ALREV7£W 55 Technofear

Tech Noir genre is, firstly, the fact that Video is the cultural form of . Deckard falls in love with a replicant and disappears over the border with Technology is the age's great preoccupation. her, cementing a bond between the Together they have produced a new genre, human and what might best be called reports McKenzie Wark. 'posthuman' life. More disturbing still, there are suggestions in the film, suppressed in the final cut, that Deck­ Most of us consider home video In the movie Robocop, the central char­ ard himself does not know if he is to be an escape from politics acter is a cop who is injured in a shoot­ human or replicant—or at least whether by becoming a hunter-killer and the workaday world. Yet out with the bad guys. They will later turn out to be in the pay of the cor­ of these posthuman forms of life he is even that most escapist of poration who made him and they run a barbaric and inhuman thing. movie genres or styles, science the police force as a privatised service Bladerunner is, to date, the most chal­ Hction, is very much connected to the dty government. Robocop is lenging film in the Tech Noir genre essentially a man with robotic pros- to problems of work and power. because it raises the possibility that theses. He wins out over the bad guys Indeed, escapist movies 'work' the difference between the human and by upholding the law, but he also tri­ precisely by providing imagi­ the inhuman, between culture and umphs over a rival law enforcement nary solutions to very real technology is too far gone to be un­ 'product'—a robot called Ed II which scrambled. There can be no naive ap­ problems. lacks any human judgment. While peals to Tiuman nature' or a return to Robocop is mostly machine, he is ac­ Science fiction movies come in a num­ nature when the human is a product ceptable in the end as an of the technical as much, if not more, ber of types, but the ones which are 'undeddeable' being, somewhere be­ most interesting and popular are the than vice versa. tween culture and technology because ones I would Sill 'tech noir'—black his human judgment still has control technology stories. While movies of The question arises as to how this over his technical powers. this genre borrow from a number of domination of the cultural by the tech­ other stock movie genres including nical came about Tech Noir films at An opposite case is The Terminator, in their best suggest an appropriate the mystery, gothic horror and cop which the bad, destructive machine is dramas, their common trait is that answer to this—the bad corporation. clothed in living human flesh. The The makers of Robocop and the they all deal with the problem of humans who battle with the ter­ ‘technofear'. replicant are two such bad corpora­ minator are not only fighting for their tions, suggesting a world where cor­ Technofear is a common malaise these lives, but fighting against the porate power has run amok, days. While earlier science fiction nightmare vision of the future in subsuming cultural values under the used to assume that technology was which technology has completely remorseless quest for surplus value, good for you as long as it was kept out subjugated culture. The undeddeable as it were. The film Aliens goes one of bad hands, contemporary science in this case has to be exterminated better, suggesting that the megacor­ fiction has to deal with a deep-seated before it exterminates all that is poration is responsible for an environ­ paranoia about technology which is human. mental recklessness which unleashes undoubtedly occurring and is linked the alien on unsuspecting people—a to environmental concerns. It goes More complex is the dassic Tech Noir nightmare vision of T>ad nature' let further and asks a more challenging film Bladerunner, in which the un- loose by capital. question; is it possible to distinguish decideables are the product of a the human from the inhuman? If tech­ biotechnology which can make Tech Noir films have also branched nology is something to be feared, is replicas of humans called, ap­ out from mechanical to information there a sense of the 'human' any more propriately enough, replicants. In the technologies. In The Running Man, which is not fatally compromised by film, these have reached a stage where computer graphic simulation is used technology? their maker, the Tyrell corporation, to falsify die news, and a universal can endow them with memory, thus media vector pumping out trash TV Tech Noir movies frame the problem giving diem the illusion that they are keeps the restive population comatose of technofear by means of stories indeed human. Replicants are used as as in Robocop. The theme of artificial about 'underideable' cases—things slave labour in the 'off world memory resurfaces in Total Recall, bor­ which are not quite human and not colonies'. When they escape and rowed from the novelist Philip K Dick. quite technological. The definition of return to earth they are hunted down This film also uses the bad corporation both then hinges on a story which and killed by 'bladerunners' like motif, only this time in the form of a 'derides' one way or another, often Deckard, the central character. What state-monopoly capitalism based on using a kind of 'android' figure. makes this story interesting in the the mining industry and set on Mars.

ALR; JULY 1991 56 ALREWFW

In the Canadian Tech Noir film Videodrome the possible symbiosis of the body and information technology is taken as oozily dose to the limit as is possible. Videodrome gets off to a good start, positing the supersession of the real as we know it in video simulation, but then rapidly falls apart both in terms of narrative and plausibility. If Bladerunner is the limit to what Tech Noir can do and say within the limits of popular film, then Videodrome lies just outside that limit Videodrome does more than suggest that television technology has des­ tabilised the sodal picture of reality and the individual's sense of her or his body in the world, it enacts it. This makes it a scary and unrelenting ride, a little too troubling and a little too implausible to succeed as mere enter­ tainment, Videodrome's 'hero'. Max, ends up pledging himself to combat the evil effects of videodrome by pass­ ing into its simulated reality. If simula­ tion has swallowed up the old world, then the only pointof resistance would be within.

Contrary to usual Hollywood practice, three Tech Noir films even offer im­ ages of collective resistance to the bad corporation and its undecideable machines. In The Terminator, Running Man and Total Recall these are armed, underground resistance movements. Interestingly, they all show the resis­ tance using technology against itself, They offer images of technology reap­ propriated by collective human agen­ cy. These films were made by j left-liberal directors and producers but star Arnold Schwarzenegger, the personal friend of Reagan and Bush, The politics of these movies seem mostly to be that of the Hollywood More interesting is the idea that infor­ the individual body as much as the liberal left rather than their reaction- i mation technology offers to those in social body. In the great low-budget ary star but, in any case, they signal the power the possibility of controlling Tech Noir film Hardware, a voyeur fact that technofear is a condition the past as well as the future—an Or- watches what takes place in the apart­ which affects both the left and the wellian nightmare given new curren­ ment opposite by means of infra red right. Both have tended to stake their cy by being connected to new vision. He witnesses not only a violent image of the future on positive tech­ technology. In Total Recall un- 'crime' in progress, in a dear homage nological ideals, and the crisis of both decideability is experienced as a to Hitchcock's Rear Window, but also a left and right stems in part from a com­ schizophrenic state in which the sex scene between the lead characters. mon malaise— technofear. average human-in-the-street can no This film offers the image of the longer distinguish synthetic reality voyeuristic act of watching sex at the Tech Noir films are perhaps more in- I from anything else or, indeed, one syn­ movies taken to its logical con- teresting from the point of view of thetic reality from another. dusion—watching the internal body- gender politics. Frequently, it is states of the participants. This is a women who play active roles in the Perhaps the most chilling aspect of difficult scene to watch because it overcoming of the undecideable Tech Noir is its suggestion that the makes the spectator complidt with 'thing'. In part, this stems from the boundaries of the human body are not technology's violation of the body. archaic image of the woman as closer sacrosanct, that technology infiltrates to 'nature' than man. This image is

ALR: JULY 1991 ALREWEW 57 actively mobilised in Alien and Aliens, aginary solutions to technofear. The It is this aspect of sodal reality, this where the female heroine has to im­ question than is: what are the origins vast 'alien' world our forebears made provise solutions to the attack of bad of technofear? I mentioned that which now makes and remakes us in nature when men and machines have movies are an escape from the its image, this is the reality at the root failed. Here good nature (thematernal workaday world, yet they work as an of technofear In technofear, the tech­ human) does battle with bad nature escape from it because they offer solu­ nological products of our great (the alien) which the bad corporation tions to the unresolved problems that modem ancestors' labour plays like a and its technology has unleashed. The the work we do does not satisfy real horror movie in the minds of the gender politics of all these films are human needs, does not really give us living. Tech Noir movies help us to ambiguous to say the least, but not more control over our lives, and only imagine the dimensions of this prob­ without interest or potential. Tech­ adds a tiny sliver to the great junk pile lem. They help us to define the issues nofear questions the promethean of bureaucratic disorder which seems and reassure us that we are right to be values of technology, which is often to hold the world in its thrall. worried. They project solutions into regarded, both by its supporters and the future to show that solutions are detractors, as masculine. Hence it is By working, we seem to create a vast possible. They may not have the not surprising that the feminine is put store of 'dead labour' in the form of answers, they may not even ask all the forward in Tech Noir as an important bricks and freeways and endless rows right questions— that would be too agent in overcoming bad technol­ much to expect even of Hollywood's ogy—to the extent that in Hardware the of filing cabinets full of unread and unreadable records. We create a vast most liberal liberals. Yet they have heroine, armed with a baseball bat, power over ourselves. Rather than made a popular genre which allows us does battle with the bad machine to imagine what this undeddeable while the would-be hero is too zapped technology and its products helping us to live, it seems we live to service realm of human freedom is that we out on add to know his arse from his have to win. elbow! technology and its products. The con­ temporary world appears as a vast, Why are Tech Noir movies so popular? inhuman, 'undeddeable' power over McKENZIE WARK teaches in in part, I think, because they offer im­ and against us. computing at Macquarie University.

Beads and Trinkets

movement, Amongst Equals, is a grand example of the strug­ Documentary filmmaking and the Left have a gles around the representation long history. Alastair Walton looks at their of 'truth' and 'history' in relationship. documentary films. Amongst Equals also throws up the ques­ tions, 'what are documentaries "It's like when you go into a "...thelmperium'smaterial well­ for?' And 'how is the form used psychiatrist's office and you don't being has come to rest on its tech­ to tell a story?' But rather than really tell them what you did. You nological ability to generate and go over old ground with a dis­ lie, but even the lie you've chosen then merchandise attractively opa­ cussion of Amongst Equals, I to tell is revealing. I wanted people que forms and commodities: beads to see that my life isn't so easy, and and trinkets to bemuse the natives. pondered these questions one step further than that is, the Everything changes. And it does while viewing a bunch of docos movie's not completely me...Be­ not change at all." at the recent Film Fes­ cause you will never know the real tival. me. Ever." Brian Fawcett, Cambodia: A book for Watching the two weeks of continual people who find television too slow. 1986. screenings, I was principally inter­ Madonna commenting on her tour ested in what forms the documen­ documentary. Truth or Dare: On the The recent argy bargy over the taries would take to express Road, behind the Scenes, and in Bed with 'correctness' of Tom Zubrycki's themselves. A phenomenon distinc­ Madonna, in Vanity Fair, April 1991. documentary on the union

ALR: JULY 1991 58 ALR EVIEW tive in many of the documentaries hear the stories from some elders, from the popular anthropological presented was that they had one per­ white and black. However, the ques­ films of the 1920s. But there is another son driving the focus, line, script, and tions and stories of intimidation and similarity. Flaherty had little interest editing. There seemed to be no collec­ silence about Aboriginal history, by in analysis or explanation as his films tive or group efforts. Sure, a team of blacks and whites, were not always were virtually all silent "using sound people were responsible along the followed up. The film was given many when it became available...essentially process line, but the films were cues to investigate these avenues and as an accompaniment to the images . dominated by the view of one. For thereby round out fee story, but most­ Likewise, despite the fabulous talent instance, Island of Lies (Australia, ly did not. of the subjects of Burning (who are at 1991), by Gillian Coote, is directed, all times willing to talk) the film produced and scripted by her while produces an essential silence, a The Left and fee documentary mode Dennis O'Rourke was the director, profound sadness, within the viewer. of film making are entwined through producer, screenplay writer, photog­ their history and in a world of con­ rapher and sound recordist for The centrated media ownership, it is an How can one dare to talk when the Good Woman of Bangkok and The Ar­ important avenue of alternative story­ many interviewees on the screen are chitecture of Doom (Sweden, 1990) telling. However, the advent of reaching states of complete ecstasy was directed, produced, edited and television has had fee effect of creating just listening to themselves articulate scripted by Peter Cohen, and both a need for more documentaries to pro­ their unattainable dreams of fame and Juvenile Liaison 2 (UK, 1990) and The gram while, at the same time, fortune? They aspire to the ultimate Leader, The Driver and the Driver's diminishing their power of impact. material fantasy—to be white, mar­ Wife (UK, 1990) were directed, Television also dictates fee form and ried and living in opulent comfort scripted and sound recorded by Nick subject by emphasising spectacle, fee Mind, this is coming from fee mouths Broomfield. bizarre and fee presence of a cultural of blacks, mostly unemployed, hero. The ability of one-off docos to ostracised by their homophobic com­ This multirole production reflects not inform and attract attention is an une­ munities, and rotting in ghettos built only the small budget position of such qual fight against the opaque beads and maintained by the very class they projects, but the personal intensity and trinkets of A Current Affair, 60 aspire to. The paradoxes, the real and burnt into fee whole product How­ Minutes, and fee State of Origin. the artificial, confront us in every ever, wife more participants and wife word spoken. equal zest, a set of films (documentary and realist cinema) at last year's fes­ The origin of fee force in documen­ taries arises from their perceived The filmmaker has told fee story with tival were produced by a collective in interviews, simple camerawork, no northern England, Amber Films. Each power of Revelation, Truth, and voiceover and no analysis or explana­ member of fee group swapped roles Reality. However, these banners have tions. The saturated pictures of those on each project and everyone was paid been sites for inquiry and conflict who created Voguing and fee House equal rates, no matter what position within the making and viewing of of Xtravaganza are hugely entertain­ they filled. documentaries ever since fee coining of fee term 'documentary'. John Grier­ ing. But the form of this and many of son, in a review of a 1926 film in the fee documentaries at fee festival was I am not sure whether by design or New York Sun, first coined fee term; uninspiring. This is not to discredit)!* default, but a large number of this "Of course, Moana, being a visual ac­ hard work of raising funds and getting year's collection of documentaries had count of events in fee daily life of a fee access and trust of subjects, butti race as their binding thane, be it about Polynesian youth and his family, has it enough? New York's gay blacks (Paris is Burn­ documentary value." He was a Scot ing), Nazis (Blood in the Face), im­ who defined fee documentary as "the Documentary makers have a zeal for migrant workers (H-2 Worker & Good creative treatment of actuality" and filming losers and the marginalised News) or black history (The Kimber­ made his first doco. Drifters, in 1929 Projects are undertaken to highlight f ley Mob and Island of Lies). Island of before going on to influence documen­ wrongs, but the film and video Lies was resourced by the Documen­ tary film form and set up its in­ documentary has real problems in ac­ tary Fellowship scheme. The stitutionalisation through national tually empowering the subjects it filmmaker "follows the route of early film boards in the UK, Canada and films. The function of the documen­ settlers heading north out of Sydney to Australia. tary, patently, is to document Fraser Island to uncover fee lies and problems. Answers are merely sug­ secrets of Australia's settlement". gested, and when they are, they are Robert J Flaherty, the director of hidden behind the spectacle of the ex­ Moana, offered a mainly visual otic. Perhaps the real challenge of The film attempts to move away from description of unfamiliar human ac­ documentary filmmaking is to tab fee traditions of direct filming (the fly tivities and artifacts—of exotica. In the form further and to tackle 'hanf on fee wall approach) and cast the many ways, fee film Paris is Burning, subjects, not simply to foster a foraiol maker in fee film. Yet, for me, Island of is a film of the urban exotic, as opposed Left tabloid journalism. Lies sometimes does not meet its pur­ to fee other of fee tundra of southern pose. Gillian Coote attempts to tell the seas. The spectacle of gay, black men story of a landscape charged wife the and boys 'voguing' at drag balls in ALASTAIR WALTON is a Sydney pain of conflict and struggles and we Harlem is pure pop exotica, all fee way freelance journalist. M M : JULY 1991 ALREVIEW 59 External Affairs

Pippa; Now, Nick, I have to warn you, Sal has read everything she can on the Almost every TV soap has its resident cop. police force. David Nichols looks at why. Nick: Done a bit of research, has she? Pippa: Oh yes, takes her work very When Nick Parrish first moved delve (or be delved) into our twin fixa­ seriously. tions, health (therefore death) and into Marilyn's boarding house Nick: Well, good for her. in , she soon crime (thus security and, of course, discovered problems with her titillation when we see someone else (Enter Sally) get what's coming to them). tenant. Actually, the problem Nick: G'day Sal. was nothing to do with Nick The real difference, though, is that we himself (he's a charming, if all know doctors and most of us trust Sally: Hello Nick. slightly cocky young man who them. How many people know a police officer, and who feels confident Nick; Are you gonna record this? became a police officer to spite or carefree when the police turn up on his upper middle-class lawyer Sally: Yeah, then I won't forget any­ their doorstep uninvited (for in­ thing, is that OK? parents) but with other would- stance)? It's strange, then, to see the be boarders. police on TV in such a prominent com­ Nick: As long as I remember not to say munity role, enjoying so much inter­ anything too incriminating) action with everyday soap folk. You see, no one wanted to live with a Sally (speaking into recorder): This is cop. They figured he'd be nosing in on Police drama was the beginning of Sally Fletcher speaking to Constable their affairs all the time, and he drove Australian TV drama—from Homicide Nick Parrish. I read an article in a one prospective cohabitant away im­ through Cop Shop and, in a natural newspaper that said that the image of mediately by suggesting she change evolution. Prisoner. Of course, the the police force has dramatically im­ her tyres. Marilyn asked him to move police on TV are still about as realistic proved. How did they do that? out, and felt very guilty about it; later, as any other 'type' on TV; that is, not when she saw Nick rescue Michael in the least. But something as serious (Nick and Pippa look at one another.) fromdrowning, she changed her mind as the contemporary public percep­ and took him back because "no one Pippa: Don't say I didn't warn you! tion of the force has led to some inter­ has a nice word to say about the police esting exchanges. The scene ends here, which means that until they need them". we never find out ho w the image of the Take the time on when police force was improved dramati­ Though he's occasionally heroic, it young school-leaver Ryan told his cally (only that it happened). But would be hard to imagine Nick taking aunt Doro thy that he wasri t interested whatever small items TV news might his job as seriously as Paul Berry, the in going to university; he wanted to dredge up to discredit the force, TV E Street policeman who— after living become a police officer, and eventual­ drama role models are almost always through the violent deaths of first his ly a criminologist. One of Dot's objec­ nothing but perfect. wife Rhonda and then his fian oee Kim­ tions was the "bad image" the police berley—became a sweaty, gun-toting had today. As it happened, Ryan 's resident cop is vigilante, bursting into a TV studio, rejected the whole police idea when he Frank Gilroy—as played by Brian shooting himself in a moment of was badly treated in a suspected Wenzel, who's held down the role for lucidity and ultimately being in­ break-and-enter case; though the the w hole of ACP's 10-year run. stitutionalised. whole thing was a misunderstanding, "Policemen are pivotal," he says. "A he couldn't forgive. He joined the lot happens round a policeman. If I'd Cops come in all shapes, sizes and army instead. been playing some other part I might ages on TV soaps, but (like doctors) well have gone from the show by now. there's at least one on almost all of On the very day I began writing this He's sustainable, it's easy to write stuff them. Neighbours is the notable excep­ story, Home and Away gave me a per­ for the policeman." tion, but then Neighbours has never fect illustration of the 'bad image been big on non-domestic authority problem'. Sally Fletcher was doing a ACP's police stories, like their medical figures, like doctors, police are, of school project on a valuable member stories, are put in the hands of a re­ course, the handiest of dramatic tools, of the community; she chose Con­ searcher who liaises with the police. useful as a vehicle for bringing in out­ stable Nick. Nick came to pick her up "Any police stories are sent off to the side storylines and easily involved for a spin in the cop car and found her police community relations depart­ with all the disparate regular charac­ adoptive mother, Pippa, in the ment," says Wenzel. "They vet the ters. Both also allow us at home to kitchen. scripts and check the script is accord­

ALR: JULY 1991 60 ALR EVIEW

ing to correct procedure...and if proce­ year saw Josephine Mitchell in a guest Max has a boss, too: the 'old guard' dure in the script doesn't read right, role in Home and Away as a young Sergeant O'Sullivan, as played by Les they get it changed. policewoman who quit the force after Dayman. Like ACFs Gilroy, O'­ an (unseen) associate was shot in the Sullivan has an unconventional "The police make sure I'm always up line of duty. woman in his life—in this case Nurse to date with the uniform, too. The Martha (who, in an interesting twist, show goes out to about 30 countries Bruce Samazan's Max in E Street is a refuses to marry him, though they live now so, as far as the police here are virginal Christian in his early twenties together). He's also similarly stuffy concerned, I'm projecting an image for with a black-and-white outlook on the and conservative. them. I get on well with them, too. world and the law. Sincere and pious. There are a lot of clich£d things on TV. Max occasionally breaks out of light These are the cops Australians like to Writers will have a policeman pushing comedy (when he mixes with the see on their TV screens. They're stoic a prisoner into a cell. They don't really teenage characters in the show) to get but human; they work long hours do that, and I'd never push a prisoner involved in police action—which, in E serving people who often don't thank into a cell. I'd criticise people who do Street, usually means someone is them for it The police force no doubt this, but maybe they've just seen to going to get killed. But Max is a classic feels that this is a good image for many movies. In one episode of A character. The problem of how to them; the public definitely enjoy Country Practice I shot a man, a bad make a police officer interesting is seeing this angle on the police in their man. A police doctor said to me later solved here by making him so good homes every night. And if Terence or that everything I did was an accurate it's ridiculous. Samazan himself Harry in ACP don't always save the portrayal of a policeman under those believes that Max isonly realisti c in his patient they're operating on, at least circumstances: the stress, and the "young rookie" persona. 'Tve met we know that the forces of law and guilt." quite a few rookie cops like Max," he order will always be upheld—on says. "They recognise me from the every soap, every night. But Frank Gilroy is one of the old show and come up to talk to me—and guard of TV police; the new breed of they're exactly the same! He's true to DAVID NICHOLS writes for teen TV soap cop is utterly disarming. Last life in that respect." magazines. Promises Unfulfilled

The Gifthorse, by Gret chert Poiner the basis of concepts of equality and The American approach has been in­ and Sue Wills; The Promise and inequality, discrimination, affirmative trinsically involved with the law. Dis­ the Price, by Clare Burton; both action, and to demystify and re-ex- crimination cases have often been long plain EEO language. This is valuable and costly. The involvement of the US Allen and Unwin, 1991. Reviewed in itself as a prevalent form of resis­ Supreme Court in making judgments by Jan Dillows. tance to equal opportunity is profes­ which are essentially social legislation sional ignorance and instant stems from a quite different tradition The Gifthorse is subtitled A forgetting. The restatement of the ra­ to that of Australia. An example of this Critical Look at Equal Employ­ tionale behind EEO programs is a is the Roe versus Wade case estab­ ment in Australia and the refresher for those constantly in­ lishing rights for women. authors make no apology for volved in the mire of implementation- Now that the US Supreme Court is moving into an increasingly conserva­ their close examination of the Many of the shortcomings of tive mode, any influences in the future toothless nature of the horse's Australian EEO legislation result from will probably work against disad­ mouth. The book examines the problems of translating the vantaged groups. Recently, the trend Equal Employment Oppor­ American experience. The major in the USA to move away from tunity (EEO) legislation and problems both in the USA and timetables and numerical goals and to Australia have been caused by the im­ put energy into comparable worth practice in Australia, and places position of a legislative demand for the legislation and the resulting cases—in other words, a move from equality which has not been matched trying to put women into men's job programs into a social and by a change in the way society views to attempting to revalue women's economic context This is par­ or organises gender relations. As a work. ticularly relevant to the changed result, reasonable demands for equality for women and other groups context of recession-bound The of many American ap­ have often been circumvented by wily Australia in 1991. proaches to EEO grew out of the need employers experienced at statistical to do something to acknowledge the manipulation. Gretchen Poiner and Sue Wills have women's liberation movement. "Un­ taken considerable trouble to explain able to legislate for liberation, mildly

A U f: JULY m i ALR EVIEW 61

reformist governments tried legislat­ tion. One of the reasons for this is that tion is tied up with masculine ego ing for equality", argue Poiner and the underpinning of society is woman satisfaction." This phenomenon is Wills. Thus EEO legislation is about as breeder and carer: "For also discussed by Poiner and Wills in trying to treat women and other dis­ beneficiaries to enjoy equal oppor­ relation to American experiences of advantaged groups as white Anglo- tunity in employment certain other EEO programs. It was found that the Saxon men, as long as they behave benefits must be made available...for nature of work patterns changed to appropriately. women these indude relief from child meet the challenge of women's entry, rearing responsibilities: for i.e. if the number of women employed My main criticism of The Gifthorse, as Aboriginal people the issues indude in an occupation category rose, the with most books on EEO in Australia, health and housing." salary earnings dropped. is that there is a lot more evidence on what happens in the public sector EEO legislation by itself cannot claim Not only do women make men feel than in the private sector, and the to have changed patterns of employ­ uneasy in organisations, but women evidence is predominantly about the ment. It is an important lesson that often want no part of an environment experience of women rather than other government initiatives— "where decision-making seems more other groups within the purview of freedom of information, occupational to do with point-scoring than EEO, such as Koories and the dis­ health and safety, and societal reasonable policy-making". Or­ abled. This is understandable, in that trends—are contributors to the suc­ ganisational and occupational struc­ the major reforms in EEO have oc­ cess or non-success of the legislation. tures need to change if there are to be curred in the public sector over a real opportunities for women. longer period of tim e. The Sadly, the promotion of equal employ­ bureaucracies' skills in manipulating ment as an issue has led to exploita­ tion by bandwaggoners running Burton's greatest value to the prac­ strategies and changing the rules have titioner is her careful analysis of the been developed to a fine art form. The courses in personal power and women's management without be­ nature of job design and evaluation. collection of data and the writing of The chapters dealing with these areas annual reports by those involved in stowing even the palliative techni­ ques of transcendental meditation. contain invaluable checklists for en­ EEO may well have done something suring that relevant skills and to smarten up personnel procedures The Gifthorse points out that EEO has qualities can be included and their and records in government depart­ had a mixed reception. The House of relative worth assessed. In this time of ments, but it has not resulted in chang­ Representatives standing committee new skills training, award restructur­ ing the lot of the majority of women, on legal and constitutional affairs has ing and calls for new workplace or­ Koories and people with disabilities. had a range of responses which indi­ ganisation, now must surely be the cate that EEO is a good idea but not time to take advantage of the breaks in The chapters of The Gifthorse which working well. One of the messages come closest to the core of the frustra­ the normal managerial pattern to in­ from experience so far is to diversify tions of the last decade are "Bastards" ject new and more equitable work the tactics and place less reliance on designs and structures. and "Beneficiaries". The techniques of legislation. resistance are clearly and accurately One of the conclusions feminists will outlined, and well known to any EEO Clare Burton's The Promise and the draw from The Gifthorse and The practitioner—misrepresentation, Price has concentrated far more on the obstruction, sustained disbelief and inequalities of the labour market and Promise and the Price is that EEO legis­ lation and programs have had an im­ circumvention among them. The not just the inadequacies of the EEO pact, but not a mass impact There games the powerful play are so com­ legislation. Burton provides a close ex­ needs to be a strategic regrouping to plex and devious that new players are amination of the major equity issues pick a tactic or two which would help easily confused and beaten. The sar­ in organisational practice and how donic list of "The fifty ways of avoid­ current practices affect women's the majority of women gain more status, money and dignity in the ing change—a checklist for saving employment. time and ingenuity" is terrific, and the workplace. This may well be a sodal sections on queen bees and For me, the most valuable and inter­ interventionist program like work- homosodaliability (known in Victoria esting section of Burton's book is that based child care. Alternatively, the as cloning) are accurate without overt which deals with gender and power themes of Burton's essays seem to bitterness. in organisations. Since most work or­ point to changing job design, so as to ganisation was set up by men, it tends change the people in the job, which The chapter on "Beneficiaries" has an to reflect men's values. This helps to would in turn change the organisa­ equally strong message. The real acoount for women's inequality in the tion. Whatever the solutions or beneficiaries of EEO are generally workplace. Burton explores the strategies, the next decade needs an middle class women or those from proposition that men feel that women injection of new hope and direction. ethnic backgrounds. Even among contaminate the workplace; that men The Gifthorse and The Promise and the these groups, how ever, the do not want to do work that women Price provide an excellent starting beneficiaries are comparatively small may become identified with; and that point. in number and must turn into mock men will leave jobs in which women men to be accepted. The disad­ build up numbers. "Without the mas­ JAN DILLOWS works in the EEO vantaged groups as a mass are not culine connotation the job ceases to be branch of the Victorian Ministry of greatly changed by the EEO legisla­ attractive to many men. Job satisfac­ Education and Training.

ALR ; JULY 1991