While in my last blog I suggested the government has done well in promoting women to senior roles in cabinet, it is important that it does not commit the mistake of typecasting women as mothers, thus alienating those who have yet to have kids, or whose kids have already grown. 

I was disappointed that the Rudd government decided not to reverse the previous government's downgrading of the women's policy advice function from the Prime Minister's department to the welfare area.

As you will recall, the Howard government not only downgraded the Office of the status of Women but also changed its name - to the Office for Women. We lost our power - and our status. 

The Rudd government has given us back the status, at least in the title Tanya Plibersek enjoys as Minister for the Status of Women - but not the power. There is now an Office of Work and Family in the Prime Minister's department, but not an Office of Women.

I am not being semantic here. As I will point out in a moment, not all women are in the workforce and not all women are in what is generally understood to be a family - and many don't want to be. An office of women covers all situations. An office of work and family is already premised on a certain set of choices.

Equally problematic is the removal of EOWA from the Employment portfolio to the department of Family and Community Services. This is no doubt so that it can be attached to the Office of Women and Tanya can administer it. Nevertheless, removing equality of employment functions from the Employment Department is a significant change in policy. As is the fact that none of women's policy is now represented in Cabinet. One to watch.

At the same time, I do welcome childcare being removed from the welfare area to Julia Gillard's powerful education and employment portfolio where, finally, the policy looks like it might receive the serious treatment it has long been denied.

I hope that the government will restore the previous practice of monitoring and reporting on trends in employment, income and so on. We suffered greatly under the Howard government, but it was difficult to document the details because all the monitoring mechanisms were silenced or shut down.

I would urge Tanya Plibersek to restore the Australian Women's Yearbook - maybe on a bi-annual basis - so that we have a comprehensive statistical platform on which to benchmark women's status, now and in the future. I also hope that Julia Gillard will ensure that the Employment portfolio goes back to producing comprehensive measurements of all aspects of women's employment, as used to be done by the Women's Bureau.  Again, we need to know how we're doing.

I DO HAVE CONCERNS that this government is showing a tendency to try to push women, especially mothers, into a pre-ordained box - without their necessarily having any say in the situation.

You will remember that John Howard had a white picket fence view of the world.  He wanted women to be mothers, and once they were, to stay out of the workforce.  He invented a special payment - the baby bonus - to encourage women to have more babies, and he used taxation, employment and other arms of policy to create disincentives for mothers to return to employment. This cruelly denied women choice.

I hope the Rudd government will not also deny women choice, even if the Rudd prescription for women is one that is more in line with what women themselves want. 

The driver of policy for women seems to be productivity, with all policies aimed at increasing the nation's output. To that end, women - especially mothers - are being encouraged to work. "Working families" is the hallmark mantra of the Rudd government, and this mantra is mainly directed at women.

It is great to see women's employment issues and problems - such as lack of equal pay, lack of child care, lack of paid maternity leave - finally being acknowledged and put back onto the political agenda. It is long overdue.

At the same time, we don't want women feeling pressured into a particular course of action. And there is already some evidence that there is a backlash against the Rudd government's emphasis on mothers and parents. 

As was pointed out recently in The Australian analysis of voters in the last election suggests there was a significant swing against Labor by women in their 30s who do not have children. The swing toward Labor by women in this age group with children was just as pronounced, and probably helped seal the outcome. 

However, the numbers of women without children are a large, and growing, group.  More importantly, from a political perspective, they tend to live in inner-city areas and hence could become a significant political bloc, able to influence the outcome in seats such as Sydney, Melbourne, Wentworth, Grayndler and Batman. 

It is going to be fascinating to watch the government juggle this one. It should be a no-brainer. Women's choices should be respected and supported. But the government's rhetoric so far has been directed at one group - much to the ire of those who feel excluded, not just women without kids but also seniors, carers, gays and others.

I am sure we all have high hopes for this Labor government, especially when it comes to women. So far the record has been mixed. There has been some significant achievements, especially in the appointments of women, but there are some concerns - as I have outlined in this paper. Let's hope, from now on, the government really listens to women - all women. If it does this, it can't go wrong.

Anne Summers is a best-selling author and journalist who has had a long career in politics, the media and the non-government sector. Her political background includes her time as a political adviser to Prime Minister Paul Keating prior to the 1993 federal elections and she ran the Office of the Status of Women for Prime Minister Bob Hawke from 1983 to 1986.

Ms Summers also presented these ideas at the 20th annual Women, Management and Employment Relations Conference, held in Sydney in July.