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Aboriginal Law Bulletin

Aboriginal Law Bulletin (ALB)
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Scutt, Jocelynne A. --- "Invisible Women? Projecting White Cultural Invisibility on Black Australian Women" [1990] AboriginalLawB 39; (1990) 1(46) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 4


Invisible Women?
Projecting White Cultural Invisibility on Black Australian Women

by Jocelynne A. Scutt

"There is a saying `You can't miss what you've never had'. It makes a lot of sense, but its not true. Being a fifth generation half Koori and brought upon a family too ashamed to talk about it, I was given no information or experience of Koori people or their culture. My ability to learn about them was also non-existent due to a pathetic British-Australian, Anglo Saxon culture, too threatened to allow the country's true cultural history to be recognised and enjoyed.

While travelling through Europe a few years ago, I learnt to feel history and culture. My experience filled me with deep emotions of both excitement and joy, yet they were short lived and replaced by an intense ache of sadness and loss. A loss I realised can never be filled or replaced. My country had a history, a very old history and yet I had not been given the chance to experience and share it. I had lived 28 years without a culture that should have been a very large part of me. I learned something special at this time in my life. A part of me was missing and could never be replaced. The white person's saying `You can't miss what you've never had' cannot be accepted when we think of Koori Culture."

Debra Daly, 8 (No. 1)
F.L.I.P, Womyn's Edition, Philip Institute, Bundoora
Coburg, Victoria

It is ironic that in a country where a myth is continually worked and reworked, of Australia being "settled" without any need for war or negotiation with anyone (indeed the idea that there was no one `here' to war or negotiate with), some of the first Acts passed by colonial legislatures were Aborigines Protection Acts. Ostensibly, this legislation was for the `protection' of Kooris, Nungas, Murris, Yamagee and all other Aborigines living in Australia. Simultaneously with recognising the reality of Aboriginal existence and depriving Aboriginal people of their land, culture, society and freedom, the Acts acknowledged the predatory nature of anglo-Australian society: why else a need to protect, or to (hypocritically) say Aboriginal people would be `protected'?

Aboriginal people were required to live in certain parts of the country, and forbidden to live in others. They were forbidden to move without permission from the `protector'. They could be arrested without a warrant. This it was said, was for their protection. Because a double standard of sex morality underpins white culture, legislation and practice imposed this notion onto Australian Aborigines. Because within white culture men hold public and private power, and women are seen as `dependent', the notion was projected that this was so within Aboriginal culture. Protective legislation applied differently to women and men, in that Aboriginal women were precluded by law from marrying or cohabiting with white men. This did not prevent women from being sexually abused and exploited in slavery. Aboriginal women's labour was prized, but `protection' deprived them of fair and proper work conditions and from choices of personal relationships and of paid employment.

Thus anglo-Australian cultural imperialism was a two pronged operation. First it ignored traditional Australian culture; it pretended it did not exist. Secondly, and simultaneous with that pretence, it sought to impose on Aboriginal culture a vision dictated by the patriarchal nature of anglo-Australian culture.

This has led to distorted views of Aboriginal culture. Patriarchal anthropologists and their confederates promote the idea that Aboriginal men alone determine cultural objectives and alone can properly inform white Australian society of that culture. Romanticism may dictate what can be another distortion: that Aboriginal women and men were (and remain) `different but equal' within their own culture.

The legal system continues to play a significant role, at least at a public level, in distorting `known' aspects of Aboriginal culture. This is noticeable in Land Rights claim procedures; in law reform; and in criminal law. Because an invisibility is imposed on white Australian women in the legal system, that same invisibility is imposed by white law on Aboriginal women. This leads to a misunderstanding of the realities of Aboriginal culture. It can lead to distortions being accepted as `truth', then projected back into the culture itself.

A prime example was the Australian Law Reform Commission reference on Aboriginal Customary Law in the 1970s and 1980s. Once the government decided to refer the matter to the Commission (and what part did the Aboriginal community play in this decision?), full and proper consultation with Aborigines throughout Australia was necessary. Moreover, a full involvement of Aboriginal women as participants in the project was mandatory. Yet not one Aboriginal commissioner was appointed. Consultants were appointed without any apparent acknowledgment of the existence of Aboriginal women . Eventually, two white women were given the job of consulting with women, but few resources were allocated by government for the task. The low profile of white women in the legal profession and in positions of prominence in law reform commissions meant that Aboriginal women were similarly seen as `less important' in Aboriginal cultural and social terms than Aboriginal men.

Because Land Rights Claims were (and are) dealt with through the anglo-Australian legal system, the white male `superiority' in the legal system is again projected down into land claims decisions. Despite acknowledgment by Aboriginal men that Aboriginal women play a significant role in matters relating to land claims, and that Aboriginal women have their own areas of concern and tradition, the claims of Aboriginal women are likely to be overlooked. This is inevitable if lawyers view the world through their own cultural blinkers. In the white legal system, women are unlikely to be seen as knowledgeable about our own culture. We are hardly likely to be seen as `landowners', `business leaders', bearers of (worth-while and significant) traditions. In the dominant culture, white women are unlikely to be acknowledged as the `great' writers, painters, story tellers, playwrights, poets. It is therefore hardly surprising if Aboriginal women's views and realities are less likely to be taken into account. Sometimes a Land Claims commissioner has attempted the feat, as described by Di Bell in Daughters of the Dreaming and Giving in or Giving Them Hell. But women's claims are not a central focus. And this creates misunderstanding not only in anglo-Australian culture, but can reflect back into Aboriginal society itself, as Faye Gale in 'Seeing Women in the Landscape' describes:

"Pitjatjantjara women protested at their exclusion [from land rights negotiations]. They hired buses to bring them to Adelaide when their male relatives came south for negotiations so as to ensure they were not entirely neglected. But the Premier and his various advisers talked only with the men. The press, along with everyone else, largely ignored the presence of the women so that few outsiders even realised that the women were there, let alone knew how they felt.

Other Aboriginal women saw this public image being put forward. It was, after all, well advertised with frequent photographs in the daily press of the `all male' team. The Adnjamathanha women of the Flinders Ranges assumed therefore that in Pitjatjantjara country the men were in control and that women had little influence. But in the Flinders area the women knew this was not true. Theirs was a society where women have strong positions of power and where women, as well as men, worked for land rights. When the Southern Lands Council was established, the women of Adnjamathanha group were reluctant for their people to join. The women felt that the inclusion of Pitjatjantjara people, whose male dominance had been clearly [though falsely] publicised, would lead to a demise of their own status."

More women are working as lawyers. More Aboriginal women are studying law. Women are now more likely to be appointed as magistrates and, perhaps, judges. Yet there remain lamentably few. There are even less Aboriginal magistrates, and probably less likelihood of their appointment as judges. This is not from any lack of ability. However, it means that criminal trials where Aboriginal cultural issues are raised are unlikely to incorporate Aboriginal women's views. Occasionally, this lack is raised in trials. In a case before the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory in 1986, Justice Maurice said:

"If we're going into this question of what's culturally acceptable behaviour, why shouldn't we hear from some female leaders of the female community of Port Keats? Why should it be men who arc the arbiters of what's acceptable conduct according to the social and cultural values of Port Keats?"

In `Rape is Everybody's Business' Di Bell and Topsy Nelson Napurrula report that, in response, defence counsel protested: "We may not be able to get women to speak". "It's just that historically no one ever asks them," returned the judge.

Anglo Australian culture has done more than simply impose on Aboriginal culture. It has distorted what culture is `allowed' to be recognised, or even to remain, by projecting onto it existing dominance within white culture. The invisibility of white women's culture, and the secondary role we women have forced upon us in anglo-Australian culture has a tendency to pollute any culture that is taken in the general scheme to be secondary to it.

Feminism aims to ensure women's culture is recognised as at least equally significant to male culture. If this aim is ever to succeed, the Women's Movement has to ensure that its base continually broadens to accommodate in equal terms women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. But more than this, it would be wise of the Women's Movement to ensure that Aboriginal culture is enabled to live and gain its proper place in Australian cultural terms. White women will be advantaged if the visibility of black women in Aboriginal culture is properly recognised by dominant anglo-Australia. The recovery of Aboriginal culture would increase visibility of Koori, Murri, Nunga, Yamagee and all Aboriginal women. This would mean, in turn, a shift in perception as to the `rightness' of male dominance and female submissiveness as a dictate in society generally. The invisibility of white women has harmed Aboriginal culture. Ensuring the recovery and visibility of Aboriginal culture is a rightful end in itself. But it is important for all women to recognise that this also has a likelihood of bringing with it a change in realities for all women.

References

Bell D (1987), `Giving in or Giving Them Hell!' in Different Lives: Reflections on the Women's Movement and Visions of Its Future, Jocelynne A. Scutt, ed., Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, Victoria.

Bell D and Napurrula T P (1989, `Rape is Everybody's Business' (1989) Women's Studies International Forum.

Gale F (1985), `Seeing Women in the Landscape: Alternative Views of the World Around Us' in Women Social Science and Public Policy, Jacqueline Goodnow and Carole Pateman, eds, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Scutt, A J (1990), Women and the Law: Materials and Commentary, Law Book Company, Sydney,.

Note:

I am collecting material for a second edition of Women and the Law. I have been able to incorporate some writing on the law, by Aboriginal women, into the first edition. I would appreciate anyone who knows of writing by Aboriginal women on women and the law, or who has written such material, to let me know or, better, send me a copy of it, for inclusion in Women and the Law.

Jocelynne A. Scutt
Owen Dixon Chambers
205 William Street
Melbourne Vic 3000.


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