongoing dilemma for feminists. I think in the present climate we are seeing a reversion back to more authoritarian styles of leadership, which seems to fit in with neo-liberalism. The social liberalism of the 1970's and 1980's did begin to tolerate women in positions of authority, and, of course, there was a commitment to equal opportunity, and it was more open, despite the sexism.

Today, we never hear of 'femocrats' (feminists in the bureaucracy), a significant Australian innovation. Now, with the focus upon employers and what is good for business, we see that the type of leadership style is much more authoritarian - someone who can 'kick heads', order people around rather than consult and if they refuse to co-operate sack them.

Lynette Dumble

Wherever I've been, women have impacted on my life from one angle or another - professionally and socially. But at the same time, no matter where I happen to be - at home here in Australia, or in India, women are seen, and indeed treated, as second class citizens.

No matter where, women's time doesn't matter. Whether at a market in Hyderabad, or a newsstand in Carlton, if one man stands amongst six women, without fail he will be the first served. We have made lots of ground but we have a long way to go, and sadly have gone backwards in some areas.

Women's lost ground in Australia coincides with the rise of the Howard government and the evolution of right-wing politics, right-wing ideas, and right-wing considerations. But what is really disturbing, now that we see the resurgence of the Labour Party, is an agenda devoted to boys and men - re-inventing fatherhood, regaining so-called old values - all while pinpointing blame on women - single mothers, female teachers - for male underachievement, violence, and criminal activities.

The reality is, in terms of the so-called national interest, Australia will be on downward spiral, a path to nowhere, unless both sexes reach their maximum potential.

It has been especially difficult for girls to get their nose in front, and it is frankly unjust and also myopic to now embark on educational systems designed to specifically advantage boys. Will girls be expected to slave away yet again to reclaim an equal share?

The nursing profession comes immediately to mind. That was once a women's profession. Until the mid 1970s, 99% of nurses were women. By the late 1980s, and increasingly in the 1990s, I saw female nurses pushed aside by their male colleagues as the top managerial and teaching positions came up for grabs.

Whether due to equal opportunity, or more likely women's generosity, the opening up of the nursing profession has seen women kicked to death. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying there shouldn't be male nurses. I have met some very good male nurses. But if you think of the overall picture of the nursing profession, it was originally moulded by women, and unless women continue to shape the future of nursing, the entire profession is destined to lose it's intended identity.

Women are inately more generous than men, but their generosity neither pays with nor gets repaid by their male counterparts.

Tell me of any profession or trade where men have opened their hearts to say "let's share some of our dominant space with women"? I strongly doubt there is one.

Take engineering. Right to this day, women who study engineering have a very hard time - several such students in my Gender and Technology' classes of 1997-1998 told me of their everyday harassment endured to obtain an engineering degree at the University of Melbourne. I hear the situation is no different at the University of Sydney, the University of Western Australia, South Australia or anywhere else in the country.

Why then are women generously making space for men within the domains which traditionally belong to women. Beats me, because it will be very likely to our own detriment.

There are certain professions where women are essential. Nursing, and teaching, are to my mind two of them. At the managerial level, women should be 'calling the shots', but in neither is that the present day case.

Getting back to the Global Sisterhood Network, social and gender justice are the major goals. We are a global community, but it's also important that we become relevant for Australian women.

Onnie Wilson

It really struck me just how disjointed even our recent path has become when I attended a Reclaim the Night collective meeting some time ago and one young woman read out the collective's statement. It said something to the effect of: "For Reclaim the Night this year, this is our statement: women will be liberated through the liberation of working class men". She then proceeded to explain the herstory of feminism since about the nineteen sixties which really didn't seem to match my memory of things or recorded events.

I found myself saying "I don't think that is quite right" but she knew differently. And this is only over one generation: she was of an age where she could have been my daughter. I was troubled by her understanding of Reclaim the Night.

Another thing that is imperative to bring about change for women and the community as a whole is for males to be actively campaigning to change male attitudes and behaviour.

The feminism we now have, which puts the onus on women to make demands that women have rights and expect to be treated accordingly, is not enough. Men have been given this information for decades but information about the rights of women doesn't change the male belief system and men acting as agents of this system.

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