Fed:Goward hails Vatican report as great step forward for women

AAP General News (Australia)
08-01-2004
Fed:Goward hails Vatican report as great step forward for women

SYDNEY, Aug 1 AAP - A Vatican report calling on governments to support working mothers
was a "great step forward" that could reverse the declining birth rate, Sexual Discrimination
Commissioner Pru Goward said today.

Ms Goward said the 37-page document, which has come under widespread criticism for
its critical view of feminism, was "a small step forward for man but a great step forward
for woman kind".

As the first serious attempt by the Vatican to come to terms with the notion of modern
women who juggle careers and motherhood, the Papal document is expected to be widely influential,
and not just in religious circles.

While the Vatican said that women who choose to be full-time mothers should not be
stigmatised, it also appealed to governments to make it easier for mothers to hold outside
jobs without "relinquishing their family life".

Ms Goward, who has been pushing for paid maternity, said the document should act as
a wake-up call to the federal government.

"What I think the Pope is recognising is that if we don't help women to work and have
children we are going to see a continuation of the decline in the fertility rate and in
the happiness of women," she told Sky News.

"When the Pope says let's get on with it and support women in both those roles I think
the game's over."

However, not all of the report was as forward-thinking as the Vatican's attitude to
working mothers, Ms Goward acknowledged.

Re-stating Catholic Church positions, including the ban on female priests, the document
also criticised feminism's attempt to erase gender differences, claiming that the fight
for gender equality had undermined the traditional concept of family.

Ms Goward said that while most feminists were happy to fight for equal opportunities
in the workforce, they did not insist that men and women were equals.

"We love being different and we love having children," she said.

AAP tr/cdh/jlw

KEYWORD: POPE WOMEN GOWARD

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