Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 44 No. 9. May 4 1981
Part of Overall Oppression
Part of Overall Oppression
It is obvious that rape is one of the most violent forms of oppression but it is just one aspect of the oppression of women in today's society.
Women generally are still paid less money than men despite the passing of the Equal Pay Act; they still are denied access to some jobs on the basis of their sex eg. women wanting to become firefighters. Unemployment hits women particularly hard - in December 1980 women made up 39% of the unemployed dispite the fact that they make up only 36% of the workforce; today women are still denied the right to control their reproductive lives; and the position of Maori and Polynesian women is that much worse. They not only suffer as workers (90% of Maori people are the working class) and as women, but they are also oppressed as members of a nationality or racial minority.