Sex education debates and the modest mother in Australia, 1890s to the 1930s

Abstract

Between the 1890s and the 1930s at least three Protestant Women's groups in Australia waged a campaign in the community which confounded contemporary views that Christian women were insular on the one hand or unworldly on the other. Despite social codes of behaviour that discouraged the frank discussion of sex, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Young Women's Christian Association and the Mothers' Union campaigned for children to be taught about sex, reproduction and venereal disease in order to ‘clean up’ Australian society and to inculcate a healthier attitude towards sex. This article argues that in the 50 years studied, churchwomen both tried to change and were themselves significantly changed by modern attitudes towards sex