The Battle To Scrap 'women's Work'

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday June 4, 1990

ADELE HORIN

FOR more than a decade, many people have been trying to persuade girls to take up "men's work". But it seems the girls are just not listening.

No matter how many posters, bumper stickers, pamphlets and campaigns proclaim that "Girls Can Do Anything" most girls show little inclination to do plumbing, auto mechanics, carpentry, engineering and so on.

Many have leapt into the formerly male world of law and medicine - and a few brave souls have entered the lion's den of the workshop and thrived. In fact, women who persevere in male trades reportedly are among the happiest workers one could meet.

But the overall progress has been excruciatingly slow - an increase from 3 per cent to 4 per cent of girls in apprenticeships over the past five years(excluding hairdressing).

The disappointing result has caused educators and feminists to rethink their strategies and, indeed, their entire philosophies.

The arguments in favour of encouraging girls into trades and technical jobs are as valid now as they were a decade ago. Australia has one of the most sex-segregated job markets in the OECD.

Women are clustered in a few areas - sales, clerical and factory work -where the pay is low and the prospects dim. With more women working till retirement age and being the breadwinner, access to the better-paid jobs should not be blocked by prejudice or sexist conditioning.

However, more sophisticated thinking has developed after a decade of trial and error. In the enthusiasm for luring girls from the female ghettos, women's traditional jobs and skills were devalued. Women now recognise that more effort must be directed to improving the pay and status of traditional women's work. Women's "people" skills also need to be recognised, rewarded and imparted to men, who need them as much as technical ability.

A philosophic readjustment about women's work has occurred, but it is still important to question what went wrong with past strategies of encouraging girls into the workshop.

Was it more cruel than liberating to entice a lone girl into, say, a carpentry apprenticeship where only the stoic outlasted the harassment and loneliness? We know now that a critical mass of females helps to make the situation bearable, but the critical mass rarely eventuates.

Professor Eileen Byrne, of Queensland University, has studied this area for years and will publish a book later this year. She strongly believes too much effort has been spent on trying to change the girls to fit the jobs and not enough on trying to change the jobs, the curriculums and teaching methods of the "male" disciplines. She says that by the time most girls and about one-third of boys reach adolescence, they are "people" oriented and disdain the black-and-white factual, value-free mode of thinking embodied in the technical and scientific world.

To date, feminist educators themselves lacked the technical knowledge to demand changes that would humanise the male trades and professional curriculums to make them attractive to girls, and many boys, too. But this may form part of a new strategy.

Professor Byrne also questions the usefulness of the female role model. Sending the token female carpenter to speak at schools - a common tactic - can be just another burden on the woman. No shred of evidence exists, she says, to show that the exceptional woman is an attractive model to the average adolescent girl. More important is to combat the myriad of sexual stereotypes in books and the media through which girls and boys absorb ideas about acceptable careers.

The male mentor is the most significant influence on a girl's choice of a non-traditional career, Professor Byrne found. The attitude of the principal, the head teacher, the manager, in encouraging girls and helping them over barriers is critical. The men have to change.

Unfortunately, the attitude of many TAFE trade teachers is abysmal, according to other studies. Work by Noeline Kyle, of Wollongong University, gives schools' career advisers low marks and managers of small businesses were generally found to be unreconstructed male chauvinists. But big enterprises, such as BHP, were more than willing to recruit female apprentices - if only they could find them.

BHP's change of heart was perhaps encouraged by the recent $1 million discrimination case won by some sacked women steelworkers. It has led some women to advocate more use of the big legal stick to enlighten management and less of the softly, softly approach.

Many dedicated people involved in imaginative education and training programs are still looking for more effective ways to attract girls into the workshop. It has proved a harder slog than expected.

The effort is worth it for the sake of the girls who need encouragement to find their true vocations. But the issue would be less pressing if "women's work" was properly valued - if a child-care worker could earn at least as much as an attendant at the zoo.