This book is exciting! In The Meagre Harvest Gisela Kaplan canvasses the practical, social, cultural and political aspects of the Australian women’s movement over the last quarter century with candour and refreshing frankness. She does not resile from making the hard statements and appropriate criticisms where those are due. At the same time though she acknowledges fully the very positive and unique contributions that the Australian women’s movement has made to shaping the debate, both at home and abroad, around such issues as egalitarianism, equality, discrimination, identity: credit where it is due. It is down-to-earth, yet academic; concrete, yet abstract. In other words it is the most balanced perspective of the Australian women’s movement over the past twenty-five years that one could read, and be provoked and challenged. DR PATRICIA O’SHANE CHANCELLOR UNIVERSITY OF NEW ENGLAND DOCUPRO FINAL ART i CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR DOCUPRO FINAL ART ii CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR THE MEAGRE HARVEST The Australian Women’s Movement 1950s–1990s G ISELA KAPLAN ALLEN & UNWIN DOCUPRO FINAL ART iii CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR Copyright © Gisela Kaplan 1996 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. First published in 1996 by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd 9 Atchison Street, St Leonards, NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 9901 4088 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 E-mail: [email protected] National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Kaplan, Gisela The meagre harvest: the Australian women’s movement 1950s–1990s. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 1 86448 062 9. 1. Feminism—Australia—History. I. Title. 305.420994 Set in 11.5/12pt Bembo by DOCUPRO, Sydney Printed by Southwood Press Pty Ltd, Sydney 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 DOCUPRO FINAL ART iv CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR CONTENTS THE MEAGRE HARVEST CONTENTS Tables and figure vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi PART I SOWING 1 1 Finding the beginning 3 The mood before the movement 5 Homegrown issues 10 When work outside the home was not a choice 18 The brewing of the storm and Vietnam 23 PART II IN THE FIELD 29 2 Women go it alone 31 The stages of the Australian women’s liberation movement 33 Women and feminism 38 Women and gender roles 41 Gender and identity 47 The concept of equality 50 v DOCUPRO FINAL ART v CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR vi THE MEAGRE HARVEST 3 Testing the water 58 Feminist orientation and its strategies 62 The projects 70 The infiltration of women into decision-making bodies 74 The conflicts 78 4 Sappho’s new sisters 91 The lesbian and the gay and lesbian movements 95 Lesbians and the women’s movement 98 The opposition to lesbians and gays 103 From consciousness-raising to militancy 104 Lesbians and the law 108 The current state of play 112 Backlashes 116 5 Sisters over the fence 122 Migrant women 122 Visibility, new exclusions and the women’s movement 126 Aboriginal women and the black women’s movement 135 Perceptions of Aboriginal women 138 Aboriginal women and the white women’s movement 145 PART III HARVESTING 149 6 Backlashes 151 Restructuring in the 1980s 153 The enemies of social justice 159 Attitudes, images and beliefs: more or the same enemies? 161 The revolt against behaving fairly 164 7 Social indicators today 168 Work 168 Education 180 Marriage and the family 187 8 Panaceas for the future? 193 Fences and other impediments 195 Hobbled reforms 203 Endnotes 207 References 209 Index 231 DOCUPRO FINAL ART vi CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR TABLES AND FIGURE TABLES AND FIGURE T ABLES 2.1 The relationship between income equality and welfare expenditure in western nations 56 3.1 Feminist attitudes to collaboration with the state 68 3.2 Women in executive positions in Australian unions, 1979 76 5.1 Comparison of migrant and Aboriginal women with other women by type of harassment, 1990 129 5.2 Social indicators, Aborigines vs other Australians, 1993 137 5.3 Police custody rates by state, 1988 138 5.4 Loss of parent(s) by death in Aboriginal families 142 5.5 Life situation and demands to the state by Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic women 147 7.1 Women’s labour force participation and the gender pay gap, 1994 170 7.2 Proportion of women in management in the private sector, 1984–92 173 7.3 Changes in the education of females, 1983–93 181 7.4 Marriage, birth and family patterns, 1983–93 189 F IGURE 7.1 Full-year, full-time workers: proportion of workers at each level of income, 1989–90 169 vii DOCUPRO FINAL ART vii CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR DOCUPRO FINAL ART viii CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS his book was commenced with the assistance of an ARC small Tgrant held at the University of New England (UNE), Armidale in 1990 and 1991. My thanks are due to UNE, the Research Office, and particularly to Prof. Anne-Katrin Eckermann, Head of the Department of Aboriginal and Multicultural Studies and to Prof. Malcolm Falkus for a very conducive work atmosphere and their unfailing support. The grant enabled me to travel to libraries and archives throughout (coastal) Australia and to gain some research assistance for the arduous task of assembling and typing the biblio- graphical material. I thank particularly Sally Jackson of Armidale for the latter. Chapter 4 could not have been written without the generous assistance and support from the Australian Gay and Lesbian Archives in Melbourne and the Lesbar Library in Darlington, Western Australia. Chapter 5 benefited greatly from the material provided by the Ecumenical Migration Centre and Migrant Clear- ing House in Richmond, Victoria. Other material was obtained with help from the Women’s Archive when this was still housed at the ANU, with thanks particularly to Dr Jill Mathews. Specialised source materials were also secured from the Melbourne State Library, the Women’s Library in Newtown, NSW, the Murdoch University Library, Murdoch, WA and the Women’s Information ix DOCUPRO FINAL ART ix CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR x THE MEAGRE HARVEST and Referral Exchange in Perth. To all staff at these archives and special collection libraries, my sincere thanks. I would like to acknowledge the extraordinarily helpful staff at Dixson Library, UNE, for their continued assistance, especially in obtaining material from elsewhere. A special vote of thanks to Celia Munro, the faculty librarian liaison officer, for her valuable role far beyond the call of duty. Two anonymous readers read an early draft of this manuscript. Their very detailed comments were extremely useful at that stage of writing. This was very much appreciated and I thank them for their careful feedback. I warmly thank Prof. Lesley Rogers for reading the final draft in full and for making important suggestions and Prof. Miriam Dixson for many stimulating discussions on the topic of this book. To my friends and colleagues, a sincere thank you for taking an active interest in the subject of this book and to Allen & Unwin, particularly to Jo Jarrah for seeing the book through to the end and to publisher Elizabeth Weiss, thanks for a continued positive working relationship and some astute guidance on the way. DOCUPRO FINAL ART x CLIENT ALLEN & UNWIN REFERENCE DP1\DP5911W\PRELIMS DOCUPHONE (02) 438 3722 DOCUFAX (02) 438 3733 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 1200R\120\215\BROMIDE\PRR INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION wenty-five years have passed since second-wave women’s Tmovements began. Most continue to be fuelled by conflict, but it is not always as clear as it was in 1970 what these conflicts are ultimately meant to achieve. I believe that, partly for this reason, it is time to ask what has been achieved and what remains to be done. But before such analysis can even begin, we need to know what has happened. Those who were part of the Australian women’s movement from the very start still have only their personal, anecdotal experiences and, of course, there are now at least two generations of young women to whom the 1970s are merely history. I therefore thought it vital to write an account that offered a wide-ranging view of the social context (1950s–1990s) of the new Australian women’s movement.