History of status of women in Australia.
...erally in house keeping and serving. Women from higher classes were not allowed to work. All women of the colony worked hard for little reward and experienced little power and choice in the work they performed. As a group they virtually had no power in relation to the conditions under which they worked and their rates of pay were far below those of their male counterparts. In the nineteenth century, the demand for workers increased as the population increased. Women continued in their role as the providers of domestic-related services. But with the expansion of medical and educational services, they began to take jobs as nurses, teachers, and clerical assistants. This movement of women into white-collar occupations was very significant. Although things seemed to get better for women, they were still downgraded from men and not given much of educational opportunities or entrance to professions and work in public offices. Also the rates of pay for women were far below those for men. It can be concluded that women did not generally hold positions of power, nor did they receive much, if any, formal education or training. Women who did hold positions of authority did so in fields dominated by women. It was very hard, if not impossible to get through and work in a field dominated by men. But today as we step in the twenty-first century, women’s roles at work have changed greatly to what is much better than some decades ago. Today, women are employed as part of the full-time work force and in occupations previously unavailable to them. There has also been a significant shift in the general attitudes towards wome...