What are Australian's gender roles?

Answer 1

Like many places around the world, the gender roles in Australia have blurred somewhat over the years. Generally, women are still the 'nurturers' and men the 'providers' and co exist in a 'traditional' way. Within living history (certainly my life time), on top of mainstream subjects; girls and boys learned a couple of different subjects in Secondary School. Boys did metal work and wood work, girls did home economics. This was thought to assist the future adults in their seperate roles where men would go work and be the bread winner, women would stay at home and be the home maker. Obviously not everyone followed these roles. Many women went off to find careers and had no interest in 'home' or 'family'. There were many professions that women could not join and others where women could not join until they attained an age older than that of their male counterparts. It was believed by some that once a woman had passed the age of 20 or more, she was unlikely to start a family. The thinking at the time was 'why train someone for two or three years at a cost to the employer only to have that person leave to start a family. There was some merit to this arguement as the employer was put at a huge financial disadvantage. For example; Police Officers are trained over a time frame and at taxpayers' expense to a budget. Should an officer leave within that (or similar) timeframe, the training and cost is lost and a replacement cannot be put it place until the next budget comes around. But there has been a significant shift in gender work roles here in the land of Oz. Women are increasingly found in male dominated jobs (truck drivers, military etc) and men are increasingly found in those areas traditionally held by women (nursing, hospitality). Anti discrimination laws now mean that women can drink at public (main) bars (until the late 1960's women had to drink in the lounge bar). Woman can now serve in combatant roles within the military and in 'beat duties' in the Police (as opposed to 'welfare' positions until 1980). Women now have to wait until 65 (same as men) to received the aged pension (used to be 60 until a few short years ago). However women can still go to 'ladies nights' (free entry to women) at certain nighclubs and bars, more domestic violence assistance exists (counselling, emergency accomodation etc) for women even though men are more often the victims of domestic violence (professional facts and figures). Exemptions under anti discrimination laws are given to women, ethnic and religious groups (but not to caucasian males). I have observed that the upshot of all this is that men are very confused as to what our role now is.