Contemporary Australian Feminism 2
Edited by Kate Pritchard
Hughes Longman Australia, 1997. 352pp., $29.95
Review by Melanie Sjoberg
In my paid employment as a trade union industrial officer, I come into contact with a wide range of people. Union members reflect a diverse array of consciousness, understanding and views. It was, however, still a little disconcerting to speak with a member participating in a recent union women's seminar, who indicted that her work colleagues warned her away from attending because "it would be full of hairy armpits and butch lesbians".
It is not difficult to identify with anecdotes of confusion, retreat and conservatism. Feminism, like politics generally, is hit by the ideological barrage of the mainstream media myth makers.
The same people who provide us with Neighbours also encourage us to believe that children are really much better off when mum is home caring for them. This is the basis for Howard's philosophy of tax breaks for the stay-at-home mum and cutting funds to child-care.
Reading Contemporary Australian Feminism 2 with this background in mind proved sobering. The theme of the compilation of essays can be summed up with the cliché notion that women "have come so far, yet have so far to go".
The index reads like the curriculum for a first-year university Introduction to Women's Studies course. It offers a selection of jump-off points, from the general "Feminism for Beginners" to the specific "The Body Politic". To that extent, it is a valuable resource for anyone wanting to discover some of the current debates.
The book provides a useful overview of the theoretical developments within the second wave of feminism, issues surrounding women and work and the construction of sexuality. It dabbles in the role of culture, ideology of the family, the law, race, class and women in developing countries.
This is also the weakness in the book, because none of these issues is treated with the necessary depth, nor is consideration given to the fact that some aspects of women's situation may play a more central role than others.
The most glaring omission is the lack of any historical base and its failure to take a political position. Conversely, the book suggests that there are a myriad of options and that feminism may be just another of the many choices we have to make about how we live:
"There are radical feminists, liberal feminists, Marxist feminists, socialist feminists, postmodern feminists, ecofeminists, poststructuralist feminists, cultural feminists, lesbian separatists, psychoanalytical feminists to name but a few", and "... there are more lifestyle choices and ways of living as a feminist than it is possible to say".
The premise of these statements can be found in the chapter on "The Ideology of the Family". Sections contain some useful data on the difficulties that women confront in various forms of the family, especially in respect to societal expectations.
It also draws on women's stories to demonstrate that there is a strong anecdotal view that working mothers are not achieving the best for the children. The writer fails to explain adequately why mothers themselves may hold this view. The analysis is not thorough, lacking a clear understanding of how ideology is developed and sustained through education system, media and structures of the state.
There is barely a mention of capitalism, profit, class, the gender division of labour or the state.
Jeanie Rea's chapter, "The Feminisation of Poverty; An International Perspective", is the notable exception. Here she clearly identifies influential structures such as the IMF and the World Bank in directly affecting women's lives and choices through structural adjustment policies. The drive of governments to attract capitalist investment in an increasingly global market is identified as the root cause of the changes impacting upon women.
Similarly, Rae exposes the link between capitalist development and the significant gender division of labour which exploits young women. Her conclusion, that the power structures need to be changed, is accurate; however, she still calls this "male stream".
The renewal of the women's liberation movement and a holistic understanding of feminism require more than a piecemeal approach to the many and varied experiences of women. We need to remind a whole new layer of women about the history of the movement and the very strong links to socialism.
Women are the first targets of the attacks in the conservative agenda. The insidious euphemism "privatisation" is placing more and more responsibility back on the family for child-care, health, community welfare and now the ongoing financial support of "children" up to 25 years old.
The majority of women do not have a myriad of choices about how to play out their feminism, but more importantly need to be united through sharing their experiences and fighting together to defend those gains won by the earlier waves of feminism.