Fed: Women have moved on from feminism, says PM

AAP General News (Australia)
12-30-2006
Fed: Women have moved on from feminism, says PM

Eds: Reissuing to restore dropped word in 1st par



SYDNEY, Dec 31 AAP - Australian women have moved on from the days of feminist demonstration
and no longer need to measure themselves by career success, Prime Minister John Howard
says.

Discussing a rise in births triggered in part by his government's baby bonus scheme,
Mr Howard said women today had greater awareness of the disadvantages of leaving child-bearing
too late and were more confident about their choices.

"Fortunately I think today's younger women are more in the post-feminist period, where
they don't sort of measure their independence and freedom by the number of years they
remain full-time in the workforce without having children," Mr Howard told News Ltd newspapers.

"I think they've moved on from that demonstration phase... (when) they thought `I'll
be letting the sisterhood down if I don't stay in the workforce until I'm a certain age'."

Mr Howard said the majority of families were now in a "one-and-a-half" structure, where
one parent worked full-time and the other part-time.

"In the last figures I saw about 27 per cent were one-and-a-halfs, 18 or 19 per cent
were two full-timers and about 22 per cent were single incomes," he said.

AAP ajc/apm

KEYWORD: WOMEN HOWARD (REISSUING)

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