The inspiration for this piece of writing came from interviewing women about their leisure time as an adolescent during the 1960s. I wanted to determine how the concept of youth was created, however from listening to their stories, I found how influential gender was and still is on peoples lives. The women I spoke to were not dissimilar from my mother, they grew up in the same locations, shared memories about boys and dresses with me which I had heard before but this time the implications of gender were evident. These women didn’t share ideas about what they wanted to do for a career. They spoke about marrying a good man, having children, working in the family business, or being too light headed to think about a future. This to me, was shocking. I am a young woman, who has grown up with the expectation of equal pay for equal work, the knowledge that woman can do anything (according the bumper sticker) and ideals about the house and a woman’s place which would make a former Prime Minister John Howard weep.
I started to think, and think some more. Who was it, making decisions? Who are in positions of power? Surely women are now counted as equals, we have a female Prime Minister, Premier and Governor General. This is indicative of how far feminism has served a generation, however with closer inspection it can be found only 11% of CEOs are female. This is a disturbing figure as it is politicians may be the ones debating legislation, however it is business where the real deals are made. Corporatism, where upper class, middle aged, white men make decisions about the hegemony will spend their money and live their working lives. This is where feminism has failed. This information shows we may not need to burn our bras in the streets, but we still have a long way to go when it comes to equality.
p.s. If you do have the "woman can do anything" sticker and would be willing to part with it, please let me know! I've been desperate to get one for years!
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