ABSTRACT
Much of the evidence in this book could create an incapacitating sense of despondency. For the most part government policies have not improved working women’s economic position relative to that of men. Morover, this situation cannot easily be changed. Compromises between male employers and employees at state level have effectively excluded women from full citizenship. However, it is vital to have an agenda for radical change that is different from the one currently proposed by the right. Otherwise, most women in the twenty-first century will continue to be poor, marginal members of the paid workforce who are financially insecure and semi-dependent on men. Worse still, in the current political climate, especially once the temporary demographic changes are past, without a popular agenda for change and a strategy for making it a reality, women are also likely to lose even the limited gains that have been made: access to benefits for sole mothers, family allowances, equal pay and opportunities legislation and reproductive choice.
