Elections
A federal election seems to be looming. With all political parties well and truly in campaigning mode, many issues and questions that are important to feminists will be posed more sharply over the next few months. Not least of these is the role of women in parliament.
The women's movement has fought for more than a century for women's right to participate as equals in politics, and it is a reflection of that movement's success that women, who won the right to vote only 100 years ago, are now seated in state and federal parliaments across Australia.
Despite these successes, however, "equal opportunity" in parliamentary politics is still limited to a very small number of relatively privileged women. Male MPs still outnumber women by around 25 to one. On the front benches, it's more like 50 to one.
Given this persistent inequality, it is tempting for many feminists to argue that the election of any woman parliamentarian is a blow against sexism and a step forward for women. Whether it is the record number of female Coalition MPs, or the Democrats' relatively high proportion of women leaders, or even Pauline Hanson, the success of these "strong" women, it is argued, sets a precedent and role model for other women, encouraging them to fight to make it into parliament alongside the men.
Women do deserve equal access to the leather seats and career paths of parliament, and in a non-sexist society, they would be there in equal numbers. But it is quite another thing to believe that the electoral success of some individual women always represents a gain for women as the oppressed sex.
Even as the number of women MPs has increased in Australia, women's wages in relation to men's have remained at an average of 67%, and the gap is widening; discrimination and harassment continue; public funding for child-care and aged care services is still grossly inadequate and being reduced; abortion is still on state criminal codes.
The fight for political equality for women is not a fight for more parliamentary careers for a few more women. That is merely a by-product of the real fight — to force governments to legislate and provide funding to meet women's needs, create equal opportunities for women in all spheres of society and act to ensure equal outcomes.
The election of the racist Pauline Hanson was a blow to all women of colour, not a step forward. The re-election in Queensland two weeks ago of "independent" Liz Cunningham, responsible for the new Queensland law which defines human life as beginning at conception, was a blow to women's reproductive rights, not a step forward. The election of Cheryl Kernot, who allowed the passage of the Coalition's draconian Workplace Relations Act, was a blow to all women wage earners, not a step forward. Even Natasha Stott Despoja, who publicly advocates equal rights, toes her party's line of a conscience vote on abortion and support for the GST and anti-worker policies. Her election was not a step towards justice for all women.
What would be a step forward? Despite all the hoopla about the complexities of intervening in parliamentary politics, it's very simple: an MP who consistently used her position to argue for better government-funded child-care services, the repeal of all abortion laws, equal and better rates of pay, free public education, indigenous land rights and better welfare support would be a significant step forward.
If that MP also directed her (substantial) parliamentary resources towards building a stronger extra-parliamentary movement for women's liberation, and made herself accountable to that movement, women would have taken an even bigger step forward. These are the criteria on which we should judge all women — and men — in or standing for parliament.
For those of us aiming to eradicate sexism, voting for a woman, even a progressive woman, is not nearly enough. Without campaigning all year round to strengthen broad, grassroots campaigns that can influence all MPs and hold them accountable for their decisions or, better still, generate many potential candidates from the ranks of feminist activists, even the best-intentioned women in parliament will be unable to achieve any progress for women as a whole.
By Francesca Davidson