Man's Town

Man's Town

A Man's Town — Inequality between Women and Men in Rural Australia was published last year by Dr Ken Dempsey, a reader in sociology at La Trobe University in Victoria. It was based on field work spanning 17 years in a rural community.

It describes how men fight to keep their role of superiority over women in all major areas of their lives: the home, paid work, leisure pursuits, religion, community politics and voluntary organisational activities.

It reports that most women have to get permission from their husbands to take a job and depicts the techniques men use to stereotype women and their activities as inferior and having no definition accepted by the community. Many women act as accomplices in this process. The first full length study of its kind in Australia, it makes compelling reading.

From GLW issue 98