The Third Women and Labour Conference, Adelaide, June 1982

Abstract

The Third Women and Labour Conference was held at Adelaide University early in June this year. Since the first conference at Mac quarie University in 1978, Women and Labour has become something of a celebrated event within Australian feminism, consistently attracting over 1500 women. While the size of the conferences continues to pose organisational problems for their convenors, the gathering of so many women in the discussion of papers, workshops, films and more informal sessions always generates a sense of solidarity and confidence for the future. The enthusiasm and support which has greeted the three con ferences seems to indicate a need among Australian feminists to come together, to reaffirm unity as well as to explore the diversity of the women's movement. The Women and Labour Conference is always a creative and innovative event. The Adelaide Conference aimed, in the words of its convenors, to 'encourage research, and experience sharing which furthers women's understanding of their participation in Australian society and in the workforce, and [to examine] strategies for change'.1 Under the broad umbrella of this policy statement there was room for many issues to be discussed. Literature, history, trade unions, the workforce, theory, practice and politics?a fair coverage of all these areas would be impossible in a brief report. But it is possible to locate some common threads which demonstrate changes in focus from previous conferences, and indicate new directions in Australian feminism. There were some marked shifts away from the 1980 conference at Melbourne, of which the two reports in Labour History made strong criticisms.2 Daphne Gollan and Susan Magarey, whilst enthusiastic on the whole, found the Melbourne Conference too academic, pointing out that a Women and Labour Conference should not become simply a forum for academics to present their theses-in-progress on 'women's issues'. They also felt there was too little analysis of the material presented; a failure to locate it within a broader perspective of women's past, present and future. Marian Simms made a similar point in her report. She argued that Women and Labour was 'still located in terms of labour history', i.e. that many papers took as their basis the same assumptions of patriarchal historiography, rather than subjecting those assumptions to a feminist critique. If these problems were not resolved at the third Women and Labour Conference, they were confronted. Women and Labour reaffirmed its commitment to feminism. Rather than merely adding a women's section to the existing gamut of social knowledge, understanding of the term 'Women and Labour' was broadened to include discussion of those issues facing Australian women and contemporary feminism. Papers and work shops were presented on women and voluntary work, child care, women's shelters, feminist therapy, gender division in the workforce and home,