Page 13 - 201902 SCA February 2019 Volume 56 Number 1
P. 13
FEBRUARY
2019
Graduates”, after all, I thought, what other option
was there?
How naïve was I? People, according to https://apath.
org/63-genders/, can be divided into 63 Genders!
If the latter advertisement was published today, I am
sure someone would take offence as it specifically
excludes those whose gender identity is non-binary.
This concept of gender fluidity is now so mainstream
that on Monday October 1 a segment of Fair Go, This enforced role change for women was a
a consumer-watch TV program in New Zealand, significant factor in the granting of suffrage to
was devoted to a complaint that some retailers women in most of the World in the inter-war years.
required their customers to check a box identifying
themselves as Male or Female when applying for In our Industry this is best illustrated by the above
registration on their websites. To quote Fair Go, photo, which shows women carrying out the task
“Such straight definitions as male or female no of painting a Mark IV World War I Tank at the Tank
longer apply in 2018.” Factory in Lincoln, Lincolnshire.
In Australia such diverse gender considerations The Memorial outside that factory today, as pictured
are even more advanced. On October 24, 2018, it below, also shows that the painting of these tanks
was widely reported that Tasmania was to be the was primarily carried out by women.
“ All women’s issues are to some degree men’s issues and all
men’s issues are to some degree women’s issues because
when either sex wins unilaterally both sexes lose.”
Warren Thomas Farrell – American educator, activist and author of seven books on
men’s and women’s issues
first Aussie state to remove gender options on birth
certificates and parents would have to opt in if
they wished to have their child’s gender recorded.
Northern Territories is considering similar moves and
it was recently reported that the Australian Labour
Party was considering a policy that they would, when
in government, pass legislation that would allow a
minimum of 12 up to a maximum of 33 genders being
recognised on official government forms.
If gender is fluid, as these examples of mainstream During World War II also, women took over many
action seem to show, and those lobbying for manufacturing jobs, replacing the men who had
increased female representation in Industry been sent to war. Sherwin-Williams factories were no
genuinely believe this to be so, how can one exception, as these women running the Kem-Tone®
determine what the gender makeup of your company filling line in 1942 illustrates.
is, or if you have achieved a truly representative
gender balance in your workforce or at senior levels? Kem-Tone® was developed as a result of wartime
The following extracts from historical paint related
material will give some indication of the changes
in societal attitude towards gender roles and
expectations since the beginning of the 20th century.
The shortage of labour during the World Wars, as men
were out fighting and dying, led to the employment of
women in many then traditional male roles.
Journal of Surface Coatings Australia 11

