Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows black-and-white footage of Australian family and social life in the 1950s including a scene from a Christian wedding and scenes of young couples embracing in parkland. These scenes are intercut with footage of four older middle-class Australian women reflecting on their experiences as young women reaching maturity in the 1950s when sex was rarely talked about openly and premarital sexual activity was taboo. The clip is narrated by Geraldine Doogue, the presenter of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) television program Compass.

Educational value points

• The clip explores attitudes towards heterosexual relationships in Australia in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a time when premarital sexual activity was frowned upon, and access to contraception was largely confined to those who were married. For young people, marriage could represent sexual freedom and independence from the parental family home. Along with growing economic prosperity, this could help account for the marriage boom in the 1950s, the young age of those marrying for the first time during that period and the estimation that approximately 25 per cent of brides entering marriage were already pregnant.

• The clip describes a boom time for the Roman Catholic Church in Australia. Approximately 25 per cent of the population was Roman Catholic, and post-Second World War population growth saw many new parishes established, usually with Catholic schools attached. The Church’s position on birth control was that the 'rhythm’ method be used, a method involving abstinence from sex during the days on which a woman ovulated. The Church supported a policy of zero tolerance of the use of the birth-control pill, culminating in Pope Paul VI’s controversial Humanae Vitae encyclical (policy document) of 1968, which effectively banned practising Catholic women from taking the birth control pill.

• One of the women interviewed refers to her lack of knowledge about sex and contraception in the 1950s. The diaphragm, a shallow dome-shaped rubber disk placed within the vagina and covering the cervix to prevent sperm reaching the uterus, was first introduced into Australia in the 1920s and became popular in the 1940s. While the intra-uterine device became available in the 1950s, it was the introduction of the contraceptive pill in 1961 that significantly increased the number of Australian women using contraceptives. Access to the pill was controlled by doctors, who could decide whether they would prescribe it to unmarried women. The clip highlights the perception at the time that women were responsible for birth control, although condoms were readily available.

• Options for women with unwanted pregnancies were limited in Australia in the 1950s and 60s. The Offences against the Person Act (1861) was the basis for Australian laws that totally outlawed abortion. In the 1950s illegal abortions were the most frequent cause of maternal death. During the 1960s abortion law reform groups formed in all states. In 1969 South Australia became the first state to legalise abortion. In other states abortion has become easier to obtain and is lawful under certain circumstances.

• Reference is made to the lack of sex education in schools in the 1950s. Education booklets on menstruation had been issued as a promotion strategy by manufacturers of sanitary napkins for young women in the 1930s. The Racial Hygiene Association of New South Wales, founded in 1926, had the teaching of sex education as one of its primary functions. However, it was not until the Father and Son Welfare Movement of Australia issued its first set of sex education booklets in the mid-1950s that information on the subject became more widely available.

• Some of the women interviewed refer to attitudes towards women in the 1950s. After the push during the Second World War for women to take up jobs in the military and in farming and industry, women began to lose these jobs to returning servicemen in 1945, and pressure grew for them to resume their roles as housewives and mothers. The woman’s role as homemaker and mother was popularised in women’s magazines and commercials despite the fact that the number of women in work was continuing to rise. Restrictions that were applied by most employers until the 1960s meant that many women had to leave the labour force when they married.

• Government censorship and a prohibition on using certain words such as contraception in broadcasting to maintain guardianship over public taste and morals are referred to in the clip. During the 1950s and 60s, the Commonwealth Department of Trade and Customs was able to classify goods and publications as prohibited imports without reference to public opinion or legal advice. It was illegal to advertise condoms or to publish any information about birth control.

• The clip is an excerpt from Pregnant Pause, an episode of the ABC television program Compass that was made in 2006. At the time of making, the Australian Parliament was debating women’s access to the medical abortion pill RU486. The drug, also known as mifepristone, allows women to abort at home. When used in combination with another drug such as misoprostol, it results in complete abortion in 93 to 98 per cent of cases. The drug was specifically prohibited in Australia under a 1996 Act of the Australian Parliament. It has been available in France since 1988, in the UK since 1991 and in the USA since 2000. Compass, hosted by Geraldine Doogue, analyses social issues and often explores the interface between religion and life as experienced by individuals and communities.