Women, Nation and the State in Australia

Abstract

In Australia’s multi-cultural society of the 1980s both state and federal legislation outlaws race and gender discrimination. Even so, Australia’s major political, legal and educational institutions, as well as many social customs, are derived from British liberal democratic models which privilege British over non-British and male over female. Women also remain affected by the class structure and ethnic/racial mix present-day Australia and by the legacy of social practices that had their origin in the formation of a ‘white’ Australian nation. In the move towards federation of the colonies, accomplished in 1901, racist practices against Aboriginals, Asian and Melanesian immigrants, legitimated by ‘scientific’ notions of biological differences, helped weld the ‘white’ nation. Only in the 1970s was the ‘white’ Australia policy finally abandoned, together with the abandonment of a policy which had enjoined immigrants and Aboriginals to assimilate to Anglo conformity. Since 1973 public policy has emphasised the celebration of ethnicity, yet despite the multi-cultural rhetoric some nationalisms are more acceptable than others.