Due to building works, some of our collections are temporarily unavailable. Some requests for deliveries of Library material to the Reading Rooms will not be fulfilled. Learn more
Dr Clare Wright, a leading academic commentator on women’s history, states that ‘feminism and federalism were intertwined’.
Listen to Clare Wright give an alternative view on the ‘birth of our nation’:
Dr Wright contests the common belief that Australia was born on the shores of Gallipoli. She believes that it happened much earlier, with federalism and women’s suffrage.
- Do you think Wright is correct?
- What celebrations and monuments do we have in Australia to commemorate our military achievements?
- How do we commemorate federalism and feminism? How are young people encouraged to connect with these parts of our history?
- Imagine you have been tasked with designing and building a monument to women’s suffrage to stand in Canberra alongside our other national institutions.
- How would you get young Australians involved?
Choose one of the women explored in this unit who have fought for women’s rights. Write a short biography of that person. In researching their life, consider:
- their background and personal story and how this led them to become involved in the women’s movement
- the era in which they were most effective, and what was happening in the wider women’s movement at that time
- their achievements and the effects these had on the women’s movement.
Consider a range of propaganda and advertisements used over the last 150 years to:
- reinforce the gendered assumptions of the time
- recruit women into wartime roles
- cultivate compassion towards women and women’s issues (including domestic violence, abortion rights and pay equality). How have the imagery and messages changed over time?
Prepare a three-minute speech to deliver your classmates about an Australian Aboriginal woman who has made inroads into Indigenous women’s rights in Australia. You might consider speaking about: Faith Bandler, Pearl Gibbs, Lowitja O’Donoghue, Evelyn Scott, Gladys Elphick, Joyce Clague, Megan Davis, or another Indigenous woman.