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Four Corners: Not a place for the 'gentler sex'

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Middle-aged woman
Four Corners: Not a place for the 'gentler sex'

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  9–10


Why weren't women allowed to drink in the public bars of Queensland hotels in the 1960s?

What social beliefs and attitudes would justify such a prohibition?

This clip presents responses from a bar attendant and two politicians to a famous protest against the ban in 1965.

The clip is third in a series of three.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Did you know that many of the rights we take for granted in modern Australia were not achieved until the late 20th century? Equal rights for women were the result of long and hard-fought struggles by fair-minded and committed members of the community. One of the obstacles to achieving these rights was the attitude that 'respectable' women needed to be 'protected'.
  2. 2.Why do you think the barmaid is so hostile to the idea of women drinking in public bars? Why does Harold Dean, the Labor parliamentarian, think that a public bar is not 'a place for a woman to be'? What is Dr Peter Delamothe, the Queensland Minister for Justice, implying when he states that public bars 'are not suitable places for the gentler sex to make a habit of frequenting'?
  3. 3.Stereotypes are assumptions and generalisations, often inaccurate, made about groups of people. Listen carefully to the arguments of the two parliamentarians. What examples of stereotyping of women do their responses suggest?
  4. 4.Germaine Greer is one of the best known of a number of women who pioneered the modern women's liberation movement in Australia. Her book 'The Female Eunuch' was published in 1970 and inspired both women and men to challenge traditional stereotypes of gender roles. Conduct some research to find out how influential Greer was in campaigning for 'women's liberation'.


Date of broadcast: 10 Apr 1965


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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