A male ear for feminists

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 14

A male ear for feminists

Having appointed a Cabinet spokesman on women’s affairs, the Government has invited the objection that a woman was not chosen for this task. While the job that has been given to the Minister of Justice, Mr McLay. is essentially one of making known Government policy on women's interests, the supposition will no doubt abound that he is the sole adviser on women’s affairs in the Cabinet and the person most responsible for guiding policy decisions in the Government caucus.

Perhaps it may be regretted that anyone thinks it necessary to have a spokesman on women’s affairs at all. The appointment, however, may be taken as an acknowledgement of the opinion of those who consider that special and separate consideration must be given to the law and its administration for the benefit of all who have been deemed to be at some disadvantage in the past.

Advice, recommendations, proposals, and complaints will not be wanting. The important question is, therefore, to whom these are best directed. Ideally they should go to

someone who has the authority and power to do something, not merely add to the talking. Advocates of women’s causes should logically try to ensure that the person chosen to speak for the Government on women’s affairs will also be active on their behalf in devising helpful policy, drafting sympathetic laws, removing discriminatory laws, and guiding administration. They would achieve little that is worth while in having the ear of a like-minded woman in Parliament and even her voice in the Government caucus. In Miss Marilyn Waring, member of Parliament for Waipa, they already have this voice.

That is not enough. Most persuasion must be directed at the male members of the House and the Government. The real achievement of the advocates of feminist causes will be in converting the unconverted, not in being soothed by the sympathetic. Now they have a respectable chance of reaching an all-male Cabinet through a Minister who is named as a women’s affairs spokesman, and who may now be approached as a spokesman for women.