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Gender and the Australian Parliament

By Mary Crawford - posted Tuesday, 8 May 2007


Despite its gym, pool and meditation room, the Australian Parliament House has no childcare centre. The logic is that workers have no or limited reproductive-family responsibilities, and if they do these do not and should not impede on the world of paid work.

This logic is also evident in the times and patterns of parliamentary sittings which require excessively long working days and extensive periods of time away from home and family. Of the 15 women politicians interviewed four MPs had no children at all. However, three women MPs had babies less than two years, five had children less than 10 years of age and a further two had adult children. All of the 13 male politicians interviewed had children. Two had babies less than two years of age and four had children less than 10 years of age. It is thus astounding to note that the “organisational logic” of the “disembodied worker” remains intact in the parliament.

Overall findings from this recently conducted research on gender and the Australian Parliament are consistent with Canadian scholarship which has documented the impact of the increased representation of women in Canada's federal political institutions undertaken by Professor Manon Tremblay of the University of Ottawa. Collectively both studies have revealed that an increase in the number of women in parliament will not necessarily lead to more gender inclusive policy or parliamentary practice. It is not a matter of the number of women but which women.

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Currently it would appear that gendered practices and discourses are immutable and intractable in the Australian Parliament.

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First published in The Brisbane Line on May 1, 2007. For further information or discussion of these issues please contact Mary Crawford at QUT on 07 313 85251 or m.crawford@qut.edu.au.



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About the Author

Mary Crawford lectures at the Queensland University of Technology in the Faculty of Business

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