The equality principle and the sexual division of labour

Abstract

Australia has one of the highest degrees of sex segregation in the workforce of any advanced OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) country (OECD, 1980).1 Predominantly female occupations are characterised by poor conditions and low pay (Power, 1975; Kramar, 1983; Working Women's Charter, 1984). Despite the currency of the rhetoric of sexual equality, however, such phenomena, which are characteristic of the sexual division of labour, have been successfully immunised against formal challenge. Although sex-segregated occupations are not expressly excluded from Australian anti-discrimination legislation, the complaint-based model does contain insuperable hurdles for most women in respect to both substance and procedure. Affirmative action measures, as presently conceived, are also unable to deal with this manifestation of structural discrimination. The fact that seemingly egalitarian measures are designed to effect minimal change is further illustrated when we look to wage-setting. Although the concept of equal pay for work of equal value has been accepted in Australia, it has had little practical effect on predominantly female occupations in the male-dominated arbitration arena. As the ideology of patriarchy operates in multifarious ways to prevent focus on the fundamental inequalities in women's working conditions, law reform, perforce, demonstrates its limited capacity for change. However, rather than jettison anti-discrimination and equal pay measures altogether, such mechanisms can be used to publicise the issues and to encourage women to assert themselves collectively. Show more