Compiled by Alan Barron, Convenor. Date 21 August 2000.

Consider the following facts and you'll agree:

* Women are now 43% of the paid workforce (Up from 27% in the late 60s).

* 64% of all females are in full-time work.

* 72% of all part-time workers are women.

* 67% of all new jobs are going to women.

* There is virtually no equal opportunity for men when it comes to the government's largesse. In Australia, some two and a half billion (not million) is spent on `women's ' policy initiatives by federal, state and local governments. Men? Hardly a brass razoo! Yet men contribute 70% of income tax! State and Federal governments in Australia spend over 1.25 billion on childcare alone.

* Stay at home mums penalised. The Federal Government pays working women almost double what it pays stay-at-home mums. Thus women are encouraged to enter the workforce at a time of high unemployment and to dump their children in child minding.

* Men are now only 44% of all undergraduates (Down from 70% in the early 70s).

* In the decade 1970 to 1980, the number of females in the workforce increased by 58% - men by just 20%

* Most women are employed in the expanding areas of employment such as the service industries. Men are in the shrinking areas such as engineering, etc.

* 68% of the registered unemployed are men, 32% are women. (Three plus decades ago women formed the majority of the unemployed).

* World-wide unemployment rates for men are rising much faster than the female rate.

* Men are often given a raw deal in the Family Court when they divorce (especially in terms of custody, access and property division).

* Most government and semi-government departments and statutory bodies tend to favour women over men in hiring and promotion due to affirmative action legislation. This includes education, armed forces, police and fire fighting services.

* Boys make up the bulk of remedial students at school.

* Men, on average, die 7 years earlier than women.

* Most of the homeless are men

* Young men commit suicide at over 4 times the female rate.

* Men are discriminated against in the workplace and in education by affirmative action for women.

* Men are given more serve jail terms for similar crimes than women.
* Men still do most of the dirty and dangerous jobs, and still would be expected to go off to war should the situation demand it.

* Men are often wrongly accused of sexual harassment/crimes.

Women are new elite

The Federal Equal Employment Opportunities Act (formerly Affirmative Action Act) requires all employers with over 100 employees to set up equal opportunities for women; with the CEO to be responsible for EEO. Each company must report to EEOA each two years. There are some 10,585 companies in Australia who have over 100 employees.

In addition there are over 6,900 government schools in Australia each with a dedicated EEO Officer seeking to advance girls and women's education. No wonder boys and men are being left behind in the workplace and education.

By our reckoning, there must be some 17,000 Equal Opportunities Officers (conservative estimate) across this nation all rooting for women. Our figures exclude private schools (over 2,000), the Union Movement - which is crammed full of femocrats - small businesses under 100 employees, political parties, and community groups and Churches.

Then we have the Office of the Status of Women with around 50 staff. (There is no equivalent for men). In addition they allocate over $1 million dollars annually to "women's" groups.

Special spending on women runs into the millions. Examples:

(1) the Women in Business Trust get $500,000 from the federal budget to assist women establish their own business - nothing for men.

(2) `Women's Safety Survey' was allocated $1.3 million - nothing for men.

(3) The Federal Government also gives hefty handouts for things for women's only events like the International Women's Conference' held in Adelaide in 1996.

(4) Special employment and health programs for women. The government even funded a program for wives of unemployed men to help them find a job!

(5) All State Governments have their special programs for women, especially in education, employment and health. Example: In 1997/98 financial year the Victorian Kennett Coalition Government spent $50 million implementing its `women's agenda' (health and employment issues mainly).

(6) Australian Bureau of Statistics publish each year their `Australian Women's Year Book'. This is in addition to gender information in `Year Book Australia, Australian Social Trends'.

The cost of administering the plethora of `women's policies' at federal, state, and local levels, must be costing taxpayers a fortune. There has been many a forest cleared to print the copious amounts of `women's reports' published over the past three decades.

Let me give but a very small sample;

* Women- Shaping and Sharing the Future - The New National Agenda for Women 1993-2000 (162 pages, Office of the Status of Women, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 1993),

* Equity before the Law, Discussion Paper 54, Australian Law Reform Commission 1993, over 360 pages in 2 volumes),

* Half Way to Equal, (365 pages), House of Representatives Standing Committee on legal and Constitutional Affairs, 1992,

* Affirmative Action for Women, (Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 1984 (2 volumes),

* 2 Year Action Plan for Women 1998-2000 (Victorian Government),

* Women's Employment Strategy 1991-94 (Public Service Board of Victoria, Career Planning for Women in the Victorian Ministry of Education (Ministerial Advisory Committee on Women and girls Ministry of Education, Victoria, 1990),

* Come on Girls, (Advisory Committee on the Post-Secondary Education of Women and Girls, SA 1985),

* Equal Employment Opportunity Action Plan 1986/87 (Rural Water Commission of Victoria),

* Managers Managing Equally, (SA Office of the Commissioner for Equal Opportunity),

* Rural Women's Network Report (Vic Government 1998), etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc...

On top of this there are all those telephone listings. In checking the White Pages under Office of Women's Policy (Queensland), there were two extensive listings including toll free numbers (Australia Wide).

The bottom line

Women get squillions spend on them and men hardly a brass razoo. The need to spend money on men's issues is slowly dawning however. For example, the government is at last, going to spend a couple of million dollars on promoting men's prostate health.
But the reality is there is virtually no equal opportunity for men when it comes to the government's largesse.
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"It is not often that a dominant class legislates its own downfall with quite as much thoroughness as the parliaments of the western world, filled as they are with men passing equal opportunities legislation in favour of women, have done". (David Thomas, "Not Guilty- In defence of the Modern Man", Weiden & Nicolson, London, 1993, page 63.)