Wide-reaching ramifications for women

Professor Catharine Lumby

The impacts of DET's proposed staffing system, where all positions in schools could be open to merit selection interview, were outlined at Women's Conference.

By Kerri Carr

"In terms of women's current access to promotions positions, we already know that, for whatever reasons, women teachers are proportionally less likely to be in a promotions position than their male colleagues," Women's Coordinator Siobhan Callan said.

"This is especially so in our primary schools," she added.

"This seems a terrible thing to say, and it would be awful to think that it would happen, however, it may be tempting for some selection panels to decide to employ male teachers rather than females to address what is still perceived to be a male teacher shortage in primary schools," Ms Callan said.

"And what of EEO [equal employment opportunity] principles to ensure a fair representation of both males and females on the selection panel?" she asked.

"For classroom teacher positions the DET is still only proposing that there should be a gender balance where possible."

"Already Federation is sadly still hearing of women 'encouraged' by staffing not to take transfer positions if on maternity leave, as many schools want the certainty of a teacher who will commence work immediately, rather than taking 12 or 24 months maternity leave or try to access part time leave to care for young children until they are school age?. What guarantee will these women have of a fair chance at gaining classroom teacher or indeed promotions positions, under the proposed new changes?" Ms Callan asked.

"The staffing changes include talk of possible problems with principals resuming duty who do not have what is called 'currency of knowledge'," Ms Callan said.

"Will these women seeking resumption of duty also be deemed not to have 'currency of knowledge' and thus find it harder to obtain positions in schools?" she asked.

"The implications of the new staffing proposals could certainly have wide reaching ramifications for our women members," she added.

Ms Callan said women's activism and involvement in the staffing campaign was of tremendous importance.

She also reported Unions NSW's recent Women's Conference identified work/family balance, paid maternity leave, pay equity and child care as the four main areas needing priority on the legislative and bargaining agenda to enhance women's rights at work.

Guest speaker, NSW University's Centre for Social Research in Journalism and Communications Professor Catharine Lumby, recommended young women should be encouraged to talk not just about what's wrong with media but to explore what pleasures they get from it.

"To be able to be open about pleasure, not to deny it because that just leads to a sort of silencing, and to explore what we might term the positive pleasures of Big Brother turn out to actually be pretty interesting," she said.

"I think there's a dangerous double bind: if young women do not want to be seen as the media's vulnerable victims, which they are very vocal about not wanting to be seen as, then they have to position themselves as completely indifferent to popular media, but we know that they're not. They are effectively then silenced from talking about what they see as their secret pleasures. There is very little ground here from which young women might be able to talk to and talk through their varied experiences with the media. This seizes up, distorts and silences conversations about women's relationships with the media.

"The problem, I think, is that the term 'media' influence has come to imply complete indoctrination and uncritical passive consumption of the media, but the term needs to be re-defined and understood in a more nuanced sense, so that it comes to encompass the very diverse range of responses young women have to the media aimed at them," Professor Lumby said.

She said popular media could be a resource as much as something that could just be deconstructed to look for the bad things.

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Last Modified: 04 Apr 2008