Australia: the Fall of the Femocrat

Abstract

During the 1970s there was a conjuncture in Australia of women’s movement mobilization, a political tradition of ‘looking to the state’ to promote social justice and the election of reforming governments. Women’s movement activists promoted the need for government machinery to ensure the needs of women as well as of men were recognized and addressed in all areas of policy. Quite sophisticated policy responses were developed to the new ways in which the women’s movement was framing policy problems. The United Nations (UN) drew on the Australian model as an example of good practice and international researchers drew attention to the distinctive ways in which the Australian women’s movement had operated through the state to achieve gender-sensitive policy and the funding of feminist services (e.g. Eisenstein, 1996; McBride Stetson and Mazur, 1995).