Social Work and Social Planning

The changing face of femininity is most commonly represented by a newly empowered young womanhood that is, above all else, imbued with post-feminist agency and distanced from outmoded notions of female disadvantage. This article argues that the discourse of such a highly individuated new femininity leaves little room to raise questions of gender inequality or to articulate the experience of difficulty and disadvantage. With reference to
Australian empirical research, this article offers an exploration of some of the psychological strategies used by young women in their attempts to live up to these neoliberal, postfeminist strictures and to evade any notion of vulnerability or victimhood.

The prevalence of the discourse of ‘successful girls’ (and failing boys) in Australia
and internationally has been widely documented. Against the much-vaunted lifting
of barriers to opportunity for girls and women, it might reasonably be expected that
their educational experiences and career paths are expressive of wider opportunities, greater confidence and autonomy. This article draws on qualitative research with young women in regional Australia to argue that supposedly outmoded but evidently durable patterns of educational and occupational experience remain and areaccompanied by new burdens and anxieties. Importantly, young women are now obliged to account for these unfashionable arrangements, using the ubiquitous belief in choice and the possibility of self-actualisation to demonstrate the volition and agency deemed appropriate to a post-feminist ethos. Thus, techniques of reflective selfhood and neoliberal accountability are mobilised to justify social reproduction, while at the same time showcasing invigorated notions of meritocracy and social
mobility.

In this paper, the experiences of young mothers are examined in the contemporary context of a heightened emphasis on individuated personhood and suggestions of a vastly changed modern femininity. Sociological preoccupation with the features
of post-industrial society has emphasized the declining influence of preordained and institutionalized structures. The declining influence of such structures in turn ushers in new requirements for personal agency and decision-making. Under the influence of such posited de-traditionalization, the family is widely conceived to be constituted less through obligation and more through negotiation. Understandings of the regulatory dimensions of neo-liberalism and the post-feminist sensibility are drawn on to consider how young women are implicated in this landscape of de-traditionalization and individualism. This paper reports on Australian empirical research with young women who are mothers that reveals the continuation of supposedly outmoded but evidently enduring features of
traditional motherhood. Significantly, though, these supposedly superseded gendered features of family life are now encountered amidst the requirements of reflexive modernity, and it is argued that they are responded to in ways that reflect transformations in the experience of the personal; particularly the construction of
individualized biographies of reinvention through motherhood.

The pervasive and popularised concept of a freshly modernised and progressive world for girls and young women has been ushered in by theories of post-industrial individualisation, neo-liberalism and its dovetailing with liberal variants of feminism. Such optimistic notions of new-found freedom for women in Western democracies celebrate the shrinking of imposed constraints and exclusions and the enthusiastic endorsement of individual choice. This article reports on recently completed empirical research in an Australian context which questions just how dramatically the lives of young women have changed. It identifies the role that the lauded concept of choice plays in overstating women's advancement and disguising socially generated inequality. In particular, young women in this study comprehend domestic violence, unequal parenting and housework as matters of choice, while also implicitly understanding that they do not live up to the imagined unencumbered rational choice individuals of liberalism.

The implications of an invigorated conservative, masculinist agenda disguised in a women's rights discourse are discussed. Feminists are confronted with a changed socio-political climate where the subordination of girls and women is allowed to occur more covertly within a framework of ostensible commitment to equality, the valorisation of choice and through seductive incitements to individual responsibility.

This paper will examine the events that resulted in the report that Children were thrown overboard from the Olong. It will discuss the events as they happened and demonstrate the how a veil of secrecy was put in place. It is important to identify the situation that was created because it was the ‘ownership’ of the information by the Department of Defence that allowed it to produce ‘evidence’ to elicit the public’s support for stronger Border Protection Policy. Introduction In mid-September 2001 the HMAS Adelaide was directed by the Commander of the Joint Task Force (CJTF), Brigadier Silverstone, to conduct a maritime surveillance and response patrol to deter unauthorised boat arrivals from entering Australian territorial waters. The HMAS Adelaide was directed to prevent potential illegal immigrants (PIIs) from gaining access to the Australian Migration Zone. The Australian Migration Zone is defined as “the land area of all the states and territories of Australia and the waters of pr...

The ‘refugee situation ’ in Australia has fuelled intense public debate. Currently there is minimal public support for refugee protection and even less compassion for the plight of refugees. The government along with the media has fuelled a high level of confusion between immigrants who choose to leave their countries and refugees who have no choice but to seek refuge and who have a legal right to do so. Consequently, the terms ‘refugee ’ and ‘boat person ’ or ‘illegal immigrant ’ have become interchangeable in public debate. The Australian public is not generally informed about international obligations towards refugees and the many false perceptions that migrants are a major cause of economic and social problems remain largely unchallenged. In many instances, the government has demonised asylum seekers in emotive language and as a result many people consider that refugees are liars, criminals, ‘forum shoppers’, welfare cheats and queue jumpers. The government time and again has re...

Front cover photo: Nic Dunlop 2003 Copyright, Used with permission. Photographs of Pak Moon Dam protests and forest products: Forum of the Poor All other photographs within chapters by authors. PRA charts photographed on research site by chapter authors. Layout: 101 ...