Alyssa
Christianson
Women in
Australia
Essay 1, Final
Draft
Women
in Australia
In the 1950’s Australia was known for
being a man’s country. Men were without
a doubt the head of everything; they were the presidents, bishops, captains of
industry, ran the trains, mines, unions, and even the education system (Connell
p.1). It wasn’t until the early 1800’s
where women started to take control and start shaping the role of women that we
have today. Jobs were not the only
thing that has changed the Australian women today. After World War II women starting making a
name for them self; forming political groups, going to school, taking away the
top jobs from men and also looking at migration of women and how that effects
the sex trafficking leading to AIDS and HIV increases.
1879 was the
first time a high school was set up for young girls. This was the first time girls were able to
break away from the norms of society. Adelaide,
Sydney and Melbourne were the first Universities to allow women to attend, all
in Southern Australia (Eisenstein). In
2005, over 95% of women are enrolled in a primary school and 40-60% enrolled in
a University, a huge difference since the early 1800’s (Seager pg. 81-83).With
women attending school this gave them the opportunity to gain knowledge that
they need for possible employment opportunities. However, there would not be equality in the
workforce. About 50% of working women
worked for pay and 86% of them were paid a small proportion of men’s wages
(Seager pg. 63). Women were also working
longer paid and unpaid hours than men.
This led to many women “living on the edge” or in poverty. From a poll done in2007-2008 10-30% of women
in Australia were living in deprivation according to the UNDP (poverty
index).
Before the war women’s role was
primarily domestic services and in the manufacturing industry. This was given the title of “duties at home”
or “women’s work”. This is when the women’s movement started to take off. They took on voluntary and paid employment
and showed that they were very diverse.
Nursing was one of the primary jobs that a woman took during the war
which involved them being at the front and experiencing the war (Women in the
War). About 20% of women were in the
armed forces during World War I & II (Seager pg. 103). After
World War I the women’s movement started to slow, the first liberation groups
started forming and the neat proper women were told that they should throw away
their girly ways and start acting more like men. Today, women are no longer the only one doing
the domestic services. Men are now
filling these jobs as well while women are going to school getting an education
and taking on top jobs that only men used to hold. Those jobs include: doctors, politicians,
high army positions, lawyers, etc…
At this point, women started to
become more involved in politics. They
formed, organized, and led political groups which then turned violent at times
and led to arrest of many. Their goals
were to support and legislation that would support and benefit them (Eisentein). White women won the right to vote in
1902. Aboriginal women and men had to
wait until 1967 when they were granted full citizenship (Seager pg. 95). Today there are 83 women members of the
Australian House of Representatives, 13 members of the Australian parliaments,
22 women mayors, and 81 female members of the Australian Senate. The first woman to win election to an
Australian Parliament was Edith Cowan.
She was elected in 1921 and held her seat until 1924.
Australia was known as one of the
most migrated countries for women, weather it was because of sex trafficking or
simply looking for a better life. Women
mainly came from the Philippines and India (Seager pg. 72). Global sex trafficking was a major issue and
a billion dollar industry. It thrives on
economic disparity between men and women.
Women are often lured into the sex trade under false pretences, hired as
waitresses or maids and then forced into prostitution. Young girls are often sold into prostitution
by poor families and very often, women are often kidnapped to be sold to
prostitution. From an article written in
October of 2011, each week in Victoria, more than 60,000 men buy women in
prostitution. Websites are set up for
buyers of women in prostitution and revealed how popular Asian women are to the
sex industry. Prostitution was legalized
in Victoria in 1984 to control three problems: illegal prostitution and police
corruption harm to women and street prostitution. These prostitutions were run by Consumer
Affairs licenses brothel and escort agency businesses. Turn out that legalizing made more problems
rather than fixed them. There was four
times the number of illegal brothels than legal brothels. The illegal brothel owners have been caught
bribing local government officials to get fake license checks or be warned of
the checks. A study done in 1998 found
out that 40% of clients do not use condoms and women are not made any safer. They are being threatened by clients with
guns, knives, and other forms of violence’s for refused sex acts without a
condom (Connell).
This then lead to the increasing
number of AIDS/HIV. Around 50,000 women
and 50,000 men had HIV/AIDS in 2006-2007.
These numbers led to the death toll increase (Seager pg. 49). Today the number of HIV/AIDS cases has
maintained a low rate of infection. However, HIV and AIDS was not the leading
cause of death among women at that time.
Breast cancer is the number one cause of death in Australia in
2006-2007; on average, 51 women die each week from breast cancer. While these numbers are still high in 2006
and 2007, this is a decrease from 1994.
The future doesn’t hold much promise either, due to the aging
population, the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer is expected to
continue to increase. Projections
suggest that by 2015 the number of new breast cancer cases diagnosed in
Australian women will approximately be 15,500 which is up 22% from 2006 and
2007. That would make 42 women being
diagnosed daily with breast cancer in 2015 (AIHW).
In many countries women are engaged
in childbearing for most of their lives.
2.1-4 is the average number of children per household in Australia. The average woman in Australia was over the
age of 23 when married which their divorce rates were much higher than the
world average (Seager pg 25). This shows
that waiting longer to get married and have children shows a lower divorce
rate. Education then changed in the
1960’s when women would wait to have children and get married; instead they
would attend school and enter into the work force. In the 1996 census, 85% of Australians were living
in families the remainder were living alone (6%), or living with other
non-related people. Of that 85% majority
of the families were two parent households (Seager).
Today, women
make up just over half of Australia’s total population. More women than men are now educated at
secondary schools and universities and more women now graduate with a
bachelor’s degree. Thirty percent of
Australia’s small business operators are now women. They also make up half of the public
workforce and hold around 36 percent of senior executive positions. However they only hold about 12 percent of
federal government positions (Australian Government).
Australian Government.
Women Towards Equality. Jan.
2011.
Australian Insitiute of Health and Welfare. 2009.
Breast cancer in Australia: 2009.
Cat. No. Can 46.
Canberra:
AIHW.
Seager, Joni. The
Penguin atlas of Women in the World.
Fourth Edition. 2009.
Women in World War
II Fact Sheet Statistics on the many roles of American women in World War II
The paragraph talking about sex trafficing was hard to read. It's so hard to think that that stuff happens in our world. The paper talked about poor families selling their daughters into prostitution and women getting kidnapped to be sex slaves/prostitutes. I was shocked to read that they legalized prostitution thinking it would solve problems, that makes no sense to me! Those poor girls who were hurt both emotionally and physically, it breaks me heart. Overall I liked this paper, it was really informative and interesting!
ReplyDeleteAlyssa-
ReplyDeleteI thought your discussion on Australian women was intriguing. Australia basically gets snubbed as a secular region separate from the functions of other societies; however, as your paper clearly pointed out, there are several aspects of Australian history that is relevant to the world’s culture as a whole. Generally, it seems that Australia as a whole has been overlooked, with few-if any-discussions about its culture and history making its way into classroom curriculum, especially in terms of their involvement during the World War era. It was nice that you included information pertaining to this period in time and how women were looked upon in Australian society because it allowed for readers to finally get a glimpse of what a culture outside of the main Allies/Axis groups went through and how they contributed. In particular, I thought it was interesting that 20% of the Armed Forces there consisted of women. I felt like that was a rather large amount and had not anticipated that percentage of women being active in the war effort. Another interesting fact in your paper was the note in regards to women and breast cancer. Breast cancer is a national issue in the United States and there are often rallies, walks, fundraisers, and programs held to acknowledge what women suffer from the disease. Despite it being such a large-scale issue for American women, I’ve never heard mention of the large number of deaths in Australia from it-one would think there would be more of a global outreach for the issue. Perhaps there will be more of a connection in the future which will be something interesting to look out for.
I really enjoyed your essay. Since I came from Japan where the racial minority is very few and often ignored, I was surprised that Aboriginal people had to wait until 1967 to get the right to vote politically in two means: the minority has the right to vote and it was so late to get compared to white women. Also, compared to my country, another big difference is that Australia seems much more migrated countries for women. I think that my country is still exclusive for foreigners although there are many sex-trafficking from other Asian countries, which is not reported by media. So, the Global sex trafficking in Australia and its side effect such as AIDS/HIV is pretty interesting to me!
ReplyDeleteIt seems Australia can relate to the U.S. in ways where women used to be the only one taking on the household roles and being "domestic". It's good to know that men in Australia are now taking on those roles as well as women being able to take on "manly" roles and be successful, although they still made less than men doing the same job, same as the U.S. It's heartbreaking to know that so many women are still involved in sex trafficking. I did not know how prevalent it still was, and reading a few papers and writing my own really surprised me on how sex trafficking is still a big issue.
ReplyDelete