Women's Web Women's Stories - Women's Actions
Welcome | Stories | Reviews | About Us | Links | Dialogue | Feminist Futures
Actions

Last Updated: July 21, 2010
Contact us: wmnsweb@iprimus.com.au

DISCRIMINATION

On this page: Margaret Thornton; Onnie Wilson

See also: Women's Liberation/Feminism

Professor Margaret Thornton

I was interested in doing Arts/Law but I did Arts as the scholarship people said that Law was not appropriate for a woman. At that stage, in the sixties, I didn't have the confidence to do it. It wasn't until I had children and was influenced by the women's movement that I started a law degree. When I completed it and was thinking about what to do, it was rather a shock to be told that I was the best qualified but the wrong sex, so I became an academic, which allowed me to critique the system.

I did activist things as well. At one stage in the early 1980's, I remember I belonged simultaneously to organisations called WAM, WAC and WITI - which sound rather aggressive. WAM was Women at Macquarie, WAC was the Women's Advisory Council to the Premier and WITI was Women in Tertiary Institutions. I was founder of the Feminist Legal Action Group (FLAG), where we wanted to use the law to run test cases and things like that.

We made submissions and lobbied for changes to laws affecting women. For example, we sponsored the first research on women convicted of the murder of their husbands after years of domestic violence. This work was instrumental in having the law on provocation changed in New South Wales.

Subsequently, I went on television with Helen Coonan to talk about FLAG's work. Helen said that FLAG would love to hear from women with problems in family law, etc. The next thing we were inundated with letters from all around Australia. It was just impossible. We virtually sank under the weight of that.

I came to Melbourne in 1990 to take up a Chair in the Department of Legal Studies at La Trobe University, continuing to work on similar issues.

There was a strong group of feminist scholars at Latrobe University and a particular emphasis on social justice. I felt happy about working there. I did a book on anti-discrimination legislation in Australia called The Liberal Promise (Oxford University Press 1990), then a study on women in the legal profession called Dissonance and Distrust (Oxford University Press 1996).

There is still enormous suspicion and antipathy towards women in authority. Only last week when we had a woman appointed to the High Court (only the second), the front-page and lead-story headline in The Australian was 'WOMAN "OF MERIT" JOINS HIGH COURT' (21 Sept 2005)

Once again, we see the suspicion about women in authority: that you can't quite trust them, that they are somehow not going to be as good or as meritorious, that they have been appointed only because of their sex. Working as a professor I have been interested in this question of the gender of authority.

If you adopt a more collaborative style as a woman, there is a suspicion that you are weak, but on the other hand, if you act like the stereotypical male manager who orders people about, that is inappropriate too. You are a 'balls-breaker'. Authority is an ongoing dilemma for feminists. I think in the present climate we are seeing a reversion back to more authoritarian styles of leadership, which seems to fit in with neo-liberalism.

The social liberalism of the 1970's and 1980's did begin to tolerate women in positions of authority, and, of course, there was a commitment to equal opportunity, and it was more open, despite the sexism. Today, we never hear of 'femocrats' (feminists in the bureaucracy), a significant Australian innovation. Now, with the focus upon employers and what is good for business, we see that the type of leadership style is much more authoritarian - someone who can 'kick heads', order people around rather than consult and if they refuse to co-operate sack them.

Onnie Wilson

It really struck me just how disjointed even our recent path has become when I attended a Reclaim the Night collective meeting some time ago and one young woman read out the collective's statement. It said something to the effect of: "For Reclaim the Night this year, this is our statement: women will be liberated through the liberation of working class men". She then proceeded to explain the herstory of feminism since about the nineteen sixties which really didn't seem to match my memory of things or recorded events.

I found myself saying "I don't think that is quite right" but she knew differently. And this is only over one generation: she was of an age where she could have been my daughter. I was troubled by her understanding of Reclaim the Night. Another thing that is imperative to bring about change for women and the community as a whole is for males to be actively campaigning to change male attitudes and behaviour.

The feminism we now have, which puts the onus on women to make demands that women have rights and expect to be treated accordingly, is not enough. Men have been given this information for decades but information about the rights of women doesn't change the male belief system and men acting as agents of this system.

Back to top