Rebecca Albury

Rebecca Albury has been with the University of Wollongong since 1984, she is an Associate Professor in the School of History and Politics.

She is the chair of the Excellence, Diversity and Innovation in Teaching Subcommittee (EDITS) of the University Education Committee.

She is known for her research on the women’s health movement and in particular on reproductive health and policy.

She has had several publications which include;

–The Politics of Reproductions: Beyond the Slogans, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1999

-‘Reproductive Rights and Technologies’ in Australian Feminism: A Companion edited by B. Caine, M Gatens, E. Graham, J. Larbalestier, S. Watson and E. Webby, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1998.

–‘Challenges to Commonsense: Debates about the Status of Human Embryos Outside Women’s Bodies’, Journal of Australian Studies, Number 59, 1998 pp. 129-38.

I interviewed Rebecca on Thursday May 20^th 2010 and she told me how a lifetime of support from those around her has inspired her into the field that she is so passionate about today.

“I come from a family where women are respected and admired. Where education for women was very important,”

“I went to a girl’s high school where the teachers were all women and they promoted the notion where women needed to care of themselves and intelligent women need to support and find ways to feed their intelligence,”

“I graduated from high school in 1964 and it was in the time of women’s liberation and these ideas made sense,”

“I was primed by family and teachers, I lived in a university community from the early 70’s and I was involved in various ways in the women’s movement, particularly in health and reproduction,”

“I came to Australia in the early 70’s and that’s where I looked for friends and activities, I am a political scientist and I have shifted to working on Australian Domestic Policy,”

“I was given tools to understand political activism and I’ve been able to combine a scholarship and the political activism, I have found it invigorating and exciting because I’ve been able to make a difference in government policy,”

“I’ve been able to provide support for women and children in the community by the volunteer work; I was once on the National Bioethics Consultant Committee looking at reproductive technology and what policies will be made about this,”

“But that’s not to say that nothing has gone wrong in my life.”

Rebecca is also on the community board of management at the Illawarra Women’s Health Centre.

 

1. In Australia, Abortion is only legal if it preserves the physical and mental health of the mother. Do you believe abortion should be made legal and freely available? Do you think that would be better for women in the long run?

That’s what the law says in some states, since the late 60’s the mental and physical health has been expanded to mean economic and career well-being in the sense. There seems to be an interesting contradiction in the way is abortion is available in Australia. Since the late 1960’s the various jurisdictions in Australia have been moving towards the feminist goal of access to abortion. This has happened through common law interpretations, it’s happened through the way that was then called Medibank and now called Medicare was set up with funding for early trimester abortion, items were just put into the benefits schedule under the grounds that there was no common law against it.

The states were moving in this regulatory rather than criminal direction, if the operation was legal under state law and provided for the ordinary regular health system than it should be funded. Since the mid-70’s there has been a situation where one hand, some states have taken the letter of the law to mean that there could be some cases of people being arrested, mainly doctors.

What has happened over that time that hundreds of thousands of young and middle aged women have been able to get abortions and they have been able to get a rebate from Medicare. It’s not available everywhere, because of a variety of reasons. People who live in distant country areas they have to travel, young women are sometimes embarrassed to go to a local doctor so they are willing to travel to protect their privacy because abortion is talked about in the press in a stigmatising way.

It frightens people who don’t know the details to use the one side of that contradictory tension in tort. On the other hand, I would prefer that abortion get off the crimes act. It’s not appropriate on the crimes act anymore, because it’s safe, it’s certainly safer for women than continuing the pregnancy or performing the abortion themselves, it may not be a good choice for lots of people but we have lots of things that are legal that are not good choices for example smoking and pubs and cubs that are open late at night, over drinking, etc. The moral argument about it being immoral doesn’t seem to cut it as to why it’s still on the crime acts.

South Australia did some law reform in 1971, Western Australia did some law reform in the 90’s, most recently Victoria took it off the crimes act in 2008, there’s talk in New South Wales, but for a variety for reasons I don’t think it will happen with the current Labor Party.

I think abortion needs to be regulated under the health acts so that, for example bad practitioners can be de-registered, not because they are doing abortions but because they are bad practitioner and are dangerous, it would be the same thing if a doctor was doing tonsillectomies and children were bleeding to death, you would want to stop them from doing tonsillectomies, it would be the same thing if a doctor was doing abortions that were injuring women.

I have a women’s centred view on this, I trust women to make sensible decisions for themselves, I think that community and government as a whole needs to support women’s decision, that if a woman decides to continue with a pregnancy need supporting mother’s benefits and baby bonuses and they shouldn’t be discriminated against if they don’t have husbands, they should be helped to take care of their babies. On the other hand, if a woman decides to terminate a pregnancy, she should not be ashamed or stigmatised and it should be rebated by Medicare.

2. Women have been fighting for equal pay for years, although it is almost equal, there are still some instances where women are still being paid less than men. Do you believe this issue will ever be resolved?

I think it will be a continuing issue and for two reasons; the nature of work and what some people call the male dominated culture of work. What needs to happen is a vast culture change of the nature of work that recognises that paid work is one part, but only one part of people’s live and not their full identity and that people remain themselves with their responsibilities and when they are at paid work and that they don’t become tools of the sense of their employer and therefore need to be treated with respect and understanding of that and this will improve work for men and women.

In Australia, in some jobs and industries are gender-segregated, for example mining and forestry is heavily male dominated and the values of that are of a particular model of masculinity. What keeps it male? Because of the sense of dirty, dangerous work is seen as masculine. But let’s think of other dangerous and dirty work such as nursing and child care. You have little children under your responsibility and they are not thinking of safety, there are exploring the world. It is dirty there is poo, wee, germs, some children have Hep C because they got from their parents at birth so it’s dangerous and there is also a danger with lifting the children but that is seen as women’s work, it’s seen as less well paid as it is part of the nature of women to be caring for children and what we are seeing here is masculinity and femininity at play in the divisions of the work and the notion of the naturalness of it.

Those notions of masculinity and femininity draw people into different kinds of work and help determine the way the pay is set. The culture of work, understanding of work values are deeply set by notions of gender. There is legislation for equal pay, it is better than it was.

When once women got 66% of male pay it’s up in the 80’s now.

3.  I recently read an article where a UK survey revealed that 56% of people believed that a woman should take responsibility for being raped (for example if they accept a drink or are kissing someone, dressing provocatively, etc) Is this shocking to you at all? And do you believe there should be more help available for women?

I’m saddened by it, but I’m not shocked because of the attitudes out there. I’m of the opinion, that yes there needs to be support for women but there also needs to be ways not just single lessons or centres that victims can go, but there also needs to be a society wide re-workings of the meanings of masculinity and femininity. The thing that has always struck me is that with the gender stereotypes it is seen as good thing for men to not take no for an answer. For example if a man is a salesman selling cars and the shopper says “this one is too expensive” and rather than taking no for an answer, the salesman tries to sweeten the deal, either trading in something or reducing the price. To try and not take no for an answer, that is a part of the nature of masculinity. There is a sense of demanding respect and needing yes. What happens then you are talking about sex and she says no? Guys have to take no for answer, whether it is about sex or back in childhood when they are bullying or asking for money, they have to take no for an answer. Most men are not like this, they do take no for an answer or they may ask if this is alright. This needs to be brought out, how to be a man? Take no for answer, respect your girlfriend.

What is the image of the woman? The image of the woman is compliant, anything for a quiet life, doing what he wants, if you love him, you make him the centre of your world. The tension on each side, the tension for the men is taking no for an answer, for women it’s the embarrassment of making a fuss. What would happen? What would people say if she’s starting shouting in the club if a guy is making a move on her long after she said no? She not he would be the object of ridicule. Why were you dancing in that provocative way if you weren’t willing to go the whole way? It’s a fun way to dance and this is a fashionable dress, this was not for him.

All of these understandings need to be explored in childhood, with groups of boys and groups of girls. There is no simple solution.

4. There has been talk of an “eggtimer” test, a blood test which measures the Anti Mullerian Hormone (AMH) and this test basically shows how many eggs a woman has left by measuring the hormone level in the blood sample and comparing it with a statistical value. It’s $65 and not covered by Medicare. Do you believe women should be encouraged to take this test? Do you believe it will have positive and/or negative effects?

I think the question of fertility is beyond a test. For a woman to discover that she didn’t have many eggs when she was not in a relationship or when she had just been offered a fantastic opportunity overseas and learning this might make her drop everything and have a baby is unrealistic. Young women need to know that fertility is not automatic, it is more than just how many eggs you have, the question is “are you in a space to have and raise children now?”

There is this kind of fantasy of “when I’m ready, this is how it will be” well, for thousands of years across millions of women, “really ready”, is a meaningless statement. Babies come, planned or unplanned and women welcome them and take care of them, they raise them working or staying at home, in poverty and in wealth and the notion that somehow there could be a way of planning and that we’ll find a perfect time and a question of negotiating that.

I feel that the eggtimer is being sold as something that it can all be planned and organised.

I can understand with a woman in her late 30’s maybe early 40’s who is started in a new relationship and if she thinks it’s going okay and he think it’s going okay and they wouldn’t mind having children she might like to know if they should throw away the contraception and trying for the baby whilst they are getting to know each other so that instead of getting to know the person and being totally okay with and then having the baby, maybe there might not be time for it because what if that took two years and then it might be so hard to get pregnant that she didn’t. Why not try now?

The choices that women make about reproduction are not going to be enhanced by knowing how many eggs they have left.

5.  Do you believe that women’s/feminism issues or issues between the sexes will ever be resolved? 

They’ll be different issues, whatever happens, I can imagine a world in which gender didn’t matter, and it’s very hard to imagine that happening in the lifetime of anyone now living because of the complexity of it. If one is working on this, politically or socially or within personal relationships on equality, it’s the case of picking the places that seems important and working on those in a variety of ways are necessary at the time and seeing where that goes.

When you change something now, it changes the bigger picture. It doesn’t necessarily get to the underlying issues and solving these issues or trying to solve these issues exposes new problems. I’m not being negative. It’s not a tick and flick thing even if it took a long time to make the tick. It’s a mode of living and new issues will appear. I guess it is about what the level of goal is. Is it reducing crime statistics? A narrow goal or is it promoting equality and showing how inequality operates and showing new problems.