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The disadvantage suffered by women in the sphere of the Australian labour market has been underscored by the male breadwinner model maintained by the Australian system of industrial regulation.1 Throughout the twentieth century women struggled to secure rninimal rights in male dominated and protected workplaces.2 Women who needed to work to support themselves and their children in a male dominated society found themselves excluded from various forms of 'men's work'3 and, when their work was permitted in non-restricted areas, their pay was only a percentage of that awarded to their male counterparts.4 An essential part of the development of the role of women as Australian workers has been the influence of the feminist movement.5 The feminist element in social and political groups provided the impetus for organised labour among women and fostered the militancy necessary to balance the gender inequalities suffered by females in their work roles6 due largely to the institutionalisation of the male breadwinner model.
At the heart of the breadwinner model was the expectation that masculinity was a key aspect of obtaining paid work.7 This concept formed the basis for the creation of a base wage for labouring work; it was formalised in the early twentieth century and remained in place as a feature of wage determination until the late 1960s.8 This paper will examine the influence of the male breadwinner model on women in the workplace throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Writing that considers the participation of the women in the paid workforce vacillates between blatant expressions of male domination and more recent attempts of regulators to bring equity into the employment relationship involving female employees. A more refined lens for viewing past events exposes the true extent of disadvantage suffered. This perspective provides knowledge that informs the pursuit of social justice and equity for women caught in the legacy of the male breadwinner model.
In the late-nineteenth century, 'Women's labour [was] most visible in relation to the "family farm", where female family members assisted in the running of the farm and in providing a steady source of subsistence income'.9 To work outside the bounds of the family business was considered undesirable and those whose family circumstances were such that they were required to find paid employment were challenged by...