Category: Gender equity

Discrimination in the 1960s, by an unofficial feminist

Despite being ranked equal first for educational attainment, Australia came in at 44th overall in the Global Gender Gap Index 2020 rankings, slipping five places from the previous year. But things are better than the discrimination evident in the 1960s and 1970s*.

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She Who Rides Trail Bikes

By Laurel Wilson

In 1965, Merle Thornton and her friend Rosalie Bogner walked into the Regatta Hotel in Brisbane and chained themselves to the Public Bar as a protest about the discrimination which forbade women from drinking there (instead, relegated to the ‘Ladies’ Lounge’ to drink their Shandies).

At the time, I remember wondering why any self-respecting woman would want to drink in the noisy, smelly, smoke-filled drinking pit that was the usual Public Bar. But then I was just a naive teenager, content to wear the black stockings, gloves and hat that my school rules required, even in the midst of a Brisbane summer. That same school had a rule in which the girls were not allowed to talk to the boys – the playground was separated into the girls’ section and the boys’ section. It seems a ridiculous rule now, and I thought the same at the time. I do remember attempting a small rebellion at one stage, encouraging the girls to sit on one side of the dividing path and the boys on the other, but it came to naught, so my incipient reputation as a ‘stirrer’ was saved for another day.

Then on to University, where it was often rumoured that the women were in danger of being harassed for ‘favours’ by some of the male tutors and lecturers. I didn’t experience this myself, but it seemed to be common knowledge who to avoid.

Prior to graduating, I came to the realisation that because of discrimination, women were officially paid less than men for doing the same job, apparently under the assumption that men needed more money in order to provide for a family. The flaws in this ‘logic’ are too gaping to bother elucidating. I decided at the time that I wouldn’t seek any employment that had such a discriminatory policy. By the time I was in my last year of University, the female wage for teachers was 90% of that for men and there was equal pay by the time I graduated. The requirement that women resign on marriage had gone by the board some time previously (see time-line below).

I had a Holden Ute and a trail bike which I used to race on the dirt track at Tivoli near Ipswich. Of course I had to have a full set of leathers. I had a red leather jacket and black pants (with red hearts on the knee patches). As I was wearing a full-face helmet, it was sometimes a bit difficult to tell there was a female on the bike, except that I was pretty slow. There were a couple of other women racers as well. We’d race in the same races as the men, but there was usually also a ‘ladies’ race’. I didn’t think of it as pioneering anything at the time, but I guess it was a bit unusual.

I asked an artistic friend of mine to paint a red Suzuki ‘S’ on the driver’s side door, which he duly did, but added an embellishment of his own by painting the Women’s Lib sign on the tailgate. I don’t think that the rather conservative principal of the school where I was teaching was favourably impressed with that.

After some years teaching, I took a break for a while then applied for a job with the Probation and Parole Service as it was then called. There was a vacancy in Toowoomba, which would require travelling to towns further west from time to time One of the interview questions asked was what I would do if I got a flat tyre. My reply was that I would lift the bonnet and wait for someone to give me a hand. That seemed to satisfy them, as I got the job. I’m not sure how many other women were doing that job at the time, but we were definitely in the minority. I believe it was somewhat grudgingly accepted that women employees were needed as there was a growing number of female probationers and parolees. Not that we were confined to supervising women only, so I guess you could call the Service an equal opportunity employer.

Being a State Government job, it was quite well paid, and in those days, a permanent position. I assumed that there would be no problem obtaining a loan to buy a house (for the princely sum of $17,250 – a three-bedroom weatherboard on a large block near the Showgrounds in Toowoomba.) I had quite a good deposit, and as I’d been banking with the same bank since I was at school, I assumed I’d have no problem obtaining a loan. Not without a male guarantor! I withdrew my money from the bank and never darkened their doors again. I’m looking at you, Commonwealth Bank!

Tuesday 8th March was International Women’s Day. According to an article from the BBC that I read, the date of 8th March was formalised after a strike in Russia in 1917 in which Russian women demanded “bread and peace”.

The strike began on the 8th of March and after four days, the Tsar was forced to abdicate.

We can only hope history repeats itself!

Discrimination against women in Australia 1960s-1970s

Despite the introduction of the Federal Sex Discrimination Act in 1984, women continue to be disadvantaged. In case you forgot, the Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexism, homophobia, transphobia and biphobia, as well as sex, marital or relationship status, actual or potential pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status or breastfeeding in public.

 TIMELINE

1956: Until this year women were prevented from teaching full-time after marriage. The Temporary Teachers Union lobbied for this restriction to be dropped;.

1961: Women could buy the contraceptive pill but initially it was only available (on prescription) to married women and carried a 27.5% ‘luxury item” tax;

1966: Australia lifted the legislated marriage ban, which prevented married women from holding permanent positions in the public service;

1971: The Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac) became the first Australian lender to lend money to a female without a male guarantor;

1969: First abortion rights granted (with limitations);

1972: The right to equal pay introduced (see note at end);

1972: The newly-formed Women’s Electoral Lobby made the contraceptive pill more freely available;

1972: Gough Whitlam introduced a single mother’s pension. It was later broadened to a single parent pension (available to men and women);

1973: Commonwealth employees were granted 12 weeks paid maternity leave and 40 weeks unpaid leave;

1974: The minimum wage was extended to cover women;

1975: No-fault divorce introduced, formation of women’s refuges;

1979: Women were granted 52 weeks unpaid maternity leave;

1983: Married women could apply for an Australian passport without needing an authorisation from their husbands;

1991: the marriage age in Australia of females was increased from 16 to 18 (the same as males;

2011: Federally-funded paid parental leave introduced;

2020: Gender pay gap between men and women confirmed at 13.8%;

2022: Despite the 1972 equal pay declaration, Australian  typically earn about $25,000 a year less than men (Workplace Gender Equality Agency).

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Gender equity and ‘Men Make Dinner Day’

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Share of adults that cook and/or do housework in selected European countries, by gender in 2016. Eurostat/Destatis https://www.statista.com/chart/15880/housework-europe-gender-split/

At the outset I should say that ‘National Men Make Dinner Day’ is a US invention and not celebrated in Australia – although it should be! The sub-heading is important – no barbecues or takeaway pizzas allowed.

Founder Sandy Sharkey recommends National Men Make Dinner Day for blokes who are completely lost in the kitchen.
“Keep your sense of humour (and a frying pan) and who knows, this could be the start of something beautiful (or charred)!”

National Men Make Dinner Day is the first Thursday in November (the 4th of November this year) so get to it, men. Plan the evening meal, print out a recipe, purchase ingredients (and a good bottle of red), and then get cooking.

I was musing about this on Sunday night when I was in the final stages of serving up home-made pizza for dinner. On switching the tray from the top to the bottom, the tray slipped out of my grasp and the pizza landed on the half-open oven door. Much swearing ensued as I manoeuvred the pizza back on the tray; not before spilling some of the toppings on the kitchen floor.

I’m a marginal case in the kitchen but luckily there is She Who is a Great Cook. But she occasionally tires of the routine and announces:

“I’m bored with cooking, why don’t you come up with something tonight?”

“Hello, is that Roddies Fish and Chips?”

My culinary skills include spaghetti bolognaise, Asian stir fry, pizza, sausages and veg and the occasional all-day roast in the slow cooker. Cooking in-house is enhanced around here by She Who Has a Green Thumb contributing produce from the garden.

As is my wont, I started researching the touchy topic of whether men do much cooking at home, or housework in general. It is called ‘gender equality’ in the jargon of academia.

There was much media commentary when the 2016 Census results began to trickle out. It seemed that one in four Australian men did no housework at all. That ratio has improved since then, with the Covid lockdown having a lot to do with helping men improve their cooking and housework skills.

The US-based Pew Research Center surveyed couples about how Covid had affected the way they share household duties. Pew found there were differing perceptions before and after the pandemic. For example, in 2019, 49% of men said they were satisfied with this aspect of their relationship, compared with 39% of women. In 2020 the gender gap widened, with 55% of men saying they were happy with the sharing of household duties, compared with 38% of women.

Gender equality has made big strides in the EU, except for housework, according to Martin Armstrong, writing for Statista. The most balanced split was in Sweden where 79% of women said they do cooking and housework, against 56% of men. The gap was wider in the UK (85% 49%) and the less said about Greece (84% 16%), the better.

(BTW, there must be some awfully messy households in Hungary – see above table- unless they’ve all got housemaids.Ed.)

Australia’s latest survey on household task-sharing indicates that 47% of couple households report that household chores are equally shared. I consider myself well entrenched in this cohort. I do the washing up 90% of the time (although not always to SWIAGC’s satisfaction). I vacuum 100% of the time (my Doctor told  me it’s bad for my back. Ed)  and it’s probably 50/50 in the laundry. Cooking, well, I make lunch about half of the time but cook dinner maybe once or twice a week and not on a schedule. My bad.

I am probably getting a bit long in the tooth to be blaming my upbringing, but our household in the 1950s was very traditional. Dad went to work and earned the ‘bawbees’ and did outside chores like mowing, heavy gardening (potatoes) and knocking off the occasional chook. Mum was in charge of the kitchen (and plucking and gutting of aforementioned chook). She did the laundry (in a copper), rinsing with a mangle over two concrete tubs. Those were the days! The kids had set chores which included feeding the chooks, helping with washing up and taking turns with the lawns and garden.

Dad, as they’d say ‘never lifted a finger’ in the house. To be fair, he worked night shift as a baker and slept in the afternoons, so could hardly be involved in the preparation of the evening meal. He would get up about 5pm, have a bath and sit and read the newspaper until dinner was served at 6pm.

As I entered adulthood, I vowed not to become that kind of man – the ‘head of the household’. Relationships with women who were becoming aware of feminism helped consolidate my stance.

Over the years I became aware that, feminism aside, not all couple households operated within a loose framework of gender equality. At one dinner party, as I rose to clear away plates and start serving dessert, one of the men muttered ‘Mate, you’re letting the side down’.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies carried out a study of opposite-sex couple households in 2020.  In 12% of couple families, household tasks were always done by the female and in 30% of couple families, they were usually done by the female.

By comparison, in 8% of couple families these tasks were usually done by the male and in 2% of couple families, they were always done by the male. As noted, in 47% of households, chores were equally shared.

Most males (74%) were satisfied with the way household tasks are divided compared to 52% of satisfied females. Now that is a gender gap!

Some people are just not designed for certain household chores. You are either a good cook or you’re not, IMHO. If you’re the one that always overcooks the vegies, burns the chops or drops the half-baked pizza on the oven door, why not step back and let the gourmet chef do it? I’m sure our old friend Mr Shiraz won’t mind my sharing this anecdote.

Mr Shiraz is and always has been the cook in his household and a damn fine chef he is. He and partner are also avid gardeners, so there is always a plentiful supply of fresh vegetables and herbs to spare.

Once when we were invited over for dinner, our son, who was then five, piped up: “What’s Trevor cooking tonight?”

No wonder he grew up understanding that men (and boys) must iron their own clothes, thus dutifully ironing his school shirts and shorts.

National Men Make Dinner Day’s Sandy Sharkey provides an amusing list to motivate men to do more cooking (and not just on one day).

  • First and importantly, you can wear your tool belt in the kitchen – just replace the hammer with a whisk;
  • Find recipes which include beer as a legitimate ingredient;
  • Whoever is cooking always gets more attention from the dog;
  • Since you choose the recipe, you can avoid things you don’t like (turnip, brussel sprouts, kale);
  • Some desserts (crème brulee) require the use of a propane torch (how good is that);
  • Form new bonds with male friends who also cook;
  • Participation in the kitchen earns optimum points with the wife (use them wisely).

Here is the easy way out: buy a rolled roast (no waste), place in the slow cooker with peeled potatoes, onion and pumpkin, add herbs and a dash of red wine. Put on low at 9am and by dinner time it will be ready to go. Steam some vegies and set the table.

With luck, your spouse will do the washing up!

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