Aboriginals in Australia have and are suffering the typical pattern of colonial expansion of the Western Capitalist system. For a hunter-gatherer society, land is the basic economic and ritual source which forms the foundation of the social structure and culture of that society. Aboriginals have had their land expropriated by successive waves of pasturalists, timber and mining interests. This has been accompanied by the introduction of diseases and a conscious policy of extermination, justified on the basis of a "subhuman" classification in terms of an evolutionary hierarchy. So successful was this extermination policy that Australia can proudly boast of being one of the few nations that has implemented genocide - that of the Tasmanian Aboriginals.
The crime that I wish to elaborate here, is that regarding the status of Aboriginal women - how in fact in the traditional society her status was such that a similar level is being sought in the Western World today by the women's movement. By colonialism, racism and sexism, Aboriginal women's status has been reduced to the lowest level in the hierarchy of White Australian society and her traditional status in Aboriginal society has been destroyed. Here I want to outline the role of the helping institutions - those whose aim is to aid the Aboriginals in order to relieve some of the conditions brought about by the exploiters. The role that the church, education and the various welfare agencies play in the destruction of the status of Aboriginal women and the oppression which accompanies this. Lack of understanding and inherent attitudes of superiority and ethnocentricity effected the imposition of the white western model of male/female relations which were inapplicable to traditional Aboriginal society.
Economically in traditional society women were the basic and reliable producers of food (and children). The husband did not provide for his wife - a hunters' share was distributed through an extended kinship group, mainly to his and his wife's mother and the wife's share came from her mother. Women shared with their female relations and collectively worked, childminded, etc. What was left over after this female sharing went to the men. Therefore women were economically independent. A woman's daily activities were not under the control of her father or husband but were collectively organized with other women. This of course does not deny that males were dominant in traditional society. Men specialized in control over religious and philosophical matters which were regarded as superior in terms of the control of the social order but both the women's economic role and the males' spiritual role were necessary for survival.
The introduction of a cash based European economy meant that the intrinsic value that women had as food producers was destroyed. Women became liability and not asset since her major role had become redundant. On the basis of the stereotype of hunter gather societies that males go out to hunt while the women stay home to tend to the children, as well as the experience in European society of the man as economic producer and the women as dependent, any work that was available was given to the men by the Europeans. Occasional work was offered to women as domestics for which they usually received flour, tobacco and sugar, hardly a balanced diet. When welfare benefits were introduced these were regarded as the woman's equivalent to the man's wage and since men in the past had not been economically responsible for their wives and children this Governmental pittance constituted the major resource for Aboriginal women to support themselves and their children. Simultaneously access to health facilities had increased the birth rate and so women were supporting more children. This had drastic effects on Aboriginal women's self image as good mother.
Wages, pensions and endowment money occurred reliably but at intervals. Hoarding of resources over a two week period was virtually impossible, not only because the resource were so slender but because hoarding was a subversion of a good mother self image. The good mother gave freely to her children whatever she had. If a woman gave freely of what she had today, there would be nothing for tomorrow; there was no legitimate way of getting more tomorrow except by saving today. Therefore, mothers almost automatically became "bad". Similarly a good mother does not hurt her children, there was no acceptance of physical punishment. A good mother comforted her child if it were frightened or hurt, but western medicine has a different view of the good mother - the "mother knows best routine" with regard to cleanliness and eating habits. If the child cries or is frightened it is unfortunate but ultimately it for the child's own good. The medical profession and welfare agencies regard Aboriginal women as "bad" mothers also, so that the women are condemned by both societies.
Similarly the role of Aboriginal women as educators of their children whilst pursuing their traditional economic role has been effectively eliminated by the while education system. This alien education system also teaches children the values of white society and subverts them away from the beliefs and values of traditional society and for this the Aboriginal women are held to blame by the men because traditionally they have been in control of the raising of the children.
If the economic system makes women and their children a burden on their menfolk instead of a valuable asset; if the education system makes them useless as teachers and unable to communicate with their young; if the health services produce a self definition for women as bad mothers while at the same time making them mothers more often and more continuously than ever before, then low is it possible for Aboriginal women to be anything other than inferior by all possible criteria. Add to this the dimensions of racism in Australian society and their position becomes intolerable.
Liberation for Aboriginal women cannot be achieved primarily by liberation, from their men; first and foremost there must be liberation from an alien social system.
(01425)