Writing the History of Australian Women

TLDR: One of the key issues facing students of women's history and politics is the nature of the relationship between sex, class and status in under standing the position of women in contemporary society as discussed by the authors.

Abstract: One of the key issues facing students of women's history and politics is the nature of the relationship between sex, class and status in under standing the position of women in contemporary society. Approaches adopted by researchers to the problem include: the analysis of 'women's work' or domestic labour and its role in specifying male-female relation ships; and the study of the origins and nature of sex-segregation in the workforce, in an attempt to understand the nature of the labour process and the foundations of divisions within the working class.2 The sex-class dilemma is also confronting women's movements' strategists in western capitalist societies. Consequently, it has become fashionable to reject, as a guide to theory and practice, the notion of 'sisterhood', the rallying cry of the early second wave feminists, and demand that it be replaced with an holistic analysis of women's oppression.3 This rejection reflects the belief that feminism has reached a cross-roads.