... and ain't i a woman?: A shove into enslavement
One of the more ignorant and backward diatribes against feminists' criticisms of the federal government's tax "reform" package appeared in the Daily Telegraph on August 18. There, Miranda Devine stated that it is "a pity that somewhere between the frantic 1960s sexual revolution and the more relaxed multiple choice '90s, the twisted sisters didn't change their tune".
Relaxed? Multiple choice?
If anything characterises the impact of the Howard government's policies on women, it is the erosion of choice. Life for the majority of women has become more constrained and less relaxed.
In their paid jobs, women are working longer, for less real wages, under a regime that renders them sicker, more isolated and more exploitable.
When they get home, women are shouldering more child-care (including, under the new common youth allowance, care of unemployed children up to 25 years old), aged care and health care as these public services are cut away.
Devine, like all hack journalists, doesn't let facts get in the way of a loyal regurgitation of the government line. The line in this instance is that tax cuts for single-income families (supposedly to "compensate" for a GST) make it possible for women to "choose to stay at home" and care for their children full time.
The government estimates that a single-income family with two children (one under five) on $50,000 a year will gain $50.26 per week while the same family with both parents in the work force will gain only $17.68.
This may not seem much of an incentive for one wage earner in each family to leave (or not enter) the work force, and for most families, it isn't.
But the significance of this policy can't be seen in isolation from those already implemented by a government intent on reasserting women's primary role in life as responsibility — unpaid — for the health and well-being of the population.
Women are being edged out of the work force by the declining level of maternity protection (now among the worst, according to an International Labour Organisation report); rising child-care fees; the deregulation of working hours, conditions and wages; and the need to care for parents who can no longer afford nursing home care.
This tax bribe is another small shove in the same direction.
This is not to say it will be strong enough to propel significantly more women out of the work force. According to research by Belinda Probert from the Centre for Applied Social Research published last August, 60% of women currently not working would prefer to have part-time work. And January ABS statistics indicated that 20% of married women and 30% of all women who work part time would like to work more hours.
Whether or not more women leave the work force, the proposed income tax changes ensure that women, and poor women in particular, benefit less than men.
Because the proposed cuts increase with income, women workers, who earn less than men on average, will gain less. Women not in the work force will gain no direct benefit at all.
Add the impact of a 10% GST, which will be borne disproportionately by poorer people, the majority of whom are women, and the government's rhetoric about increasing choice for women reeks like a "non-core" promise.
Of course, many women (and men) would like to leave their paid jobs to do full-time child-care, and they should be able to make that choice. But, apart from the fact that most working people cannot afford to, how free is that choice when the alternative is a stressful, badly paid, insecure and/or difficult to manage paid job?
For women, who are systematically worse off economically than men, having a real choice is especially vital.
In the capitalist system, women's economic and social independence and equality hinge on being able to engage in waged work. That system is a sexist one, built and maintained through the exploitation of women's unpaid domestic labour and "secondary" wage labour. Therefore, women without their own money, employment skills, workmates and contact with public life are immensely more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse — physically and psychologically — by husbands, fathers, the state, employers and the church.
Among the preconditions for women's equal participation in waged work are low-cost, high quality child-care; equal (and decent) pay and working conditions; good maternity and paternity leave provisions; and unhindered access to satisfying jobs and ongoing educational opportunities. Only when these preconditions are met can any woman make the decision to go to work — or to remain at home — freely.
The government's attacks on every one of these preconditions are the real measure of its commitment to choice for women.
By Lisa Macdonald