SARAH LANTZ is the National Union of Students national womens officer. This is an abridged version of a talk she presented to the 1996 Network of Women Students Australia Conference in Perth.
Originally, I was asked to discuss the draconian attacks on the education sector by the new Coalition government. However, I realised that to isolate these issues as single attacks is a fallacy, as they do not exist outside the phallic supremacy system of patriarchy and capitalism.
The process of education for critical consciousness doesn't come easy for many of us. An instance early this year reinforced this to me. Being asked to deliver a speech at the national day of action on the theme "student control of student affairs" was important to me, as it was a chance to speak out and not be silenced by Liberal legislation.
At this stage I wasn't comfortable speaking in front of hundreds of students, but believed it was imperative to have women speakers and bring a feminist perspective to the often male-dominated education debate. Unfortunately, uncomradely ALP office bearers believed that since I was but the mere women's officer and since "education" was not a prime element of my portfolio, I should not speak.
The major flaw in the arguments of such people is self-evident when you consider the fundamental reason why women's officer positions exist: because women students don't have, and have never had, equal access and opportunity in tertiary education.
Issues such as lack of child-care, parenting and breastfeeding space are identified as a major barrier for women, together with such matters as inappropriate timetabling and inadequate support services, lack of safety on campus, sexist language, curricula and pedagogy.
Social indoctrination
This incident, which has not been an isolated one, made me take a step back and critically examine the spaces which I occupied and worked within. It reaffirmed my belief that we are not only fighting attacks by the Liberal government on our education system, but are also struggling against socially indoctrinated attitudes, customs and habits which seek to silence women and define us as invisible.
Not only is the Liberal government interested in silencing student voices, but in our own groupings many people are eager to silence discussions of feminism because they are not interested in fundamentally challenging and changing the entrenched capitalist, patriarchal structures.
Surely if we are to end the oppression and exploitation of all women, then we need to challenge positions of power and privilege, including our own. For me, to be able to debate in a forum such as NOWSA is conducive to some privileges. There needs to be an acknowledgment that some women are excluded from conferences such as NOWSA because they do not have access to higher education.
It's at the forefront of the federal Liberal government's agenda to obliterate the ability of students collectively to fight regressive government and university attacks. Voluntary student unionism legislation is a misnomer; it should rather be called anti-student unionism. It is part of the new right agenda to strip students of the ability to organise.
VSU has meant that publications such as campus women's resource handbooks and student newspapers will not have the money to exist. It has obliterated student support services such as women's rooms and child-care cooperatives and directly attacks student organisations' ability to educate through consciousness campaigns such as blue stocking week, safety on campus, sexual harassment, pride and others.
VSU attacks a wide range of non-profit functions which ensure the well-being of students. Women's departments are usually the first to be slashed, along with gay and lesbian departments, international solidarity departments and environment departments. Women's departments are usually seen as a "self-interested political luxury" rather than as a core service.
VSU has, unfortunately, paved the way for student union representatives with right-wing tendencies to implement political attacks in the name of "financial streamlining".
Other costs
What the government constantly fails to take into account when making regressive changes to the education sector are all the other costs associated with tertiary education. In particular, single mothers and studying parents face enormous problems of being able to afford associated costs of child-care and parenting whilst paying off their debts.
The fact that universities still do not have accessible and affordable child-care facilities means that an alarming number of students are disadvantaged. Mainstream models of child-care are aimed at the perceived needs of "working families" and are not designed for campus needs.
Until a full range of quality, flexible and affordable child-care, breastfeeding and parenting space is supplied, women will always have fewer opportunities and less access to tertiary education. Child-care is inextricably linked to the wider range of education issues, and is not an individual responsibility but a social one. Decisions which deny equal access to education or disadvantage certain students affect society as a whole.
Cuts to operating grants will mean a significant reduction in student support services, including women's affairs and equal opportunity departments, services for students with disabilities and students with learning difficulties, a reduction in child-care and parenting facilities, counselling, campus security and careers advisers.
Proposed changes to an already inadequate Austudy can only undermine those already in financial difficulty. Considering that women still earn less than 80% of the wage of an equally qualified male, cuts will ultimately mean an education sector where only the rich can afford to attend.
Access to higher education is meaningless if women are unable to support themselves financially whilst studying. For many women, particularly mature age women and mothers, Austudy has been an incentive to return to full-time study.
HECS
Differential HECS will inevitably lead to a proportion of students choosing not to study courses for which a higher debt is incurred. How can this system act as any sort of incentive for women to enter historically non-traditional fields? Women are already under-represented in the courses with the highest provision costs, and existing patterns of male privilege can only be maintained in this system.
In an already underfunded education system, in which one in four women will still be paying off their HECS debts at the age of 64, further cuts can only exacerbate existing problems.
As feminist activists, we must view the current campaign by students as merely the beginning of something much bigger. Over the next three years our system of public higher education will come under some of the most savage attacks it has ever faced. It is imperative that campus women's departments and feminists become informed of the immense value to society of an accessible, well-funded, public higher education system — a system which is able to redress inequalities within society, rather than playing its traditional role of perpetuating privilege.
We must build a mass movement which is not limited to the education sector. We must break down the perception that we are defending "ivory tower" education and present our vision for what higher education can and should be.
Rise up, revolt, struggle and change, demand student control of student affairs and fight back!