Damned Whores and God's Police

by Anne Summers

  46 The Roots of Marital Tension, Roche Products Pty Ltd, Dee Why, NSW, n.d.

  47 This practice of mass sedation of an anxiety-prone populace has proved extremely profitable to the manufacturers of Valium. In April 1973 the British Government ordered Roche Products to reduce the prices of Librium and Valium by about 40 per cent because the company had made what the government considered to be the excessive profit of some £24 million on these two drugs alone since 1966. Reported Sydney Morning Herald, 14 April 1973. The price of Valium in Australia is from 100 to 120 per cent higher than the British price – before the cuts were ordered.

  48 This term is favoured in preference to ‘attempted suicide’ because it is evident that a large percentage of people who take overdoses or slash their bodies do not want to die. An attempted suicide should properly refer only to a real effort to end one’s life which, for some reason, was unsuccessful.

  49 Basil S Hetzel, ‘The epidemiology of suicidal behaviour in Australia’, Australian andNew Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 5, no. 3, 1971, p. 157.

  50 Hetzel, ‘The epidemiology of suicidal behaviour in Australia’.

  51 RG Oliver et al., ‘The epidemiology of attempted suicide as seen in the casualty department, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne’, Medical Journal of Australia, I, 17 April 1971, p. 835.

  52 Oliver et al., ‘The epidemiology of attempted suicide’, p. 834.

  53 Oliver et al., ‘The epidemiology of attempted suicide’, p. 836.

  54 Tony Maiden, ‘Profile of a shoplifter’, Australian Financial Review, 20 October 1971. This article is a comprehensive report of a survey of shoplifters conducted by two Melbourne criminologists.

  55 Maiden, ‘Profile of a shoplifter’.

  5 The poverty of dependence

  1 Adapted from Table 43 in Facts and Figures, Women and Work, no. 11, Women’s Bureau, Department of Labour, Melbourne, September 1973, p. 28.

  2 Ronald Henderson, Alison Harcourt & RJA Harper, People in Poverty: A Melbourne survey, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1970, p. 1.

  3 Henderson, Harcourt & Harper, People in Poverty.

  4 Poverty: The ACOSS evidence, Australian Council of Social Service, Sydney, 1973, p. 317.

  5 Poverty: The ACOSS evidence.

  6 Poverty in Australia, Interim Report of the Australian Government’s Commission into Poverty, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, March 1974, p. 21.

  ‘The income unit comprises:

  * An adult income unit head, spouse (if head married) and dependent children for whom the head or spouse is responsible. A dependent child is defined as a person not married and either less than 15, or 15–20 and still engaged in full-time secondary schooling. An adult is a person 21 and over, or a person 15–20 who is at present married and/or is responsible for a dependent child (e.g. an 18-year-old single mother and child is an adult income unit).

  OR

  * An independent juvenile, who is a person 15–20, not engaged in full-time schooling, not at present married and not responsible for a dependent child.

  However, a full-time tertiary student is always defined as an independent juvenile even though the person may be partly or wholly financially dependent on his or her parents.

  Thus, a household consisting of a man and wife (both working), two school children, an unemployed 28-year-old son, an 18-year-old daughter attending university full-time and an aged mother, comprises four income units:

  * husband, wife and two school children

  * unemployed son

  * university daughter

  * aged mother’

  7 Poverty in Australia, p. 11.

  8 Elsie Women’s Refuge was opened as a women’s shelter in Glebe, Sydney on 16 March 1974 by a group of women from the women’s movement. It is two small houses, which are open to any woman in need and will offer free temporary accommodation to women and their children. It is the first of several proposed women’s refuges, places that are non-institutionalised and will take women in without requiring forms to be filled out or any other bureaucratic rigmarole. Women can leave their children there during the day while they go to arrange their social security allowances, look for somewhere to live or seek legal advice.

  9 Department of Social Security, Second Annual Report of the Director-General,1973–74, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1974, p. 128.

  10 Department of Social Security, Second Annual Report of the Director-General, pp. 8, 10.

  11 Department of Social Security, Second Annual Report of the Director-General, pp. 149–50.

  12 Poverty in Australia, p. 15.

  13 Poverty in Australia, p. 9.

  14 Poverty in Australia.

  15 Poverty in Australia.

  16 Department of Social Security, Second Annual Report of the Director-General, p. 149.

  17 A Personal Enquiry into the Poverty of the Older Single Woman, The Executive Officer, Council of Social Service of WA (Inc.), December, 1971. The study examined the living conditions of single women aged 50 and over whose incomes were less than 850 per week.

  18 A Personal Enquiry into the Poverty of the Older Single Woman, pp. 7–8.

  19 Department of Social Security, Second Annual Report of the Director-General, pp. 151, 154.

  20 The three types of widows’ pensions are as follows:

  Class A: A widow who has the custody, care and control of one or more eligible children under the age of 16, or eligible student child.

  Class B: A widow who has no eligible children under 16 years of age or eligible student children and who is not less than 50 years of age, or who, after having attained the age of 45 years, ceases to receive the Class ‘A’ pension because she is no longer caring for a child.

  Class C: A widow who is under 50 years of age, has no children in her care but is in necessitous circumstances within the twenty-six weeks after the death of her husband. She receives a pension for not more than twenty-six weeks. If the widow is pregnant this time may be extended until after the child’s birth. She may then become eligible for the Class ‘A’ pension.

  21 Department of Social Security, Second Annual Report of the Director-General, p. 151.

  22 Ronald Sackville, ‘Social welfare for fatherless families in Australia: Some legal issues’, Part I, Australian Law Journal, December 1972, p. 611.

  23 The allowances paid to a woman with one child in April 1972 were as follows: NSW – $25.50; Victoria – $26; Qld – $27.75; SA – $27.75; WA – $27.75; Tasmania – $27.75, Sackville, ‘Social welfare for fatherless families in Australia’, Part II, Australian Law Journal, January 1973, p. 10.

  24 Sackville, ‘Social welfare for fatherless families in Australia’, Part II, p. 14.

  25 Section 62(1).

  26 Section 59(1).

  27 This practice is referred to by Departmental Officers as ‘bed-sniffing’.

  28 When the single mothers’ pension was introduced it was denounced by many people. One clergyman claimed that it made ‘promiscuity a paying proposition’ while Dr Clair Isbister told the 26th Biennial Conference of the Australian Council of Catholic Women that girls were having babies as a source of income: ‘You and I are paying for this, yet married women accepting their responsibilities and making homes for their families cannot receive this allowance.’ Reported in The Australian, 19 September 1973.

  29 Poverty: The ACOSS Evidence, p. 316.

  30 Dorothy Smith & Betty Harding, ‘Report of a survey carried out to prove the needs of women for hostels and rehabilitation centres’, roneoed, Sydney, October 1973.

  31 Poverty: The ACOSS Evidence, p. 317.

  32 Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Women and the Subversion of the Community, Falling Wall Press, London, 1972, p. 26.

  33 Female Unemployment in Four Urban Centres, Labour Market Studies no. 3, Department of Labour and National Service, Melbourne, 1970, p. 1.

  34 Female Unemployment in Four Urban Centres.

  35 John C Steinke, ‘Some problems in the measurement of unem
ployment’, Journal ofIndustrial Relations, March 1969.

  36 Female Unemployment in Four Urban Centres, p. 2.

  37 For example, Business and Professional Women’s Club of Sydney, Pilot Study ofMarried Women in the Work Force with Children Under Eighteen, Sydney, July 1968.

  38 Facts and Figures, p. 22.

  39 LA Cox, ‘Review of current research on children of working parents’, Address to 43rd ANZAAS Congress, Psychology Section, Brisbane, 25 May 1971, p. 22.

  40 Reported in NSW Women’s Electoral Lobby Newsletter no. 18, January I974, pp. 17–18.

  41 Morgan Gallup Poll, Findings No. 26 and 27, November 1973.

  42 Report for United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on FamilyResponsibilities of Working Women, Department of Labour and National Service, Melbourne, 1971, p. 4. The Business and Professional Women’s Club Pilot Study found: ‘70% returned to work mainly for financial reasons. Of the remaining 30%, nearly half expressed boredom and wanted an outside interest. Others thought it a waste not to use their training’. ibid., p. 5.

  43 Wage Rates and Earnings, February 1975, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, 1975, pp. 12, 14.

  44 Award Rates of Pay and Prescribed Hours of Work, Adult Males and Adult Females,State Capital Cities, 30 June 1974, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, 1975, pp. 11–12.

  45 The statistical information and references in this chapter have not been updated since 1975. However, in spite of the alterations in the social welfare system since then, the argument presented here remains all too true.

  6 The family of woman

  1 Ladislas Ruzicka & Lincoln Day, ‘Australian patterns of family formation’, Search, July 1974, p. 303.

  2 Eva Figes, Patriarchal Attitudes, Faber & Faber, London, 1970, pp. 17–18.

  3 The information in this section has been gathered from a variety of sources, including talking with women who have been in homes and prisons. The written sources include the following: accounts of girls in homes and prisons in Mejane, no. 8, August 1972, and no. 10, March 1973; Shirley Lewis, ‘Sheltered lives’, Nation Review, 27 July – 2 August 1973; Elisabeth Wynhausen, ‘Suffer the little children’, Bulletin, 8 April 1972; Virginia Duigan, ‘Liberation turns more women to crime – now for equal penalties’, National Times, 27 August – 1 September 1973; Department of Corrective Services, New South Wales, Women in Prison, Sydney, 1971.

  4 Lewis, ‘Sheltered lives’.

  5 Women in Prison, p. 45.

  6 Mejane, no. 10, March 1973.

  7 Duigan, ‘Liberation turns more women to crime’. See also ‘Women’s Lib. link with crime rise’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 July 1973.

  8 Angela Weir, ‘When the key turns’, Spare Rib, May 1973, p. 26.

  9 Prison Statistics 1971–72 New South Wales, Bureau of Census and Statistics, Sydney, 1973, p. 7.

  10 Women in Prison, p. 20.

  11 Women in Prison, p. 34.

  12 The use of these six functions has been adapted from Anna Yeatman, ‘The Marriage–Family Institution’, Australian Left Review, no. 28, December–January 1971, pp. 21–37.

  13 Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood, Penguin Books, London, 1973, p. 390. The following account of the development of the nuclear family is based on Aries; and on Eli Zaretsky, ‘Capitalism, the family and personal life’ Part 1, Socialist Revolution, January–April, 1973, pp. 69–125.

  14 Aries, Centuries of Childhood, p. 396.

  15 Zaretsky, ‘Capitalism, the family and personal life’, pp. 95–6.

  16 Frederick Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, Panther, London, 1969, p. 159.

  17 EP Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Penguin Books, London, 1968, pp. 366–7.

  18 Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class.

  19 Zaretsky, ‘Capitalism, the family and personal life’, p. 79.

  20 Reported in The Australian, 18 April, 1973.

  21 Reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, 19 June, 1973.

  22 I do not propose to undertake the lengthy discussion that would be necessary to demonstrate that these attitudes are socially determined rather than inherent to the female of the species. These arguments are adequately covered in Michael Rutter, Maternal Deprivation Reassessed, Penguin Books, London, 1974; Lee Comer, The Myth of Motherhood, Nottingham, 1972 (Spokeswoman pamphlet available from Women’s Liberation, Sydney).

  23 Julie Rigg et al., Child Care: A Community Responsibility, Media Women’s Action Group, Sydney, 1972, p. 7.

  24 Dr Lorna Lloyd-Green, ‘Family planning’ in Allan Stoller (ed.), The Family Today, Cheshire, for the Victorian Family Council, Melbourne, 1962, p. 160.

  25 For example, Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex, Jonathan Cape, London, 1971, p. 263.

  26 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Births 1973, Canberra, 1975, p. 5.

  27 Zaretsky, ‘Capitalism, the family and personal life’, pp. 122–3.

  28 Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Penguin Books, London, 1974, pp. 353–4.

  29 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Divorce 1973, Canberra, October 1974, p. 12.

  30 Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Divorce 1972, Canberra, July 1973, p. 12.

  31 WG Coppell, Australia in Figures, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1974, p. 15.

  32 Coppell, Australia in Figures, p. 28.

  33 Divorce 1972, p. 12.

  34 Divorce 1973, p. 13.

  35 Elizabeth Kelly, ‘Sociological aspects of family life’, in Jerzy Krupinski & Allan Stoller (eds), The Family in Australia, Pergamon, Sydney, 1974, p. 21.

  7 A colonised sex

  1 Some feminist writers have made the point that women are a colonised group, but most of these writers have confined their analysis to pointing out that women as a group are denied self-determination and this, by itself, is merely a metaphor and not an adequate political analysis. See for instance, Barbara Burris, ‘The fourth world manifesto’, in Notes from the Third Year: Women’s Liberation, N.Y. Radical Feminists, New York, 1971.

  2 AA Congalton & JM Najman, Who are the Victims?, Statistical Report 13, Department of the Attorney General and of Justice, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Sydney, 1974, p. 15.

  3 New Idea, 10 March 1973.

  4 Germaine Greer, ‘Seduction is a four letter word’, Playboy, January, 1973.

  5 At least this is what we are led to believe, especially by parents who reinterpret their own pasts in order to impose what they profess to be the correct sexual code upon their children. In fact, the stress on female virginity at marriage while being continually prescribed until the present generation – where we can say it has definitely broken down – was probably advocated far more than it was observed. It is probably more accurate to say that a woman was obliged to remain a virgin until she became engaged; once she had a publicly announced assurance of marriage then it was fairly safe for her to surrender her virginity.

  6 Sue Rhodes, Now You’ll Think I’m Awful, Gareth Powell Associates, Sydney, 1967, p. 98.

  7 Greer, ‘Seduction is a four letter word’, p. 178.

  8 Katherine Whitehorn, ‘Rape: fact and fantasy’, Bulletin, 31 August 1974.

  9 Paul Ward & Greg Woods, Law and Order in Australia, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1972, p. 93.

  10 Sydney Morning Herald, 5 October 1973.

  11 Sunday Mirror, Sydney, 28 July 1974.

  12 Table compiled from the Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, various years. ‘Cleared’ means that the police investigation has been completed, either because a suspect has been brought to trial or for some other reason.

  13 Mary Jane Sherfey, The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality, Random House, New York, 1972, p. 116.

  14 William H Masters & Virginia E Johnson, Human Sexual Response, Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1966.

  15 See Sherfe, The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality; Susan Lydon, ‘The politics of orgasm’ in Robin Morgan (ed.),
Sisterhood Is Powerful, Vintage, New York, 1970; Anne Koedt, ‘The myth of the vaginal orgasm’ in Leslie B Tanner (ed.), Voices from Women’s Liberation, Signet, New York, 1971; Mette Ejlersen, I Accuse!, Tandem, London, 1969.

  16 Robert R Bell, The Sex Survey of Australian Women, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1974, p. 121.

  17 Bell, The Sex Survey of Australian Women, p. 122.

  18 Derek Llewellyn-Jones, Everywoman, Faber & Faber, London, 1971, p. 72.

  19 ‘The myth of the male orgasm’, article by Frank in Sex Tharunka, University of New South Wales, 1971, p. 9.

  20 ‘The myth of the male orgasm’.

  21 Sherfey, The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality, p. 134.

  22 Sherfey, The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality, pp. 134–5.

  23 Sherfey, The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality, p. 138.

  24 Sherfey, The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality, pp. 127–8.

  25 Sherfey, The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality, p. 128.

  26 John C Caldwell et al., ‘Australia: Knowledge, attitudes and practice of family planning in Melbourne, 1971’, Studies in Family Planning, March 1973, p. 50.

  27 Caldwell et al., ‘Australia: Knowledge, attitudes and practice of family planning in Melbourne’, 1971’, p. 54.

  28 Gerri Sutton, ‘The Pill – ten years on’, Daily Mirror, Sydney, 12 November 1973.

  29 Caldwell et al., ‘Australia: Knowledge, attitudes and practice of family planning in Melbourne’, p. 52.

  30 HM Carey, Inhibition of Ovulation, School of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of New South Wales, n.d. (c. 1971), p. 8.

  31 Carey, Inhibition of Ovulation.

  32 Carey, Inhibition of Ovulation, p. 23. The endometrium is the lining of the womb, which is shed each month during menstruation. The warning contained in this statement is against women continuing to take the Pill month after month without having a week’s gap every three weeks to allow for menstruation to occur.

  33 Carey, Inhibition of Ovulation, p. 29.

  34 MIMS, April 1973, p. 58, listing side-effects of benzodiazepines.

  35 A symposium on oral contraception at the 1975 ANZAAS Congress evoked several criticisms from medical researchers about side-effects of the Pill. The criticism given the most extensive press publicity was the claim by gynaecologist Dr GD Parkinson that the combined oestrogen-progestogen pill – the formula used by most women today – had a permanent or long-term infertility rate three times higher than the older type single-hormone (oestrogen-based or progestogen-based) pill. Reported Daily Telegraph, 23 January 1975.