By Kerry Parnell
Purple and green have always been a harmonious feminist combination, but the colours look set to run in the 1990s. Will mainstream green organisations continue to block moves to adopt affirmative action policies (policies which some of the least progressive multinational corporations adopted years ago)?
Prominent Sydney activists are concerned that the "movement of the decade" is way behind the times. Not only is there a lack of feminist awareness, but a nervous lack of feminist policy.
Where the policy does exist, it has not been accompanied by a strategic plan. Political parties and environmental organisations may not be covered by the affirmative action legislation brought in by the federal government in 1986, but their arguments against it are hardly revolutionary. For a movement that is supposed to be taking us into the future, it has an understanding of feminism that belongs in the past.
Sydney Green Alliance member and World Environment Day organiser Janet Parker advocates affirmative action as essential to Green Alliance policy, a concept that the green majority have reacted to with fear and distrust. She expresses disappointment over the fact that attitudes have not changed since the last federal election, when Green Alliance voted against her proposal for a three women-three men ticket.
Parker argues that basic feminist issues are not understood in the green movement, nor are any long-term strategies being developed for the future.
"The Green Alliance has had a lot of trouble attracting women, I think primarily because traditionally it has been a very male-dominated outfit, but also because its perspective on women is not a very conscious one."
The 1990 Green Alliance policy statement refers to the necessity of the "full participation of women in the political arena". However, according to Parker, women are not equally represented in the movement (particularly in the hierarchies of the peak councils).
From her involvement over the years, she has concluded women are generally working in administrative areas, as opposed to higher levels of representation, which may include speaking to the press or addressing rallies.
Another Green Alliance member, Lisa Macdonald, who is also a founding member of the Western Sydney Greens, likewise is disappointed with the stance the organisation has taken against affirmative action. She believes that in light of the past and present discrimination against women throughout society, and the fact that only about one-third of the people actively involved are women, redress measures are essential. "Women experience life as people who earn 66% of the male wage, who still take almost all of the responsibility for child-care, child rearing and domestic labour. All of those aspects of our life experience means that we have something to say which is different from men in how politics needs to develop in order to really meet the needs of women."
Macdonald also notes a division of labour between the sexes within green organisations.
"Men do take higher-profile and more leading roles. Men seem more willing to educate themselves about the issues concerned, or find it easier to do so. The theoretical leadership is particularly something which is led by men while women do the leafleting and all of that very essential, but nevertheless less considered, work of any organisation."
Macdonald calls for serious and consistent discussion of women's equal representation at all levels of all environmental organisations. She believes that the starting point for future strategy is to educate the movement on feminist issues with the philosophy that women's issues are everybody's issues.
Further, it is necessary to teach and remind men to encourage women's participation and to encourage women to take on new responsibilities. "There is a great need for women and the women's movement to have a very real and autonomous input into green politics", she says.
Macdonald argues that changing men and women's attitudes, although necessary, remains no more than a starting point. In the 1990s, affirmative action has been placed on even the most conservative agendas.
Pleading exemption on the grounds that male members of green organisations are already highly enlightened non-sexist beings who do not need to be bound to bureaucratic rules will, according to Macdonald, have to change.
Environmental activists Marnie Rowe, Judy Baderle and Kerrie Barret also express frustration at the contradiction between policy and reality. In spite of equal employment opportunity policies in their organisation, they felt that opportunities remained very different for women.
Barret argues that men continue to use power games for their own ends and expect women to succumb to their political plans.
Although it is recognised that these aggressive ploys are not exclusively male, Rowe believes that women are less inclined to resort to these tactics.
"Men tend to be more aggressive in their approach. Women tend to be a bit more concerned about other people and caring in the way that they approach things."
She suggested that the difference between male and female leadership and communication styles had not been taken into account within her organisation.
Baderle said that organisational policy did not address indirect discriminatory practices such as the male domination of meeting time.
She has tightened the facilitation of meetings in the hope of gaining contributions from voices other than the loudest or most aggressive. In her organisation, in which the top two positions are still held by men, it was evident that policy at the recruitment level alone has had very limited effectiveness.
The green movement has an impressive list of items on the agenda for the 1990s, but an outdated resistance to colouring it purple. It is failing to put itself at the forefront of change in this vital area.