Gender Roles in Australia's History

The Season at Sarsaparilla was written by Patrick White in 1962. It is set in a fictional suburb on the outskirts of Sydney, entering on three archetypal Australian households of the time - the Boyles, the Knotts, and the Pogsons. This report will focus on the sociopolitical climate of the time and how it affected the various members of the community, therefore shaping White’s views and subsequent works. Performing ‘The Season at Sarsaparilla’ requires an understanding of the time it was written and set in in-order-to comprehend the characters and their choices. An actor needs insight into the differing values and gender roles expected at the time in order to portray these characters truthfully.

The 1960’s Australia on a macro level was a patriarchal society, with a rapidly increasing population due to post World War II immigration and saw Robert Menzies lead the Liberal party as the elected head of government from 1949-66. On a meso and micro level, there was a polarisation between men and women’s roles in society; women were told: “their place was in the home”. ‘The Season at Sarsaparilla’ explores the roles and norms of women during this time. White uses characters varying in age and circumstance to examine the juxtaposing treatment of women within the public and within their private lives. The portrayal of the three different wives; Nola, Girlie and Mavis demonstrates the varying attitudes and conformity to society.

This report will give some insight into Australia in the late 1950s to early 1960s, offering an understanding of the social realities of this period as well as the ebbs and flows of transnational influence, exploring the role of women played in Australian society, and how this, and the decade preceding, informed White’s portrayal of female characters in his plays, (specifically ‘The Season at Sarsaparilla’).

Not everyone in 1960’s Australia experienced life in the same way. The diversity of the time is evident in the ideologies expected of men and women separately, and their respective roles within society. The 1950s was seen as a time of breaking out from “Old” Australia into “New” Australia; the turbulence and anxieties from the 1950s triggered a desire to make families, specifically white Anglo-Saxon families, the centre of Australian life. There were a few changes to policies and society that gave women more independence; including The Child Endowment Act and the change in technology/consumerism.

The family as the centre of Australian life reinforced the gender roles, solidifying the beliefs that women were to raise the youth and reproduce. The heads of government during this time contributed to this through government policy ‘Child Endowment Act 1941’ and explicitly stating that women’s roles were to reproduce (Mackinnon & Gregory, 2006). Prime Minister Curtin (PM 1941-1945) stated “the human material indispensable for the production of the means of subsistence”; reiterating that to develop a self-supporting country/population it is absolutely necessary to keep women reproducing. PM Menzies also reaffirmed this in senate 1950 stating “We regard the family unit as a cornerstone for Australian life and key to our national progress” (Haebich, 2001). The Child Endowment Act was a good incentive for women to have more children because for each under the age of 16 years the mother would be paid directly 5 shillings a week. For mothers, this income gave some sense of freedom or autonomy without being ‘employed’. Therefore, women’s jobs were to raise and be responsible for family life.

Australian historian, Marilyn Lake, noted that “the decade has become code for all that is conservative and backwards-looking”. Sydney families were a patriarchal structure. The structure was seen as a ‘rightful patriarchy’; there was ‘no element of forced domination’ as the majority of men and women had conformed to the societal expectations. Men knew their place as the head of the house, providers for the family and women were responsible for the family life. Women are portrayed in the 1950s as highly conservative and “displaying no signs of matriarchal domination” (Mackinnon & Gregory, 2006). Employment, education and society’s restrictions helped instil these roles.

The 1950-60s saw the rise of the ‘suburban dream’, where couples were moving to the suburbs to raise their families. The ideology of the time was tying ‘good’ women to homes and childbearing (Harris & Larkham, 1999). The movement to the suburbs saw further separation and isolation of women. Even though the suburbs created a sense of community; the geographical location became a physical obstacle for freedom, particularly women’s freedom. Suburban design in regards to transport was bias to men as the scheduling of transport was targeted to people in the workforce rather than housewives, restricting women from leaving their suburbs as most did not have access to a car. The suburban women in this time who identified as “unhappy” found compensation for their personal isolation in the realisation of the suburban dreams; homeownership in a good area for raising children (Harris & Larkham, 1999). There was a transgenerational expectation that required women to compromise their liberty for the good of the family. This is reflected in the play through Mavis’ advice to Pippy “Girls’ve got to learn to be nice. Then they marry some nice man. And have a lot of little babies…” (White, 1961). It was the suburban life of marriage and raising children was the societal norm.

This lifestyle fuelled consumerism in Australia by re-establishing a market for home furnishing. Homes were seen as a showplace of money and status, where the women’s choices reflected the family security and wellbeing (Harris & Larkham, 1999). The introduction of television into Australian home influenced families as they became connected to the wider community. It is a paradoxical connection, as women were restricted from their urban communities but could be engaged with the national and international community. The connection to the wider population reaffirmed the role of women in society.

In 1950s Australia, education, patterns of paid employment, religion and social attitudes all reinforced the principle that a woman’s place is in the home. Her role was to be a good wife and mother. From birth onwards, family, school, church and popular magazines trained girls to conform to their role as a homemaker unquestioningly. Typical wedding vows had the female partner promise to love, honour and obey her husband, while he only promised to love and honour his wife. The law reinforced a woman’s subservient role within marriage and within society by generally assuming that women require a male to look after their interests. The law provided little protection for women against males who failed to do so; in New South Wales, for example, rape within marriage did not become a criminal offence until 1981.

Women and the world beyond the home In the late 1940s and 1950s, girls school education incorporated the maintenance of traditional female skills in sewing and cooking and did little to promote the development of their technical and academic talents. The view generally accepted within society was that higher levels of education were wasted on girls, who would only be in the workforce for a short time before leaving to pursue their vocation in home-making. Boys strongly outnumbered girls in the senior years in high schools and at universities. This created barriers to women’s achievement of their potential and to the types of jobs for which they could train.

“Well, that’s the way it is.” Mavis tells young Pippy about her future (White, 1961).

The predominant role for women in the early 1960s was that of the housewife, which was no easy job - although it may have been considered one. A 1953 edition of Women’s Weekly, calculated that an average housewife would do 77.5 hours of housework per week, which is 15 times the amount of housework Australians do today. A typical Australian woman now spends between five and 14 hours per week on chores, according to the 2016 census. Men, on the other hand, spend less than five, whereas men in the 1950s to early 1960s, would have done none.

With no machines to help with the running of the house, everything was done manually. The laundry, for example, would have taken upwards of 2 to 3 hours. (Brown & Crawford, 2018). “Laundry’s over! Thank God!” cry Girlie, Mavis and Nola. (White, 1961).

There were no fridges, so there was a daily delivery of milk and meat and trips to the grocery store every two days.

Cooking was a large part of what women did day to day, spending more than four hours in the kitchen daily (Roberts & Buchanan, 2013). “Suppose I better get you some tea.” says Nola to Rowley as soon as he arrives. (White, 1961). Planning three meals a day 365 times a year calls for imagination on the part of the housewife in order to avoid monotony (Women’s Weekly, 1953). Girlie Pogson talks a lot about her cooking skills and duties throughout the play, noting in Act One, “There was something lovely on [the TV] this afternoon. Some lady telling us how to make rissoles out of practically nothing.” (White, 1961).

Housewives were recognised as having more than 80% of the household budget under their control (Roberts & Buchanan, 2013), and with that came a lot of pressure to make sure the money was being used correctly, particularly in the post-War-World of rationing (The Argus, 1952). A list of ten new year's resolutions for housewives from the time encouraged women to “Stick to your budget and keep a budget book ... Plan menus for one week ahead ... Shop with care, and reject costly or poor quality produce ... Buy fruits at their cheapest, and preserve them” (Courier-Mail, 1952).

“Specials are never special enough.” says Girlie (White, 1961).

Women were the important people to target in terms of marketing products and appliances, and the adverts of the time indicate clearly the views and opinions of the time.

Marriage experts from the Fifties agreed universally that no marriage could possibly survive a man having an empty stomach. And woe betides the wife who put an afternoon’s jollity before the evening meal. “A social service meeting, an afternoon tea, a matinee, a whatnot, is no excuse for there being no dinner ready when a husband comes home from a hard day’s work,” advised the influential Reverend Alfred Henry Tyrer. Note the dismissive “whatnot” as a description of women’s interests. Tyrer closely related satisfaction in culinary skills to satisfaction in the bedroom, both tasks being solely for the male’s contentment. “Bad cooking is responsible for dyspepsia, dyspepsia is responsible for grouchiness and irritability, grouchiness and irritability lead to quarrels and squabbles. And bad cooking ... has been responsible as much as any other factor for driving the husband to the saloon, and to other places.”

‘If your husband still is greeted with shrieks of delight but the small fry at tea time and he looks at you and says… ‘Gee, mum. It's beautiful to be home,’ and everyone is laughing- then, my dear you are a successful wife and mother’ (The Argus, 1953).

It is worth noting the role that women's magazines played in reinforcing dominant gender paradigms, one legendary advice column, ‘Can This Marriage Be Saved?’ offered this advice in 1957 to a woman who’s husband hit her, “If she wanted a serene family life, she would have to learn to give [him] what he wanted from their marriage and thereby help him control his temper.”

The only other thing women were expected to achieve and look forward to was child-rearing. Up until the introduction of the hormonal contraceptive pill in 1961, contraception was not readily available. There were three ways of avoiding pregnancy: abstinence, condoms for men, and diaphragms for women. Diaphragms were only offered to married women up until 1950, when concessions were made for couples about to marry. But to receive this help, the bride-to-be would need a letter from either her doctor or the officiating vicar to verify she really was soon to be wed. (Hardy, 2011)

To summarise, the lifestyle of a typical early 1960s Australia woman was constricted by the societal norms and expectations of the time. The political influence and enforcement of laws; including the Child Endowment Act, influenced the lives of all Australians. The advancement of technology and rise in consumerism post World War II provided incentives for women to conform to the societal norms that were biased to the freedom of men. 1960s society saw the male as the head of the house and the provider for the family, whereas women were expected to childbear and be housewives. This was reaffirmed through the Prime Ministers; Curtin and Menzies, prominent educators and advertising on television, radio and in newspapers. These platforms and international connection reinforced the suburban dream and desire and security from the nuclear family. Patrick White’s play ‘The Season at Sarsaparilla’ clearly highlights the external and internal factors that shaped the lives of women in the early 1960s.