By Tracy Sorensen
SYDNEY — Paul Keating's appointment of Dr Anne Summers as his adviser on women's issues earlier this year was seen as a smart move by the more cynical observers watching the two main parties "woo the ladies' vote" (to use the language of the Australian and its ilk).
Summers' feminist credentials, at the reformist end of politics at which she operates, are solid. She is perhaps best known as the author of Damned Whores and Gods Police, an analysis of the development of made-in-Australia sexism from the First Fleet until the early 1970s.
A femocrat before the term (of mild abuse) was invented, she has advised Labor governments on women's policy since the days of Whitlam. She returned this year from a long period in the United States, where she edited the feminist magazine Ms.
Will Summers' role be anything more than symbolic? Will she be able to get Labor to move beyond the endless collection of information about why and how women end up with a worse deal in almost every sphere, to policies that would really make a difference?
It's unlikely. Paul Keating's number one short-term priority is managing the continuing public relations disaster of record unemployment. In the area of women's issues, he'll be on the lookout for the gesture that looks good rather than the policy that may cause upset in the "business community".
Meanwhile, wider economic policies being pursued by both major political parties — deregulation, privatisation, enterprise bargaining, tuition fees for tertiary education, for example — aren't helping. In fact, they run in precisely the opposite direction to that needed to overcome what feminist author Clare Burton calls the "structural subordination of women".
At a seminar organised by the Human Rights and Equal Employment Opportunities Commission at ABC radio headquarters in Ultimo on
July 31, Summers argued that a bit of symbolism was not a bad thing.
She told the audience, gathered to mark the eighth anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act, that her friends in New York had been surprised at her new appointment: they could never imagine such a thing in the US. Democrat presidential candidate Bill Clinton, for all his public sympathy for abortion, had no plans for "any kind of women's advisory mechanism".
"I think sometimes we overlook our advantages, forget that we have achieved things for women in Australia that women in other countries are still waiting for", she said. Australian legislative reforms contrasted with the defeat of the campaign for an Equal Rights constitution.
Summers used the words of author Marcia Cohen to describe the impact of the failure of the amendment in 1982. It was a "stunning defeat, both symbolic and real, leaving America one of the few industrialised countries in the world without permanent protection for women".
Summers argued that this defeat was partly the result of the refusal by the US women's movement to compromise on any of the key planks of the ERA. Australian reformers, by contrast, took a more pragmatic course.
A series of exemptions to the Sex Discrimination Act — for the military, private clubs and schools and the superannuation industry, for example — ensured the passage of the legislation.
Provisions for affirmative action — a recognition that a "level playing field" was inadequate to overcoming the effects of past discrimination, and that positive action would need to be taken — were taken out of the act, to be treated in separate legislation.
The sex discrimination legislation's drafters "took the view that it was better to have 60% of something than 100% of nothing", said Summers. "The American women, by contrast, ended up with nothing."
The sex discrimination legislation, she said, was now "firmly entrenched", being used by women to seek redress for unfair treatment, and was "continuing to evolve".
Some of the exemptions agreed to 1983 have already been removed, she said. For example, the prohibition on "combat related" jobs in the military has been lifted (although "combat" roles are still denied to women). The exemption for the superannuation industry will probably be gone by mid-1993.
The size of the femocracy was a good thing, said Summers.
"When the term was invented it was something of a term of abuse, meant to draw the line between members of the grassroots women's movement and those who put on their beige suits and high heels and sashayed off into government."
But there was less resentment today, and more appreciation of the work being done "on the inside, fighting for programs and policies which benefit women from all walks of life".
Federal sex discrimination commissioner Quentin Bryce told the audience that the legislation she oversaw was a "symbol of support and inspiration". It had become public knowledge that discrimination on the grounds of sex or pregnancy was unlawful.
She noted that in its eighth year of existence, about 85% of complaints related to employment, even though the act also covered areas such as sport, leisure, credit and advertising. She said that while discrimination in other areas "hurt", it was discrimination at work prompt a woman into seeking redress.
A widespread understanding of sexual harassment as a form of discrimination was an important gain of the legislation, she said.
Her office was now looking into possible sex discrimination in over-award payments, which, she said, are estimated to be "a significant component of the pay equity issue where women's earnings are 83% of male earnings".
Indirect discrimination was the next big challenge, said Bryce. While more blatant forms of discrimination were being overcome, it was time to tackle "the more subtle, systemic forms of discrimination against women".
Afterwards, a feminist in the state Equal Employment Opportunity bureaucracy told Green Left that a major problem with state and federal anti-discrimination provisions and affirmative action was "a lack of commitment".
If chief executives of government departments go over budget, she said, their jobs are on the line. If they fail to fulfil their EEO commitments, on the other hand, it is neither here nor there.
Unlike other laws of the land, enforcement is not seen as a serious issue, or, just as bad, requirements are so weak that employers can fulfil obligations without having to do much. Too often, the whole area of EEO is seen as a public relations exercise rather than a matter for serious consideration.