Filtered Images: Visions of 'Pioneering' Women Doctors in Twentieth-Century Australia

Abstract

This article focuses on the historical representations of women in medicine in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Using the film Charlene Does Med at Uni (1977), made by Australian film maker Margot Oliver, it examines the historio graphical traditions that helped inform this film s construction. In doing so, the preoccupations shared by both firstand second-wave feminists in their conceptualisations of 'women's emancipation ' are identified. The article argues that by analysing why medicine has been considered an important and persistent component of feminists ' political campaigns since the late-nineteenth century, we can identify the wider political issues involved. Themes addressed here include women's