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Celebration of the 40th anniversary of the lifting of the Marriage Bar

Lynelle Briggs, 20 November 2006

Welcome to you all. This is indeed a memorable and significant occasion and I am pleased that so many of you are here to mark the celebration.

The decision to lift the marriage bar was the first step in allowing all women to pursue careers in the Australian Public Service.

In the 40 years since the bar was lifted we have seen the introduction of flexible working conditions, equal employment opportunity, and targeted learning and development for women.

It is because of these measures that many women regard the APS as an employer of choice. So much so, that when learning about tonight’s event, a 20 year old daughter of one of our senior female public servants was astounded that the bar had ever been in place. By the way, that reaction is commonplace among younger public servants I talk to.

We have been overwhelmed with the support for this event from many of my colleagues. It has been a powerful reminder that for many of us the lifting of the marriage bar is relatively recent history. If we were not directly affected, our sisters, mothers, grandmothers and aunts may have been.

We received this message was from a colleague posted to Jakarta:

“Would love to go to this event - wonderful thing to celebrate (witty invitation too). Would have been great to have heard those speakers who were definitely part of the momentum (I told Elizabeth Reid over lunch in Cambodia once that my mother used to pin newspaper clippings about her to my pillow when I was at high school).

Unfortunately, I am posted to Jakarta and won't be able to come.

Best wishes with the night,

In holding our celebration this evening, I would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as the traditional owners of the land around Canberra. I recognise that the struggles by women for recognition of their skills and abilities are ongoing struggles for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues.

I would like to spend some time this evening reflecting on how life for women in the APS has improved since the lifting of the marriage bar. Along the way I will share with you some interesting quotes and anecdotes that illustrate how far we have come. Many of these seem funny now, but were meant in earnest at the time.

So what was the marriage bar?

It simply meant that women had to resign as permanent officers when they got married. Although married women could continue to work as temporary employees, most left the workforce because in these temporary roles their opportunities were limited. Temporary employees were not allowed to supervise other staff and had limited access to superannuation. This meant women were generally on lower salaries than men and had limited independent financial means to support them in their retirement. Just as importantly, many intelligent, capable and skilled women were unable to use fully their valuable skills in employment.

We often talk today about the need to balance work and family life. Prior to 1966, women had similar but different, balancing acts.

Many women took incredible risks to maintain both the jobs that they relied on for economic stability as well as their personal relationships. Some hid their marriages from employers for years, hiding their rings before they got to work. I applaud these women for working effectively while carefully monitoring every conversation in case they let the cat out of the bag. If the truth came out, they were forced to resign and sometimes suffered recriminations for being dishonest. Others chose to “live in sin” and refrained from getting married at all.

One of the most interesting accounts was of a woman who remained unmarried and bore four children. She managed this by timing her annual leave to cover the births. While her personnel area was cooperative in helping her achieve this, they forced her to resign as soon as she decided to make an honest man of her husband by marrying him¹.

Looking around the APS in the early part of last century you would have seen that fewer than one in ten employees were women. Speaking to these women you would have discovered that many had transferred from the State governments where they had served for many years. The roles that they were filling would have included postmistresses, typists and stenographers. This was in part because women, despite their skills and abilities, were unable to directly apply for Clerical and Professional work.

The rationale provided for these restrictions is intriguing today. Women were definitely seen as the weaker sex. People held strong beliefs that women’s ability to be productive was much more limited than men’s. Some believed that working was in fact responsible for “sapping vitality of unmarried women at an earlier age of life.”² Married women, of course, had other over-riding responsibilities. The first Commonwealth Public Service Commissioner concluded “women are physiologically unfitted to carry responsibility at an age when men are improving and developing their capacity in this respect.”³

In 1964 Cynthia Teague became the first woman to enter the equivalent to the SES. She was appointed as Assistant General Manager Special Projects and Prestige in the Department of Public Works. This significant development for women in the APS isn’t at all well known.

The tide had already begun to turn for women in the 1950s. Australians began to appreciate that women had rights to participate in society and to make choices about their own lives. This included the right of all women to participate in the workforce.

In 1957 the Boyer Committee was established to look at recruitment in the APS. Based on women’s citizenship rights and the advantages to the public service of retaining skilled and competent women, the Committee recommended the marriage bar be abolished. Thankfully the Public Service Board had improved its approach by this time and supported this proposal. It was the Cabinet who stalled on taking any action believing that “the Australian social structure would be best served if there were no change, and that the Commonwealth Government should not lead in encouraging married women away from their homes and into employment”⁴.

So whilst the Public Service has often been at the forefront of social policy implementation, our record in recognising the need for change has not always been so good. There is no better indication of that than the reasons provided for not employing women as Trade Commissioners. These included that:

“a man normally has his household run efficiently by his wife, who also looks after much of the entertaining. A woman Trade Commissioner would have all this on top of her normal work”. And one of my favourites “a spinster lady can, and very often does, turn into something of a battleaxe with the passing of the years. A man usually mellows.”⁵

Increasingly politicians and members of the public were recognising that women were being denied access to equal rights. Indeed some were drawing attention to the fact that Australia was one of the few countries that still had restrictions for married women.

Merle Thornton and Roe Bogner raised international awareness of the marriage bar when they chained themselves to the bar at the Regatta Hotel in Brisbane. In a typical example of focussing on the symptoms not the cause, the reactions to their protest included concerns that their children were being neglected and should be taken into care. Following this protest Merle established the Equal Opportunities for Women Association whose primary aim was the removal of the marriage bar. [Her daughter went on to become one of Australia’s most famous actors…]

Bill Hayden, then member for Oxley in Queensland, was a member of the Association and supported the movement by putting forward a Private Members Bill for the removal of the bar in Federal Parliament. The Bill completed its passage through Parliament just before the 1966 federal election, and came into effect on 18 November 1966. Examples of some of the Cabinet discussions at the time are on display tonight. I’m pleased they eventually came round….

The lifting of the marriage bar was a watershed for the progress of women. In 1965 alone, over 1700 women resigned as a result of the marriage bar, representing almost one third of all female separations that year. Since the removal of the marriage bar, the proportion of women in permanent APS positions has increased steadily from 18.7 % in 1966 to our current level of 55.8% in June this year.

However, in the mid 1970’s, a majority of all women in the public service were still in occupations with limited career structures, in particular, as clerical assistants, typists or steno-secretaries and telephonists. Unfortunately some of the traditional attitudes to women still existed.

A senior officer believed that until the age of 28 women in clerical roles were more efficient than men, but that “unmarried women over that age became inefficient, unhappy or disruptive…married women employees are more interested in their homes than their careers and voluntarily accept restricted promotion opportunities.”⁶ Obviously, we still had a way to go.

The world had begun to change further as we continued to raise the bar higher. Permanent part-time work was introduced twenty years ago in 1986. Indeed, the introduction of f lexible working arrangements was to become pivotal to supporting women in the APS. For the first time we were able to balance our personal and work lives. This meant that women were able to take time off to see the kids’ school concert instead of having a ‘sick’ day or taking a full day of recreation leave.

The Public Service Board established an EEO section which was responsible for improving recruitment and retention of women, people from a non-English speaking background, indigenous Australians and people with a disability. Gail Radford, one of our speakers today was the first head of this section.

Technology was the next significant change in the lives of women in the APS. Personal computers led directly to the abolition of the limited career structures which had hampered women. Suddenly, everyone regardless of level could produce their own documents. The opportunity to develop new skills allowed women to move into a broader range of roles and become more competitive for management positions. Women were given the support they needed to prove their skills and abilities beyond baseline work. But, while the capability was there, the recognition was clearly lacking, due to the general social mores.

When I started in the Australian Public Service in 1980 female leaders were thin on the ground. Women represented about 35% of permanent APS employees, but only 2% of senior managers. Women who aspired to be among the leadership of the APS had to challenge the culture of their organisations and of the APS as an institution. They had to work very hard to get ahead.

By the end of the 1980s one in ten senior managers was a woman, and Helen Williams had become a Secretary. Other women were encouraged by these successes and were keen to hear how they had overcome many of the barriers. We started to hear about the “glass ceiling” and how to get thorough it. Conferences were run which provided networking and other opportunities for women. Guest speakers at these conferences often included high profile women in the APS.

In the early 90s the oral histories of six women who had reached senior positions in the APS were recorded in “Six careers: Women managers in the APS”. One of them was my own Deputy Commissioner, Lynne Tacy. Another one was Christine Astley-Boden, who recounted her experience of being ‘one of the guys’ for much of her career. Because she was the only woman around, her male colleagues actually forgot she was a woman, to the extent that when they needed a woman to be part of an interview panel for a senior position she had to point out that she would fit the bill. She said “I thought that was a classic.”⁷

I am pleased that in 2006 women now make up over 50% of the APS, and that the number of women at all levels continues to rise. We have come a long way in 40 years, but we need to continue to work hard to improve the number of women in the SES. Evidence from the State of the Service report last year suggests that the availability of flexible working practices continues to contribute significantly to the satisfaction of women in the APS. However, some women find that these flexibilities are less readily available as they progress up the ladder.

We need to think carefully about how we can structure our work environments to provide better access to these opportunities for women at higher levels. This will enable our very capable women to take on more senior management and leadership roles.

For me, we will have been successful in the APS when we have female Secretaries in Defence, Veterans’ Affairs and the Treasury.

I would like to acknowledge the support provided to us by the Office for Women in sponsoring the commemorative booklet you have received tonight. Could I also add my personal thanks to the wonderful women whose stories form such an important part of this evening’s event. You truly are inspirations for us all. And, I would like to thank Julie and my staff for creating a wonderful occasion – a true girls event!

I want to by sharing with you a message from the Prime Minister, who had hoped to join us this evening:

“ I am delighted to send my greetings to all those attending the Australian Public Service Commission’s celebration of the 40 th anniversary of the end of the Marriage Bar in the Australian Public Service.

Over the past forty years, Australian women have made an enormous contribution to the Australian Public Service through the shaping of public policy and through their strong leadership. Women are increasingly seen at all levels of the Australian Public Service and are well represented in senior roles. We currently have more women leading government departments than ever before and the proportion of women in the Australian Public Service senior executive is around 30 per cent, which has almost doubled since 1995.

I applaud the Australian Public Service for advancing women in the government sector.

The Australian Government remains strongly committed to providing opportunity and choice for Australian women, who have a valuable role to play in Australia’s future and prosperity. Governments, the business sector and non-government organisations all need to work together to assist and support women in the many roles they fulfil throughout their lives. The Australian Public Service has been a leader in supporting women in balancing their work and family responsibilities.

I congratulate the Australian Public Service Commission for organising this special event.”

Sawer, M (1996) Removal of the Commonwealth Marriage Bar: A documentary history
Australian Public Service Commission (2001) Serving the Nation: 100 Years of Public Service p 93
Australian Public Service Commission (2001) Serving the Nation: 100 Years of Public Service, p 74
Sawer, M (1996) Removal of the Commonwealth Marriage Bar: A documentary history p 3
Department of Trade (1963) Internal minute re Women Trade Commissioners?
Taperell, K., Fox, C. and Roberts, M Sexism in Public Service: the employment of women in Australian Government Administration Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration Discussion Paper No. 3
Public Service Commission (1992a) Six Careers: Women Managers in the Australian Public Service Commonwealth of Australia p 25

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