It might be believed that Australia has no sex discrimination, because the doctrine of the equality of sexes is stated to exist in Australia. During my homestays with the several ordinary Australian families for 13 months, I often observed the high social status of Australian women. For example, Australian husbands are eager to help their wives with housework and Australian female workers are given the same salary that male workers are given, if the jobs are the same. However, I was sometimes puzzled to see that the women tend to gather apart from the men at parties, etc, in Australia. I was interested in this awkwardness between sexes. I was also surprised to read that there had been strong sex, discrimination between sexes after the foundation of a colony(1788). According to Craig McGreg or, the women were treated like prostitutes in beds by Australian men. I am afraid that the social status of Australian women in those days were the lowest in the world, I have begun to question how the lowest status in the world changed into the highest in the realized that there had been much efforts of Australian women to elevate their status. In spite of their efforts, the strong discrimination seen between sexes in the past still survives in the deep-seated minds of Australian women. One example is Australian blue films, where women are only treated like sex-machine for men's satisfaction. It is my hypothesis in this paper that while sex discrimination in Australia really does exist in the minds of Australian men, it is not easily seen on the surface of the Australian society.

抄録全体を表示