Table of Contents
Women and gender issues have received increasing attention, partly as a result of the United Nations International Year of Women (1975) and first Decade for Women (1976–85). New bureaucratic structures have been set up with an explicit mandate to bring women’s interests into the policy-making process (Miller and Razavi 1998; Staudt 1998; Tsikata 2000; Jahan 1995). Feminist activists and scholars have scrutinized and contested the role played by various state institutions and development agencies in sustaining gender inequalities through their structures, procedures and policy outcomes. There has been debate among feminists about whether to engage with or disengage from the state, an institution viewed by many feminists as ‘a vehicle for social justice versus a protector of male interests’ (Miller and Razavi 1998, 4). But feminists who have attempted to gender the discipline of politics identify other considerations of which Papua New Guinea women in policy making should take note — especially since women tend to look to the state for any development activity to do with women, including the development of a women’s movement:
To date the government is fed up with the current fragmentation and rivalry amongst women, and is determined to establish a coordinated, united and solid organization and movement for women in PNG (Women’s Division c.1993).
This view is reiterated in a vision statement on women’s policy.
Organized women in Papua New Guinea should take note of the post-structuralist argument that the state is not a unified body and that power is dispersed throughout various institutions of the state which do not necessarily act in concert (see Rai 1996, 18). From what is cited above, obviously the majority of organized women in Papua New Guinea, that is those whose voices we can hear, wish to be engaged with the state and its various bureaucratic structures. But what kind of a relationship must women construct with the state? This discussion of women’s policy will therefore include problems women of Papua New Guinea face in their attempts at feminist engagement as well as the engagement strategies used in promoting change within existing bureaucratic structures. The struggle should not be limited to a unified struggle (see Rai 1996, 19) as suggested by officers in the Women’s Division of the Department of Home Affairs and Youth, [1]which is itself an entity of the state. Thus there are spaces within the state where various struggles can be launched through negotiation, cooperation, opposition, and ‘subversion not only of rules but also of articulated intentions of state forms’ (ibid.). Papua New Guinea women can begin to construct a multifaceted approach to the state through a strong but varied women’s movement.
Prior to 1973, women were considered part of welfare and social development (before 1945 ‘welfare’ referred specifically to education and health). During the colonial period women, as part of welfare, would have come under Native Affairs if they were considered at all. The provisional postwar administration in 1946 created an expanded public service but social welfare was not among the newly created departments. Women came under District Services and Native Affairs, reorganized in 1956, 1964 and 1969 into the Department of the Administrator (Jinks 1971, 131). It is conceivable that women were also considered under Native Labour and under Health and Education. A Maternity and Child Welfare Section was inaugurated in 1952 as part of the Department of Health (Mair 1970, 240). A reorganization of the colonial public service became necessary in the late 1960s when it was recognized that field staff of the Department of Administrator ‘no longer spent most of their time enforcing law and order, but must now play a vital part in development and welfare’ (Jinks 1971, 131, emphasis added). Thus a Department of Social Development and Home Affairs was created.
Until the first five years of statehood, women, if considered at all in government policies and processes, carried a welfare orientation reflecting a ‘traditional’ Western perception that women are primarily concerned with reproduction and household maintenance. The purpose of the welfare approach introduced in the 1950s and 1960s was to bring women into development as better mothers (Moser 1993, 59). It was based on three assumptions: that women are passive recipients of development, rather than participants in the development process; that motherhood is the most important role for women in society; and that childrearing is the most effective role for women in all aspects of economic development (ibid. 59–60). This approach focused entirely on women’s reproductive role, with programs initiated and implemented through the various women’s clubs, emphasizing women’s ‘traditional’ preoccupations with infant and mother’s welfare, handicrafts, motherhood, cooking, and sewing. Women’s broader economic roles were generally overlooked during this initial phase.
Many community activities were organized by the Department of Native Affairs, and welfare officers assisted by the old Department of Information and Extension Services. Though most of the participants were men, gradually specific courses for women were mounted through women’s clubs and church women’s groups, apparently becoming very popular in the mid 1960s and the early 1970s (Kekedo 1985, 32). The first welfare officers were recruited and trained in Ahioma, Milne Bay Province and in Fiji. They were to be responsible for both welfare and women’s work. Despite feminist criticism of the welfare approach (Lee 1985; Schoeffel 1986), and modernization theory generally (Waylen 1996, 36–40; Moser 1993, 58–62), I believe that the approach was useful at a certain stage of women’s development in Papua New Guinea, and in many areas of the country today a welfare approach is still considered appropriate, and is sought after by grassroots women themselves, particularly in the areas of health and nutrition.
[1] The Women’s Division was initially part of the then Department of Home Affairs. In 1988, as a result of a departmental reorganization, it became part of the Department of Religion, Home Affairs and Youth. This and subsequent administrative reshuffling are detailed below.