... and ain't i a woman?: A feminist vote
Okay, you're concerned about the status of women today, and you don't buy the line that women have achieved equality.
You know that the situation of all but a small layer of female high fliers is getting worse, and that John Howard is on a campaign to drive women back into the home by cutting funding for child-care, education and health.
But what are your options at the ballot box next month? What can you do about the escalating attempts to reverse the legislative and other gains won by the large mobilisations of feminists in the '60s and '70s?
To cast a feminist vote, not just a woman's vote, we need to look at the record of the major parties.
In 1993, Labor's Paul Keating employed Anne Summers, the "media feminist", to advise him on how to win women's votes. Now Howard and Kim Beazley are vying for women's electoral attention. But a few token attempts by Howard to compensate for his cuts to child-care and health will do little to make up for severe damage already done during the last two and a half years.
Last week, Cheryl Kernot spoke about her disappointment at the silence of the record number of women in Howard's first ministry in the face of his anti-women policies.
What Kernot is choosing to ignore is that at least two of these women, Amanda Vanstone and Judi Moylan, have been far from silent in parliament. They drove hard on the implementation of the Coalition's policy to slash education and social security spending, which affected women in particular.
Their gender didn't make them defenders of women, or even neutral, as their party slashed and burned women's living standards. And neither will Kernot's gender guarantee that she would support feminist goals and policies once she's seated on the government front bench.
Labor does seem a better option than its main rival. It is still, it seems, the lesser evil.
While running its biggest ever number of female candidates in the October 3 election, Labor is promising to make it more affordable for women to return to work after having children, for example.
But a more accurate description of Labor's policies than its "Australian women deserve better" is "Australian women deserve just a little better".
The ALP has not promised to completely reverse the most vicious of the Coalition's anti-women policies. It will not, for instance, commit itself to repealing the Workplace Relations Act, which makes the situation of all working people, but especially women workers, considerably worse.
While there is little doubt that, as a feminist, my preferences will go to Labor before Liberal, being a feminist leads me recognising that neither of the major parties have any real commitment to women's liberation, their women candidates included.
Only a party that defends and extends the rights of women in every policy, and that is pro-choice and guarantees this by not allowing a conscience vote on abortion, deserves a feminist's vote.
Only a party that puts its resources where its policies are and engages in feminist activism outside of parliament is tackling sexism and gender inequality seriously.
As a feminist, I will vote for a party that recognises the need to reject the social and political system which puts the interests of the rich and powerful, and their status quo, before the interests of working-class people — including the overwhelming majority of women.
By Margaret Allum