[Theme music]

RUBY:

From Schwartz media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, a daily news podcast from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper.

On January 26, controversial men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt was appointed a member of the Order of Australia. Her award has attracted criticism from high profile feminists and a senior politician.

We talk to Eva Cox about the bigger questions this raises regarding Australia’s honours system.

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RUBY:

Eva, when did you first meet Bettina Arndt?

EVA:

I was trying to think about that. I think it might have been at a women's electoral lobby type thing because I met her through some people that were in, well this was 1972, when the women's movement sort of second wave started and we were very fashionable at that time, shall we say.

Archival Tape -- Women Chanting

RUBY:

Eva Cox is an author and academic. She wrote about the honours system for The Saturday Paper.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Speaker:

“Everyone's talking about women's liberation. The women are getting together to talk about women's liberation.”

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Speaker:

“Oh, I wish that was true.“

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Speaker:

“I think it is true.”

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Speaker:

“These women liberationists are trying to change our system.”

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Speaker:

“Well it seems to me that what you’re really saying is that, you men are superior in every way to all women”

EVA:

She turned up at something with one of the other people I knew. And at that stage, you know, she was identifying as a feminist.

RUBY:

Back then, what sorts of things was she standing for?

EVA:

Well, she was a sex therapist.

Archival Tape -- Bettina Arndt:

“This is Bettina Arndt and the next two hours, I'll be talking about sex and about sexual relationships. Specifically tonight, we're looking at sexually transmitted diseases.”

EVA:

And sex therapy in the 1970s was, you know, a bit glam and a bit new and quite exciting. But then something changed. I think she changed sides when feminism wasn't quite as glitzy and new, and being anti-feminist had certain capacity to get you a lot more publicity.

RUBY:

More recently, what have you noticed about the things that she's been talking about?

EVA:

Certainly over the last few years, Bettina has been much more, almost definably, the enemy. And some of the campaigns she's run against domestic violence, some of the campaigns she’s run for the poor perpetrators and some of the stuff that she's done about, sort of, rescuing the people that are accused of rape at universities from the horrors of the undergraduates who were plotting against them.

Archival Tape -- Bettina Arndt:

“Let's not pretend we've got a rape crisis on our universities. I mean, this is like some emperor's new clothes where no one dares call out the university for still pretending there's some sort of rape bank crisis when there isn't.”

EVA:

And all of that stuff really has got into the point of the totally absurd.

Archival Tape -- Bettina Arndt:

“Over the years, I've talked to many male teachers about sexually provocative behaviour from female students. Sensible teachers, of course, run a mile from these girls. But the teachers are still really vulnerable.”

EVA:

She gradually sort of disappeared from somebody that we thought was a reliable feminist to somebody who seemed to be more interested in getting herself as much television coverage as she could.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Bettina Arndt thanks for joining us today...“

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Bettina Arndt joins me live in the studio…”

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Where we’re joined by and Bettina Arndt, our special guest…”

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Full-time men's rights activist. Please welcome Bettina Arndt…”

Archival Tape -- Bettina Arndt:

“Thank you”

EVA:

Getting herself as much work as she could out of the fact that she was being this enlightened feminist stroke, you know, sort of human person who really cared about the men as well as the women, and then stopped caring about the women and just took up the men. I think. And tries to get all of these nasty little blokes who feel inadequate, ‘it's all our fault’, and she's managing to reassure them that it's not their fault and all these nasty feminists are turning against them.

RUBY:

How does it happen that a woman who you knew as a feminist in the 1970s ends up as a leading men's rights activist?

EVA:

Look, I think there's been a few women that have sort of swung across out of you know finding themselves much more comfortable staying within the construction of a world that is run by men. But I just never thought Bettina did it for that. I always had the impression that she was after publicity. She was after fame. So I don't think she had an ideological swing. I just think she ideologically was prepared to be a feminist while it was nice and new in the early 70s and then and carried on as an anti-feminist.

RUBY:

Last week Bettina Arndt was made a member of the Order of Australia. Where were you when you heard that news and what did you think?

EVA:

It was Australia Day and I'd been to Yabun, which is the Aboriginals of day of mourning thing which was down the road from my place in Glebe. And I was standing at the bus stop and ran into an old friend. We were having a bit of chat and he said, ‘well, you know, what do you think of Bettina Arndt getting an honor?’ And I thought, ‘what? How come?’ And he said ‘well, she got one for dealing with the rights of men’.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Bettina Arndt received a Member of the Order of Australia for her achievements on gender equality and advocacy for men…”

Archival Tape -- Bettina Arndt:

“I think that there’ll be a lot of people very cross today at the idea that I can promote gender equity, which is fair treatment of men and women, by advocating for men…”

EVA:

And so I got home and had a look at the papers and found that she'd got an AM and felt deeply appalled at the fact that she'd got one at all. I mean, I got AO in 1995 when a whole lot of my friends got together and put in a lot of hard work to prove that I'd done something. And the fact that she got one really quite horrified me and it horrified me to the point where I tweeted maybe I should hand back my AO because obviously it's being devalued. And it does raise for me a lot more questions about what the function of an honors system is and why it needs to be protected.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

So Eva, we’re talking about the Australian Honours System… every year hundreds of Australians are given an AO or AM or some other title to recognise their service to the country. How do these people actually get selected?

EVA:

They call for nominations and they always get far more nominations than they need. It is then sorted by a committee and then they sort of tidy it up and allocate them to the various honours. They’re for a whole range of things if you go through them, the companion one, I think, in this case they've all been very senior public servants or legal people and they used to make a fuss about the fact, because quite often in the past all five have been male, which indicated that only men were capable of being the companion. So, it is all done by a committee which is supposed to be a representative committee and probably is representative. But I think it also might be fairly traditional in the way it values things.

RUBY:

You've mentioned that the honour system doesn't acknowledge women enough. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

EVA:

Well, they have improved, three of the top honours this time were women. And there was, I think, about 40 percent female. And that was a lot better than it used to be. And part of the problem is not as many women get nominated and there's things that they've still got probably a bias against the sort of voluntary work that women do in the community. And I think sometimes what women do is still judged as less valuable than what men do. So women might get an AM where they probably should have gotten AO, because they were fairly high achieving on a whole lot of different areas. So I still think there is the same gender biases in the honours list that there is in the employment market, you know that jobs that require human skills, that require what they call the soft skills, which tend to be the female jobs, are nearly always underpaid compared to the male jobs. So I mean we still have a pattern within the honours of maybe an overemphasis on the high tech stemmy type things and the under emphasis on the caring and social production type stuff.

One of the things that really interests me around the construction of honours is the way it very often does reflect what people do unpaid, what people do as volunteers. I think I'd like to see much more attention to the issue about what people give unpaid as an effort that they make for the community at large, for the common good and how that contributes, because we very often undervalue unpaid work. We undervalue it, because often it's done by women, and we often undervalue it because undervalue a lot of work, paid work like child care and other forms of care because it mirrors what we do unpaid. So we've got a major ideological problem with the difference between paid work and unpaid work. And I suppose I'd like to see the honours list being used as a way of actually rewarding the people who do things unpaid regardless of what their paid work professional status was.

RUBY:

So Eva, what have you decided to do with your AO, will you hand it back?

EVA:

I'll keep my AO. It was, you know, a lot of people put a lot of effort into getting it for me. And it gives you a buzz getting one. It gives you the sense that you -- of acknowledging your contribution.

RUBY:

You know, it gives some sort of sort of weight and status and perhaps opens doors, is that fair?

EVA:

Yes, I think it, I mean, it does. And it provides a certain value. Certainly when you turn up certain things with it in your buttonhole, particularly surrounded by businessmen and they do tend to be a bit more polite to you. I'll hang on to it. It looks good on my blue jacket and I turn up occasionally and kings of industry do to look a bit embarrassed because sometimes they've got a low one than I’ve got… And I think there's a lot of people are putting a lot of time and a lot of effort, who might end up with the OAM at the lower level and might end up with nothing because they're not seen as high status enough to be given one. And I just think we need to ensure that you're given an honor regardless of your status. And I think that that might be a bit hard to prove at the moment.

I mean, I've said it before and I'll say it again, is the fact that Bettina Arndt got one is a signal the system is stuffed. I think they probably made an error in her case. But the fact that it was able to be met and the fact it happened so publicly means I think it's time to review the whole system.

RUBY:

Thanks very much Eva.

EVA:

Thanks.

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RUBY:

Elsewhere in the news, federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale announced yesterday he was resigning from the role. Di Natale said he was quitting to spend more time with his family after spending a decade in the Senate. A new leader will be elected this morning. Adam Bandt, the greens only lower house MP, is expected to win in an uncontested ballot.

And at least 40 koalas have been found dead after logging on private land near Portland in Victoria. A government investigation is underway. The Victorian Environment minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the perpetrators would be hit with the full force of the law

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see you tomorrow.