Beyond access and equity : women's place in Austalian open learning

This paper acknowledges that open learning (in many of its manifestations) has obvious benefits for people who cannot access a university campus. We would argue, however, that there is a clear need to continually identify and discuss some of the other 'various reasons' that have impeded access to higher education for specific individuals and groups in order to ensure that the rhetoric and the image of"openness" does not function as a substitute for"real" open access. Focusing on the participation of women in open learning, therefore, we shall discuss in this paper, some of those 'reasons' which have functioned (and still do so) as impediments to access.