Summers states that The actual experience of far too many women in Australia today suggests that the promise of equality has not been met. Sadly, we are actually going in the opposite direction (Summers 2003). This essay will thus assess the trut

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Women’s Inequality in Australia

Introduction

Anne Summers is a Walkley award winning journalist is an advocate for women’s rights (Summers, 2011). Summer’s states that “The actual experience of far too many women in Australia today suggests that the promise of equality has not been met. Sadly, we are actually going in the opposite direction” (Summers 2003). This essay will thus assess the truth of this statement. It will therefore be demonstrated that gender inequality is still persistent in Australia but the gap of inequality has decreased. Therefore Summer’s statement is partially correct in terms of women suffering inequality in Australia but is incorrect in terms of it going into the opposite direction. To demonstrate this point, four areas will be explored. These are the legislative equality and the inequality of women in the health domain, paid and finally, unpaid work.

Legislature change

Since the 1970s, Australia has been a beacon of gender equality in terms of legislature (Najaman, Western 2003: p.p 100-102). The introduction of the 1972 ‘equal pay for equal work’ was instrumental in bridging the gender inequality gap within the workforce (Najaman, Western 2003: p.p 100-102). This was further enhanced with the implementation of the 1972 Child Care Act and the Maternity Leave Act of 1973. These two important legislative changes were designed to remove inequalities based on biological reasons and thus increasing woman’s economic value and reducing their reliance on men particularly within the family nucleus (Summers 2003: p.p 121-141). It also allowed woman the opportunity to pursue their social roles without being hampered professionally (Edgar 1974: p.p 227-236). The 1975 Family Act was instrumental in decreasing the inequality within the nucleus of the family. This is due to the implementation of the ‘no fault’ divorce and it enabled woman to gain access to 50% of the marital property (Holmes, Hughes, Julian 2012: p.p 105-127). The act has therefore increased the value of woman’s unpaid labor and power woman posses within the nucleus of the family. In 1984, the Sex Discrimination Act and 1986 Affirmative Action Act were both instrumental in reducing biologically based inequalities and the sexual division of labor.  Therefore it can be seen that legally there is no inequality between the sexes and thus the statement was incorrect in concluding that the rights of women have gone backwoods (Najaman, Western 2003: p.p 100-102). However, thought there is legal equality and thus women’s rights have not gone backwoods, practically women are still suffering inequality (Summers 2003: p.p 121-141).

Health Domain

The relationship between patriarchy and capitalism in health demonstrates the inequality of women to men (Greig, Lewins, White 2003: p.p 59-77). The number of male doctors in the industry has traditionally outstripped the number of females but it should be noted that this trend is slowly changing. Not only is there inequality in medical employment but the commercialization of child birth demonstrates the inequality between men and women (Greig, Lewins, White 2003: p.p 59-77). The dominance of males in the health profession has meant that childbirth has become commercialized. As a result, female reproductive capacities has come under the practical control and thus became medicalised (Greig, Lewins, White 2003: p.p 59-77). The financial remuneration from the medicalisation of childbirth has mean that it has become a capitalist enterprise. Today, childbirth is turning it into a biotechnical problem in need of medical control and has resulted in allowing for the unnecessary intervention of healthy pregnant woman. This is exhibited in the increase of caesarean sections in Australia from 20.3% in 1997 to 21.9% in 1999 (Greig, Lewins, White 2003: p.p 59-77). The relationship between patriarchy and capitalists is further examined in the increase in the rate of caesarian sections in private hospitals, which was 29.5% in 1999. This was 53% higher than the rate of 19% for woman in public hospitals (Greig, Lewins, White 2003: p.p 59-77). In fact the world health organization has expressed concern about the number of interventions in pregnancy and recommends that the maximum number of caesarean sections should be between 10% and 15% (Greig, Lewins, White 2003: p.p 59-77). The biomedical focus on woman’s reproductive capacity in western societies means that they are systematically targeted in screening programs for cervical cancer and breast cancer, which urge them to have check-ups on a regular basis (Greig, Lewins, White 2003: p.p 59-77). This is often referred as surveillance medicine that essentially involves the search for the abnormal few with invisible diseases justifies the surveillance of the normal majority (Greig, Lewins, White 2003: p.p 59-77). The male dominated post-modern world has transformed the health of woman in order to increase their capitalist aspirations. As a result, it is clear that the commercialization of health has resulted in the inequality of women in Australia.

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Paid work

While it is unquestionable that the participation of woman in the workforce has increased over the last three decades, many Australian woman still experience employment disadvantages (Greig, Lewins, White 2003: p.p 138-151). This is examined in the works of Claire Williams and John Western who explored the hierarchical relations of a number of dominant industries in Australia. They concluded that in 1999 woman accounted for only 4% of company directors and 12% of senior management positions in firms with more than 100 employees (Najaman, Western 2003: p.p 89-112). In addition woman make up seven out of ...

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