by Anne Summers
17 National Times, 15–20 May 1972.
18 A study of prestige and status awareness in Australia found women to be more sensitive to status differences in residential suburbs and occupations than men: women over-rated high prestige jobs and suburbs while giving very low ratings to lower prestige ones. Men’s assessments were closer to the rank objectively assigned to the job or suburb. AA Congalton, Status and Prestige in Australia, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 31–2, 71–3.
19 Glennys Bell, ‘Australian women love their magazines, and both are changing’, National Times, 29 November – 4 December 1971.
20 Dennis Minogue, ‘A war for women’, The Age, 31 May 1975.
21 McNair Print Readership Survey, National Magazine Readership Survey, Sydney,Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, 1972.
22 Newagents’ News, no. 140, March 1973.
23 Australian Financial Review, 15 January 1973.
24 Madge Dawson, The Australian Woman as Portrayed in Women’s Magazines, Paper delivered to ANZAAS, Adelaide, 1969.
25 Shirley Sampson, ‘The Australian Women’s Weekly Today’, Refractory Girl, no. 3, Winter 1973, p. 14.
26 Sampson, ‘The Australian Women’s Weekly Today’, p. 17.
27 Sampson, ‘The Australian Women’s Weekly Today’, p. 15.
28 Woman’s Day, 22 April 1974.
29 Australian Financial Review, October 1973.
30 Fay Chambers & Marthe Scott, ‘Dolly is a girl like you’, Dissent, no. 28, Winter 1972, p. 20.
31 Australian Financial Review, 9 December 1971.
32 WD Borrie, ‘Recent trends and patterns in fertility in Australia’, Journal of BiosocialScience, vol. 1, no. 1, January 1969, p. 65.
33 Borrie, ‘Recent trends and patterns in fertility in Australia’, p. 67.
34 Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, no. 58, 1972, p. 164.
35 Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, no. 58, p. 174.
36 Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, no. 58, p. 178.
37 Jean I Martin & Catherine MG Richmond, ‘Working women in Australia’ in Anatomy of Australia, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1968, p. 197.
38 Ronald Conway, The Great Australian Stupor, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1971, p. 135.
39 The Communist Party of Australia, which professes to oppose the institution of the family, reinforces it in practice by offering lower admission prices for married couples to its social functions, that is, treating a married couple as a unit rather than as two individuals. This is without enquiring whether or not the wife has an income of her own.
40 Ronald Sackville, Social Welfare for Fatherless Families in Australia: Some legal issues, Australian Council of Social Service, Sydney, 1972, p. 21.
41 Sackville, Social Welfare for Fatherless Families in Australia, p. 22.
42 Sackville, Social Welfare for Fatherless Families in Australia.
43 Rosemary Kiely, ‘Social attitudes to single mothers: A pilot study’, MelbourneJournal of Politics, No. 5, 1972, p. 89. Emphasis added.
44 See Tony McMichael (ed.), Abortion: The unenforceable law, Abortion Law Reform Association of Victoria, 1972, for several articles concerning the legal position in New South Wales and Victoria.
45 See Anne Summers, ‘No holds barred as battle rages’, The Bulletin, 12 May 1973 for an account of some of the distortions of medical facts used by Right to Life propaganda.
46 Hansard, House of Representatives, 10 May 1973, p. 2001.
47 Dan L Adler, ‘Matriduxy in the Australian family’ in AF Davies & S Encel (eds), Australian Society, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1965, p. 155.
48 Patrick Tennison, The Marriage Wilderness, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1972, p. 6.
14 Prospects for liberation
1 For example, Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, Abacus, London, 1972; Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex, Jonathan Cape, London, 1971; Juliet Mitchell, Woman’s Estate, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, England, 1971; Phyllis Chesler, Women and Madness, Allen Lane, London, 1974.
2 Sheila Rowbotham, Hidden from History, Penguin Books, 1975, p. x.
3 The growth and activities of the Women’s Movement in Australia is well documented. The increasing number of movement publications is itself a testament to its size and diversity. For histories and assessments of the movement’s development, see: The WEL Papers: The National Journal of the Women’s Electoral Lobby, 1973–74, WEL, Melbourne, n.d. (1973); From the Gilded Cage, WEL, Sydney, n.d. (1974); Joyce Nicholson, ‘Women as swinging voters? The effect of WEL’, Politics, November 1973, pp. 344–5; Anne Summers, ‘Women’s liberation in Australia’, and Anna Yeatman and the Women’s Liberation Movement, Adelaide, ‘Women’s Liberation’, in Henry Mayer & Helen Nelson (eds), Australian Politics:A third reader, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1973; Helen Glezer & Jan Mercer, ‘Blueprint for a lobby: The birth of WEL as a social movement’, Helen Glezer, Jan Mercer & Pat Strong, ‘WEL Strategy, 1972: The methods of a protest lobby’, Sybil Burns, ‘WEL in the countryside’, Jan Aitkin, Julie Boyce, Caroline Graham, Wendy McCarthy & June Surtees, ‘The world of WEL (N.S.W.)’, Eva Cox, ‘Polling the pollies: A critique of the WEL survey’, and Margaret Smith, ‘A springboard into the world: Women active politically’, in Henry Mayer (ed.), Labor to Power: Australia’s 1972 Election, Angus & Robertson on behalf of the Australasian Political Studies Association, Sydney, 1973; Anne Summers, ‘NOW is the time for all good women’, National Times, April 3–8, 1972; Anne Summers, ‘After Germaine … What now?’ POL, December, 1972; Anne Summers, ‘Where’s the women’s movement moving to?’ Mejane, March 1973; Anne Summers, ‘The women’s movement’, Nation Review, March 7–13, 1975.
Letter to the next generation [1994]
1 Susan Jane Gilman, ‘Why the fear of feminism?’, New York Times, 2 September, 1991.
2 This phrase became the title of a book by the British feminist Sheila Rowbotham published first by Pluto Press in 1973.
3 There have been some excellent books published that deal with segments of the movement, for instance, Marian Sawer, Sisters in Suits: Women and public policyin Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1990; and Jocelyn Clark & Kate White, Women in Australian Politics, Fontana, Sydney, 1983. Others have recorded the contemporary stories or sentiments of activists, for instance, Ann Curthoys, Forand Against Feminism: A personal journey into feminist theory and history, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988; and Jocelynne A Scutt (ed.), Different Lives: Reflections onthe women’s movement and visions of its future, Penguin, Melbourne, 1987. But there is no comprehensive history of the movement as such, its origins and diversity, its successes and setbacks. I was pleased to learn in late 1991 that several such projects were, at last, in progress. I look forward to their publication.
4 See, for instance, Marcia Cohen, The Sisterhood: The inside story of the women’s movement and the leaders who made it happen, Ballantine, New York, 1989; and Alice Echols, Daring to be Bad: Radical feminism in America 1967–1975, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1989.
5 Australian libraries, by and large, have done a good job in collecting the raw material as it was created. The National Library of Australia, in particular, has an excellent collection of leaflets, small-circulation newsletters and magazines and even badges and T-shirts, as well as published books on the new feminism. The material is there, just waiting to be read.
6 See ‘Women: The longest revolution’, New Left Review no. 44, 1966; it was also published in greatly expanded form as Woman’s Estate, Penguin, Harmondsworth, England, 1971.
7 The failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the constitution was a huge political and psychological defeat; its passage had seemed so certain as 30 of the 38 states needed for ratification had signed on in the first year (1973), but the momentum faltered and by 1977, when the deadline expired, only 35 states had ratified. Even though Congress in an unprecedented action allowed a three-year extension, by that time the anti-ERA forces had succeeded, through a hysterical and mostl
y inaccurate campaign of denigration, in turning public opinion against the ERA, leaving American women without constitutional guarantees of equality. During the 1980s, a similar campaign by anti-abortion forces succeeded in having the US Supreme Court whittle away at women’s constitutional right to legal abortion, guaranteed by the 1973 court decision Roe v. Wade. In 1986 Webster’s decision weakened the federal ruling by allowing the states to regulate access to abortion and at the time of writing (early 1992), the Supreme Court was scheduled to review state laws, which had the potential to be the occasion to reverse Roe v. Wade totally. The result would be that each state would regulate as to the legality of abortion and, given the anti-abortion composition of so many state Houses, the likelihood was that at least one-third of America’s 50 states would make abortion illegal. No issue has galvanised the American women’s movement more in recent times than this threat to abortion rights, and there has been a resurgence of energy directed at trying to elect women candidates who, in addition to being pro-abortion, would be supportive of other women’s issues such as child care and parental leave. In 1993 President Clinton promised legislation to protect women’s right to abortion.
8 See Hester Eisenstein, Gender Shock: Practising feminism on two continents, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1991, for an appreciation of the Australian femocracy by an American feminist who spent eight years living in Sydney and working as (what else) a femocrat. See also Sawer, Sisters in Suits.
9 See Erin Pizzey, Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear, Penguin, Harmondsworth, England, 1974, for her account of how she founded the first refuge for battered women in England.
10 Vivien Johnson (comp.), The Last Resort: A women’s refuge, Penguin, Melbourne, 1981, p. 3.
11 See ‘Women’s Budget Statement 1990–91’, AGPS, Canberra, 1990, p. 110.
12 Extract from Hugh Mackay, ‘Reinventing Australia’, in The Australian, 1 February 1993.
Index
Abbott, Tony 11
Aboriginal reconciliation 54
Aboriginal women
in colonial period 412
and poverty 233–34
sexism towards 234
see also Black liberation, race, racism
Abortifacients 459–461
Abortion 15, 39, 51, 358, 461–63, 487–89, 614–16
deaths from 565–67
during the Depression 261
and doctors 361–62
legal status 614
during Second World War 579–80
see also contraception, infanticide, the pill
AIDS 64
Ackerman, Jessie 516, 744
Adamson, Robert 143
Adler, Dan, L 618
Advertisers
as exploiters of women, 594–97
Age of consent 487–488, 505, 512–13
Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) 122, 148, 573
Alcohol
consumption of 501–502
sex-segregated drinking 177–178
women’s drinking patterns 178–79
see also barmaids, local option polls, prohibition, six o’clock closing, temperance movements, Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
Alfred Hospital, Melbourne 208, 472, 730
Allen, Professor 471
American servicemen
effect on Australian women 576–77
American War of Independence 507
Anderson, Professor, Francis 477, 480
Anderson, Maybanke 480, 483, 503, 510, 544, 743, 744, 746, 749
Anti-conscription campaign 154
Anzac Day 538
Apartheid 368
Arbitration court
see Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration
Are Women Taking Men’s Jobs?526, 553–54, 750
Aries, Phillipe 274, 733
Armed Services
unequal conditions for women 572–74
Arndell, Thomas 402
Arthur Governor, George 418
Associated Chamber of Manufactures 574
Astley, Thea 174, 727
The Aunt’s Story130
Australia (WK Hancock) 145
Australia (Kylie Tennant) 148
Australia Party 630
Australian Comforts Fund 575
Australian Council for the Arts 53–54, 720
Literature Board 143
Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) 221, 233, 234, 236, 730, 732
Australian culture
exclusion of women 117–22
Australian Family Circle598
Australian Financial Review28
Australian Government
expenditure on social security 1973–74 224
see also Commonwealth Government, Labor Government
Australian Institute for Family Studies 47
Australian Jockey Club 163
Australian Labor Party 500, 630
Queensland 495
Women’s Central Organising Committee 481
see also Labor Government
Australian Lady Volunteers 535
Australian League of Rights 592
The Australian Legend99, 738
Australian Medical Gazette461
Australian Public Service 592–93, 613
Australian Women’s Army Service 572
Australian Women’s Franchise Society 507–508
Australian Women’s Land Army 574–75
Australian Women’s National League 495
Australian Women’s Service Corps 535
Australian Woman’s Sphere490, 506, 507, 742, 747, 748
Australian Women’s Weekly569–71, 580–81, 597, 598, 599, 603, 751, 752, 753
A White Australia527
Baby battering 213
The Back-room Boys131
Balls-Headley, Walter 476-77
Bangladesh 336
Banner, Sally 134–35
Barassi, Ron 169, 727
Barber, Elisabeth 402
Barmaids 178, 452, 456, 502
see also alcohol, employment, Women’s
Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
Basic wage 239, 485–86, 544–45
female basic wage 553–54
see also child endowment, Harvester Judgement, Mr Justice Higgins, Royal Commission on the Basic Wage, unions
Bathurst, Earl 406
The Battlers137
Batty, Rosie 16, 715
Baynton, Barbara 123, 454, 741
Bear, Annette 494
Beaumont, Lady 510–11
The Beauty Myth61
Bedford, Rev. 421–22
Belle597–98, 601–603
Behrendt, Larissa 1
Beware of Imitations134
Bigge, Commissioner JT 407–11, 415, 422
Bigge Report 415
Bill of Rights 631
Birth control 217, 281, 459, 487, 513, 547, 563–564, 579, 750
see also abortion, contraception, infanticide, sterilisation, vasectomy
Birthrate 459, 488
1880–1922 547
and contraception 378–379
controversy in 1900s 563–566
fall in 1886–1901 460–461
during Second World War 579
see also abortion, births, contraception, ‘the family’, infant mortality
Births
ex-nuptial 291, 460–63, 487–88, 546–47
see also birthrate
Bishop, Julie 5
Biskup, Peter 151
Black Liberation 626
‘Black widows’ 12
Blackstone, William 503
Blackwell, Elizabeth 376, 36
Boarding Out Bill 499
Boldrewood, Rolf 126
Borrie, WD 527, 53
Bowes, Ms, Euphemia 507
Boyd, Martin 123, 137, 724
British Home Office 400
Brockman, Henrietta Drake
see Drake-Brockman, Henrietta
Broderick, Elizabeth 1, 16
Bronte sis
ters 127
Brown, Rita Mae 622
Brown, WHR 401
Bryce, Quentin 1, 14, 72
Bulletin60
‘Burning Sappho’ 141
Buscopan 364
Butlin, NG 447
Caddie, A Sydney Barmaid: AnAutobiography178, 728, 750
Cairnmillar Institute, Melbourne 619
Calley, Lt 340
Cambridge, Ada 125
Campbell-Praed, Rosa 126
Camus, Albert 137
The Canberra Mental Health Survey, 1971 196, 202, 208, 728
Capitalism
and ‘the family’ 277–78, 311–12
and patriarchy 395–96
Carey, Professor, HM 350–54, 735
Carey, Peter 144
Chisholm, Caroline iv, 11, 91, 98, 426, 739–40
Castle Hill rebellion 429
Castlereagh, Viscount 405–406, 737
Castration of women 374–75
Catholic Church
first chaplains 429
Catholic Weekly247
Centuries of Childhood274, 733
Chandler, Ms 478
The Chapel Perilous134–35, 724
Chartists 431
Chesler, Phyllis 191, 196, 199, 728
Childbirth
caesarean 348
epidural anaesthesia 364
induction 364
perineal tears 347
see also maternal deaths, stillbirths
Child care 241–42, 284–87, 574–87
see also motherhood
Child endowment 48, 224–25, 240, 544–45
Children
child labour 279, 483–84
concept of childhood 274–77
protective legislation 482–84
special court 484
see also child care, child endowment, infanticide
Children’s books and sex roles 585–86
Children’s Protection Act 1899 482
Chisholm, Caroline 1, 426, 434–35, 438–42, 448, 450, 455, 464, 509, 560, 739–40
‘The Chosen Vessel’ 454
CHUMS (Care and Help for Unmarried Mothers) 613–14
The church and women 593–94
Church of England 657–58
Cilento, Lady, Phyllis 592
‘Clancy of the Overflow’ 122
Clark, CMH 429, 453, 736, 737, 739, 741
Clark, Lt Ralph 1, 399
Clarke, Lady Janet 473
Class
and racism 106–107