Looking first at the public sphere, a number of writers [Power, 1975a:226-227; Riach, 1975:63-93; Broom and Jones, 1976:37-41] have observed that not only are there two labour markets in Australia, but that the type of work in which most women are employed is, on the whole, regarded as less consequential than that employing men.
Studies of the prestige associated with different occupations show that Australians consistently give low rank to jobs involving personal service, e.g., those associated with food, clothing, and cleaning
[Broom et at. , 1965:97-106], the very jobs in which Australian women, particularly since World War II, have tended to be disproportionately concentrated [Jones, 1971; Power, 1974:8]. Anderson [1920:298] noted that around the turn of the century the low esteem in which domestic service was held was an important factor creating a shortage of
domestic help and promoting a spirit of independence among young women wage earners. Australian girls of those days believed they would lose
social status if they did domestic work for pay. They preferred
factory work, although with it they received neither board nor lodging and so were not as well off as they would have been in domestic
service.
Turning to roles enacted in the private sphere, a number of studies overseas have commented on the low level of esteem now
accorded the roles of wife and mother. Mitchell [1976:5] has written that in most modern industrial societies, "... production, not
reproduction is the prestige sphere — and it is undoubtedly male- dominated"; and Galbraith has remarked [1973:49] that housewives today constitute a "crypto-servant" class, induced to spend their time in menial personal service in exchange for moral commendation about the virtues of self-sacrifice, and the privilege of being allowed to
remain dependent on the productive labour of their husbands. The Finnish sociologist, Haavio-Mannila [1969, Table 6:123-134],
presenting data showing that gender is influential in the way people rank different positions, remarked: "Women are generally ranked lower than men, wives lowest of all". Oakley [1974:10-11] and Lopata [1971: 363] have both maintained that there is a measure of agreement in society generally about the inferior status of the wife. If such agreement is indeed "a crucial determinant of social prestige
hierarchies" [Oakley, 1974:10], the position of wife and mother would appear to be part of a system of stratification in which the roles typically assigned to women are valued as less socially important than those assigned to men.
Are the roles of housewife and mother held in similarly low regard in Australia? Some [Stevenson, 1970; Summers, 1975; Dixson, 1976] have argued that women in Australia have been held in a
singularly low social esteem, yet the evidence discussed in Chapter 4 indicates that, while they have received little attention in
historical accounts, marriage and motherhood, women's primary social roles in Australia, have been highly esteemed — regarded, in fact, as crucial to the very survival of society itself.
However, in the 1970s evaluation of these roles in Australia may be changing. One clue is provided by the increasing number of wives and mothers going out to work. The occupation of housewife is subject to the same readily-perceived criteria of status as any other
occupation. If it is vested with less esteem than formerly, this may provide one of a number of pressures on women to seek employment out side the home. As Nandy and Nandy [1975:248] say in accounting for the increasing numbers of married women with small children returning to work in Great Britain, the pressure on women to go back to work is in order to
pavtioipate
in society and not just for economic reasons.2.5 Women's definition of their own situation
Broom [1959:432] has noted that when positions in society are stratified the same way for a large part of the population, and when
the rankings of individuals show high consensus, these orientations toward status are likely to be consequential in defining individuals and in affecting their definitions of themselves. Which leads to the
third question raised by the literature on women in Australia: given what appears to be a widening discrepancy between cultural values of equality between the sexes and differences in the prestige and social rewards accorded the work that men and women do, what are the
repercussions for Australian society and for the way women, in particular, define their situation?
In a postscript to Myrdal's An American Dilemma, written some 20 years after the study was undertaken, Rose [1962:xxvii-xliv] comments that although Negroes still experienced discrimination, insult,
segregation, and the threat of violence, they had become more sensitive and less adjusted to these things:
Schooled as they are by the American Creed, their standard of comparison for the present situation is not what existed in 1940, but what the Constitution and "the principles of democracy" say
it should be.
Does this describe the situation of women in Australia? Has the rise in emphasis on women's social condition, coupled with the
increasing involvement of women in work outside the home, made
Australian women more sensitive to the inconsistencies in their social position? Is this reflected in their self-definitions and their
acceptance of being assigned primarily to roles within the family? In a changing climate of expectations about equality between all peoples, why do a majority of women appear to comply with a system that
allocates them to positions ostensibly defined as relatively less important than those occupied by men?
2.6 Summary
progress in understanding the nature of women's position has been blocked by the paradox that women are at once half of humanity, yet a
special case. As Simone de Beauvoir has observed, "they belong to the male world and to a sphere in which that world is challenged". This has meant that in some respects women's position and social roles have been viewed according to a separate set of standards from those
applied to men, while in others the same set of standards has been applied. It has led to a disjunction in expectations concerning women's roles in the public and the private spheres.
The study of women has been subject to a similar disjunction: one body of literature deals generally with a description of the consequences for women of a system of inequality based on gender, but does not relate the particulars of women's situation to the nature of inequality in society as a whole; the other, while examining the nature and origins of social inequality, has, until recently, excluded social differences based on gender. In order to end this cleavage, what seems to be needed is to confront the paradox of women's
situation directly: First, recognize that women are part of the male world and evaluate their situation according to the same set of
standards that apply to men. For example, in the 1970s, do women have the same opportunities as men to participate in the life of the
community, do they occupy positions that give them equal access to the rewards enjoyed by Australian men? Second, recognize that women's reproductive function places them in a separate social sphere. Since the nature of their commitment to the private sphere (during the peak stages of childbearing and the presence of small children in the home) is different from that of men, so also are the conditions that govern their access to opportunities and social rewards. This is not to suggest that women should — or need to — bear the entire, or even the major responsibility for home duties and child care. On the contrary, during the reproductive stage of a woman's life cycle, special
remedies are required to prevent her from being unduly disadvantaged by the requirements of small children for constant adult supervision.
Part II uses this perspective to examine the position of women in Australia. First, Australia is a country in which egalitarianism has been highly esteemed. How have women fared in terms of the movement
to equalize conditions of existence and opportunity? Have the same norms of equality applied to women as to men? Second, as measured by
equality of condition and opportunity, do women in Australia occupy positions that give them equal access to opportunities and rewards, or do the positions that women occupy reflect the difference in the
nature of their commitment to the private sphere? Third, a number of Australian studies [Bryson and Thompson, 1972:60-61; Penman, 1975:
193-201; Cities Commission, 1975:26-27] report that when married women are asked how they feel about their lives, the majority say not
only that they are happy as wives but that, if working, they enjoy their jobs, even if these are low paid and routine. A 1972 market research survey {The Patterson Report, 1972) claimed to have found widespread resentment toward the women’s movement among housewives who said they liked things the way they were and wanted to retain the freedom not to have to take on outside employment [Faust, 1977:22]. The Women's Action Alliance, founded in Melbourne in April 1975 by a group of women who said they enjoyed being housewives and mothers and had been insulted and ridiculed by the women's movement [Summers,
1977:12], is actively lobbying for a "homemaker's allowance" — a wage paid to women at home to ensure that they have the freedom to devote themselves full time to family roles if they so choose. Why have women apparently accepted the limitations that their roles impose on
their range of options and opportunities to participate in the
decision-making process? To seek an answer to this question, Part III examines orientations of Australian teenagers to see what attitudes might account for women's acceptance of roles that are defined as socially less important than those assigned to men.