Feminism: myth of the generation gap
Karen Fletcher Much has been made of the supposed "generation gap" in feminism — differences of opinion between older and younger women on directions for the women's liberation movement. The following article, abridged from a talk presented at the 5th Women and Labour Conference in Sydney on September 28, exposes the myth that such political differences are based on age. The most popular recent feminist authors have been deliberating a common theme. Helen Garner says young feminists today have become "cold-faced, punitive girls", determined to cling to victimhood at any cost. Rene Denfield says the older generation's Victorian anti-sex morality has turned young women off feminism. Anne Summers says young feminists are "strangely inarticulate" and have failed to take up the feminist cause. Naomi Wolf claims older feminists have wallowed in their victim status for too long and given feminism a bad name. Their conclusions? Feminists of some age group or another are to blame for the current impasse in the movement for women's liberation. Their theories rest on allegations of a feminist "generation gap", a division in the feminist movement on the basis of age.
Women's movement today
It is important that generation gap theories be viewed in context. It is undeniable that the movement for the liberation of women is not advancing at a breathtaking pace. In Australia, the gap between men's and women's wages is growing for the first time since the 1970s with the phasing out of the awards system and the introduction of enterprise bargaining. Women are still predominantly concentrated in traditional occupations. More women are entering the work force, but overwhelmingly as part-time and casual employees. Women are providing a cheap source of low-skilled labour. Part-time and casual work is often touted as the "flexible" and "convenient" option for women with family responsibilities. Most such arrangements appear to be increasingly flexible for the employer and considerably less convenient for the worker with longer shifts, shorter notice of shift changes and shorter minimum work periods. At the same time the phrase "women with family responsibilities" is presented unproblematically despite the fact that women still shoulder considerably more than their fair share of child-care, aged care and housework. Dr Sheila Rimmer of La Trobe University conducted research showing that from the mid 1970s to the early '90s, while a small (though dramatically increased) number of women became highly paid professionals or senior public servants, a much larger number dropped from the middle to the low income bracket. In 1975 more than 70% of women earned a middle level wage; 15 years later only 57% were so lucky. As Adele Horin commented, "If a woman is not in one of the upper echelons of the public service, she is likely to be where women have always been — waiting on tables, pounding the keyboard, ringing up the cash register — for less than $10,000 a year.
Someone to blame
In times like these fingers get pointed. Why is this still the case? In Australia neo-liberal and economic rationalist policies have been introduced by an ALP federal government. Financial and labour market deregulation have been achieved through a series of "accords" worked out with the leadership of the trade union movement. The ALP has been able to sell the "restructuring" of the Australian economy as something which is good for everybody. Women and other socially and politically disadvantaged groups have suffered most in this process. Author Lynne Segal notes that in such a period, "conservative rhetoric resonates with some women's sense of defeat ... blaming the victim appeals to the powerful and the powerless alike".
Backlash stories
Anti-feminist stories in the establishment media have become so commonplace today that we barely notice them. Women have too much power, too much money, are violent towards men, sexually harass and even rape men, objectify men's bodies, and neglect their children, they say. Never mind the real stories, for example that sexual harassment and violence continue to affect mainly women because of their low social status and lack of economic independence. But the conservative backlash has resonated within feminism. Garner's and Denfield's books have touched a nerve. These writers do raise some good points, (although they are not new), mostly critiques of radical, and particularly separatist, feminism. Are men really the enemy? Is a wolf whistle really as serious an assault as a rape? Is censorship really going to eliminate degrading depictions of women? Are all women really the victims of all men?
Whose feminism?
Most adherents to the generation gap theory equate a radical separatist position with feminism. Denfield's "New Victorians", Garner's "hard-faced, punitive girls", and Wolf's "victim feminists" are all caricatured radical feminists. According to Denfield young women deny they are feminists because feminism has become "bogged down in an extremist moral and spiritual crusade that has nothing to do with women's lives. For my generation feminism has become as confining as what it pretends to combat." She identifies feminism with particular theorists including Robin Morgan, Catherine MacKinnon, Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin and Adrienne Rich. For Helen Garner the Victorians are not the old guard but the new. Her "cold-faced, punitive girls" are also thinly disguised, anti-male, radical feminists. Garner seems to have forgotten about how difficult it is to stand up to sexism, sexual harassment and assault in institutions such as university colleges. She promotes a new angle — "radical feminist in sexually alluring evening frock gets kind old man sacked from job for no good reason". Garner muses on some interesting points. What is the difference between harassment and assault? Shouldn't there be some gradation of such offences? What is the impact of involving the criminal justice system in sexual harassment cases? Can, or should, human sexual behaviour be governed by rules and regulations? But she makes no contribution to the debate within the feminist movement — she merely disowns us all. Garner claims to have been "crucified" by feminists over The First Stone, but she has had some powerful supporters. Well known Australian feminist Anne Summers, for example, agreed that the young women in the Ormond case lacked "a sense of their own power and an ability to fend for themselves". In March this year, Summers took the opportunity of the publication of Garner's book to upbraid young women for failing to take up the feminist banner. "This generation", she wrote, "is strangely inarticulate. Not one of them has leapt into print to describe and defend the view of the world she and her peers favour, nor to take on the ideas of the founders of the 1970s women's movement." The article provoked an avalanche of mail, much from young feminists asserting that they did, in fact, exist — but were finding it a little difficult to get a book deal.
The ALP and women
In 1983, with a federal election looming and the gender gap gaping (53% support for Labor among men, but only 47% among women), Anne Summers was recruited by the ALP to head the newly created federal Office for the Status of Women. She moved into action quickly and has been credited as the architect of the sex discrimination and affirmative action legislation enacted in the mid '80s. The strategy worked. In 1984, for the first time in Australian political history, the popularity of Labor among women (48%) was higher than among men (46%). In 1992 Summer was recruited again, to do for Paul Keating what she had done for Bob Hawke. The gap between male and female support for Labor in the months prior to the 1993 election was back up around 5%. Personal approval ratings for Keating and Hewson gave Hewson a 6% lead among women voters. This revealed that women, especially middle-aged, middle-class women with children, were the key to a Labor victory. Summers' brief was clearly to make a big splash, spend as little money as possible and target the "swingable" women with surgical precision. While she faithfully completed these tasks Summers made one error — she was a little too obvious. Could Keating and the Labor Party have changed so dramatically as to really consider child-care a fundamental economic issue? Even the mainstream media noticed, and reported upon, the blatant vote-buying tactics. The policy promised child-care subsidies for the better off who already had child-care, but promised no increase in the number of child-care places for either rich or poor. The remainder of the ALP's women's policy (developed at taxpayers' expense as the federal government's "New National Agenda for Women") consisted of a negligible amount of new funding over the next three years for public relations exercises. These economical policies were also carefully targeted. Market research, commissioned by Anne Summers and the Office of the Status of Women, revealed that, after child-care, the major concerns of women are unemployment, domestic and other violence against women, and women's health. At the launch of the ALP's policy, Paul Keating claimed his government would meet the total demand for work-related child-care by 2001. The crowd of 600 well-heeled women, obviously unfazed by the similarity of the Keating's formulation to Hawke's 1987 promise that no child would live in poverty by 1990, gave a standing ovation. Buoyed by the support of his audience Keating went on to promise "true equality' between the sexes by the year 2000. The launch made newspaper headlines nationally, "Major policy victory for feminists" raved the Australian, "PM to wage war on sexism" trumpeted the Sydney Morning Herald. But the agenda contained few new initiatives and cost under $5 million in new funding over three years. It included: a pilot program to develop educational material for judges and magistrates about their attitudes toward women; a free phone number to give domestic violence information to rural and isolated women (with no mention of the vastly under-resourced services whose specific domestic violence funding program finishes at the end of this financial year); $750 000 additional funding for women's lobby groups including the Women's Electoral Lobby and the Catholic Women's League; and four "working women's centres" to provide information to women negotiating workplace agreements under enterprise bargaining. In a speech made at a dinner for his personal staff on the eve of the election, Keating said that with the Coalition so far to the right, and nothing significant on the left, he felt confident of victory. History records that they did indeed win. Exit polls conducted by AGB McNair also record that the 1993 elections were the first in which over 50% of women voted for the ALP. But Labor has failed to deliver. In fact, under attack from the economic rationalist policies of ALP and Coalition governments alike, at all levels of government, the majority of women are increasing worse off. The need for a strong women's liberation movement which can defend women against these attacks is as great, if not greater than as ever. The generation gap argument has been taken up by reformist feminists, liberal feminists, capitalism-friendly feminists, to discredit or deny the existence of feminists who are still going for the whole thing — the kind of fundamental social change that will deliver equality for all women in all spheres of life. Those committed to the struggle for women's liberation can be and are of any age. As activists we are still at the margins and won't get a book deal in a hurry, but we are still here, we are still committed and we are still discussing the best way forward, in good faith and on the basis of politics — not of age.