Achievements of Feminist Movement for Women in Australia

Running head: SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
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Introduction
Feminism, regarded as a struggle to bring to an end to sexist oppression has been
supported in the contemporary Australian society. Australia has always been a democratic
nation, thus when majority of Australians advocate a justifiable and equitable concept or
disparage discriminatory and subjugated ideas, the Australian government efficiently takes
action. According to Wilson (2016), the notion of gender equality is considered as a fundamental
feminist objective which is seen as greatly equitable and justifiable to all Australians. As a result,
such a women movement has developed into a public policy as well as a social norm in most
aspects of contemporary Australian society (Scharff 2016). The following essay will shed light
on some of the major achievements of the feminist movement for women in Australia which has
led the society support this form of fair movement. In addition to this, the essay will evaluate the
extent to which the contemporary Australian society has supported feminist movement and the
way feminism is related to structural functionalism and social conflict theory in the context of
gender equality.
Discussion
One of the areas where the contemporary Australian society is still struggling is the
subject of gender equality in the workforce. However, Cohen and Jackson (2016) have claimed
that gender equality has undergone significant developments in recent years in comparison to
previous decades. Comprehensive studies of Dinner (2014) have revealed that feminist
movement in Australia has attained civil rights and privileges for the women in the country. The
suffragists’ campaigners in the 1900’s had persuaded a newly developed Commonwealth of
Australia in order to grant the right of casting vote for all Australian women and stand for the

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federal parliamentary elections. However in the later decades, during the early 1970’s, the
commonwealth government had introduced remunerated maternity leave for all female
employees engaged in public organisation. In addition to this in mid 1970’s, South Australia
successfully introduced the Sex Discrimination Act which was later repealed in the 1980’s when
the Commonwealth Government introduced the Sex Discrimination Act in 1984. These
significant achievements by the Australian government have drastically enhanced gender
uniformity in this society (Sinclair 2014). In Australia, the debates surrounding younger and
older feminists have principally been framed within a pattern of generations instead of focusing
on metaphorical waves. Such a symbolic shift has put forward the fact that women's movement
has advanced from the current disparaged idea of sisterhood to another feminine familial
metaphor which involves their roles as mothers and daughters. Seidman (2016) has further
claimed that while in the 1970’s and in the early 1980’s, the types of conflicts have moved
majorly over the underlying factors related to sexuality, class and race. Nonetheless, in recent
times these conflicts have inclined towards incorporating the terrain of age.
However, a number of critical international issues related to women still necessitate vital
actions, for instance, violence against women, sexual harassment, forced or obligatory sexual
slavery and genetic injury or mutilation. At this juncture, Few‐Demo (2014) has shed light on
issues regarding gender inequality in one of the most important factors of the society that is the
workforce. As per the reports of Dinner (2014), the current national permanent gender pay gap
that is the difference between the average weekly full time comparable income between men and
women reveals a gap of 15%. Such a difference in remuneration implies to the fact that women
in the Australian society engaged in permanent employment earn less in comparison to men.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data has revealed that only 24 per cent of company director