Australia as a patriarchal society

As a result of WW1, Australia’s society became an unbiased environment for Women, because they were given the opportunity to do jobs that had been left empty by men who had gone to fight the Germans. Life for

During the World War II era, the outlook on the role of women in Australian society revolutionised. As a majority of men were at war, Australian women were encouraged to rise above and beyond their stereotypical ‘housewife’ status. They were required to take on the tasks that were once considered predominantly male roles, and also allowed the opportunity to join the armed services as well as enlist in the Women’s Land Army. Many women who doubted their abilities played their part by entering voluntary work. Women had the privilege of contributing in Australian society in many ways that they had never been able before. Thus, it is manifest that the role of women in Australian society had drastically changed.

Many people still thought that a woman's place was "in the kitchen", this changed shortly after the second world war. 500,000 women joined the workforce post WW1 because all of the men had gone to war. This set Australia up and benefited from more people with a wider experience in many jobs.

Over the past few decades, great strides have been made by women in the workplace. This increased number in women in the workplace does not mean equality however. Even with equal qualifications and achievements, women are still not given all the opportunities that men have. The chapter in the textbook, “Gender at Work”, shows us more of these inequalities in the workplace. Such inequalities cause gender segregation of jobs and can be linked with the pay inequality in the labor force. Even in jobs that are predominantly filled by women, men earn more than women. Women are often stereotyped as being family focused and not as able to travel, therefore they tend to get passed up for promotions (Garson p.353). This invisible barrier that keeps women from moving up the executive ladder is referred to as the “glass ceiling” (Baxter and Wright p. 346). Women also tend to do more domestic work, or unpaid labor and caregiving. This extra unpaid work is referred to as “the third shift” and is largely rested on the shoulders of women (Gersel p. 352). Consequently, this seems to be one of the biggest things holding women back from taking on jobs that are normally considered male

Jobs are currently available to women of any race, background, or ethnicity, and the age to go into an area of work has gradually decreased; for instance, some careers allow students to begin a job starting at the young age of fourteen. But working was not always an option for women. World War I was the stepping stone that pushed women into the workforce. As men were being drafted into the military, women stepped up into factory jobs, creating the necessary technology for America’s victory and emergence as a world power. In today’s government, women are joining the workforce because the economy calls for it. With high costs of raising children, college debt shooting through the roof, and gas prices going up, women are taking on similar roles to their husbands and providing two set incomes as opposed to

WWII had a large impact on the lives of Australian women. As the men were away from their homes and daily lives fighting overseas, women were employed in jobs, got paid at higher rates than usual, became the important figure in the house and were enrolled in women’s army roles.

The status of women after World War II owes a lot to the waves of feminism and the women’s movement. The first wave of feminism took place in the 19th century, they formed a feminism group to campaign for the right to vote and become a politician. The second wave of feminism was most prominent in the 1960s and 1970s and was focused on gaining equality with men. These feminists wanted equality in all forms of work, the law, and general social standing. They targeted a larger range of aspects of life and the presented a wider challenge to the “traditional” ideas of women’s rights. This led to a massive change to the daily lives of mainstream Australian women.

To identify, and describe the extent of, the international influences on the role, and lives, of women in Australia before, during and after World War One

Before World War 2 commenced, women 's roles in Australia were extremely different to now. The Australian government believed that women were not needed to perform in any sort of military service, however, once the war began it was thought otherwise (Ergo.slv.vic.gov.au, 2015). The roles of women changed significantly during this time, specifically around the 1940 's. The social, political, and economic rights for Australian women were all major changes made during this period of time (Awm.gov.au, 2015). This essay focuses on the role of women before and after these changes occurred, also the affect this made to society.

The experiences of Australian women in both World War 1 and World War 2 were similar but also different. WWI was fought from 1914 to 1918, and WW2 was fought from 1939 to 1945. These were the biggest military conflicts in the history of man. The main areas of change in Australian women around these times were employment, roles and positions in the war, and the attitudes towards women at these times. In WW1, the main occupation for Australian women was nursing. In World War 2, however, women were given the opportunity to do ‘a man’s job’ for the first time.

Women are more prone to live in low income circumstances than men, hence introducing the social problem of gender discrimination. Women have been discriminated in the workplace over time in that they are paid less than men in specific jobs and are not seen to be ‘suited’ to particular jobs, especially in the manufacturing and trade industries. Marxist feminist Margaret Benston believed that women were oppressed by capitalism in that they were treated almost as a back-up, or secondary option of cheap labour that enabled profits to be kept up. ‘In 1994, 6.41 million women were in low-paid jobs and on average women’s full-time gross weekly pay was 72 percent of that of men’(Kane, 2003:115).

As more men entered the armed forces, women needed to replace them. By the war's end, hundreds of thousands of women had entered the workforce, many of them in traditionally masculine occupations such as engineering, munitions, transport, business, and eventually even the military. The war produced a leap in women's employment from twenty-six percent in the workforce in 1914 to thirty-six percent by 1918. One million women worked in munition industries, forty-thousand served as nurses, and twenty-thousand joined the Women's Land Army as agricultural workers (Marwick, 1977). For the young and the middle-class, work outside their homes was indeed a new experience. On the other hand, working-class women were used to paid work, but the type of work was new. Many left low-skill, low-wage jobs, especially in domestic service, for better paying skilled labor in factories and workshops (Kent, 1993).

In her essay titled “Compulsive Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Adrienne Rich claims that any alternative to heterosexual outcome is discouraged by society. The essay claims that Western tradition has used the heterosexual family model as the basic social

Prior to World War II, employers and the government held that there were jobs appropriate for women and jobs which were inappropriate because women were not capable of fulfilling the tasks involved in such work. As we

Women’s work is still seen as that of ‘love labour’, that of working in the home raising a family and taking care of the housework without pay. Men on the other hand are seen as the breadwinners, their work is paid labour. Their job is to go out into paid employment and provide for their family.