|
NEWS RELEASE
19 September 2001
Slaves
or careerists -
no fair choices for
modern
women
Clare Burton Memorial Lecture 2001
Recent
research shows that while Australian employers may support women coming
back to work after maternity leave they do not believe that they should
return at the same level of seniority.
And
other research findings have ignited the debate over childcare - the
arguments being whether or not children attending child-care centres are
more inclined to violent behaviour. Young
children themselves when interviewed say they are not concerned about the
amount of time their parents worked, but whether they could spend good
quality time with them.
Responses
to these research results suggest that Australian society is still deeply
divided about its attitudes to working mothers. The divide is highlighted at a time when a more mothers of
young children are going back to work than ever before.
It
is this debate that engages Professor Belinda Probert, Head of the School
of Social Science and Planning and Professor of Sociology at RMIT
University. In the national
Clare Burton lectures, 2001, Professor Probert argues that public
ambivalence forces women to choose between being ‘grateful
slaves’ or ‘self-made women’.
Professor
Probate argues that women do not have genuine choices.
Instead
the Federal Government has refused to confront the issues facing working
women, and has certainly not provided them with any statutory rights, such
as the right to paid maternity leave provided by most other democracies.
Furthermore, by encouraging the privatisation of child-care,
Government has made it impossible for many lower-income families and those
most in need to afford basic childcare.
Yet
she argues, these policies have developed without an adequate public
debate about work and family and without the country as a whole agreeing
on what is desirable.
The University of South Australia Clare Burton lecture, honoring the memory of a noted advocate of women’s rights
in employment, takes place at Brookman Hall, UniSA’s City East campus,
North Terrace, Adelaide, at 5.00 pm on Thursday 20 September 2001.
Lectures in other mainland capitals will take place in late
September and October 2001.
The
Clare Burton Memorial Lectures 2001 have received support from the Equal
Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA).
The
Director of EOWA, Ms Fiona Krautil, will provide a brief outline of
current initiatives of EOWA at each lecture.
Support has also been received from Office of Women’s Policy,
Victoria; Department for Women, ACT Chief Minister’s Department;
Department for Women, NSW; Office for Women, Department of Premier and
Cabinet, Queensland; Office for the Status of Women, SA; Public Service
and Merit Protection Commission and Women’s Policy Office, WA.
Media contact: Michèle Nardelli (08) 8302 0966 or 041
8823673
email: michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au:
Background
Dr Clare Burton was a leading researcher, public sector administrator, academic,
consultant and writer on employment equity. After her untimely death in
August 1998, the five universities of the Australian Technology Network
(ATN) - Curtin University, Queensland University of Technology, RMIT
University, University of Technology, Sydney, and University of South
Australia – decided to host a series of memorial lectures to honour
the significant contribution made by Clare Burton to gender equity and
organisational change.
Memorial
Scholarship - The Burton family and the five ATN universities have also established a
scholarship for postgraduate study in gender equity, to commemorate
Clare Burton’s life and continue her work.
The first of these will be awarded in 2001. Additional contributions to this fund can be forwarded to
"Clare Burton Memorial Fund" c/ QUT Foundation, GPO Box 2434,
BRISBANE QLD 4001. Donations
are fully tax deductible, and a receipt will be issued by QUT
Foundation.
|
