The Role Of Women During The 21st Century

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

Western women have traditionally been perceived as the inferior sex, or the domestic partner, subjected wholly to the private sphere, and stripped of legal rights and standing. Meanwhile, men are depicted as the breadwinner, the strong, masculine and dominant partner, who belongs primarily to the public sphere. These historic gender norms have been deeply imbedded within Australia’s social foundation, and although society has gradually shifted away from these roles, evidence suggests that this gender inequality still riddles the modern day workplace. Liberal feminist groups have embraced this issue, and have classified it as being a true barrier to achieving the ultimate gender equality goal. Consequently, these liberal feminists along

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.

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.

One impact of world war two on Australian women was that women started to get employed and got jobs outside the home. As all of the men were overseas fighting fir Australia there were holes in job force? all over Australia. As a result of this women were given all of the jobs that men used to have. As shown in source A it says that “women felt no compunction in becoming cogs in Australia’s war machine” This reveals that women were willing and ready to serve in the job

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

Since the 1960s, the labour force for women in Australia had many significant changes which resulted in an enormously increased participation by women. The

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.

In the first 100 years of colonial Australia women of all status and race were a marginalised segment of society; considered inferior to and for the use and support of men (Summers, 1975), (Dixon,1999). It is not surprising therefore that historical accounts of women’s activities between 1788 and the late 1800’s, whether white, black, convict, or free, are much less documented than those of men. The accounts that have been recorded, however, point to women from substantially different ages, cultural backgrounds, education, health, social stations, and personal histories holding various amounts of power (or lack of) and acting within varied and fluid physical and social environments (Macintyre, 2009), (SBS, 2012). In this short essay we will present a very superficial account of these women’s experiences.

Australia in the early 1900s has developed a reputation as a ‘working man’s paradise’ for its greater opportunity to success and an egalitarian society. However not all workers proved this to be true. In order to determine this statement, Issues to be discussed include firstly the hours of work for different genders, secondly the working conditions and finally the dispute for the right to fair treatment to women and Aboriginal natives throughout the 19th century.

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.

Julia Gillard was Australia’s 27th Prime Minister and the first woman to ever take on this role in the history of Australia. She was prime minister from 2010 to 2013. Throughout her prime ministership years, Gillard was challenged for her leadership role from a gender perspective. For this reason, her speech debates the notion of misogyny, sexism and the idea that ‘women are being under-represented in institutions of power in Australia’ (Sydney Morning Herald 2012). Her aim was to recognise the rights and roles of women in all public and private spheres of

While the world has unanimously advanced and is more accepting of change, the workplace continues to be a place of discrimination, prejudice and inequality. Discrimination is broadly defined to ‘distinguish unfavourably’, isolate; and is context based (Pagura, 2012). Abrahams (1991) described the workplace as an ‘inhospitable place’ where gender disparity and wage gaps persist (Stamarski & Son Hing, 2015). Among other states and countries, the Australian government actively implements and passes laws to protect and maintain equal employment rights. While the objective of these laws is ‘to eliminate discrimination,’ the regulatory mechanisms in the legislation are largely ineffective at achieving this ultimate goal (Smith, 2008). However,

The historical experiences of Australian women have had a profound impact on the generation and maintenance of both social exclusion and inclusion. This is particularly true of the women’s liberation movement, which followed the essence of Marx’s conflict theory and was recognised as the collective struggle for equality. Occurring during the late 1960s and 1970s, the movement sought to free women from oppression and male supremacy. Hence, with a clear focus on the issues surrounding women’s education, health and employment, the women’s liberation movement was able to redefine society’s understanding of women, therefore having a tremendous impact on the generation of social inclusion. Nevertheless, traditional androcentric norms and mores continue to permeate all major