REVOLUTION OR REFORM: FEMOCRATS, FEMINISTS AND THE STATE
Jane Copeland
Project Report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Master of Arts (Hons) in Interdisciplinary Studies, Women's Studies Program
University of New South Wales 1991 UNIVERSITY OF N.S.W.
- 7 SEP 1992
LIBRARY Abstract
This dissertation examines the relationship between feminism and the state in Australia since 1972 by focusing on equal employment opportunity and affirmative action legislation and also on femocrats—those feminists employed by the state to work on issues related to women. It looks at the dilemmas that the feminist movement has had to confront about seeking state support for, and intervention in feminist issues. These dilemmas are illustrated by the problems femocrats have faced in working within state structures and by feminist criticisms of their position. In examining feminist criticisms of femocrats, equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, it asks whether the state can be productively avoided by feminists, and if not, what a feminist strategy for working with the state should entail.
It argues that despite the contradictory role that the state plays in relation to women, it would not be realistic or productive for the feminist movement to totally reject involvement with the state. It outlines reasons for this and discusses the implications for feminists, femocrats and the bureaucracy. Dedicated to my mother and father Contents
Acknowledgements ii
Glossary of Terms iii
Introduction 1
1 Feminism and the State in Australia since 1972 4
2 EEO and Affirmative Action 20
3 Femocrats 32
4 Feminist Criticisms of EEO and Affirmative Action 59
5 Feminist Criticisms of the Femocracy 66
Conclusion 85
Bibliography 93 Acknowledgements
A number of people have assisted, encouraged and supported me in writing this dissertation.
My supervisor, Frances Lovejoy, has been a great source of advice and information. I would like to express my appreciation for her practical assistance, her patience, and her consistently positive attitude which persuaded me from abandoning the project at various times.
The staff of the Affirmative Action Agency in Sydney were always interested and willing to discuss my ideas, as well as supportive and encouraging. I am very grateful to the Agency for giving me paid study leave which enabled me to finish the dissertation to a tight deadline.
The following people sent me articles, expressed interest in the project and helped me clarify thoughts: Linda Conrad, then EEO Officer at Griffith University, Chris Wieneke, Co-Director of the Women's Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney, Nepean, and Diana Wyndham, then librarian at the Department of Community Services and Health.
Philip Butterss generously gave me unlimited access to his office at Sydney University and his Macintosh, and spent many hours sorting out my problems with it. More importantly, he gave me copious amounts of emotional support and encouragement.
I am grateful to the library staff of the University of New South Wales, and particularly David Reeder for his impressive knowledge of periodical indexes and his interest in women's studies.
In my role as Higher Education Advisor at the Affirmative Action Agency, I gained rich and valuable data in informal conversations with EEO/Affirmative Action Officers in higher education institutions throughout Australia and I thank them for their openness and honesty.
Finally, I would like to thank my son/daughter, Henry/Anna for not arriving early, thus enabling me to finish this dissertation on the day before s/he was due. Glossary of Terms
Affirmative Action - a systematic means of achieving equal employment opportunity by eliminating discrimination against specified groups of people who are recognised as having being disadvantaged. In this dissertation, it applies to women,
although it can be used to describe programs for a variety of disadvantaged groups in
society. It involves identifying barriers to women's full participation in an organisation and developing a program of activities to remove those barriers. The difference between affirmative action and equal employment opportunity is sometimes described as such: "Affirmative action is the means, equal employment opportunity is the goal". However, the terms are often confused or used interchangeably.
Affirmative Action Co-ordinator/Officer, EEO Co-ordinator/Officer1 - these terms are commonly used interchangeably to refer to people (usually women) who are responsible for co-ordinating and/or implementing an EEO or affirmative action program in a public or private sector organisation. Although the terms are used interchangeably, a distinction is sometimes made between EEO/Affirmative Action Co ordinators (responsible for co-ordinating the program) and EEO/Affirmative Action
Officers (responsible for implementing the program and for day-to-day issues). In this case, the Officer reports to the Co-ordinator.
This distinction between co-ordinators and officers is most commonly used by organisations covered by the Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for
1 Throughout this dissertation, equal employment opportunity is referred to by its common abbreviation, 'EEO'. Affirmative action is not commonly referred to as 'AA', so it is written in full. Women) Act. 19862 which requires employers to appoint a senior person to be
responsible for their organisation's affirmative action program. In the private sector,
the Affirmative Action Co-ordinator is usually in a position such as Personnel
Manager, Human Resource Manager, or Financial Controller. In higher education
institutions, the Affirmative Action Co-ordinator holds a senior position such as Vice-
Chancellor. The Affirmative Action Co-ordinator does not usually have day-to-day
responsibility for implementing the organisation's affirmative action program, which
is carried out by the Affirmative Action Officer.
Equal Employment Opportunity - a desired state or goal to be achieved in which
people have the right to be considered for jobs on the basis of their skills, aptitude and relevant qualifications, regardless of factors such as sex, race or disability. Adoption of an EEO policy by an employer means that a person's sex or other irrelevant factors is not a barrier to being employed or promoted.
EEO Practitioner - a blanket term used to describe those responsible for developing and/or implementing an EEO or affirmative action program. It covers Affirmative
Action Co-ordinators and Officers, as well as EEO Co-ordinators and Officers. It is commonly used by professional associations of private or public sector
EEO/Affirmative Action Co-ordinators/Officers.
Femocrat - a term unique to Australia and New Zealand which came into use in the
1970s when large numbers of feminists entered the bureaucracy. It is usually used to refer to feminists who work for the state largely on women's issues. Although the term tends to refer to feminists working in government bureaucracies (including higher education institutions), it is sometimes used to refer to feminists working in the private sector.
2 Hereafter referred to as the Affirmative Action Act. The state - in this dissertation, 'the state' is used refer to the legal apparatus of government. It encompasses the sphere of civil administration, the political system, and the government bureaucracy, and is used in contrast to the church and the private sector.
Co-option by the state - Within the parameters of this dissertation, the term describes a situation in which feminists working within the bureaucracy experience strong pressure to conform to rules, practices and values which are at odds with those espoused and practised by feminists outside the bureaucracy. For example, feminists in the bureaucracy may find themselves implementing or formulating policies which will adversely affect large groups of women. They may face pressure to compete against other women, to produce quick results rather than work towards long term solutions and to use the 'right' language and 'dress the part'. Feminists in these circumstances may find that they gradually become less involved in the issues and activities of the outside women's movement. These and other problems have been articulated by many writers including Lynch (1984), Wills (1986), Eisenstein (1986), Dowse (1989b), Sawer (1989a, 1990a), Auer (1990) and Watson (1990). Introduction
The relationship between feminism and the state in Australia since 1972 and the
dilemmas this relationship has provoked provide an interesting and important area of
study for several reasons. The closeness of the relationship is not mirrored in Britain or North America from where Australian feminists have often taken their cue. For various reasons, British and North American feminists have not had the opportunities
to develop close relationships with the state or have actively shunned state involvement and intervention in feminist issues. Australian feminists have had numerous opportunities to become involved with the state and have, on the whole, taken advantage of these opportunities. The widespread involvement of Australian feminists with the state has led to the coining of the term 'femocraf which is used to refer to those feminists directly employed by the state to work on issues related to women.
At the same time, there has been a strong element in the Australian women's movement which has questioned this involvement and which has been critical of those feminists who have welcomed state intervention in issues being pushed by the women's movement. While this questioning has provoked tensions between feminists, at the same time it represents a healthy scepticism towards what has been and still is a patriarchal and oppressive institution. An unquestioning acceptance of the way in which Australian feminists have chosen to engage with the state would be far more problematic. However, given the dilemmas for feminists around state involvement, it is appropriate and indeed important to assess this relationship and to think about ways in which feminists can best utilise the situation.
In order to look at the issue of how closely feminists should be involved with the state, it is necessary to examine how and why the Australian feminist movement became involved with the state, and in what ways this involvement has been both beneficial and disadvantageous for feminists. One of the clearest manifestations of
—1— —2—
feminist involvement with the state has been the employment of feminists directly by
the state to work on developing and implementing policy on 'women's issues'. Over
the last ten years, much of this work has been generated by EEO and affirmative action
legislation which has been largely directed towards improving the structure of the
bureaucracy itself where femocrats work.
This dissertation looks at the relationship between feminism and the state as it is
exemplified by EEO and affirmative action legislation and femocrats in order to
address a number of questions. What is the nature of the relationship between
feminism and the state in Australia? What dilemmas and problems have femocrats faced in working within the state? How have feminists outside the bureaucracy responded to the state's intervention in feminist issues and to femocrats' involvement in the state? What benefits has the feminist movement enjoyed through its relationship with the state and what can the movement gain from continuing to use the state to help achieve its goals? Can the state be productively avoided by feminists? If not, what should a feminist strategy for working with the state entail?
Chapter One outlines the background to the feminist movement's relationship with the state in Australia in order to provide a context for the ensuing discussion. It looks at the growing interaction between feminism and the state in Australia since 1972, and the dilemmas that this interaction has caused for feminists both within and outside the state. This chapter introduces some issues around feminism and the state by discussing some of these dilemmas and various feminist theories about the state.
Chapters Two and Three examine specific examples of the interaction between feminism and the state in Australia. Chapter Two discusses EEO and affirmative action legislation while Chapter Three looks at the femocrat phenomenon. These chapters introduce some of the problems with EEO, affirmative action and the femocracy which have been raised by feminists outside the bureaucracy. —3—
Chapters Four and Five outline in more detail the criticisms made by feminists of
EEO, affirmative action and femocrats. These criticisms fall into a number of categories but are broadly based on the view that feminism and the state are basically
incompatible. These chapters outline both sides of the argument by also looking at the
way in which femocrats and other feminists have responded to these criticisms.
While this dissertation is largely an exploration of issues around feminist involvement
with the state, I argue that it would not be productive for the women's movement to
wholeheartedly reject the state and those feminists working within its structures and
institutions. There is no doubt that many feminist criticisms of feminist involvement
with the state are valid. However, there are compelling reasons why feminists need to
address the issues and problems they raise rather than retreat from, and reject the now
substantial involvement of feminism with the state in Australia. These reasons are
outlined in my conclusion in which I have also suggested some of the ways in which
feminists could productively work with the state to further the goals of the women's
movement. Chapter One - Feminism and the State in Australia since 1972
Since 1972, the Australian feminist movement has developed in close relation to the state and has consistently called upon the state to help achieve its aims. Several writers have noted that the close involvement of Australian feminism with the state is one feature which distinguishes it from the feminist movement in Britain and the
United States (Sawer 1990a:xv, Franzway, Court and Connell 1989:133, Watson
1990:12-17).
Australian feminists have attempted to use state structures to achieve a wide range of economic and social reforms for women around issues such as equal pay, childcare, rape, abortion, pornography, and domestic violence. Second wave feminism has been characterised by the increased involvement of women in the public domain and many feminists are employed by the state as teachers, nurses, and bureaucrats. Feminist demands on the state have included attempts to change the structure of the state itself through EEO and affirmative action legislation (Sharp & Broomhill 1988:3,
Franzway, Court and Connell 1989:ix, Dowse 1984:143)
The growing interaction between feminism and the state and the resulting dilemmas for feminists have their origins in the political changes of the early 1970s. The 1972 federal election campaign and the subsequent election of the Whitlam government had a major impact on the movement and on its relationship with the state throughout the
1970s and 1980s. Both Sara Dowse (1983) and Marian Sawer (1990a) talk about the convergence of second wave feminism in Australia and the election of a Labor government after twenty three years of conservative rule, and conclude that these two events occurring simultaneously strongly shaped the attitude of Australian feminists towards the state. As Dowse expresses it: "it put a stamp on the nature of the
4 involvement of feminists with and in government and indeed determined the parameters of the women's movement itself (1983:204).
A significant feature of the 1972 election campaign was the involvement of the
Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL). WEL's close and widely publicised involvement in the campaign had an important influence on the attitude of the feminist movement to the state. Lyndall Ryan asserts that "WEL was without doubt the political bombshell of 1972. It dramatically changed the nature of public debate by and about women"
(1990:72).
The importance of WEL's influence lies in the fact that it strongly advocated the involvement of feminists in state structures and demanded the right for women to participate fully in the public domain, in political parties, and in decision making forums generally. In these objectives, it differed from the rest of the women's movement which at that stage advocated a more revolutionary and less accommodating approach to the state. WEL thus took a strong liberal feminist line in its campaign for women's participation in state structures.
Lyndall Ryan points out that WEL's entry onto the political scene was well timed as its goals suited the Whitlam government's agenda for social reform, as well as the political climate which fostered the view of a neutral state whose services should be extended to the disadvantaged (1990:71). Ryan notes that:
At a time when Aboriginals were demanding land rights and the White Australia Policy was being laid to rest, Women's Liberation as the stormtroopers and Women's Electoral Lobby as the pragmatic face of feminism found a space in the political agenda that had previously not existed (1990:73).
Many of WEL’s objectives were supported by the new Whitlam government which quickly took up a number of initiatives including positive intervention in the equal pay case, removal of the sales tax on contraceptives, and support for the entry of feminists into the bureaucracy. With the increasing involvement of feminists in the bureaucracy, the division between
those 'inside' and those 'outside' became marked. While some feminists were given
positions in the bureaucracy, other feminists outside the bureaucracy were struggling
to establish and run services for women such as refuges and rape crisis centres
without government funding or intervention. Many of these feminists strongly
opposed government intervention in the form of funding, while feminists in the
bureaucracy argued that the services would not survive without funding (Ryan
1990:75).
Since the possibility of state support for feminist run services was now a real one,
feminists faced the dilemma of whether or not to deal with the bureaucracy by seeking
funding. In effect, this was seen by feminists outside the bureaucracy as a choice
between focusing on practical short-term goals by accepting state intervention, or rejecting state intervention in order to achieve long-term goals and retain some integrity. While members of WEL actively sought to use state structures to achieve reforms for women, other feminists expressed ambivalence and suspicion about seeking state support, seeing this move as one of co-option and compromise.
In the face of criticism from feminists outside the bureaucracy, pressure was placed on femocrats to provide a rationale for their position. They did this in a number of ways and with a degree of defensiveness. Marian Sawer (1990a:24) quotes one femocrat who noted:
If we were to make a longterm impact, there needed to be some part of the women's movement interested in vulgarising the women's movement message and getting it across institutions. I realised early on that when you do this you lose control - institutions pick it up how they want to use it. You can't stay pure, you're involved in compromise and brokering. But we needed to do this. It was worthwhile if you could buy time for feminism, take the message to more women. —7—
Feminists involved in projects which received government support generally found the
experience of dealing with bureaucrats a disillusioning one. They saw the bureaucracy
as a single entity structured in a way that was antithetical to their own aims of having
non-hierarchical, collective structures. At the same time, they were conscious of the
contradictory nature of their position. Feminists seeking funds for International
Women’s Year in 1975 explained the inconsistency between their demand for
government support and their rejection of the state partly by the need to awaken public
awareness of women's needs (Dowse 1984:145). Ann Curthoys points out that
Rosemary Pringle and Ann Game came to a similar conclusion in 1976 and:
supported the decision to seek government funding, mainly on the grounds that the confrontation with the 'organisational forms and role of state intervention' had the potential to increase political... awareness (1984:168).
Despite this ambivalence about engaging with the state, many feminists working
outside state run institutions who had initiated 'self-help' services for women such as rape crisis centres and women's refuges, decided to seek funding from the newly elected government. In March 1974 Elsie, perhaps the first feminist women's refuge in Australia, was set up in Glebe and sought funding from the federal government.
By June 1975, there were eleven women's refuges ready for government funding
(Dowse 1984:148).
As well as having to confront the dilemma of seeking state assistance for their self- help services, feminists had to deal with the issue of the state directly employing feminists. This issue first arose with the appointment of Elizabeth Reid, the first women's advisor to the Prime Minister in 1973. Her appointment provoked a range of reactions from feminists, with some cautiously welcoming the appointment and many expressing outrage (Lynch 1984:40). As Lyndall Ryan points out, her high salary and the fact that she would be accountable to the Prime Minister but not to the women's movement, was the basis for the criticisms of her appointment by feminists —8—
(1990:74). Other feminists who found employment with the Whitlam government
provoked similar reactions of hostility from sections of the feminist movement. Sara
Dowse explained the rationale behind these reactions:
The gravest sin such women committed was to place themselves in a position of perceived power over other women in the movement. It was felt to be not only a betrayal of principles (there were to be no hierarchies, no leaders in the resurgent feminism) but a compounding of the evil of male authority. And yet it was worse than male authority. Hidden in this hostility was that element of self-loathing that plagues all oppressed peoples, and thus it was felt that such women could never really be trusted, because the temptation for them to capitulate would be too strong. In a sense it was easy to despise hostile, insensitive 'male' authorities; it merely confirmed the analysis. The feminist bureaucrats, on the other hand, raised questions about the movement, its integrity and viability, that sat rather less comfortably in the scheme of things (1984:155).
Despite the criticisms, it cannot be denied that much was achieved for women in the
Whitlam years. Two of Elizabeth Reid's achievements were in persuading the
government to implement a significant change in the provision of pre-school and
childcare services with a budget to fund these changes, and in committing the
government to major political and financial support for International Women's Year
(Ryan 1990:75-76). Reid also played a part in persuading the government of the importance of incorporating women's issues into policymaking bodies of public
service departments. In October 1975, an EEO section was established in the Public
Service Board to implement EEO practices throughout the Commonwealth Public
Service (Ryan 1990:78).
Feminists in the bureaucracy justified their position by listing such achievements.
They also defended themselves by arguing the need for long term strategies which would benefit as many women as possible, rather than what they saw as short term strategies which involved a retreat from patriarchal society. This rejection of a radical feminist solution was summed up by Sara Dowse who stated:
We have to decide whether we are going to change society or whether we are going to develop small enclaves of alternative ways of living which will eventually self-destruct through depletion of energy. If we want to be in a position to help all women who need to free themselves from domestic —9— tyranny we have to devise strategies for extending services on a scale large enough to have a genuine impact (1990:81).
The tendency to regard feminist bureaucrats with suspicion continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and with the growing involvement of feminists in state structures, the debate has not been resolved. As Lesley Lynch (1984:40) points out, this tendency is "deeply embedded in the experience of the contemporary Women’s
Movement and continues to impact relations between feminist bureaucrats and the wider Women's Movement".
Feminist views of the state
While these questions about feminist interaction with the state have been very significant for the Australian feminist movement, there has not been much attempt to analyse and theorise the relationship between feminism and the state. Franzway, Court and Connell (1989:12) attribute this failure to produce a theory of the state to "liberationist ambivalence about the state". However, they go on to say that feminist engagement with the state "fuelled a great deal of research and thinking about particular policy areas".
However, the three major strands of second wave feminism (liberal, radical, socialist)1 have views (or implied views) on the nature of the state and on what feminism's relationship with the state should be. A brief examination of these views helps set a context for a debate about feminism and the state.
1 While these three categories of feminism are used here, it needs to be acknowledged that their use is limited. Contemporary feminism is far too complex to be simply categorised into three groups, and few feminists would see themselves as belonging solely to one of these three categories. This point is made in Chapter Three which looks at the personal dilemmas faced by femocrats who have to reconcile their own feminist perspectives with the perspective of the patriarchal structures in which they work. -10-
Liberal Feminist Views of the State
Many feminists working directly for the state on women's issues are likely to have
some liberal feminist views about the state. (At the same time, it should be said that
there are many feminists working for the state who reject liberal feminist views). The
liberal feminist perspective, while not denying that the state is patriarchal, implies that
it can be changed and reformed to benefit women. Liberal feminists believe that it is
worthwhile working within established and mainstream structures to achieve reform
and that it is possible to achieve change within these structures, male-dominated
though they may be. In this respect, it is basically an optimistic approach. The key
theme in liberal feminist philosophy is gradual reform of patriarchal society, although
this may involve a great deal of accommodation. While the state may not have been
fair in the past towards women, the liberal feminist perspective assumes that it can be
fair and neutral. It is a liberal feminist perspective which informed initiatives aimed at
removing discrimination against women in employment such as EEO and affirmative
action legislation.
The implications of a liberal feminist perspective for feminists are that women should
seek to enter mainstream structures in order to work towards reforming these
structures. It has been pointed out by many feminist critics however, that those
women who succeed in these structures tend to benefit personally through the
development of their own careers. Thus, the liberal feminist perspective has been
criticised by feminists as being individualistic, elitist, and somewhat middle class,
benefiting only a small number of women. These criticisms will be discussed in
Chapter Five.
Radical and Marxist feminist critics of the liberal feminist perspective tend to believe that it is also an unrealistically optimistic view, because it underestimates the deep- —11—
rooted nature of patriarchal structures in our society. They point out that the liberal
feminist approach to the state has not challenged the structures of the state itself, but
has merely tried to work within those structures in the belief that real and significant
changes can be made within an apparently benign state apparatus (Sharp & Broomhill
1988:6-7). Essentially, critics see it as a reformist and ultimately futile approach
because feminists are supposedly co-opted into patriarchal structures without the
'maleness' of those structures being challenged. Hester Eisenstein answered these
sorts of criticisms by saying:
I think that it is inaccurate to say that 'the state is male', but it is accurate to say that 'up to now the state has been male', if by that we mean that until recently public power has been wielded largely by men and in the interest of men... The possibility of altering that fact may now lie within our grasp (1985:115).
In support of this sort of argument, liberal feminists point to the substantial changes
made to policy and legislation in the 1970s and 1980s in areas such as domestic
violence, school curriculums, prostitution, rape, incest and affirmative action.
Radical feminist views of the state
The radical feminist perspective does not generally view the state as an arena in which far reaching changes can be made for the benefit of women. Both liberal and radical feminists believe that the state has oppressed women. However, unlike liberal feminists, radical feminists believe that the state is so oppressive towards women that it cannot be reformed. The changes they advocate are revolutionary rather than reformist and involve having feminist run services for women which do not have to compromise in order to continue existing. Ideally, these services would be run along feminist principles of non-hierarchical collectives.
At the same time, some radical feminists have entered state structures, for a variety of reasons. Kathy Ferguson (1984) for example, has argued that since the state is a -12-
major source of oppression for women, then it must be confronted. Other radical
feminists have chosen to engage with the state because they have needed support for
their feminist run services. Some believe that since the state is so patriarchal, it must
actually be overthrown. However, radical feminists generally believe that the entry of
feminists into state structures does not challenge these structures because they are
impermeable.
The radical feminist perspective of the state has been criticised on a number of grounds
by feminists. Michele Barrett (1980:38) makes the point that "in posing patriarchy as
either completely independent of capitalism, or as the dominant system of power relations, it completely fails to provide an analysis of women's oppression in a society characterized by capitalist relations of production". The radical feminist perspective has also been criticised for having a somewhat simplistic view of the state, in that it has not analysed how or why the state oppresses women (Sharp & Broomhill
1988:9).
Another feminist criticism of the radical feminist perspective is that it has not considered or analysed the conflict within the state itself between conflicting groups.
As Sharp and Broomhill (1988:9) point out:
For radical feminism, the state is simply an agent of patriarchal oppression, with little or no room for any concept of conflict within the state apparatus. It is not seen as an arena in which some degree of struggle occurs between competing interest groups or between dominant and subordinant [sic] sexes and classes. Consequently, the radical feminist view of the state is somewhat functionalist and determinist, providing little insight into the complex and dialectical nature of the state’s role.
A common feminist criticism of radical feminism generally is that in viewing women as an oppressed class, it has ignored or glossed over, or underestimated important -13-
differences between women, such as class and race.2 The same criticism has been
made of the radical feminist view of the state:
The patriarchal oppression experienced by all women is seen to override all other forms of power relationships in society. There is no room, therefore, in the radical feminist view, to examine how the state relates to women of different classes and races (Sharp & Broomhill 1988:9)
These points about the contradictory nature of the state and the way in which it relates
differently to different women are important ones which will be discussed later in this
chapter.
Socialist feminist views of the state
The socialist feminist perspective, like the liberal and radical feminist perspectives,
recognises the significant role that the state has played in oppressing women.
However, it differs from the others in its view that the state must be confronted and
challenged, rather than reformed or simply shunned. Thus, while socialist feminists
have recognised the problems in working within the framework of the state, at the
same time, they have utilised the state as part of their strategy (Simms 1981:230,
Sharp & Broomhill 1988:10)
Like other feminists who accepted funding in the early 1970s for their self-help
services, socialist feminists have recognised that state assistance can help achieve short term strategies. However, they believe that the long-term goal of ending women's
2 An example of this sort of feminist criticism is Audre Lorde's "Open Letter to Mary Daly", quoted in D. Fowlkes (1987) "Feminist Epistemology is Political Action" Women and Politics 7, 3, pp. 3 -
10. Mary Daly’s solution to patriarchal oppression as outlined in Gvn/Ecologv (and other publications) has been widely criticised by feminists because it is seen as only possible for a small minority of women ie. those who are white and middle class. -14-
oppression must be pursued at the same time, and in the pursuit of this goal, that the
state needs to be a site of struggle.
Unlike the radical and liberal feminist perspectives, the socialist feminist perspective
has focused on the historical and economic context of the state's oppression of
women, drawing upon an existing body of theory by non-feminist writers. While this
body of theory has not focused on, or analysed women's oppression, socialist
feminists have been able to use it as a starting point for examining women's
subordination and linking this subordination with the needs of capitalism. (Sharp &
Broomhill 1988:12). While both liberal and radical feminist perspectives have been criticised for being middle class, individualistic, elitist and ahistorical, socialist feminism has focused on the collective needs of women and on issues which affect
working class women such as equal pay, childcare, and labour market sex
segmentation and segregation (Sharp & Broomhill 1988:10). Since the purpose of this dissertation is to examine the ways in which feminists have worked within state structures for change, it is beyond the scope of the dissertation to discuss the revolutionary potential of socialist feminism.
What should feminism's relationship with the state be?
In thinking about what feminism's relationship with the state has been and what it should be, there are a number of dilemmas and contradictions to consider. Firstly, it is important to acknowledge that the state works both for and against women at the same time. For example, it can cut welfare provisions and at the same time, introduce
EEO legislation and increase funding for childcare. While it could be argued that even when the government seemingly works for women, it really has its own interests at heart, women nevertheless benefit from many activities of the state. Women generally have a close relationship with the state in that their lives are regulated by the government sector, perhaps more than those of men's. While they have certainly been —15—
discriminated against by the state, they are also badly affected by a reduction in state
run services. For example, when education, health, and social security services are
cut, it is women who are most disadvantaged. Women have benefited from the state
through the expansion of government employment and the increase in childcare places
over the last decade, both of which have facilitated their entry into the paid workforce
and undermined the traditional family structure (Dowse 1984:144-145). It is simply
not possible to say that the state has only contributed to or been the cause of women's
oppression. It is quite likely that the state provides a fairer deal to women than an
alternative structure would. As Sara Dowse points out, "while women are unlikely to
achieve equality through the operations of the state, they are even less likely to buy it
through the marketplace" (1984:143).
The state also treats different women in different ways. As Drude Dahlerup
(1987:120) notes, "state action may have different effects on women of different class and race". A related point is that feminists interpret the same government policies differently. An example of this can be seen in the feminist debate over whether to legislate against pornography, a debate which has created strong divisions in the feminist movement. Another example (discussed in Chapter Three) is the recent
Federal government legislation which is designed to ensure that non-custodial parents pay maintenance for their children through the garnisheering of their wages by the taxation system.
Yet another example is that of protective legislation. This issue is currently being debated in relation to restrictions on women working in the lead industry because of potential damage to the foetus. Drude Dahlerup talks about the issue of protective legislation saying that "in Norway, the social democratic women's movement demanded protective legislation (without success), whereas in Denmark women from the labour movement successfully opposed the measure in a rare coalition with the women's movement" (1987:119). Given these sorts of disagreements within the -16-
feminist movement about the effect of government policies, it would be simplistic to
say the state works only against women's interests.
Secondly, feminists have gone further than to simply seek state funding for feminist
run self-help services. They have also called upon the state to intervene in areas of the
private sphere such as domestic violence, rape in marriage, and abortion (Cox
1982:30). Feminists who disapprove of state funding for feminist services and of
feminists' involvement in the bureaucracy need to ask themselves whether they
disapprove of state intervention in these areas of the private sphere. The point is that
the state cannot be easily shunned by feminists. It is more useful to think about ways
in which feminism can productively relate to the state and how the state can be used to
benefit women.
Given the criticisms of feminist bureaucrats by feminists outside the bureaucracy, it is not unreasonable to point out the similarities between feminists working directly for the state and feminists working outside the state in government funded services for women. As we have seen, feminists running women's self-help services made conscious decisions to compromise by fulfilling certain government requirements in order to receive government funding. In a similar way, feminists working directly for the state have made personal compromises in order to be able to work comfortably in the bureaucracy. While feminists directly employed by the state to work on women's issues have encountered a great deal of criticism by other feminists, those outside government structures who seek state support have not attracted the same level of criticism. It seems that while it is now generally accepted by the feminist movement that the state should support feminist initiatives, it is not so widely accepted that feminists should be employed directly by the state to work on these initiatives. This objection to feminists being employed by the state to work on initiatives which are supported by the outside women's movement does not seem to be carefully thought through. If feminists agree that the state should support feminist initiatives through —17-
funding, law reform and interventionist measures, should they not then agree that it is
better to have feminists working for the state on these issues than bureaucrats with no
knowledge of, or empathy with feminist issues?
One of the obvious reasons for the criticisms levelled at femocrats is that feminists
employed directly by the state benefit personally from this situation through having a
career and a reasonably generous salary, while feminists running services for women
do not work in such comfortable conditions. However, this is not the only reason for
criticism, as I shall show in Chapter Five. Femocrats are criticised by feminists who
see the bureaucracy as inevitably male dominated, and the state as inevitably
patriarchal. They believe that femocrats cannot substantially alter these structures but
instead, inevitably become co-opted, and their feminist views diluted or less radical.
There are many questions which arise in looking at these issues. Do feminists working for the state on feminist initiatives become 'tainted' by the bureaucracy, and lose their feminist perspective? Is it possible to retain a radical or socialist feminist perspective of the state while working within state structures? Do feminists working in the bureaucracy necessarily hold liberal feminist views on feminism and the state?
Underlying these sorts of issues are questions about the relationship between feminism and the state. What is the nature of this relationship, and what should it be?
What benefits has the Australian feminist movement enjoyed through its relationship with the state and what can the feminist movement gain from continuing to use the state to help achieve its goals? What should a feminist strategy for working with the state entail? Can the state be productively avoided by feminists?
A number of writers have noted the common tendency among feminist critics to regard the state as a homogeneous and monolithic institution with a unified purpose. These writers have pointed out that this tendency is unrealistic and that the state is in fact a —18-
contradictory institution which is made up of many groups and arenas with conflicting
aims (Cox 1982:30, Franzway, Court & Connell 1989:34, Watson 1990:7). These
groups change constantly and thus the locus of power also shifts according to the
players at a given time. The other point to consider is that the Australian 'state' is as
Watson points out, made up of a federal government and six State governments which
each have their own, often conflicting political agendas. It is thus a fragmented and
complex set of structures. Watson concludes that:
The ability of feminists to influence the political agenda and to achieve reforms is inevitably a result of specific political and economic relations, of the composition of bureaucratic and political players, of localized powers and resistances and of the strength of 'feminisms' within and outside the political structures (1990:19).
Watson also points out that feminists have tended to assume a unity of interests
between men and between women, thus failing see the state as an arena in which
capital's or men's interests are actively constructed rather than given. Watson goes on
to say:
Thus, in the process of responding to some demands and not others, or to some interests and not others, the state is involved in actively constructing these demands. An analysis along these lines may be useful when we are considering how effective feminist interventions into 'the state' have been (1990:8).
Judith Allen argues that the use of the term 'the state' by feminists is not particularly useful, partly because it is a term which has been adapted from other non-feminist analyses such as Marxism and Liberalism, and partly because the term is too unspecific and too unitary to be able to usefully address the multitude of diverse concerns raised by the feminist movement. Allen points out that feminist texts of the early 1970s rarely discussed ’the state' as a separate category of analysis, instead using terms such as 'government', 'political system', or 'establishment' (1990:23).
These terms are more specific than 'the state', and thus (Allen implies) more useful because they describe particular areas or forms of male dominance over women. This —19— is a reasonable point to make, although the term 'the state' is useful because it encompasses more than the term 'government', 'political system' or 'establishment'.
Allen believes that there are more pressing priorities to be addressed by feminists than theorising the state (1990:34). While this is certainly true, it doesn’t mean that feminists should not grapple with the problems of state involvement, particularly since this issue has been a source of contention within the Australian feminist movement for the last two decades and has not had to be faced in the same way by British and North
American feminists.
In the following two chapters, I will examine some of these issues by looking at some
specific examples of the interaction between feminism and the state in Australia. One of these is EEO and affirmative action legislation, and the other is the phenomenon of the femocrat. Chapter Two - EEO and Affirmative Action
While the contemporary Australian feminist movement's interaction with the state can
be examined in relation to a wide range of issues, one of its most significant
manifestations is in the femocrat phenomenon, and in the related issues of EEO and
affirmative action. In this chapter and the following chapter I will look briefly at the
background to the emergence of femocrats, EEO and affirmative action in Australia,
and at their significant features. EEO and affirmative action legislation will not be
discussed in detail, as there are a number of publications which do this.1 The
purpose of the discussion here is largely to provide the context for an examination of
feminist criticisms of femocrats, EEO and affirmative action, which I will deal with in
Chapters Four and Five.
The Background to EEO and Affirmative Action Legislation in Australia
Anti-Discrimination Legislation
The first type of legislation which addressed the issue of discrimination was anti- discrimination legislation, sometimes called complaint-based legislation. This is because it is used after an event of discrimination and requires an individual or a group of people to lodge a complaint before action can be taken. South Australia was the first State to introduce such legislation, with the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975.
Other States, as well as the Commonwealth soon followed South Australia's example
1 For example: Chris Ronalds (1987) Affirmative Action and Sex Discrimination: A Handbook on
Legal Rights for Women: Marian Sawer ed. (1985) Program for Change: Marian Sawer (1990)
Sisters in Suits: Consie Larmour (1990) "Sex Discrimination Legislation in Australia".
—20— —21—
with pieces of legislation such as the Commonwealth Race Discrimination Act of 1975
and the Sex Discrimination Act of 1984.
The shortcomings of this type of legislation were soon acknowledged. In 1976, the
New South Wales government commissioned a review of the equity and efficiency of
government administration. The review, conducted by Peter Wilenski, found that at
senior levels, the New South Wales public service was over-represented by white,
Anglo-Celtic males and under-represented by women. It also found that Aborigines
and people of non-English speaking backgrounds were generally under-represented,
and were, like women, concentrated in low status, low paying positions. It was clear
that the profile of the New South Wales bureaucracy failed to reflect the diversity of
the New South Wales population (Eisenstein 1985a:72).
Wilenski's findings highlighted the weaknesses of complaint-based legislation, and
the review used the experience of countries such as the United States to add weight to his argument. Such legislation relies on individuals to lodge complaints about discrimination, a stressful and time-consuming process with no guarantee of a satisfactory outcome. The other major weakness of complaint-based legislation is that it places almost no onus on employers to ensure that discrimination does not occur in the first place. Wilenski's report argued that such legislation had to be supplemented by affirmative action programs which would require employers to take positive steps to achieve equal employment opportunity. Such steps would include establishing and analysing the employment profile of their organisation in order to identify the areas where women and minority groups were under-represented, and setting objectives and numerical targets to achieve changes in the employment profile and eliminate barriers to these groups. —22—
The Shift towards EEO and Affirmative Action Legislation
The second wave of legislation rejected the complaint-based model in favour of a
program-based model. Program-based legislation places the onus on employers to
systematically address the problem of discrimination by requiring them to develop and
implement programs with the purpose of identifying and eliminating discrimination.
In 1980, as a result of Wilenski's review, New South Wales enacted EEO legislation.
This was in the form of an amendment to the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination
Act. Part IXA of the amended act required public sector employers to develop and implement EEO programs for women and racial minorities, and later, those with physical disabilities. Under Part IXA, the Director of Equal Opportunity in Public
Employment was appointed to monitor compliance with the Act, to assist employers to comply, and to evaluate the EEO plans submitted by employers.
The New South Wales legislation was soon followed by various pieces of EEO legislation at the Commonwealth and State level. At the Commonwealth level, the
Public Service Act was amended in 1984 by the Public Service Reform Act, which required Commonwealth government departments to develop EEO programs for four target groups: women; Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders; people of non-English speaking backgrounds; and people with disabilities. The EEO programs under this legislation were similar to those required under Part IXA of the NSW Anti-
Discrimination Act. That is, employers were required to collect and analyse statistical data and examine employment policies and practices to identify and eliminate discrimination, to inform staff and consult unions, and to evaluate the program.
Commonwealth statutory authorities became covered by similar legislation in 1986.
In Western Australia, the Equal Opportunity Act. 1984 set out requirements for public sector employers to develop and implement EEO plans to eliminate discrimination, and in Victoria, the Equal Opportunity Act. 1984 outlawed discrimination and exempted —23-
affirmative action programs from discrimination provisions (Section 39(4)). While
affirmative action programs were not enshrined in this legislation, the Victorian
government developed an 'action plan for women' in the public service (Whitehouse
1987:31-32). In South Australia, under the Government Management and
Employment Act of 1985, EEO programs were made the subject of performance
agreements between Ministers and the heads of departments or authorities (Sawer
1990:207-208).
General Points about EEO programs
EEO programs are an example of feminist attempts to change the nature of the state
itself by reforming the bureaucracies that femocrats themselves work in. With its
requirement to appoint staff to develop and implement a program, EEO legislation also
resulted in the entry of more feminists to the bureaucracy. Feminists arguing against
EEO and affirmative action have not been unaware of these ironies. It is hard to refute
the fact that femocrats themselves gain directly from reforms made to the bureaucracy.
By focusing their energies on reforming the bureaucracy through EEO and affirmative
action, femocrats have laid themselves open to accusations of 'feathering their own
nests'. This issue is discussed in subsequent chapters.
Marketing EEO and Affirmative Action - The Emphasis on Efficiency
An interesting issue is the way in which governments have tried to 'sell' EEO and affirmative action to both public and private sector employers. Perhaps the most common argument used is that EEO and affirmative action programs will result in more efficient and productive organisations because they will ensure that human resources are utilised to the fullest. Through EEO and affirmative action, all those employees with low status, low paying jobs are supposedly given the opportunity to progress in an organisation, and thus talent and potential are not wasted. —24—
The arguments about efficiency, rather than arguments about equity and fairness
continue to be the focus of attempts to sell both EEO and affirmative action to
employers and there are obvious reasons for this focus. Given that many employers
do not equate efficiency with equity, they are more likely to be concerned with trying
to make their organisation efficient rather than equitable. As Franzway, Court and
Connell (1989:91) point out, "the efficiency argument is designed to appeal both to the
rationality of bureaucracy and to the productivity of the private sector". The attempt
by proponents of EEO and affirmative action to convince employers of the crucial
relationship between equity and efficiency has had limited success. This may be
partly due to the fact that the benefits of EEO and affirmative action are sometimes
intangible, and are often long-term rather than short-term benefits.
Feminist critics of EEO and affirmative action have drawn attention to the emphasis on
efficiency. In talking about the introduction of affirmative action legislation covering
the private sector, Ann Game (1984:254) links the issue of efficiency to the style of
the Hawke government whose approach (she believes) was that:
Women's skills have been underutilised and this is a waste of resources. What is good for women is good for the 'economy', 'our progress' and 'good management practices'. Indeed women have got lost somewhat in the Government's efforts to sell 'good management practice’ to business .
Certainly, it is interesting to note the 'playing down' of the association of EEO and affirmative action with the more controversial issues of equity, women, and discrimination. However, it is perhaps understandable that in the face of great reluctance by employers to embrace the principles of EEO and affirmative action, proponents have tried to sell it as best they can. This is not to say that EEO and affirmative action do not result in more efficient organisations. However, employers are not always convinced of the need to be equitable in order to be efficient, and often not convinced that they should adopt equitable practices purely on moral grounds. —25—
The 'efficiency argument' is becoming easier to sell in relation to women because of
the demographic changes in the Australian population currently occurring. Employers
are now aware that the pool of available labour aged between twenty five and forty
four is shrinking, that women are continuing to enter the workforce in large numbers,
that they are having less children, having them later in their lives, spending less time out of the workforce to rear them, and that to maintain competitiveness, they
(employers) will have to make genuine efforts to recruit, promote, train, and retain
women.
EEO as a Management Initiative
Another interesting point about EEO and affirmative action, (and one which feminist critics such as Lesley Lynch have focused on) is the emphasis on these programs as management initiatives. This emphasis is encouraged by legislative requirements for employers to appoint a senior person to be responsible for developing the EEO or affirmative action program. EEO/affirmative action programs are usually outlined in
EEO/affirmative action management plans (particularly in the public sector), and
EEO/Affirmative Action Co-ordinators (particularly, those in the private sector) are often called Human Resources Managers, or are at least expected to have managerial
skills. This view of EEO and affirmative action as management-driven ties in with the emphasis on using human resources efficiently, and maintaining competitiveness.
Franzway, Court and Connell (1989:94) talk about the way in which EEO programs
"generally seek to be seen as rational and logical within the terms of corporate management science". Programs are broken into several stages and the emphasis is on a systematic and rational approach. The similarity to corporate management planning is quite clear in the requirements of the Affirmative Action Act; for example. The legislative requirements under steps seven and eight of an affirmative action program -26- are to set objectives and forward estimates and to monitor and evaluate the program.
These steps involve identifying problems, developing objectives to address these problems, as well as specific actions and timeframes, allocating responsibility, and developing procedures for monitoring and evaluating progress against the stated objectives.
Another example of the influence of corporate management planning on
EEO/affirmative action programs is the preoccupation with 'performance indicators' by those monitoring the progress of EEO programs in the Commonwealth and State public sector. Public sector EEO/Affirmative Action Officers are required to report on a regular basis to management as well as to an external organisation on the progress achieved against these performance indicators.
The 'good management' argument is quite effective with those employers who pride themselves on being au fait with the latest trends in human resource management. It works particularly well with large private sector employers who care about their image and link competitiveness with being good 'people managers'.
The emphasis on EEO and affirmative action programs as management driven initiatives has implications for femocrats and their image in the feminist movement outside the bureaucracy. EEO/Affirmative Action Officers who are feminists, not uncommonly, find that they are seen as being aligned with management and are subsequently maligned by other feminists both within and outside the bureaucracy.
As Christine Wieneke (1990:7) points out, it is ironic that "although implementation of
EEO and affirmative action programmes is supposed to be management driven, in fact management is frequently the site of greatest opposition and resistance". This issue is discussed in more detail in Chapter Three. —27-
Affirmative Action
In October 1986, the Affirmative Action Act became operative. This was the first
piece of Australian legislation which required private sector employers to address
systematically the issue of EEO and affirmative action. The legislation was introduced partly in response to pressures from the women's movement, and to studies which
showed that Australian labour force was characterised by a high degree of gender
segregation and segmentation in comparison with other OECD countries.
The Government's discussion paper Affirmative Action for Women, defined
affirmative action as:
A systematic means, determined by the employer in consultation with senior management, employees and unions of achieving equal employment opportunity for women (Vol 1, p. 3) (Ronalds 1987:19).
Thus, while EEO was seen as the goal, affirmative action was seen as the means by which that goal could be achieved.
The Affirmative Action Act requires private sector employers with more than one hundred employees, as well as higher education institutions, to develop and implement affirmative action programs. The Act defines an affirmative action program as one which is designed to ensure that:
(a) appropriate action is taken to eliminate discrimination by the relevant employers against women in relation to employment matters; and
(b) measures are taken by the relevant employer to promote equal opportunity for women in relation to employment matters (Section 3.(1).
While the term 'affirmative action' was first used in Australia in 1980 in relation to the
New South Wales legislation, 'equal employment opportunity' has been the preferred and less controversial term in Australia. The concept of affirmative action has never —28—
fully lost the negative connotations it had from its introduction, and the practice of
calling affirmative action programs 'EEO programs' continues in some private sector
organisations covered by the Affirmative Action Act. This practice is also common in
higher education institutions where EEO/Affirmative Action Officers are usually
required to address the four EEO target groups, rather than women only.2 Christine
Wieneke (1990:12) notes that in some higher education institutions, the senior person
responsible for EEO and affirmative action is called the Director of Equal Opportunity,
rather than the Director of Affirmative Action, and suggests that this may demonstrate
a reluctance to commit the institution to action. Some higher education institutions
have also been reluctant to issue a policy statement which specifically addresses the
issue of affirmative action rather than the broader issue of EEO.
The reluctance to use the term 'affirmative action' springs partly from the experience
of affirmative action in the United States, where the concept originated in 1961. It
was initially developed to try to improve the disadvantaged position of Blacks and was later extended to women (Sawer 1985b:xiii). Under affirmative action legislation in the United States, employers were required to set quotas for employing women and minority groups, thus bypassing the principle of merit.
While Australian EEO and affirmative action legislation is firmly based on the merit principle and does not require quotas for employing women and minority groups to be set, misconceptions about affirmative action continue. The National Party's vehement opposition to the introduction of the legislation played upon peoples' fear of quotas and 'reverse discrimination', and conservative arguments against affirmative action
2 In New South Wales and Western Australia, higher education institutions are required by state legislation to develop and implement EEO programs which address the four EEO target groups.
However, in other States, it is usual for higher education institutions to address the four target groups as well. —29-
still exploit these fears and misconceptions. A substantial number of private sector employers cite their opposition to quotas as a reason for not carrying out some requirements of the Affirmative Action Act. This is despite the fact that the Act clearly
states that "nothing in the Act shall be taken to require a relevant employer to take any
action incompatible with the principle that employment matters should be dealt with on
the basis of merit" (Section 3(4)).
In view of the negative connotations of the term 'affirmative action', it is perhaps
surprising that the government chose to retain it when it introduced the legislation in
1986. Marian Sawer attributes this partly to the expectations of women after the
victory of the Hawke Labor government in 1983:
Affirmative action was one of the promises held out when the ALP was wooing much-needed women's votes, and fear of reaction from this constituency may be responsible for the retention of the term (Sawer 1985b:xvi).
The other perhaps surprising feature of the Affirmative Action Act is that it targets only
women, rather than the four target groups nominated by EEO legislation. This can be partly attributed to the difficulty of getting the Act passed by Parliament and the fear
that if it 'went too far', or was too 'radical', it would be rejected. Another convincing
argument for targeting women only was the fact that women made up the largest category of disadvantaged people.
The sort of conservative arguments used against the introduction of the Affirmative
Action Act fell into a number of categories. Firstly, there were concerns about the
'undermining' of the nuclear family and women's traditional roles in the private sphere of the home and family. Although women have entered the paid workforce in large numbers, they are still largely confined to jobs which are congruent with their traditional gender roles of being nurturers and carers. The principle behind the
Affirmative Action Act is that women should be encouraged to enter all spheres of the —30—
paid workforce. Thus, it clearly challenges traditional notions of women's and men's
roles.
Another conservative fear was that the Affirmative Action Act would result in 'reverse
discrimination', that men would be passed over for jobs in favour of less well
qualified women and effectively pushed out of the workforce. This fear is still quite
strong despite the Act's emphasis on the merit principle.
The other main conservative argument against the Act centred around opposition to
what was seen as government interference in the private sector. This issue was raised
by employer groups such as the Business Council of Australia who argued that private
sector employers would voluntarily implement affirmative action programs anyway,
and did not need legislation to force them to do so.3 This argument was used despite
the lack of evidence that many private sector employers had demonstrated genuine
attempts to develop and implement EEO or affirmative action programs before 1986
(Ronalds 1987:26).
While there have been many other anti-feminist criticisms of EEO and affirmative action, such criticisms are not the focus here. The concerns raised by feminists about strategies such as EEO and affirmative action are more interesting and pertinent to the women's movement because they affect the stability of the movement itself. Such concerns have prompted feminists to think about whether initiatives such as EEO and affirmative action have benefited women and if so, which particular groups of women
'X J "The Business Council, and business generally, does not support the extension of government through mandatory affirmative action programmes. We believe that people of goodwill will achieve positive social change more effectively without regulatory intervention, and that such intervention can be counterproductive" (The Business Council of Australia, 1986, quoted in Fay Maries (1988)
"Affirmative Action, Is It Fair?" Australian Social Work 41. 3, September, p. 8. —31—
they have benefited. Feminist criticisms of EEO and affirmative action have also
highlighted splits in the movement based on factors such as race and class. These criticisms will be outlined in Chapter Five which will also detail feminist responses to
such criticisms. Chapter Three - Femocrats
When I first got to Sydney, I was dazzled by the highly political feminists I met there. They seemed utterly at ease with the structures of power at state and national levels. They understood the mysteries of submission writing; of applying for senior-level positions in government, including the magic language that unlocked the gates of appointment; of committee procedure, and how to chair a meeting in order to control the outcome; of lobbying at endless winesoaked luncheons and dinner parties; and of the (to me utterly impenetrable) rules of standing for preselection as a candidate for Parliament. These feminists were intensely practically minded, and they were immersed, too, in a kind of detail that I found overwhelming and mystifying. These women, I was to find out, were mostly 'femocrats' (Eisenstein 1990:89).
Background
As we have seen, the first wave of femocrats entered the bureaucracy in the years following the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. Feminists continued to be employed in the bureaucracy throughout the 1970s and 1980s and the advent of EEO and affirmative action legislation provided many new opportunities for feminists to obtain jobs directly related to their personal and political commitment to women's issues.
The term 'femocrat' has been used in a number of ways and has had different meanings at different times. For example, it was initially seen as a derogatory term
but this is not so clearly the case now. The term has been used to refer to women
working in the private sector as well as the public sector. It is also used in a broader
sense to refer to women working in a range of areas of the bureaucracy which are not
necessarily concerned with women's issues. It is commonly used to refer to
feminists working in institutions of higher education either as academics or
EEO/Affirmative Action Officers. Whilst this dissertation is primarily concerned with
—32— —33—
femocrats employed in government departments, where relevant, it also discusses the
situation of EEO/Affirmative Action Officers in both the private sector, and in higher
education institutions. Each of these areas has distinct characteristics of its own.
Interestingly, the term is unique to Australia and New Zealand (Franzway, Court &
Connell 1989:133). This can be attributed to a number of factors including the
differing political circumstances of Australia, Britain and the United States which have
clearly played a significant role in the shaping of feminist attitudes towards the state.
Marian Sawer (1990a:250) attributes the success of femocracy partly to the pragmatic
attitude of Australians towards the state. It is possible that British feminists are more
cynical about involvement with the state than their Australian counterparts and have
not sought to join the bureaucracy as readily as Australian feminists. Michele Barrett
attributes the lack of involvement in the state by British feminists to "an alertness to the
dangers of, sliding into reformism" and believes that this alertness is "more intense
among feminists in Britain than in countries that have pushed ahead with the
institutionalization of feminist politics" (1980:243). However, it needs to remembered
that they have not had the same opportunities to join the bureaucracy to work on
women's issues as Australian feminists have had. The period of the Whitlam
government in Australia provided a unique opportunity for feminists to join the
bureaucracy in large numbers. Britain, on the other hand, still has no EEO or
affirmative action legislation, and the government of Margaret Thatcher was renowned
for cutting back services and support for women and other disadvantaged groups.
With regard to the United States, Sawer makes the point that organised opposition to
feminism has been more successful (than in Australia) and right wing anti-feminist organisations have been able to gather substantial support. Sawer attributes this to the
fact that Australia is a "much more secular society" (1990a:250). The importance of
the political climate in shaping the femocrat phenomenon should not be
underestimated, and I shall return to this point later. —34—
The fact that the term 'femocrat' was originally used in a derogatory way, to an extent
reflected a cynical attitude to the state by Australian feminists, particularly in the
1970s. However, while many feminists outside the bureaucracy still have a suspicion
of femocrats, the term does not tend to be used in a derogatory way now. Marian
Sawer (1990a:254) says that:
Like many such terms, it began with negative connotations of 'co-option' or ’sellout' but was later adopted as a self-description by femocrats themselves. It became a neutral term to describe those who entered women's policy positions in government.
The femocrat phenomenon was a significant feature of the Australian feminist
movement throughout the 1970s and 1980s. As Franzway, Court and Connell
(1989:134) observe:
The invention of a specific term denotes the importance of the group to the Australian women's movement, if not its size. Femocrats signify the Australian movement's approach to the state, carrying feminist demands to extend women's rights and opportunities into a direct engagement with the state.
As outlined in Chapter One, the emergence of femocrats can be traced back to the early
1970s when the newly elected Whitlam government provided funding for feminist run
self-help services and appointed women to work directly for the government in
various units which addressed women's issues. In these early days femocrats tended
to be appointed because of their stated political commitment to the Labor Party and to
women's issues. Since then, feminists have entered the bureaucracy in a number of
ways. Many women have entered women's units after spending some years as public
servants in 'mainstream' areas, while others have come from universities or the
community sector where they worked on women's issues. -35-
Types of Femocrats
Femocrats do not constitute a single group of women with similar perspectives and experiences, but work in a wide range of areas and represent a diverse range of political views. Lesley Lynch (1984:38) believes that the term 'feminist' has come to encompass both conservative and radical political perspectives and says "for feminist bureaucrats to presume they have any commonality of political perspective either in relation to the role of the bureaucracy or the content of feminism would be rash". This point is important when looking at the feminist criticisms of femocrats which tend to see femocrats as a single group with a similar political perspective.
Differences between femocrats are a reflection of several factors. These include their class background, the way in which they entered the bureaucracy, and the type of bureaucracy they work in. Such factors in turn may influence their attitude towards feminists outside the bureaucracy and their willingness to be involved in feminist projects or organisations not connected with their work.
Some femocrats begin their careers in community based feminist organisations such as women's refuges, and women’s health centres. They then become directly employed by government bodies which formulate policy or provide funding for such community based organisations, but which have little or no direct contact with the community.
Other femocrats enter the bureaucracy without having had on-the-ground' experience in feminist organisations. While they may be committed to feminist issues, they have not had much direct involvement in feminist groups outside the bureaucracy.
Other femocrats come from academic backgrounds, entering the bureaucracy either after spending time as students or as academics working on feminist issues. Linda
Conrad's study of EEO practitioners in Australian higher education institutions showed that twenty five percent of them have PhDs, which indicates that some at least -36-
have been academics or would like to be academics (1989:10). Femocrats with this
sort of background are likely to be well versed in feminist theory and may or may not
have been involved in feminist projects outside the bureaucracy.
As stated earlier, other femocrats spend years as public servants in mainstream areas
of the bureaucracy before becoming interested or involved in feminist issues. They
may become politicised through exposure to their department's EEO/affirmative action
program and contact with the EEO/Affirmative Action Officer, or through general
exposure to feminist issues in the media and the community.
An important group of femocrats consists of EEO/Affirmative Action Officers,
working in government departments and higher education institutions. Their role is to
develop and implement the organisation's EEO/affirmative action program. Since
most departments have only one EEO/Affirmative Action Officer, these femocrats tend
to work in isolation. Therefore they differ significantly from other femocrats who
work in units or organisations concerned with feminist issues, and who (presumably)
have the support of other femocrats. Christine Wieneke talks about the way in which
EEO/Affirmative Action Officers in higher education institutions are marginalised and ostracised by managers who feel threatened by organisational change, and suggests that "a theoretical understanding of feminist issues underpinning EEO and affirmative action is crucial for EEO Co-ordinators to survive and continue working under often very difficult conditions" (1990:14).
Given the diversity of their backgrounds and their positions in the bureaucracy, it is not surprising that femocrats differ enormously in their general political views and in their attitude towards specific feminist issues such as state intervention. While their presence in the bureaucracy implies that all femocrats believe in the necessity of a degree of state involvement in feminist issues, this does not mean that this issue is unproblematic for them. Nor does it mean that femocrats hold similar views on the -37-
state's ability to effect beneficial change for women. Those femocrats who believe
that the state does not provide all the answers for feminists and that it should not be the
main arena for reform, are perhaps more likely to be involved in feminist projects or
strategies outside the bureaucracy, while those femocrats who look to the state as
being the main arena for feminist reform are less likely to view 'outside' feminist
activities as necessary or even important.
Characteristics of Femocrats
Anna Yeatman (1990:65-67) outlines what she sees as four important characteristics of
femocrats. The first is that they occupy their positions in the bureaucracy because of
their stated commitment to feminism rather than in spite of it. In other words, one of
the criteria for selection to the position is a commitment to improving the position of
women.1 Yeatman's second characteristic is that femocrat positions are located within
the primary labour market, unlike many women's jobs. That is, femocrats generally
work full-time in professional or career-oriented positions. As Yeatman points out, this gives them access to permanency, relatively high salaries, annual paid leave, sick leave and superannuation (1990:66). While they may be marginalised within the primary labour market, they are nevertheless in quite a different position from the majority of women who work in low paid, low status, part-time or casual jobs with limited career prospects.
Yeatman's third characteristic of femocrats is that, like other women working in the primary labour market, many of them have minimised their domestic commitments by
1 Hester Eisenstein gives an example of this in "Femocrats, Official Feminism and the Uses of
Power" in Sophie Watson ed. (1990) Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions Sydney:
Allen & Unwin pp. 87 - 103. —38—
remaining single, by not having children, by dividing domestic labour equally with
their partners, or by employing people to take care of some domestic tasks. As
Yeatman (1990:67) points out, these arrangements create their own tensions. It still
remains women's responsibility to ensure that whatever domestic arrangements they
have made run smoothly, and they may face disapproval from friends, colleagues, or
family members because of their attempts to minimise their domestic responsibilities.
The fourth characteristic of femocrat positions outlined by Yeatman (1990:67) is that
femocrats, by virtue of their participation in the primary labour market, can claim their
own class position, that is, their class position is not defined by their father's or their
husband's position.
The way in which Yeatman defines femocrats is significant because it allows her to
include not only feminists in large bureaucracies, but feminists working in
community-based organisations such as women's health centres, women's refuges,
and rape crisis centres. Yeatman's rationale is that positions in these types of organisations are either "professional positions in their own right or effective stepping
stones to career public service positions" (1990:67).
Yeatman's definition of'femocrat' also allows her to include feminist academics who have like other feminists outside the bureaucracy, taken pains to distance themselves from feminist bureaucrats. Feminist academics have tended to see themselves as having a freedom which is not available to their sisters in the bureaucracy. While this may be true to a certain extent, Yeatman's point is that in terms of their class position, there is nothing much to distinguish between feminists working in the bureaucracy and those working in higher education institutions or community organisations.
While the definition of femocrat may legitimately be broadened to include these groups, there are nevertheless, important differences between the three categories. -39-
Feminists working in community-based organisations could not always be described
as professionals, nor do they tend to earn as much as their counterparts in the
bureaucracy. They are more likely to have stronger ties with other community-based
feminist groups, and more contact with feminists outside the bureaucracy than those
femocrats working in the bureaucracy. And while it is true that higher education
institutions have developed close ties with the state over the last decade and have
become more accountable to the government, feminist academics still have a degree of
freedom to express their feminist views without compromise. These differences are
not insignificant.
Nevertheless, Yeatman's comments have important ramifications for the discussion of
feminist criticisms of the femocracy, dealt with in Chapter Five. Her argument that
there is not a great deal of difference between feminists working in community-based organisations and feminists working in the bureaucracy, calls into question the validity of some of the criticisms levelled at femocrats by feminists outside the bureaucracy.
While femocrats are different from the majority of working women in some important respects, they still tend to work in 'feminised' areas of the state, and are therefore marginalised to some extent. They still tend to be concentrated in areas which have little prestige such as community services, welfare, health, and education. Few femocrats are found in 'hard' areas of the government which deal with issues such as industrial relations, economics, finance and defence. The EEO/Affirmative Action
Officers who do work in male dominated areas of the public service do not deal with
'portfolio' issues, but with 'corporate' issues, EEO/affirmative action being one of the least prestigious areas of corporate services in an organisation. —40—
Where do Femocrats Work?
In looking at the areas where public sector femocrats work, Sara Dowse (1984:146) has categorised the network of government bodies which specifically address women’s interests into five broad groups, for each of which I have provided some examples (mainly from the Commonwealth and New South Wales):
1. Women's policy and co-ordination units (Office of the Status of Women in the
Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, The Women's Bureau in the Federal
Department of Employment, Education and Training, The Women's Co-ordination
Unit in the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services, and
The Women's Directorate in the New South Wales Department of Industrial Relations and Employment);
2. Equal Opportunity units concerned with government employment (The Office of the
Director of Equal Opportunity in Public Employment covering the New South Wales public service, and the EEO Unit in the Public Service Commission, covering the
Commonwealth public service);
3. Anti-discrimination bodies (The New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Board, and
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, a Federal Government body);
4. Communitv-liaison bodies (The New South Wales Women's Advisory Council, a
State government body which advises the Premier, and the National Women's
Consultative Council which advises the Prime Minister);
5. Special bodies which carry out activities such as funding women's refuges (the
SAAP program in the Commonwealth Department of Community Services and Health and in the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services). -41-
Problems for Femocrats
Femocrats face a number of dilemmas about their role which are highlighted by
feminist criticisms of their position. These dilemmas are centred around an ambivalent
relationship with women and feminists outside the bureaucracy. Some of these
dilemmas are outlined below.
Can they Represent ’Ordinary Women'?
An important issue to examine is the question of whether femocrats are legitimately
able to represent the interests of Australian women, or whether their entry into the
public domain and into well-paid positions in the bureaucracy actually precludes them
from having much in common with the majority of women.
As Yeatman (and others) have pointed out, the policies which femocrats implement
tend to benefit directly only those women who have ready access to the labour market
and have the ability to take advantage of the career options being opened up to women.
Thus femocrats work to benefit themselves directly, rather than the majority of women who are not in the position to take advantage of EEO and affirmative action. As
Yeatman says of femocrats: "their organisational and intellectual assets distance them from the gender-class position of most women" (1990:78). Yeatman goes on to say:
These women are already positioned to make equal employment opportunity, newly achieved access to occupational welfare benefits such as superannuation, and affirmative action, work for them. Their condition and aspirations fit the dominant employment cultures and practices that inevitably colour how commitments to equal opportunity and the merit principle get realised. However these are a small minority of women in the workforce (1990:81).
Yeatman suggests that femocrats could devote their energies to challenging the gender segmentation of the labour force and the class division between the primary and —42-
secondary labour market, rather than confining themselves to improving conditions for
women in the primary labour market. However by doing so, femocrats would be
acknowledging and challenging their privileged class position within the primary
labour market. Thus, femocrats face a dilemma. As Yeatman puts it:
Their privileges, as workers with the assets of the primary labour market, would therefore be challenged, and their class allegiance put to the test: would they be willing to subordinate this privileged class identity to the gender-class identity they share with other women? (1990:81).
While Yeatman’s argument is valid, it needs to be remembered that not all femocrats
work on policies and programs that are targeted at white, middle class women.
Femocrats work in a range of areas that are not related to the broad issue of women
and work and do not directly benefit them. These include domestic violence, housing,
and health issues, which are often specifically targeted at working class women of
non-English speaking backgrounds. And not all policies and programs related to the
issue of women and work are targeted at middle class women. For example, the work
undertaken by the New South Wales Women’s Directorate (and other agencies) is concerned with award restructuring and opening up non-traditional areas of work to
women.
Yeatman (1990:61) does make the point that while femocrats may be in a privileged position in relation to the majority of women, they are nevertheless still disadvantaged in relation to men, and therefore can legitimately identify with the interests of women as a gender class. Femocrats face a number of barriers within the bureaucracy and still bear the burden of domestic responsibilities, thus sharing some of the oppression suffered by women generally. —43—
Lack of Contact between the Bureaucracy and the Feminist Movement
Femocrats face other dilemmas. While they occupy well paid professional positions
in common with non-feminist women managers and professionals, they occupy these
positions by virtue of their expressed commitment to feminist ideology. They are
professional feminists. One may well ask the question: "how do we know whether or
not femocrats are mainly concerned with advancing their c areers, or whether they are
genuinely interested in the concerns of the women's movement?" While there is no
reason why femocrats could not be pursuing careers, and at the same time be
genuinely concerned and involved with the broader issues of the women's movement,
there is little or no pressure on them to demonstrate a commitment to feminist issues
outside the immediate issues of their own workplace.
There are also problems around the notion of power. Femocrats are seen by other
feminists to have a considerable degree of power and this is difficult to reconcile with
the feminist claim that women are basically oppressed and the idea that power is a
negative thing. While feminists often feel ambivalent about the notion of women
having power, those outside the bureaucracy have expectations that femocrats will use their power to make gains for women. These expectations are not always met for a myriad of reasons. The lack of contact between femocrats and feminists outside the bureaucracy means that the expectations are not always communicated explicitly, and this lack of contact means that there is often a lack of empathy with the perspective of the 'other side'.
Another problem is that the femocrat labour market w’as partly created by the government's capitulation to feminist demands and is in fact dependent on the continuing legitimacy of the wider feminist movement. In spite of this, femocrats are not held accountable to the women's movement, but to their employers (Yeatman
1990:65). Those femocrats who are genuinely committed to the ideals of the women's movement, particularly those that remain actively involved in feminist activities outside
the bureaucracy, need to 'juggle' two often contradictory perspectives - that of their
employer, and that of feminists outside the bureaucracy. They do this with the
awareness of the well known criticism expressed by non-bureaucratic feminists, that
they have 'compromised their feminist principles'.
Other problems that femocrats face are related to the lack of contact and understanding
between the bureaucracy and the feminist movement. Unless femocrats are actively
involved in feminist projects or groups outside the bureaucracy, they run the risk of
becoming isolated in the bureaucracy and of becoming out of touch with the day-to-
day concerns and issues raised by the women's movement, as well as the perspectives
of 'ordinary women’. This not only has implications for femocrats personally, but
also for government policies which affect women, and of course, implications for
women and feminists outside the bureaucracy.
Hester Eisenstein talks about the widespread suspicion of femocrats among feminists
outside the bureaucracy, and reminisces back to a time when:
At least among white feminists there was an experience of finding within feminism relationships among women that were free of the conflicts and ambivalence that had characterized those among women within the family and friendships. Feminism seemed to promise a world of nurturance and acceptance, a redress of the hurts suffered by women at each other's hands in an era when female solidarity was impossible culturally. The entry of women into positions of significant power, even when this is accompanied by a feminist programme and personal commitment, has meant that relations among women of this kind cannot, structually speaking, partake of the quality of nurturance and mutual acceptance that was part of the feminist utopia (1990:102).
This ideal of togetherness, sharing and non-competitiveness was certainly to quite a large extent, a utopian one and feminists in the 1960s and 1970s in fact experienced similar sorts of conflicts and divisions between each other as femocrats and non- bureaucratic feminists have experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, the divisions were more likely to be between mothers and non-mothers, or lesbians and -45- heterosexual feminists.2 These rifts were at times, just as bitter as the conflicts which characterise the feminist movement now, only one of which is the question of feminism and the state.
Current conflicts within the feminist movement include the long running and bitter dispute about pornography,3 the rift between feminists who wish to play down differences between men and women and those feminists who wish to 'celebrate' these differences; and conflicts about sadomasochism.4 It could be argued that these sorts of conflicts are necessary if the feminist movement is not to lapse into an unquestioning complacency. The constant questioning of each other's position by feminists is not necessarily an unhealthy characteristic, but rather a reflection of the diversity of women's experiences and political positions within the movement. This
2 In Contemporary Feminist Thought (1984:69), Hester Eisenstein talks about feminists in the late
1960s feeling out of place in consciousness raising groups because they were mothers. In the same publication, Eisenstein documents the controversies over lesbianism which occurred in the 1970s
(1984:48-57) and the emotional debates which occurred within the feminist movement about pornography and sadomasochism (1984:116-124). An account of the conflicts between lesbians and heterosexual feminists is also given in the Introduction to Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell and Sharon
Thompson eds. (1983) Desire: The Politics of Sexuality London: Virago pp. 21 - 27
3 The debate within the feminist movement about pornography is outlined in Ellen Willis,
"Feminism, Moralism and Pornography" in Snitow et al., (1983) pp. 82 - 88. See also B. Ruby
Rich, "Anti-Pom: Soft Issue, Hard World" in Feminist Review, ed., (1987) Sexuality: A Reader pp.
340 - 354.
4 A critical examination of cultural feminism is given in Alice Echols, "The New Feminism of Yin and Yang" in Snitow et al. (1983) pp. 62 - 81. Echols asserts that "this movement's belief in a male and a female sexual essence has disturbing implications for future feminist practice and has already had deleterious political consequences". Issues around sadomasochism are discussed in Jessica Benjamin,
"Master and Slave: The Fantasy of Erotic Domination" in Snitow et al. pp. 292 -311. diversity enriches the movement The point is that conflicts have always been part of
the feminist movement, and while they may have become more apparent in the 1980s,
this can pardy be attributed to the increasing sophistication of feminist theory and the
growth in the variety of feminist positions possible over the last decade. These
differences are often the focus of attention for those outside the movement who have
various reasons for wishing to exaggerate or concentrate on possible conflicts between
feminists.5
Close links with the Labor Government
Femocrats face a number of other problems and contradictions. One of these concerns
the close connection between the Labor government and the rise of the femocracy. A
number of writers have drawn attention to the close connections that the feminist
movement has had with the Labor Party since 1972. Sawer points out that "the
Australian Labor Party at State and Federal levels has been responsible for all the
major pieces of anti-discrimination legislation in Australia..." (1985b:xvii-xviii).
Yeatman (1990:89) asserts that:
It is unlikely that Australian femocracy would have developed to the extent it has without the crucial coincidence of a reforming federal Labor Government and a dynamic women's movement in the period 1972-75, and without the renewal of this connection with the election of the Hawke Labor Government in 1983.
5 See Catharine Lumby (1990) "Women's Body Politic Begins with Male ABC" in The Sydney
Morning Herald. October 2, p. 3. This article which was a report on the first conference organised by the National Foundation for Australian Women, focused on rifts between feminists: "The real gremlin in the works, then, would seem to be the reigning ethic of pluralism which framed the event. Papers on pay equity strategies and award restructuring seemed strangely at odds with sessions titled
"Mystical Moon Magic Show: Revealing the Spiritual Path of a Witch". Filofax-wielding femocrats looked distinctly uncomfortable rubbing shoulders with purple-cloaked separatists". —47—
And in an outline of the development of EEO in New South Wales, Eisenstein talks about the important influence of the Wran Labor government on this process
(1990:101).
This relationship is problematic for several reasons. It has been argued, not unreasonably, that many of the Labor Party's policies have been formulated in an effort to attract the women's vote. As Hester Eisenstein asserts:
The Labor Party in New South Wales and nationally has committed itself in policy terms to a range of feminist objectives, from affirmative action to child care (although not to equal pay for work of comparable value), as a frank exercise in increasing its electoral margin (1990:101).
The problem with this is that the women's movement, in declaring its support for the
Labor Party, becomes implicated in Labor Party policies generally. It also means that while the Labor Party may have depended on women's votes to win power, women have depended on the Labor Party for jobs in the bureaucracy. Neither side can afford to alienate the other and for each party, this is risky for different reasons. In declaring support for women's issues, the Labor Party alienates conservatives who see the government as undermining the traditional nuclear family and women's 'right' to be full time homemakers. In declaring support for Labor Party policies, feminists alienate large sections of the women's movement. Femocrats find that they must
"accept the constraints of what is politically expedient, that is, saleable to the electorate and to the Party" (Eisenstein 1990:102).
The close connection between the women's movement and the Labor Government means that feminists are involved or implicated in many government initiated strategies which are in conflict with broad feminist goals. This has increasingly become the case as the Labor Party has become more conservative throughout the 1980s. While femocrats have mostly been employed by Labor governments (the Whitlam Federal government and the State governments of Dunstan and Wran), since 1972, the Labor —48-
Government has gradually moved in a direction which could be seen as being in
conflict with feminist goals. The Labor government of the 1980s and 1990s
particularly the Federal government, has increasingly emphasised economic
rationalisation, small government, privatisation, close ties with big business, a move
away from the welfare state to providing only for the most needy, and an emphasis on
the family rather than the state as having responsibility for providing for its members.
Femocrats working in areas of the bureaucracy which formulate and implement
policies on issues such as health, housing, social security, or education, may well find
themselves working on agendas which are in conflict with the broad aims of the
feminist movement. They may also find that they have to defend government policies
they may not personally agree with, in the face of criticism by feminists outside the
bureaucracy.
These Labor Party trends are reflected in the public service where there has been an increasing emphasis on economic rationalism, accountability and a reduction in government spending by cutting back staff. None of these trends are particularly conducive to implementing effective EEO/affirmative action programs, and the recent emphasis in the public service and in higher education institutions on 'mainstreaming' or 'devolving' EEO/affirmative action responsibilities to line managers (who have little knowledge of, or commitment to EEO/affirmative action) has been widely criticised by femocrats on the grounds that it is too early to talk about devolution.
Yeatman (1990:97) makes the point that one of the implications for femocrats of the
Labor Government's "corporatist strategies of rolling back the welfare state in the
1980s" is that the role of the family in providing for its members has become more important. As an illustration of this point, Yeatman (1990:92-97) talks about the issue of child maintenance, and the Labor government's recent policy of ensuring that non custodial parents (usually fathers) take responsibility for providing for their children by having money deducted from their salaries through the taxation system. While this -49- move was seen largely as a victory for women, Yeatman points out that the ramifications of the policy are a reinforcing of the traditional role of men and fathers as protectors and providers, and a minimising of the state's responsibility for the provision of services. In this sense, the policy is an anti-feminist one because it reinforces traditional notions of the nuclear family and privatises responsibility for children. Yeatman expresses some concern at the lack of critical analysis of this policy by feminists and explains feminist support for the policy by saying:
There has always been a traditionalist component within feminism threatening to turn feminist radicals into conservative 'god's police' who help upright and proper patriarchs bring their errant brethren back into the patriarchal-nuclear- family fold. It is a fairly easy matter to mobilise feminists' feminine resentment at the ways in which men, individually or collectively, have classically reneged on their responsibilities to their dependents (1990:96).
Yeatman concludes by saying that feminists must exercise caution in expecting the state to support feminist objectives.
Working in the Bureaucracy
Femocrats face a number of problems related to the bureaucratic environments in which they operate. They have to deal with the conflict of working within the bureaucracy which is traditionally seen as 'neutral', and at the same time use the bureaucracy to achieve feminist objectives. Working within a bureaucracy which is hierarchically structured and where industrial democracy is often espoused but less commonly practised, can also be problematic for those femocrats who are familiar with, and committed to the participatory, non-hierarchical structures espoused and practised by some feminist organisations outside the bureaucracy.
Femocrats who gain management positions within feminist organisations face their own set of problems. They may be criticised by femocrats working below them in the hierarchy for not demonstrating a sufficiently strong commitment to the principles of -50- industrial democracy and related issues such as worker autonomy and even EEO/affirmative action. They may consequently find themselves defending a management position which they feel they have limited power, skill, or resources to change.
As I shall discuss in the Chapter Five, feminist criticisms of the femocracy are often based on the view that feminists who choose to work in the bureaucracy invariably become co-opted and are forced to compromise their feminist views. Interestingly enough, in her discussion of femocrats in the New South Wales public service in the early 1980s, Hester Eisenstein paints a very different picture: For me, what was striking about the femocrats was their undisguised commitment to feminism, and the acceptance of this within the bureaucracy. This was not a generation of women who, to win senior positions in government, had had to conform to the reigning ethos and disguise their personal convictions. Indeed, the requirement of a demonstrated commitment to feminism, in the form of some experience in an activist area, had been, with some help from the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) programme, incorporated into job descriptions. The spectacle of very traditional-looking male bureaucrats, in pin-striped suits and conservative ties, reading over the credentials of women candidates and discussing seriously their respective claims to authentic feminist commitment and political experience, is one that stays with me as a testimony to the effectiveness of the femocratic strategy, at least as a way into the ranks of the bureaucracy" (1990:90).
However, while it is still acceptable for many femocrats to have an 'undisguised commitment to feminism’, this does not mean that they do not face substantial dilemmas in trying to work within the bureaucracy. This is particularly the case for femocrats working in isolation from other feminists.
Specific Problems for EEO/Affirmative Action Practitioners
Many of the problems generally faced by femocrats are often compounded for those femocrats who are EEO/Affirmative Action Officers in government departments or higher education institutions. Their role is to develop and implement the organisation's EEO/affirmative action program, a job often done in isolation from —51-
people who share their feminist views and commitment to EEO and affirmative action
issues. Because of this isolation, EEO/Affirmative Action Officers face many
problems not experienced by femocrats who work in women’s units or sections of
departments which deal with women's issues. More often than not, they face a long
and frustrating struggle to implement organisational change in organisations which
may have a theoretical commitment to EEO/affirmative action, but a limited
understanding of EEO/affirmative action principles, and an unwillingness to 'rock the
boat too much' or implement change quickly. EEO/Affirmative Action Officers are
constrained by many factors including unsupportive supervisors and managers, a
small or non-existent budget, insufficient administrative support, and employees who
have little understanding of, or interest in EEO/affirmative action issues. They may
also find that they do not possess the large range of skills necessary to operate in such
a difficult environment. In order to be effective, EEO/Affirmative Action Officers
need sound negotiation, interpersonal, management, counselling, presentation, and corporate planning skills, as well as a thorough understanding of how to implement organisational change.
Christine Wieneke (1990:12-14) has outlined the problems many EEO/Affirmative
Action Officers in higher education institutions face in trying to obtain support for their organisation's EEO/affirmative action program. She points out that many managers feel defensive about, and threatened by organisational change and that they deal with this by ostracising and marginalising the EEO/Affirmative Action Officer. This can be done in a number of ways. EEO/Affirmative Action Officers can be denied membership of committees, not consulted about decisions, and be ignored or criticised. My conversations with many EEO/Affirmative Action Officers from higher education institutions confirm this finding. They often have extra duties added to their job without being given an increase in resources to deal with these duties, which results in an overwhelming workload. Many are denied access to important —52—
institutional decision making processes and knowledge about policies and procedures
which have significant EEO/affirmative action implications.
For these reasons, it is crucial that EEO/Affirmative Action Officers have the support
of at least a few important individuals in the institution and preferably the support of
the personnel section. Liz Wauchope's evaluation of the affirmative action programs
of fifteen higher education institutions found that in the institutions which were the
most advanced in their affirmative action program, the EEO/Affirmative Action officer
had the support of the personnel section (1989:27). A 1990 evaluation of the
EEO/affirmative action programs in a sample of higher education institutions carried
out by the Affirmative Action Agency found that EEO/Affirmative Action Officers
viewed the support and co-operation of the personnel section and of senior
management as being very important to them.6
Public sector EEO/Affirmative Action Officers also face problems not experienced by
EEO/Affirmative Action Officers in the private sector. They are often placed in a
vague category of not quite being managers, but also not being in the same category as
other employees. They may be viewed by their management as being aligned with
unions, employees, or other government agencies. For good reasons, public sector
EEO/Affirmative Action Officers may align themselves with the particular government
agency which their organisation reports to on its EEO/affirmative action program (in
the case of the Commonwealth, this is currently the EEO Unit of the Public Service
Commission, and in the case of New South Wales, it is currently the Office of the
Director for Equal Opportunity in Public Employment).7
6 "Program Evaluation Project" (forthcoming 1991) Unpublished report Sydney: Affirmative
Action Agency.
7 All institutions of higher education in Australia report to the Affirmative Action Agency on their affirmative action programs. —53—
As Hester Eisenstein (1990:100) points out, whichever choice they make is awkward.
In choosing to side with feminists in the outside body, they run the risk of falling out
with managers in their own organisation. The consequences of this choice are that
management sees them as an enemy not to be trusted, and ensures that they have little
power and limited access to information. On the other hand, by remaining loyal to
their employer, they miss the opportunity of receiving valuable moral and practical
support from sympathetic feminists in the outside agency. They may also have to
defend their department's EEO/affirmative action program to the outside agency in the
face of criticism.
In higher education institutions the appointment of the EEO/Affirmative Action Officer
may be the result of pressure from women staff and students.8 While they may
command reasonable salaries, they rarely have much decision making power or status
within their organisation and are commonly excluded from forums where institutional
decision making is carried out. The recent spate of amalgamations in the higher
education sector has in many cases, exacerbated these problems since it has given
management in institutions many opportunities to erode hard won benefits and
conditions not only for employees generally, but for EEO/Affirmative Action
Officers.9
8 See Nicole Whitehouse (1987) "The Role of Equal Opportunity Officers in the Higher Education
Institutions in Western Australia" Unpublished thesis, Murdoch University, p. 83
9 This is documented in some reports lodged with the Affirmative Action Agency, but more importantly, articulated to me by EEO/Affirmative Action Officers in higher education institutions.
For example, one EEO/Affirmative Action Officer who had previously been granted the right to be an observer on selection committees, apparently lost this right during the amalgamation process. A number of EEO/Affirmative Action Officers in higher education institutions have complained of —54—
Femocrats have a choice between trying to exert as much influence as they can by
aiming to achieve powerful positions within the state, or retaining a more radical
outlook and by doing so, becoming marginalised within the state. Wieneke and
Durham (1990:9-10) found in their interviews with EEO practitioners in higher
education institutions that the stronger their personal ideological commitment was to
what they were doing, the more they were marginalised by management within their
institution. Those practitioners who became involved in other activities of the
institution which were seen to be legitimate, such as research or teaching, were most
accepted by management as 'normal'.
Femocrats as Managers
Public sector femocrats not uncommonly face the dilemma of whether or not to
identify with managerial values which are traditionally viewed as male values, and
which emphasise the importance of hierarchical structures and competitiveness. By
choosing to identify with management, they face a number of dilemmas. Adopting
these values may mean that they have to openly compete with other women and put
their own interests first. As mentioned above, they may also find themselves alienated
from other employees, and in the situation of having to support unpopular
management initiated strategies. The adoption of corporate values is particularly
problematic for femocrats who have participated in grass-roots feminist groups which
have endeavoured to promote the values of collectivity, non-hierarchical structures,
and sharing. As the lucrative management industry and its offshoot 'women and management' industry gain in popularity and acceptance, these problems are compounded for public sector femocrats who may feel pressure to conform to
losing their right to participate in normal decision making forums in their institution as a result of amalgamation. —55-
particular images of what managers should look like, what skills they should have,
and how they should behave generally.
While being aligned with management or rather being seen to be aligned with
management, creates its own problems for femocrats, being opposed to management
creates significant tensions as well. This is particularly well illustrated by the case of
EEO/Affirmative Action Officers in higher education institutions, many of whom are
frequently in the position of battling with management over issues such as recruitment,
selection, promotion and transfer procedures, conditions of service for women,
representation of women on important decision making committees, and resourcing of
EEO/affirmative action units.10 It is not uncommon for EEO/Affirmative Action
Officers in higher education institutions to enlist the support of outside bodies such as
the Affirmative Action Agency in their fight with management over a particular issue.
This is not something that would normally occur in the private sector where
EEO/Affirmative Action Officers are more likely to align themselves with management
and against outside bodies.
Private Sector Femocrats
There are a number of significant differences between EEO/Affirmative Action
practitioners in the public sector and their counterparts in the private sector. While private sector employers are obliged by law to develop and implement affirmative action programs, this obligation is a recent one.*11 Unlike the public sector, where it
10 See Nicole Whitehouse's account of interviews with EO Officers in higher education institutions in Western Australia. This information has also been gained in conversations with EEO/Affirmative
Action Officers.
11 The Affirmative Action Act was proclaimed in 1986 and was phased in over several years.
Companies with over 1000 employees were covered by the Act from February 1987, companies with —56—
is common for EEO/Affirmative Action Officers to work on EEO/affirmative action
issues on a full-time basis, those appointed to implement private sector affirmative
action programs tend to do so on a very part-time basis. They may be Personnel
Managers with responsibilities for several other important areas such as training and
staff development, recruitment, industrial relations and finance. Since their
EEO/affirmative action responsibilities account for a minor part of their job, they are
unlikely to primarily see themselves as EEO/Affirmative Action practitioners. They
are less likely than public sector EEO/Affirmative Action Officers to find themselves in
the situation of having to defend their position to those opposed to EEO and
affirmative action, because they can legitimately describe themselves as 'Personnel
Managers’ or 'Human Resources Managers'.
Unlike the public sector, it is not uncommon for private sector employers to place a junior member of staff in charge of the company's affirmative action program. This is
a clear indication of a lack of commitment by senior management to making progress
and a sure sign that little progress will be made.12
There are other reasons why private sector EEO/Affirmative Action practitioners do
not face the same conflicts encountered by public sector EEO/Affirmative Action practitioners. Private sector companies tend to place a great deal of importance on corporate loyalty and encourage employees' commitment to the organisation's
'mission' and its ideals and objectives. Private sector EEO/Affirmative Action practitioners tend not to face the dilemma of where to place their loyalties - they are
between 500 and 999 employees were covered from February 1988, and companies with between 100 and 499 employees were covered from February 1989.
1 My numerous conversations with EEO/Affirmative Action practitioners in the private sector confirms this trend. It is also discussed in "Management Passes the Buck to Junior Staff, The
Australian February 2-3, 1991, p. 55. —57—
clearly aligned with management, are seen as managers, and are generally paid
handsomely for this.
This identification with a management perspective is reflected in the difficulties that
many private sector employers and EEO/Affirmative Action practitioners have with the
requirement of the Affirmative Action Act to "consult with each trade union having
members affected by the proposal for the development and implementation of the
program".13 This may in fact be the first time that some employers have had contact
with unions, and many find the notion of union consultation abhorrent and
unnecessary. Some employers attempt to justify their lack of contact with the unions
by stating that employees are happy, and have no need or desire to join the union.14
As a result, private sector EEO/Affirmative Action Officers often find this one of the
hardest requirements with which to comply.15 While public sector employers may
have similar attitudes towards unions, they cannot express these views as openly as
their private sector counterparts, since union consultation has been an officially
acknowledged part of industrial democracy in the public service for some time.16
13 See Section 8. (l)(c) of the Affirmative Action Act.
14 This type of comment is not uncommon in the reports lodged annually in accordance with the
Affirmative Action Act
15 The reports lodged with the Affirmative Action Agency by private sector employers in 1989 showed that of the eight steps employers were required to undertake, union consultation (step 3) had the second highest rate of non-compliance. Only forty-five percent of employers indicated that they had consulted with all or some trade unions that were affected by the affirmative action program.
Twenty percent of companies indicated that union consultation was not applicable to their organisation. For more information on compliance rates, see the Affirmative Action Agency’s
Annual Report 1989 - 90 Canberra: AGPS.
16 For an overview of industrial democracy in the Australian Public Service, see David Burchell
(1987) "Work Democracy: Old Meets New". Australian Society. February, pp. 17 - 19. —58—
Since the passing of the Affirmative Action Act, it has not been uncommon for private
sector employers to pay large sums of money to employ consultants to develop and/or
implement their affirmative action program. This could indicate that these employers
are so committed to affirmative action that they are prepared to spend money to ensure
that they do it properly. Alternatively, it could indicate a desire by employers to
distance themselves from the issue, or at least avoid direcdy confronting it, while at
the same time being able to feel that they are genuinely taking action. In some
situations, it may indicate that employers simply don't know what to do to comply
with the Affirmative Action Act, and while they wish to 'do the right thing', they are
not prepared to put time into this process, and find it easier to pay consultants to do it
for them. Ironically, many of the consultants being paid to implement affirmative
action programs for private sector companies know little about affirmative action
either, and request advice from the Affirmative Action Agency.
The dilemmas and problems faced by femocrats and particularly by EEO/Afflrmative
Action practitioners, are compounded by the knowledge that substantial sections of the
outside women's movement disapprove of their position in the bureaucracy. For
those femocrats with a strong personal commitment to feminism and an interest in the
concerns of 'ordinary' women, this can be disillusioning and frustrating. In the
following two chapters, I will outline the criticisms of femocrats, EEO and affirmative
action which have been put forward by feminists outside the bureaucracy and the ways in which femocrats have tried to answer these criticisms. Chapter Four - Feminist Criticisms of EEO and Affirmative Action
Many feminists have voiced criticisms of EEO and affirmative action as strategies for
improving women's position in the workforce. The basis of many of these criticisms
is a belief that EEO and affirmative action will not fundamentally affect the patriarchal
nature of the workforce because they do not challenge male dominated structures.
Rather, they are management-driven strategies which will make a few unthreatening
changes to organisations, without really changing the status quo. For example, Game
and Pringle ask the question:
Are liberal feminists' demands simply being co-opted or do they have a subversive potential in this context? Under what circumstances could EEO threaten patriarchal relations in the workplace? (1984:76).
In Gender at Work (1983:21-22) Game and Pringle assert that EEO and affirmative
action programs can be absorbed effortlessly by organisations because they are entirely compatible with the form of male control now operating. In another publication, Game supports this argument by pointing out that while EEO principles espouse the principle of evaluating everyone according to the same 'objective' criteria, in practice, this means that women will simply be evaluated according to 'male' criteria. Male dominated structures and rules will go unchallenged. She makes a similar point in relation to the issue of consultation. One of the requirements of the
Affirmative Action Act is for employers to consult with unions and employees about their program. Game believes that this is a perfect device for management control.
Management consults employees and unions, and then takes control of the program in the knowledge that consultation has taken place and that employees and unions cannot accuse management of not having consulted (1984:255).
—59— —60—
This situation could arise of course, but Game's argument is not very convincing.
Presumably, if management consults with employees and unions about its program, at least some expectations are going to be raised, and some employees are going to expect management to take into account the views of those consulted. The very fact that a substantial number of private sector employers express a strong reluctance to consult with unions and employees about affirmative action suggests that consultation is not as innocuous as Game suggests. One reason why some organisations do not like administering staff surveys is that they raise employees' expectations. An example of this is surveys of employees' childcare needs. Most employers recognise that if they are not actually prepared to take some action about meeting the childcare needs of their employees, then they would be most unwise to ask employees what their needs are.
Christine Wieneke (1990:24) makes a similar point in saying that if EEO can be as readily absorbed into patriarchal structures as feminist critics suggest, then why is it resisted so strongly and seen as a threat by those wishing to maintain the status quo?
It is naive to claim that EEO and affirmative action have not challenged patriarchal
structures at all. It may be the case that EEO/affirmative action programs have not resulted in the dramatic changes hoped for by many, but the fact that there is still considerable resistance to EEO and affirmative action by employers suggests that it has
the potential to challenge existing structures and attitudes.
While there are many employers who simply pay lip service to their responsibilities
under the Affirmative Action Act, there are also many employers who have taken these responsibilities seriously and have genuinely tried to improve the position of their
women employees. The fact that some employers do not comply with the intent of the
Act, is not a valid argument against the principles of affirmative action or indeed the
legislation itself. —61—
Another criticism of affirmative action is that the introduction of the Affirmative Action
Act was a capitulation to the feminist movement's demands and was a public relations
exercise for the Hawke government at a time when the Australian Labor Party
recognised the crucial need for women's votes (Game 1984:256, Sawer 1985b:xvi).
While this may be the case, this is not a valid criticism of the Affirmative Action Act
itself. It could be argued that all legislation for social change such as legislation
protecting the environment, is brought about by public pressure. This does not negate
its effectiveness. Indeed, it could be argued that the more pressure it takes to enact
such legislation, the more likely it is that the legislation is radical.
Other criticisms of EEO and affirmative action as strategies for improving women's
position in the workforce have focused on the notions of equality, merit and
objectivity which are the linchpin of EEO and affirmative action (Game 1984). These
terms have been problematic for both proponents and opponents of EEO and
affirmative action. Feminist critics have pointed out that 'equal' really means being
equal with men, and have criticised the assumption that women should become more
like men (Game and Pringle 1986:290, Game 1984:254). This criticism is sometimes
based on a belief in women-centred values and the need for women to celebrate and
nurture these values.
Sophie Watson (1990:11) talks about this dilemma, pointing out that because women's exclusion from the public sphere has been based on physical attributes such as their reproductive capacity, it has been necessary to play down these differences in order to prove their capacity for working in the public domain. However, by playing down these differences, women also lose out.
This point is illustrated quite well in an example about childcare. According to EEO and affirmative action principles, selection committees are supposed to ignore the sex of an applicant for a job and ask each person the same questions in a job interview. -62-
Questions about childcare arrangements are definitely out, since they supposedly
discriminate against women. For example, instead of asking applicants what their
childcare arrangements are, according to EEO and affirmative action principles,
selection panels are supposed to ask whether or not applicants can work overtime at
short notice. Feminist critics point out that while the latter question is apparently
gender neutral, it has a very different significance for men and women because it
masks the fact that women still carry the major responsibility for children.
Furthermore, women's experience in raising children is not seen as relevant work
experience, but more as a liability for career minded women. As Ann Game points
out:
if childcare experience was regarded as a qualification, and men who had children were required to demonstrate that they took responsibility and time working on childcare, the outcome in terms of equality and work organisation would look very different (1984:257).
Like the notion of equality, the concepts of objectivity and merit are problematic. The
importance of the merit principle is stated again and again in arguments which justify
the need for EEO and affirmative action, and this idea of merit is clearly enshrined in
the Affirmative Action Act.1 However, proponents of EEO and affirmative action
have long recognised that the concept of merit is problematic.2 There would be few
organisations which claim that they don't recruit on the basis of merit, yet it is clear
that merit means very different things to different people and that women have
suffered discrimination because of this.
This is not to say that the focus on merit by EEO/Affirmative Action practitioners is an
unrealistic or unproductive one. It does mean that it is crucial for organisations to
1 Section 3. (4), Affirmative Action Act.
2 See Clare Burton with Raven Hag and Gay Thompson (1987) Women's Worth: Pav Equity and Job
Evaluation in Australia, and Clare Burton (1988) Redefining Merit Monograph No. 2, Affirmative
Action Agency. Canberra: AGPS. -63- address the issue by closely examining the way in which they define merit, to determine whether or not their concept of merit discriminates against women. This process, if done in a genuine way will probably be a useful one, and is likely to result in the recruitment of more women into the organisation. Even if this process does not result in a completely equitable system, it will have alerted managers to an important issue which has ramifications for a wide range of personnel policies and practices.
As discussed in Chapter Three, a common criticism of affirmative action is that it only benefits a few white collar, middle class women (Lynch 1984:41). As Anna Yeatman points out, because femocrats participate in the primary labour market they are in an ideal position to reap the benefits of affirmative action strategies because "their condition and aspirations fit the dominant employment cultures and practices that inevitably colour how commitments to equal opportunity and the merit principle get realised" (1990:81).
Other feminists have made similar points. Ann Game states: "It is difficult to see how
AA could be of any relevance to the majority of women workers in vulnerable positions in sex-segregated areas. It is rather easier to see how individual women who have struck some barriers on their career paths might gain when management recognises their underutilised talents" (1984:254-255). Franzway, Court and Connell assert that equal opportunity strategies are conceived in terms of career paths and thus give priority "to the interests of an educated minority of women and may create a structural split between organised feminism and working-class women, the movement's potential mass base" (1989:54). Kathy Ferguson (1984) argues that working class women do not have access to decent jobs despite EEO legislation and asserts that:
Laws concerning equal opportunity and affirmative action are examples of reforms that often benefit individual women, but that do little to challenge the larger system or to make further change likely (1984:194). 64
This argument is frequently brought up by non-feminist as well as feminist critics of
affirmative action. While the argument is certainly a valid one, the Affirmative Action
Act was not intended to merely encourage employers to concentrate on getting women
into managerial positions, and in advising employers, the Affirmative Action Agency
has tried to emphasise the importance of initiatives which benefit women in low-
paying, low skilled jobs with little or no career paths.*3 With the recent entry of award
restructuring onto the industrial relations agenda, this line is also being pushed by
many other feminist agencies dealing with women's employment.4
The types of issues which employers covered by the Affirmative Action Act are asked
to consider are the establishment of career paths for all women, introduction of
measures to assist workers with family responsibilities (such as flexible working
hours, job sharing, and assistance with, or provision of childcare), grievance procedures, particularly in relation to sexual harassment, and training and development opportunities for women employees including English language training for women of non-English speaking backgrounds. None of these issues are necessarily more relevant to women in managerial positions than they are to women at the bottom of an organisation's hierarchy (although they may be seen as such by employers).
At the same time, it should be said that many working class women may not want to view their jobs in terms of a career, seeing it as something which is necessary in order to survive. Women who have little power or status in an organisation and particularly those whose first language is not English, may also be less likely to use grievance
See "Restructuring a Chance to Reduce Exploitation", The Weekend Australian. February 2 - 3
1991, p. 56.
4 For example, The Women's Directorate (NSW Dept. Industrial Relations), The Women’s
Employment Branch (Victorian Dept. Labour), The Women's Bureau (Commonwealth Dept.
Employment, Education & Training). -65-
procedures or expect training and development opportunities than women from middle
class backgrounds who see their work in career terms. It may also be the case that
employers covered by the Affirmative Action Act misinterpret its objectives, or simply
find it easier to concentrate on women in management.
Another feminist criticism made of EEO and affirmative action is that these initiatives
do not challenge patriarchal structures outside the workplace. For example, Marian
Sawer (1990:211) makes the point that because women still have the main responsibility for domestic chores, it is hard for them to compete equally in the paid
workforce. This is a valid point which is beginning to be partially addressed by a recognition of the need to address the needs of workers with family responsibilities.
The Federal Government's recent ratification of International Labour Convention No.
156: Workers with Family Responsibilities, the ACTU parental leave test case which resulted in unpaid paternity leave, and the Department of Community Services and
Health's Industry Initiative scheme which is designed to encourage employers to establish work-related childcare facilities, are indications of a growing recognition of the needs of workers with family responsibilities. This growing awareness is reflected in the reports lodged by employers under the Affirmative Action Act which have increasingly made links between affirmative action and the needs of workers with family responsibilities.
While feminists have been critical of EEO and affirmative action, perhaps the most vocal feminist criticisms have focused on the femocracy itself. Since these criticisms have often targeted femocrats, they have been met with equally vocal responses. The following chapter outlines these criticisms and the responses made by femocrats and other feminists. Chapter Five - Feminist Criticisms of the Femocracy
One of the big questions is, of course, whether or not this development constitutes a healthy phase in an ongoing radical movement. Is it a strategic transference of the struggle to the infiltration of a key arena of influence or an undermining of the Women's Movement, or at least a significant section of it, as a radical force in the Australian social and political scene? (Lynch 1984:38)
As discussed in Chapter One, there has been a long running debate within the feminist
movement about how much feminists should look to the state to intervene in, or
support feminist initiatives and goals. Elizabeth Reid's appointment in 1973 as the
First Women's Advisor to the Prime Minister was one of the first actions which
sparked off this debate. As feminists outside the bureaucracy were forced to confront
the issue of whether or not to seek government funding for their feminist self-help
services, the rift in the movement grew. While some sort of state intervention may
now be readily accepted by many feminists, criticisms of femocrats have not really
abated. In this chapter, I will look at some of the main criticisms that have been made of femocrats by feminists outside the bureaucracy, and will also look at some of the
arguments put forward by femocrats (and others) to justify their position, or at least to answer the criticisms.
Feminist criticisms of the femocracy tend to be (implicit or explicit) criticisms of liberal feminism itself, and the liberal feminist attitude towards the state which is seen as conservative and too willing to accommodate itself to male-defined structures. For example, Kathy Ferguson (1984:193) points out that while liberal feminism's advocacy of women's participation in public life has in the past been important, necessary and even radical, this is not the case now. She points out that during the first wave of feminism, this approach achieved a number of successes for women including the right to vote and to work outside the home. Ferguson argues that since
—66— —67-
women have basically won the right to participate in public life, liberal feminism is no
longer radical and merely advocates acceptance of the rule:s of the dominant discourse,
and a fitting in with bureaucratic and other male defined structures.
One of the assumptions behind feminist criticisms of femocrats is that they believe in,
and are committed to a liberal feminist framework. Wiene;ke (1990:16-17) argues that
this is not necessarily the case in relation to EE0/Affirmati ve Action Officers in higher
education institutions and points out that they have little option but to conform to the
system they are working within. This does not mean that they agree with the system
or that they do not hold radical views. However, femocrats are assessed by other
feminists according to the position they hold in the bureaucracy. If they are not
involved in feminist projects outside the bureaucracy, they' have little chance of being
able to communicate their personal views to other feminists.
Criticisms of the femocracy fall into a number of categories. Some are based on a profound distrust of the state and on the view that it cannot, or should not be used as an agent of change for feminists. Other criticisms focus mare on the bureaucracy itself and on what is seen as its 'maleness'. These criticisms are based on a pessimism about the ability of the bureaucracy to bring about radical change for the benefit of women. Other approaches specifically criticise EEO or affirmative action as strategies, while perhaps the most well known criticisms focus on femocrats as individuals.
Criticisms of using the state as an agent of change
As I briefly outlined in Chapter One, some feminists have consciously rejected the state as an agent of change and have tried to exclude it from their particular feminist projects and from their lives. Generally speaking, this view has been articulated by radical feminists and has sometimes been accompanied by a belief that women should —68— create their own women-centred world which is seen as one based on non- hierarchical, collective values.
Many feminists with this view of the state have been critical of feminists who have chosen to be part of the bureaucracy or other state structures, seeing them as having rejected the feminist cause. One of the most well known proponents of this view is Mary Daly who talked with contempt of "painted birds" - those women who try to accommodate themselves to the male world.1 As Daly points out, the story of the painted bird is one in which a "tortured bird is given an artificial self; she is cosmeticized by her tormentor to such an extent that she is unrecognizable to her own kind. The latter turn upon her, torture and kill her" (1978:334). Daly goes on to say that since men have the power, they make choices about what sort of women will be 'successful' in their world, and invariably choose those women who won't challenge the rules and who will cause no trouble:
we can see the strong probability that those chosen for such roles will be drawn from the ranks of the token women - those most tokenized, cosmeticized, most identified with male purposes. This quasi-chemical combination equals "Athena". In a social situation in which there is pressure to nod approvingly in the direction of feminism, it is highly probable that the Athena will call herself a "feminist" (Daly 1978:335).
Some proponents of this view of the state would say that the increased involvement of feminists with the state is a result of "weariness and lack of perceived radical alternatives" (Lynch 1984:42). In any case, few of the radical feminist explanations for feminists' involvement with the state have regarded the femocrat choice as being a carefully thought out, informed, or useful choice.
1 Mary Daly (1978) Gvn/Ecolo^v: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism London: Women’s Press pp. 333 - 336 -69-
Answers to feminist criticisms about the state
One of the most common answers to feminist criticisms of the femocracy is that given
the control the state has over our lives, and the close connection that feminism has
with the state, it is simply not possible for feminists to productively ignore the state.
This argument has not only been used by femocrats but by feminists who have been
largely critical of feminist links with the state. Lesley Lynch, in an article which is
critical of femocrats states that "various degrees of accommodation to the society are
pretty universal. Therefore to label the feminist who moves into the bureaucracy as a
traitor per se is divisive nonsense" (1984:40). Kathy Ferguson in The Feminist Case
Against Bureaucracy (1984) also makes quite clear her view that feminists cannot
afford to completely ignore the bureaucracy.
Feminists who are critical of the radical feminist approach to the state have pointed out that the solution of rejecting the state and creating a 'women-centred' world is only available to white, middle-class educated women whose lives are less affected by the state than those of non-white, working-class women. Eva Cox sums up this argument and makes the point that while some women are in the privileged position of being able to minimise their involvement with the state, this solution is not available to most women. Nor is this solution, Cox believes, one that will be beneficial to women in the long term:
The response is not to get out and preserve integrity, but to stay in and fight to take control. If the State represents coalitions of interest, we must work out ways to ensure we have the power to be part of the negotiation, and that will be a long battle. If too many believe the game is not worth a candle, we lose both in the short and long term. The State has too much power for us to ignore it. We might succeed as individuals in separating out our lives and minimising interference, but we leave the bulk of women without that choice. The State will permit small numbers to escape its control, but any massive defections would be matched by repressive action, because this would endanger the social fabric, and the interests of the State (1982:31). —70—
This argument is often used by socialist feminists who recognise the oppressive role
of the state, but whose solution is to confront it rather than to retreat. Michele Barrett
(1980), while certainly not condoning a liberal feminist solution, outlines several
reasons why a feminist attack on the state is not necessarily a reformist one. Barrett
believes that the state is to some extent "responsive to concerted pressure", that it
should be a site of struggle, and that to completely reject this level of struggle is to
"lapse into the romance of anarchism" (1980:246). Barrett also makes the point that
the state is important because "public sector cuts are likely to increase women's
dependence on men in the household" (1980:246).
Femocrats defending feminist links with the state often point to the reforms that have
been achieved by the feminist movement's demands upon the state. Cork et al.
(1986:27) put forward the view that while the Left has been quick to criticise
femocrats and feminist involvement with the state, there has been little intellectual or
detailed analysis of the implications of affirmative action and EEO programs,
particularly of their potential to achieve significant and beneficial changes for women.
Defenders of feminist involvement with the state also point out the contradictions in
arguments by feminist critics of the state who on one hand, reject the notion of
feminist involvement with the state, and on the other hand, look to the state for
intervention on a whole range of issues such as domestic violence, pornography, and
abortion. This criticism has been made of American feminists, Catharine MacKinnon
and Andrea Dworkin who reject feminist involvement with the state, but also led the
feminist push for legal reform in the area of pornography.2 Kathy Ferguson tries to
address this contradiction by arguing that sometimes the problems are so immediate
2 See B. Ruby Rich (1987) "Anti-Pom:Soft Issue, Hard World" in Feminist Review ed. pp. 340 -
354 —71—
that feminists have to resort to the solution of legal reform, even if this approach is
"inherently limited" (1984:194).
A number of writers point to the necessity of getting away from simplistic notions of
the state, arguing that the state is many different things and has historically represented
a wide range of conflicting interests, not all of them conservative or patriarchal.
Hester Eisenstein (1986:22) makes the point that there is a tradition in Australia of
using the state as a means to achieve social change. Eisenstein cites the industrial
arbitration system as an example, pointing out that it has been "an important brake on
the free play of the labour market". She asserts that feminists can constructively use
the state to achieve victories, calling this "feminist judo", and defining this as "cleverly
placing yourself so as to use the overwhelming weight of state power in your favour"
(1986:22).
Franzway, Court and Connell (1989:28) make the point that if the state embodies
men's interests, not all states do it in the same way, and therefore it is necessary for feminists to examine the nature of the state and analyse exactly how and why it is patriarchal. These writers also talk about the problem with the 'conspiracy' view, and argue that the problem has been not so much individual men or groups of men directly asserting their patriarchal rights, but more in the way that the state's structures have been constructed to be impersonal and objective (1989:29).
There are other problems with the radical feminist view of the state. It has been pointed out by a number of writers that this view of the state assumes that the process by which groups are 'co-opted' by the state is unproblematic both for the state and for the co-opted parties. The process by which feminists might engage in struggle with the state is not noted, and it is assumed that there are two choices: either to become co opted by the state, thereby giving up feminist ideals, or reject the state altogether.
There is apparently no middle ground which feminists can take whereby they engage —72— with the state, but still retain their feminist goals and values. Franzway, Court &
Connell assert that "we need to challenge the view that the state is omnipotent and co option inevitable" (1989:149).
Sophie Watson makes that point that the view of the state which assumes that feminist
involvement leads either to co-option or dilution of feminism assumes that
there exists outside the bureaucratic political arena a coherent unified and defined set of feminist demands or interests which may or may not be met. Second, that rather than being constituted in the interaction with, or arenas of, the state, these interests exist autonomously and prior to feminist intervention (1990:11).
Criticisms of the bureaucracy itself
Other criticisms of the femocracy focus not so much on the state but on the nature of
the bureaucracy itself, and are based on the view that feminism and bureaucracy are
incompatible. Feminist critics of the bureaucracy ascribe a number of characteristics to
bureaucratic organisations, seeing them in the traditional sense of being hierarchical,
authoritarian, impersonal, functional, rational, and objective (Ferguson 1984). The
basis of much feminist criticism of the bureaucracy is that these are male characteristics
which are at odds with feminist values or ideals, and that by joining the bureaucracy,
feminists are implicitly accepting bureaucratic values, thereby weakening the feminist
cause.
Some of these views arise from first hand experience in dealing with the bureaucracy.
As discussed in Chapter One, feminists running community based organisations along
feminist lines in the 1970s were forced to make certain compromises in order to
receive funding from the state which had the power to decide how the 'crumbs were
divided'. Jocelyn Auer discusses this dilemma in her account of the formation and
development of government funded women’s health centres in South Australia
(1990:207-217). The Hindmarsh centre, opened in 1976, was established by an -73- association which "sought to operate as a collective and to equalize decision-making power amongst members" (1990:210). As Auer points out however,
The health bureaucracy, used to its hierarchical structures, found the referring of questions for decision to the collective enormously frustrating and several bureaucrats described the process as 'impossible' (1990:211).
Similar accounts have been given in relation to women's refuges, and other feminist- run community based organisations.3 Feminist critics with this sort of experience of the bureaucracy have pointed out the seemingly arbitrary way in which funding is allocated to community organisations. They have drawn attention to the fact that groups which are more willing to conform to the bureaucracy's notions of how organisations should be run are more likely to receive funding than those groups which refuse to abandon their feminist ideals.
Interestingly, some of these problems have parallels with the situation of the Tasmanian Green movement which regards the bureaucracy and many of the senior bureaucrats in it as an impediment to the pursuit of its agenda. As Marion Wescombe (1990:182) has pointed out, "if a fundamental goal of the Green project is de- bureaucratisation, there is more than a little irony in the fact that to pursue a programme through the official structures of government is to pursue one's aims via bureaucracy". Wescombe goes on to say that environment groups in Australia have "solved this problem by jettisoning experiments in organisational radicalism for the proven alienating efficiencies of formalised hierarchies" (1990:182).
3 See for example, Ludo McFerren "Interpretation of a Frontline State: Australian Women's Refuges and the State" in Sophie Watson, ed. (1990) Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions
Sydney: Allen & Unwin pp. 191 - 205. —74—
The basis of Kathy Ferguson's argument is that the burceaucracy is a restrictive environment which renders oppositional elements powerlerss. She does not believe that feminists in small numbers can change the nature of the Ibureaucracy because they are simply absorbed into its structure, and are unable to mainttain their profile as radical activists:
It is, I have argued, impossible to resist bureaucratic domination by recruiting individual women into bureaucracies, or by organiizing bureaucratically; in both cases the voices of opposition are engulfed amd defused. It is possible to resist bureaucratic domination if a substantiail number of people act collectively and in a nonbureaucratic fashion to challenge the discourse (1984:208).
Feminist critics of the bureaucracy have argued quite reasonably that most femocrats have some sort of loyalty to their employer and to the aiims of their organisation
(Lynch 1984). This loyalty they believe, invariably dilutes their commitment to the women's movement. In many cases, the aims of their organisation may actually be in conflict with the interests of women outside the bureaucracy. As Ferguson points out:
Feminists may survive in bureaucracies with theiir personal integrity and commitment intact, but they will probably ri In her criticisms of the bureaucracy, Kathy Ferguson puts; forward an alternative vision for feminists. She talks about the sort of 'female' values which radical feminists seek to preserve in their own non-bureaucratic organisations, contrasting these values with the ones that are encouraged within the bureaucracy: they are committed to an internal style of organization that is deliberately anti- bureaucratic: the groups are decentralized; they rely on personal, face-to-face relations rather than formal rules; they are egalitarian rather than hierarchical; and they see skills and information as resources to be shared, not hoarded. They are frequently more concerned with process than with outcome, operating with a view of power that stresses the ability to empower the members to do collectively that which they could not do alone. Debates among radical feminists over the role of leadershi p and formal structure, -75- while often heated, take place within a context in which all assume that hierarchy should be minimized in favor of equality (1984:189-190). Trying to preserve these values in organisations which are partially or wholly funded by the state has been problematic for feminists as I discussed in Chapter One, and has partly been the cause of much of the divisiveness between femocrats and non- bureaucratic feminists. However, it could be argued that sustaining these values is difficult even in feminist organisations which are not funded by the state and do not have to meet certain requirements in order to qualify for funding. Franzway, Court and Connell assert that: The feminist form of organisation, collectivity, is exhilarating and effective when it ’works' but is very difficult to sustain. The long-term feminist problem of 'tyranny of structurelessness' has not been resolved and is under considerable pressure when the group undertakes 'community action' (1989:147). Franzway, Court and Connell (1989:139) talk about the dilemma for femocrats located in women's units which are somewhat marginal to the mainstream bureaucracy. While this situation can mean that femocrats have more power to determine the rules, structures and policies of their organisation, it can also mean that they are ignored by the mainstream bureaucracies. In seeking to achieve a more central location in the bureaucracy however, these femocrats run the risk of becoming 'tainted' with the values of this mainstream bureaucracy . In her account of the rise of femocracy, Marian Sawer points out that when feminists first entered bureaucracies in the 1970s, this was a period when the government was interested in "bureaucratic innovation, less hierarchy, more street-level administration and more openess in the community" (1990a:31). Thus, feminists could be excused for having expectations that traditional notions of the bureaucracy would be challenged and that they would be able to play a part in this challenge. This interest in reforming the bureaucracy has surfaced at various stages since the 1970s (for example, Peter —76— Wilenski's review of the New South Wales public service in 1976), but in general, feminists have not had a major impact on the way the bureaucracy operates. Sawer's account of the participation of feminists in the bureaucracy puts forward the view that gradually as it became more respectable to be a femocrat, women with no commitment to feminism obtained jobs in women's units, and that this had unhappy results (1990a:32). Sawer asserts that these women had had no experience in the feminist movement and "the desire to shelter behind bureaucratic status extended to an impatience with mechanisms for consultation with the women's movement". She believes that this situation "happened in the context of the rise of 'managerialism' in Australian public administration, and the emphasis on portable 'management skills' rather than record of commitment and achievement in advancing the status of women" (1990a:32). Answers to Criticisms of the Bureaucracy Many of the answers which femocrats might give to feminist criticisms of the bureaucracy have already been touched upon. For example, one argument is that given the control the government has over women's lives, it is important that women become involved in the bureaucracy in order to change it for the better. Ardent critics of the bureaucracy such as Kathy Ferguson (1984) have admitted that it is not feasible for feminists to completely shun the bureaucracy. While being highly critical of the bureaucracy, Ferguson acknowledges that it is often necessary to confront the structures which have so much power over our lives. However, she points out the necessity of feminists maintaining some sort of detachment from bureaucratic structures, and of not allowing feminism to absorb the values of the bureaucracy and therefore become de-radicalized (1984:180-181). —77— An important question to ask is whether the bureaucracy simply turns feminists into bureaucrats, or whether feminists in the bureaucracy can succeed, or have succeeded, in changing the bureaucracy to be more in tune with feminist values and goals. As Franzway, Court and Connell express it: The women's movement has long questioned whether the appointment of feminists to public policy positions in the bureaucracies of the state represents the 'bureaucratisation'. of feminism, its co-option and depoliticisation, or the creation of a feminist bureaucracy capable of effecting social change (1989:134). If feminists have been able to alter some bureaucracies to encompass values other than 'male' ones, then there might be an argument for encouraging more feminists to join the bureaucracy. However, in examining feminist criticisms of the bureaucracy, we also have to ask ourselves how valid the notion is that the bureaucracy is 'male' and that women would do things differently if they had control over bureaucratic structures. Arguing that women do things differently and that bureaucracies would be more humane, less hierarchical and less competitive if women were in charge, comes close to the anti-feminist view that women and men are inherently different. These kinds of assertions about what women would be like if they had powerful positions in the bureaucracy are also difficult to substantiate. Even if it could be argued that feminists would change the bureaucracy for the better, radical feminists might well argue that feminists should not waste their energy trying to change male structures because it means that their focus is taken away from women and is diverted to an unworthy cause (Lynch 1984:38). Indeed it is hard to argue against the assertion made by feminist critics that in joining the bureaucracy, feminists divert energy and resources away from the issues and campaigns of feminism outside the bureaucracy and the concerns of ordinary women. However, it is important to acknowledge the fact that the bureaucracy does not always work against women. In fact, there is a good case for arguing that the modern bureaucracy is more equitable than anything which preceded it, since the Weberian -78- notion of bureaucracy was developed in contrast to the individualised, inequitable system that existed previously. It has been argued that there is an equitable and meritocratic imperative in the modem bureaucracy which works for equality.4 The myriad of rules and procedures in relation to issues such as promotion, which characterise the public sector bureaucracy have been put in place precisely to try to eliminate or minimise discrimination. It is these rules and procedures which in fact make the public sector bureaucracy more equitable than the private sector.5 Personal Criticisms of Femocrats and Responses to those Criticisms Interestingly, perhaps the most vocal criticisms of the femocracy have strongly focused on femocrats themselves and on such issues as their dress and their lifestyle. Since the early 1970s, the politics of dress has never been far from the surface in the feminist movement, with debates raging at various times about issues such as whether or not to shave one's legs and whether or not wearing makeup is a 'cop-out'. Dressing so as not to conform to the conventional image of what women should look like has been an important way in which feminists have been able to make a political statement and rebel against these conventions. For example, Marian Sawer (1990a:27) talks about femocrats in the Whitlam era wearing casual dress which they viewed as "a symbolic rejection of the preceding 23 years of conservative government". Sawer believes that femocrats in the 1980s have tended to conform to conservative dress rules, and points to the prevalence of power dressing and the "ubiquitous shoulder pad" as evidence of this (1990a:27). Thus, it is not surprising that the way in which femocrats dress has been an issue for feminists outside the 4 This view was expressed by Paige Porter of the University of Queensland, in conversation. 5 For example recruitment and selection procedures in the public sector are generally far more rigorous than those in the private sector. —79- bureaucracy who have viewed femocrats who look the part as traitors to the movement (Lynch 1984:41, Sawer 1990a:25-27). The argument for 'looking the part' has been that by not conforming to conventional dress standards, one does not even get 'past first base'. Because dress is seen as important, those who do not conform are not taken seriously and therefore are unable to be effective in their jobs. While the dress standards of the public service are reasonably relaxed, public servants frequently have to deal with clients outside this context. This is illustrated by the situation of the feminists working in the Affirmative Action Agency whose clients are largely managers from the private sector. In not conforming to the private sector image of how women should dress (linen suits, silk shirts, stockings, makeup, immaculate hair), it could be argued that it is difficult if not impossible to gain credibility. In recent years there has been an influx of books, magazines and seminars onto the market which are aimed at career women working largely in the private sector and which supposedly provide advice on making it in a 'man's world'. This advice quite unashamedly places a great deal of importance on image, dress and 'playing the game'. Many of these books and magazines would label themselves as 'feminist' albeit a little cautiously.6 On the subject of dress, Lana Wells provides the following advice to aspiring career women: Your public image, how you present yourself, and the impression you make on others is of major importance in helping you to achieve your goals. How you package yourself, using clothes, jewellery, hairstyles and make-up influences others in their perception of you. This fact may prickle a feminist 6 See for example, Lana Wells (1987) Know How: 36 Australian Women Reveal their Career Success Secrets Sydney: Australasian Publishing Company; Leonie Still (1988) Becoming a Top Woman Manager Sydney: Allen & Unwin; The Working Women's Portfolio Sydney: Mason Stewart Publishing Pty Ltd. —80- conscience, but there is no longer any need to burn bras. That point has been made (1987:30). Kathy Ferguson asserts that these books are simply part of a long-standing American dream or belief in an individual solution and the power of positive thinking as a cure for socio-economic disadvantage. In this, (Ferguson says) they characterise a conservative outlook. Ferguson believes that they "exemplify the logical consequences of liberal feminism's search for entry into the established institutions of bureaucratic capitalism" (1984:183). In looking at the criticisms made about the way femocrats dress, it is important to make a distinction between private sector femocrats and public sector femocrats. The private sector is characterised by a focus on the importance of image, dress and general presentation. Public sector femocrats do not face the same sort of pressures to conform to a corporate image as their private sector counterparts, and are less likely to view dress as being of critical importance to the performance of their job. In observing the differences between private sector and public sector femocrats, it can be most instructive to attend meetings of a public sector EEO practitioners' group, where the atmosphere tends to be friendly and informal, and then attend meetings of private sector EEO practitioners which tend to be highly formalised, where 'networking' and 'interactive brainstorming' are the buzz words, and style is all important. It could be argued that the criticisms of 'career feminists' are largely of women working in the private sector who are the target of magazines such as The Working Women's Portfolio. This is not to say that feminists outside the bureaucracy do not have valid personal criticisms to make of public sector femocrats. Many of these femocrats enjoy good salaries and excellent career opportunities while their sisters outside the bureaucracy often work long hours in poor conditions on comparatively low salaries. -81- In criticising femocrats and their 'comfortable' jobs in the bureaucracy, feminists often point to their lack of involvement in the wider women's movement, and in 'grass roots' issues such as women's health, domestic violence, housing, childcare, and the problems of Aboriginal and migrant women. In the absence of such involvement in feminist issues outside the bureaucracy by femocrats, it is not difficult to criticise their 'feathered' positions in the bureaucracy. Many of these criticisms are based on a perception of femocrats as individualistic and competitive. In discussing Alison Ziller's Affirmative Action Handbook. Franzway, Court and Connell (1989:101) while praising the book, draw attention to its focus on individualism amongst EEO/Affirmative Action Officers: stresses the role of the individual officer. She should seek advice, gain support, adopt a fair but firm demeanour; but, by and large, she stands alone. It is understandable then, that, confronted by men's resistance and the coils of bureaucratic politics, affirmative action officers tend to advocate 'beating them at their own game'. The intention is to gain the kind of power that men have. Feminist critics also draw attention to the importance which is placed on viewing EEO and affirmative action as managerial initiatives, and point out that this firmly places EEO/Affirmative Action Officers on the side of management (Game 1984:255). They are then accused of elitism, self-interest, and of having been co-opted. As discussed in Chapter Three, the problem for EEO/Affirmative Action Officers is that they tend not to be seen by management as allies (at least in the public sector), so they can be quite isolated within their organisation. Since their employers are compelled by legislation to develop and implement EEO/affirmative action programs and to take the issue seriously, EEO/Affirmative Action Officers often bear the brunt of management disgruntlement and can be seen as making demands and causing trouble. This is not so much the case in the private sector where EEO and affirmative action is relatively new, where EEO/Affirmative Action Officers tend to be involved in EEO on —82— a part time basis and where management disgruntlement is more likely to be directed towards government agencies. Since private sector EEO/Affirmative Action Officers’ major responsibilities tend to lie in the personnel, staff training or recruitment area, their EEO/affirmative action responsibilities tend to be placed a long way down their list of priorities. Other reasons for their closer alignment with management are that they are also less likely to be union members than their counterparts in the public sector, and more likely to be higher up the corporate ladder. Marian Sawer (1990a:25) talks about the importance of femocrats maintaining the link with the outside feminist movement, using a point made by Peter Wilenski to support her argument: The extent to which those entering the bureaucracy are able to maintain links with the social movement from which they came, as well as with other members within the bureaucracy, may be a crucial element in resisting pressure to conform to prevailing values (other than those stemming simply from good administrative practice). By the second half of the 1980s some of the women entering femocrat positions did not have a background in the women's movement and were less clear about the nature of the relationship. In answer to feminist criticisms of femocrats, it has been pointed out that the debate often confuses EEO/affirmative action programs with the femocrats themselves, with criticism tending to focus on the femocrats rather than the programs or the principles behind the programs (Franzway, Court and Connell 1989:96). The debate often becomes bogged down in the question of whether or not femocrats are 'real' feminists, rather than concentrating on the issue of whether EEO/affirmative programs can achieve genuine and beneficial changes for women. In talking about the attention focused on the personal attributes of femocrats, Franzway, Court and Connell (1989:101) point out that: This is understandable but inadequate. To grasp their political significance requires analysis, getting some grip on the perennial problem of how to comprehend the individual and the social together. -83- Cork et al. (1986:27) argue that this concentration on femocrats themselves has resulted in a smothering of enquiry about how useful EEO and affirmative action programs are, with the debate often focusing on how feminists become femocrats and concluding with the view that since femocrats are invariably compromised by working in the bureaucracy, their work can never challenge the status quo. Cork et al. (1986:27) make a number of other valid points about the femocrat debate, drawing attention to the fact that feminist critics rarely make distinctions between types of femocrats and assume that they are all middle class feminists who moved easily into the bureaucracy. In fact some femocrats may have discovered feminism in the bureaucracy itself, through EEO/affirmative action programs, or through the EEO/Affirmative Action Officer. There is also a tendency among feminist critics of the femocracy to label as femocrats only those women who occupy fairly senior positions in an organisation (Lynch 1984:39, Cork et al. 1986:27). A feminist with a working class background occupying a low status position in an organisation would probably not be the target of feminist criticism. Criticisms of femocrats often focus on the question of whether they are feminist or not. Franzway, Court and Connell point out that EEO/Affirmative Action Officers are inextricably linked with the feminist project since they are involved in women-oriented programs which broadly assume that women are disadvantaged in employment. They go on to point out the implications of this by saying that EEO/Affirmative Action Officers: cannot deny accountability to the movement by pointing to the rules of bureaucracy which may demand secrecy. But neither can feminists outside the bureaucracy escape the import of the equal opportunity strategy through the rejection of affirmative action officers (1989:102). As I mentioned earlier, feminist critics have asserted that it is not possible for femocrats to be good feminists, since they are forced to adopt the views of their -84- employers which are usually not feminist views. However, Cork et al. argue that this is: similar to arguing that trade unionists cannot be effective if they are also "good" employees. To be influential within an organisation, to be in a position to locate its weaknesses and use its internal contradictions to criticise and to promote change, requires moving away from merely acting as "infiltrators" of the system (1986:27). Many feminist criticisms of the femocracy have been valid and appropriate and there is no doubt that a general scepticism about state involvement in feminist issues is a healthy thing. However, I argue in my concluding chapter that on balance, the relationship between feminism and the state in Australia since 1972 has been a positive one and that for a number of reasons, this relationship needs to continue. Conclusion This dissertation has outlined specific examples of the relationship between feminism and the state in Australia in order to address some wider questions. These examples illustrate the problems and dilemmas faced by feminists both within and outside the bureaucracy in trying to come to an agreement about how the feminist movement can most productively involve itself (or not involve itself) with the state. In order to answer this question, it has been necessary to look at how the feminist movement has benefited from its close involvement with the state and how this involvement has been problematic for the movement at the same time. Should Feminism Reject the State? It is clear that the state performs a number of contradictory roles and works both for and against women at the same time. Feminists and women generally, interpret the same state policies differently and state actions affect women differently depending on factors such as class and race. The state is in a contradictory position in that it has an important role in delivering social services to the poorest in society, yet at the same time, it clearly perpetuates the existing social order. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Sara Dowse (1989b: 12) believes that feminists can take advantage of this contradiction: The fact that the state can be the locus of struggle between competing groups and ideologies gives us just enough leeway to make significant if not sufficient changes. Child care, refuges, health centres, discrimination legislation, affirmative action, all this and more has come from feminists seizing on the contradictions within the state to achieve advances for women. —85— —86— There are a number of reasons why it would be unwise for the feminist movement to totally reject the state. First, women depend on the state and need to be able to continue to do so. This is particularly the case with women from working class and non-English speaking backgrounds, as well as other disadvantaged groups of women such as single mothers, Aboriginal women, and those women who are victims of domestic violence. An expansion of the public sector generally benefits women because of this traditional dependence on the state, while a reduction in the public sector does not. Although the services provided by the state for women leave much to be desired and have in many cases disadvantaged women, the state is far more likely to meet their needs than the marketplace. This is because the state has a recognised responsibility to provide for those who need its services and because most of these services do not generate profit. A rejection of the state by feminists would most certainly disadvantage women who depend on the state most for survival. As Sharp and Broomhill (1988:165) point out, "while the state's intervention in the economy has historically not always benefited women, allowing the market mechanism to allocate resources will never increase the degree of economic equality in society". Secondly, feminism in Australia has had a close relationship with the state for the last twenty years and has benefited in many important ways from this relationship. The state is in fact involved in every important arena of our lives. As Franzway, Court and Connell (1989:157) point out, the state is closely implicated in "the organisation of work, in the constitution of sexualities and of the family: in the shaping of both material and ideological conditions of life". Their conclusion is that the state is "inescapable for feminism". However, they stress that this does not mean that it should be the sole or even the primary focus for feminists (1989:157). A number of -87- writers make the same point that the state is not the only answer for feminists, and that other strategies need to be looked at in pursuing long term changes.1 While there have certainly been problems and tensions for feminists as a result of the close interaction between feminism and the state, the benefits for women which have been gained over the last two decades cannot be denied. Given these benefits, it would be more effective for feminists to address problems around state intervention by confronting them rather than by concluding that feminism would be better off without any state intervention altogether. Even those feminists who theoretically reject all forms of state intervention have in many cases supported state involvement on particular issues such as domestic violence or pornography. Given that there almost certainly has to be some form of state involvement in feminist issues, it seems that feminists need to work to improve and expand state provided services to women rather than reject outright those structures and services currently in place without being able to offer viable alternatives. Thirdly, if feminists are committed to changing society for the better, then they need to recognise that changes must be done on a large scale, rather than by small enclaves of feminists each with their own agendas and with no interest in confronting the powerful structures in our society. Sara Dowse (1984:158-159) makes this point in relation to women's refuges in 1975 which she says had the opportunity to consolidate their strength by forming a national confederation "but refused to on questionable 1 Sara Dowse (1984:159) says: "by focusing on the bureaucracy I do not wish to give the impression that the state is the most important institution in society, or that it alone holds the key to social change". Rhonda Sharp & Ray Broomhill (1988:169) say that: "while the state can be utilised as part of a feminist strategy for change, it is important to distingush between the short-term reforms for women that are possible within the framework of the state and the long-term strategies required to end the exploitation and subordination of women in capitalist society". —88— ideological grounds". Dowse believes that this refusal resulted in the "proliferation of non-feminist, even anti-feminist refuges", her point being that it is more effective for feminists to "think big" than to cluster in small groups thus giving away the opportunity to have an effective voice.2 Mary Daly's solution of creating a women- centred world is only a solution for a small number of privileged women who have not had to depend on the state. How Should Feminism Work with the State? Implications for Feminists, Femocrats and the Bureaucracy If feminists accept that feminism does need to remain fairly closely involved with the state, it is important to work out the most productive and beneficial ways for women in which this can be done. First, it is essential that feminists both within and outside the bureaucracy critically examine and assess all government policies and question those which disadvantage women. The example of the recent government policy on payment of child maintenance (discussed in Chapter Three) illustrates the need for feminists to critically examine government policies in order to assess not only the short-term, but wider implications of such policies. It is also crucial that policies are assessed to determine how they affect women differently according to factors such as class and race. Secondly, in order to have some say in the policies and programs of the state, feminists need to be involved in its structures and institutions. To do this effectively, they need to work in policy areas of government as well as in areas involving direct client contact. Feminists working for the state need support rather than unconstructive Ludo McFerren provides an account of this situation in "Interpretation of a Frontline State: Australian Women's Refuges and the State in Sophie Watson ed. (1990) Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions Sydney: Allen & Unwin pp. 194 - 195. —89- criticism or outright rejection by feminists outside the system. At the same time, femocrats need to have contact with feminists outside the bureaucracy to ensure that they are in touch with the concerns of women outside the system. Thirdly, it is clear that working for the state is problematic for many femocrats. If feminists are going to successfully utilise the state to achieve their agenda, then they must address the structure of the state itself since it is unlikely that the state will respond to the feminist agenda if it is a totally anti-feminist and patriarchal institution. As Sharp and Broomhill (1988:168) note, "the less democratic the structures and processes of the state, the more likely that its policies will be directed to serving the vested interests of capital and patriarchy". Therefore it is important that feminists work to change the state as well as put pressure on it to implement reforms that benefit women outside the state. It is important that feminists critically assess those government policies which affect the way in which the state itself is organised. EEO and affirmative action programs designed to improve the position of women and other disadvantaged groups working in the public sector must be regularly and critically evaluated to determine whether or not they are fulfilling their objectives. Furthermore, these objectives and the programs themselves should be questioned by feminists. As Sara Dowse points out, "if we allow ourselves to be trapped into thinking that affirmative action is the sole strategy all we will end up with is a more efficient meritocracy" (1984:159). Fourthly, the strong association that EEO and affirmative action has had with 'women and management' has been validly criticised by feminists outside the bureaucracy. Those involved in co-ordinating or implementing EEO and affirmative action programs need to concentrate on women in low status, low paying jobs and dispel the idea that the sole aim of such programs is to get more women into management positions. In order for this to happen, EEO and affirmative action need to be closely linked to issues —90— such as award restructuring and measures to assist workers with family responsibilities. It is essential that award restructuring addresses the specific problems of women workers in low status, low paying jobs with no career paths. If measures such as EEO and affirmative action are going to be successful, then it is essential that feminists be closely involved in the development and implementation of such measures. This means that there need to be feminists in policy making areas of the bureaucracy as well as in other areas of the public sector. There also need to be feminists involved in areas of the private sector which have EEO and affirmative action implications. These areas would include recruitment, personnel, staff training and development, and industrial relations. Fifthly, femocrats need to be willing to question the programs they are involved in rather than automatically defend them in the face of criticism from feminists outside the bureaucracy. This is difficult given the fact that femocrats obviously have a personal interest in maintaining the programs they are involved in. It is doubly difficult for femocrats because these programs are also criticised by anti-feminists who wish to dismantle them altogether. As Franzway, Court and Connell point out, "feminists end up defending a program like affirmative action because it represents some advance for women's claims for equity, and some moderation of oppressive institutional practices" (1989:159). Femocrats have tended to aim for positions of power rather than opt for a marginalised existence within their institutions. This choice has contributed to the criticisms made by feminists outside the bureaucracy that femocrats are primarily interested in pursuing their own careers. It may have also caused some concern that feminists with power behave no differently from any other people in powerful positions. The fact that femocrats tend to be women with a reasonable degree of seniority in their organisations has also resulted in the focus on femocrats as individuals and in the -91- criticisms around issues such as dress and personal style. However, it is important that femocrats are not simply viewed as co-opted agents of the state who have no power to make changes or little interest in challenging current policies and structures which discriminate against women. The considerable resistance to feminist demands such as EEO and affirmative action indicates that these demands are a significant threat to those in power. Sixthly, femocrats and feminists generally, need to ensure that their agenda addresses the needs of 'ordinary women' rather than being confined to projects which solely or mainly benefit middle-class women working in the primary labour market. The suggestion made by Anna Yeatman (discussed in Chapter Three) that femocrats could devote their energies to challenging the gender segmentation of the labour force and the class division between the primary and secondary labour market, rather than confining themselves to improving conditions for women in the primary labour market is a valid one. A similar point has been made by Marion Wescombe in relation to the Green Movement in Tasmania: While reasserting its radical promise, the movement needs also to look at some factors within its value-system. It will be necessary to escape its middle-class confines and make stronger appeal to ordinary working Tasmanians (1990:192). Sharp and Broomhill (1988:163) make the point that "the state tends to be more politically and ideologically inclined to promote reforms that primarily benefit individual higher-income women" and conclude that "significant changes that benefit the majority of women can only be achieved by structural economic reforms". Finally, femocrats need to be committed to, and knowledgeable about feminist issues generally, and involved in feminist projects outside the bureaucracy. This commitment to feminist issues beyond their own workplace will assist better communication and understanding between femocrats and other feminists. It will also -92- enable femocrats to remain aware of the more radical demands being made by feminists outside the bureaucracy and assist in demystifying the bureaucracy so that feminists outside can feel more confident in making demands on the state. Femocrats who are actively involved in and committed to the goals of the wider women's movement should also find it easier to cope with pressure from anti-feminists within the bureaucracy. While it is important that feminists remain to an extent suspicious about state involvement in feminist issues, at the same time, the benefits that have been gained through this involvement should be acknowledged and built upon. A closer interaction and co-operation between femocrats and other feminists should assist this process. 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