and ain't i a woman?: Howard's sexism and homophobia
"I believe that all children deserve a dad", Prime Minister John Howard told reporters on April 22, defending his decision to attempt to deny single women and lesbians legal access to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) services.
You could have fooled me! Howard's support for children having a father didn't seem evident when Pakistani refugee Shayez Kayani fatally set himself alight in April 2001, desperate to force the government to let him bring his profoundly disabled child to Australia. Somebody should probably tell all those children on temporary protection visas about Howard's commitment to their having "a dad". They are unable to apply to bring their fathers here because Howard's government legislated to stop them doing so.
The children of waterfront workers killing themselves on the 12-hour shifts that were instituted after the government declared war on the Maritime Union are also probably ignorant of John Howard's heartfelt belief.
And if they heard Howard's comment, we might have heard a snigger or two from Indigenous people who were ripped from their parents as children, and have waited in vain for Howard to apologise on behalf of the authority that took them.
Palestinians who have lost fathers in Jenin to an Israeli massacre which John Howard described as "understandable" might also express some disbelief.
Like most "right-to-life" supporters, Howard is far more interested in protecting the rights of children who don't exist, than he is in restoring or protecting the parents of those who do.
It would be far better for children if Howard were to put his efforts into preventing children from losing a parent, rather than preventing desiring parents from having children.
Although Howard has cited studies that argue children do better with two parents than with only one, he neglects to mention than children in happy families, with one or two parents, are less likely to develop behavioural problems that those in unhappy ones. He also doesn't acknowledge that children in single-parent families might do much better if his government doubled the single-parent benefit.
But these arguments are a smokescreen anyway — he's clearly not proposing to eliminate single-parent families. It's not the lack of a father he's worried about, it's the attitude of the mother. He wants to prevent women who choose to be single mothers or lesbian parents from doing so.
The federal Sex Discrimination Act (1984) was the product of many years of struggle by feminists. Enshrined in the act is the notion that women shouldn't be treated differently from men in social life, particularly in paid employment, because of the choices that they make about marriage, children and work.
In the '50s, which Howard seems to see as the pinnacle of family living, this would have been a very odd belief indeed. Most women lost their jobs when they married, and almost all when they had children. Abortion was illegal. If women got pregnant they were expected to carry the pregnancy to term and give birth. Few women's shelters existed, and women who brought "private troubles" — such as terrifying domestic violence — into the public eye were frowned upon.
The government, the mass media and the educational system all pushed women into being primarily care-givers to their families, and wage earners only as a back-up. Women's individual rights were regarded as unimportant in comparison to society's "right" to have most women restricted to the role of unpaid domestic servant in the home.
The Sex Discrimination Act was a victory for women who demanded that they alone should decide how to live their lives — when, how and if to have children, whether to marry, whether to work and who they had sexual relations with.
The feminist movement, which spawned the Sex Discrimination Act, challenged the notion that society "needed" women to put others needs before their own. Calling for social provision of domestic work, feminists argued that far from society as a whole needing submissive women, this actually benefited only a few. Women's liberation, they argued, would further freedom and welfare of the majority of society, of working-class women and men.
The Coalition's attempt to overturn the Sex Discrimination Act seeks to undermine these gains.
Howard's argument is that society still needs to control women's lives to prevent the "wrong" sort of families. Social acceptance of single mothers and lesbian parents challenges the ruling-class idea that the best way to raise children is in a heterosexual family, with mum at home at least part-time and dad being the primary "breadwinner". That's why Howard's government has introduced financial incentives for mothers who don't work full-time, and penalties for those who do.
BY ALISON DELLIT
[The author is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, May 1, 2002.
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