THE National warmly congratulates Betty Palaso on her appointment as Commissioner-General of the Internal Revenue Commission. It is one tiny step forward for the women of Papua New Guinea.
At the present rate of progress, gender equality within the public service might be achieved by the turn of the next century. The present Government has so far done nothing to change the unacceptable record of the previous administration.
Women at decision-making level in the public sector reached an all-time low under that government. There are 28 government departments. That should mean at least half of the department secretaries should be women.
In addition, there are numerous statutory bodies and other quasi-government authorities and instrumentalities that should be equally open to men and women.
We challenge the Government to make appointments to those positions – and to the middle management public service positions below them – based only on merit and demonstrated performance. If that challenge is accepted, we can expect to see a flood of highly skilled and competent women moving into positions previously held exclusively by less competent men.
The challenge won’t be accepted, of course; there are many reasons why no government today or in the immediate future would implement such a policy. It has become almost inevitable that the absence of women in key government positions has been seen as a cultural by-product.
Reams of academic theories have been published explaining that PNG women’s traditional role has always been one of subservience and that men regard women as property to be used as men see fit. That may well have explained the situation 50 years ago; it seems to us less probable a reason today.
By independence, women were being encouraged to gain an education, seek jobs in the newly developing public service, stand for Parliament and take up positions of authority in unions, savings and loans societies and a wide range of community-based employment.
Independence is 32 years behind us. In that time the number of better educated women has grown sharply. Yet many of those well-qualified women do not last long in the work place.
Those intent on maintaining an all-male hierarchy point to that fact and proclaim women’s alleged inability to hold a job and withstand the pressures and demands of senior levels of employment.
Not so.
The pressures and demands come from the husbands of those women, too many of whom insist with violence and threats that “their” women should give up their employment and tend the home fires.
A further potent reason is men’s fear of being sidelined by their partners and finding themselves occupying inferior employment, while their wives are promoted to supervisory and managerial positions.
There are still many men who swear that they would never under any circumstances work for a woman boss. When asked why that should be so, they are either stumped for reasons, or advance justifications that simply confirm their sexist view of society.
For more than 30 years after independence, the number of men who grew up in traditional villages and are now employed in public service or private enterprise in our cities is decreasing sharply each year. Yet they still cling to outmoded and inappropriate beliefs and patterns of behaviour when confronted with successful and ambitious women in the workforce, or worse, at home.
It may be that the time has come for women to fight for the establishment of a statutory women’s council within the national government structure. Such a council could be given the powers to recommend suitable women appointees for every senior public service position that passes before the Public Services Commission.
They could also appeal against male appointments that they deemed unjustified. Such a council would make it increasingly difficult for the government of the day to ignore the claims of women to senior appointments.
In passing, we note the tiny number of women Commissioners appointed to the PSC since 1975 – another indicator of the contempt of male-dominated governments towards educated women.
We wish Betty Palaso every possible success in her new role. But at the same time we note that it has taken her 27 years of public service employment to reach that position.
For shame, gentlemen.