Australian women now lucky to have a choice

Australian women now lucky to have a choice

JAKARTA (JP): Sometimes wives of high ranking South
Australians give Julie Olsen a look that reads, "Why weren't you
there with your husband?" when she does not accompany her
husband, South Australian Minister of State Development John
Olsen, on official outings.

But Julie says she is lucky, "I go with my husband when I want
to. I am able to choose how much of an official role I play as
John's wife."

In her husband's grueling lifestyle he has never seen it as
her role to be at home waiting for him.

Ms. Olsen addressed a charity luncheon held last week by the
Indonesian Women for Development (WPI) organization and the South
Australian government for the Citra Baru foundation, which
arranges operations for people with cranio-facial deformities.

The South Australian government, she added, neither expects
her to be with her husband at all official functions or act as
his hostess if she considers that it interferes with their
children or her job.

A mother of five, Julie said she studied part-time at college
for three years after staying at home with her children until
they reached school age.

For the last four years she has been working five days a week
for a national fashion manufacturer and retailer.

The option for women studying and working outside the home,
she added, is partly made possible by the range of child care
facilities.

" Almost three quarters of South Australia's students, who
are over 25, are women and almost half of them have children,"
Julie said.

She also told The Jakarta Post that the women's movement in
Australia has had an influence in changing expectations regarding
women as mothers and wives.

"We have come a long way in a short time," she told the
gathering at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, citing that Australian law
had even required women in certain occupations to stay at home
once married.

Changes

"As recently as the 1970s, women could not remain as police
officers or aircraft flight attendants if they married," she
said.

Radical changes in Australia in the past 15 years, Julie said,
have caused the boundaries of a typical woman, wife or mother to
disappear.

The chairwoman of WPI, noted businesswoman Kemala Motik Gafur,
acknowledged the lack of choice in Indonesia for women,
particularly those with high ranking husbands.

The compulsory membership of Dharma Wanita, the organization
for wives of civil servants, has come to require a higher degree
of involvement from the women according to their husbands' rank.

"In Dharma Wanita much still depends on the efforts of the
woman herself," said Kemala, whose husband, Abdul Gafur is a
former State Minister for Youth and Sports.

Julie added that, "the acceptance we have of a woman's right
to be what she wants to be, means that we are not as judgmental
as our mothers and grandmothers were."

"What we hope for, in whatever country we visit, is that the
women we meet are happy being what they are," she concluded.

Other speakers included Margaret Kelly, who was Miss Australia
1967. She spoke on building her "family team", including her
eight children.

The last speaker was internationally renown jewelry designer
Ann Middleton, a former pingpong "diplomat". Her sneak preview of
the initial part of her new collection, based on Australian
stones, fetched millions for the Citra Baru foundation.

Kemala said that the purpose of the luncheon was to inform
the audience about how important the family still is to members
of a developed country. (anr)