Reaching for health : The Australian women's health movement and public policy

Jamieson, Gwendolyn Gray

doi:10.26530/oapen_459488

Cited by 16 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…It was at this conference—Australia's Second National Conference on Women's Health—that the resolution to develop a policy specifically for women was made, this recognising the impacts of structural disadvantage on women's “health status and their access to health services appropriate to their needs” (Commonwealth of Australia :2). Following government endorsement and a “lengthy but participatory” (Gray Jamieson :246) policy development process, Australia's first National Women's Health Policy was launched by then Prime Minister Bob Hawke, in April 1989. Some twenty years later, lobbying for a new, updated, policy culminated in the release of the second, revised, National Women's Health Policy in December 2010.…”

Section: The Activist Origins Of Health Policy In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some twenty years later, lobbying for a new, updated, policy culminated in the release of the second, revised, National Women's Health Policy in December 2010. The NWHP, then, would not have been possible without the sustained agitation of the robust and “broad‐based grassroots groups” (Gray Jamieson :281) that made up the, largely feminist, women's health movement in Australia at the time. Importantly, women's health policy in Australia emerged within the context of broader social change arising from public challenges to the male‐domination of the State, reflected in the “increased representation of women and formation of feminist policy machinery” (Herrett & Schofield :562).…”

Section: The Activist Origins Of Health Policy In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Importantly, women's health policy in Australia emerged within the context of broader social change arising from public challenges to the male‐domination of the State, reflected in the “increased representation of women and formation of feminist policy machinery” (Herrett & Schofield :562). Thus, according to Gray Jamieson (:295), the combination of a uniquely strong women's health movement with “responsive governments” at the national and sub‐national levels was crucial, ensuring a “very favourable political opportunity structure” for policy change.…”

Section: The Activist Origins Of Health Policy In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Respect for each gender”: Gender, equity and backlash in Australia's male health policy

Seymour

2018

Aust J Social Issues

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Australia is one of the few countries which has specific health policies for boys/men and girls/women as distinct groups. In this article I present an analysis of the discourses of gender, equity and disadvantage drawn upon in Australia's men's health policy. Through comparison with the women's health policy, I show that a dual focus on the essential differences between men and women and the ways in which the health system has failed men contribute to an adversarial gender politics, positioning men and women as rivals with competing needs. Reflecting broader debates concerning the negative impact of societal change on boys/ men,

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Section: The Activist Origins Of Health Policy In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Activist Origins Of Health Policy In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Activist Origins Of Health Policy In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Respect for each gender”: Gender, equity and backlash in Australia's male health policy

Seymour

2018

Aust J Social Issues

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“…The goals of the movement must be institutionalised in a way that will persist beyond any given cohort of activists. In Australia, second-wave organisations such as the Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL), and various women's health organisations, followed local social movement traditions of 'looking to the state' and sought to institutionalise feminist agendas within government (see Andrew 2014;Sawer 2008;Gray Jamieson 2012). WEL played an important role in the development of Australia's wheel model of women's policy machinery (with the hub in the chief policy co-ordinating agency of government and the spokes in line departments) and in its dissemination to other levels of government and further afield.…”

Section: Can Feminist Agendas Survive Entanglement With Government?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Women's Movement and Government

Sawer

Jamieson

2014

Australian Feminist Studies

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Some scholars have suggested that institutionalisation and professionalisation of women's movement organisations leads to 'feminist fading'. This article examines whether such propositions hold true for the Australian women's movement. It maps changes in the women's movement that had emerged by the 1990s, including increased diversity and increased national and international networking as well as increased institutionalisation. It finds that loss of political influence has less to do with institutionalisation than with a changed discursive environment that constructed the welfare state and women's reliance on it as a problem. Nonetheless, women's movement institutions have continued to sustain feminist values and engage in differently organised but effective campaigns. A case study of the women's health movement in Victoria shows how it succeeded in having abortion removed from the criminal code in 2008. Repertoire had changed since the 1970s but the goal remained the same.As in many western countries, the women's movement became less visible in Australia from the 1990s onwards and governments lost interest in responding to its demands. Some social movement scholars (and social movement activists) blamed this loss of influence on entanglement in the state. They claimed that institutionalisation had led to co-option at worst or 'feminist fading' at best. In this article we explore the trajectory taken by the women's movement in Australia over the past 40 years, with particular reference to the women's health strand of the movement, to assess whether the idea of feminist fading holds true in this country.By 'women's movement' we are referring to the mobilising of a collective identity as women, the sustaining of women-centred discourses and making claims on behalf of women that challenge the gender order in some way (Sawer 2013a, 2). Thus defined, a women's movement can be found on the streets, on the Internet, in women's organisations and services and within mainstream institutions where there are structures with a mandate to advance women's claims or meet their needs. Furthermore, a women's movement understood this way existed in Australia from at least the 1880s (see Quartly and Smart 2014). It involves attempts to mobilise collective identity and shared meanings across diverse groups of women; coalition-building is one of its most characteristic modes of operation.Much social movement theory, however, dates from the 1960s and is based on male-dominated movements and their repertoire of action. It often differentiates between social movements and other political actors on the grounds that social movements are non-institutionalised and characterised by contestation and disruptive action. In contrast, Australian Feminist Studies, 2014 Vol. 29, No. 82,[403][404][405][406][407][408][409][410][411][412][413][414][415][416][417][418] http://dx.

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“…Blue Mountains Women's Health and Resource Centre (BMWHRC) was established in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, in 1981. As with other women's health centres across Australia, BMWHRC's vision and statement of purpose reflect a social view of health that recognises the role of adversity and trauma in creating illness: 3 To create a community where women, regardless of their social and cultural background, age and sexual orientation, will have knowledge and control over their bodies and their lives, living freely and safely, with access to the support they need to enhance their health and well-being. … We will be guided by principles of social justice and equity.…”

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confidence: 99%