Australian Feminist Research Articles

Embodiments of the English Constitution in the Romanticised Narratives of the Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and Four Weddings and a Funeral

(2008). Embodiments of the English Constitution in the Romanticised Narratives of the Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 121-147.

Critical Reflections on 2020 and Beyond

(2008). Critical Reflections on 2020 and Beyond. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 207-214.

Country Matters: Sexing the Reconciled Republic of Australia

This essay analyses how Australian postcolonial discourses, influenced by both Republicanism and Reconciliation, deploy the trope of woman to signify political change in both feminist and cultural debates about belonging, national legitimacy and sovereignty. I point out that white feminist rejection of the Queen in favour of embracing indigeneity is itself complicit with a history of ‘incorporating’ and assimilating indigeneity – a complicity that is sublimated in favour of a triumphant rejection of Imperial white womanhood. The essay looks at a contemporary Australian novel, media depictions of Paul Keating's ‘embrace’ of Queen Elizabeth II (as a kind of captivity narrative), critical whiteness studies’ ‘rejection’ of the Queen and the misrecognition of Australia's distinct characteristics as a ‘settler culture’ (that incorporates indigeneity) within Australian feminist debates and claims of ‘transgression’ that are made for interracial relationships in Australia.

An Australian Feminist Twist on Transnational Labor Activism

An Australian Feminist Twist on Transnational Labor Activism

Australian Women’s History in Australian Feminist Periodicals 1971–1988

This article traces the history of feminist periodical publishing in this country between 1970 and 1988 and its role in the development of Australian women’s history. It shows that a distinctly Australian feminist historiography developed within the pages of journals such as Refractory Girl, Hecate, and Australian Feminist Studies. While most studies of the evolution of Australian women’s history since the 1970s signal the importance of such journals, there has to date been no major study of their history or their influence within Australian historiography. This article has been peer-reviewed.

"The Horrors of Matrimony among the Masses": Feminist Representations of Wife Beating in England and Australia, 1870–1914

Although historians have identified violence against wives as a particular concern for late-nineteenth-century feminists, this article argues that class politics limited feminists' engagement with the problem of wife beating. English feminists used tales of working-class brutes who beat and maimed their wives to demand the vote for educated and propertied women; however, the class dynamics of such tales made them impolitic for Australian feminists fighting for the vote in a country with a proud tradition of universal manhood suffrage. Stories that revolved around passive victims and irredeemable brutes remained largely unconnected with feminist critiques of marriage. Leaders of the English women's movement used wife beating mainly to construct women's suffrage as a selfless duty middle-class women owed to their suffering sisters. In Australia, feminists infused these tales with their faith in progress and the possibilities of a new land and came to understand wife beating as predominantly a problem of the past and the Old World.

(This Is Not A) Story: Using Court Records to Explore Judicial Narratives in R v Kathleen Folbigg

(2007). (This Is Not A) Story: Using Court Records to Explore Judicial Narratives in R v Kathleen Folbigg. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 71-95.

Protecting ‘Innocence’? Deconstructing Legal Regulation of Child Sexuality

(2007). Protecting ‘Innocence’? Deconstructing Legal Regulation of Child Sexuality. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 51-69.

‘WE WILL INVENT OURSELVES, THE AGE OF THE NEW IMAGE IS AT HAND’

We became very evangelistic trying to tell as many women as possible about this thing that we had discovered, and in those circumstances we began making a film to use for propaganda purposes. (Anon...

De-Colonisation and Aboriginal Peoples: Past and Future Strategies

(2007). De-Colonisation and Aboriginal Peoples: Past and Future Strategies. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 111-121.

Howard’s New Tampa — Aboriginal Children Overboard

(2007). Howard’s New Tampa — Aboriginal Children Overboard. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 123-126.

The ‘Fair Skinned’ Children of Sister Kate’s : Negotiating for the Past and Future

(2007). The ‘Fair Skinned’ Children of Sister Kate’s : Negotiating for the Past and Future. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 31-46.

Solid Rock, Sacred Ground: Cultural Vandalism in the Pilbara

(2007). Solid Rock, Sacred Ground: Cultural Vandalism in the Pilbara. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 9-15.

The Aboriginal State of Emergency Arrived With Cook and the First Fleet

(2007). The Aboriginal State of Emergency Arrived With Cook and the First Fleet. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 3-8.

Reconstructing Gender and ‘Race’ Relations After the Frontier

(2007). Reconstructing Gender and ‘Race’ Relations After the Frontier. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 59-79.

Unmasking the State: Racial/Gender Terror and Hate Crimes

(2007). Unmasking the State: Racial/Gender Terror and Hate Crimes. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 47-57.

Aboriginal Women’s Laws and Lives: How Might We keep Growing The Law?

(2007). Aboriginal Women’s Laws and Lives: How Might We keep Growing The Law? Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 95-107.

Witnessing the Workings of White Possession in the Workplace: Leesa’s Testimony

(2007). Witnessing the Workings of White Possession in the Workplace: Leesa’s Testimony. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 81-93.

WRITING THE HISTORY OF WOMEN AND WELFARE

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. See, for example, citations in: Saunders (1995 Saunders, Kay. 1995. From women's history to gender relations studies in Australia: The decade reviewed. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 41: 17–32. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 22); Twomey (1997 Twomey, Christina. 1997. Without natural protectors’: Responses to wife desertion in gold-rush Victoria. Australian Historical Studies, 28(108): 22–46. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 23); Henningham (2001 Henningham, Nikki. 2001. Hats off, gentlemen, to our Australian mothers!’: Representations of white femininity in North Queensland in the early twentieth century. Australian Historical Studies, 117: 311–21. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 312); Peel (2001 Peel, Dawn. 2001. Towards a history of old age in Australia. Australian Historical Studies, 117: 257–75. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 268, 269); Garton (2002 Garton, Stephen. 2002. The scales of suffering: Love, death and Victorian masculinity. Social History, 27(1): 40–58. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 54); Gibson (2003 Gibson, D. 2003. Getting better will take some time: The effects of social policy on four generations of older women. Australian Feminist Studies, 18(41): 173–86. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 173–86); Brown (2005, 1141); Coleborne (2006, 49). The key works referred to are: Grimshaw (1980 Grimshaw , Patricia . 1980 . Women and the family in Australian history: Feminist perspectives on Australia, 1788–1978 . In Women, class and history: Feminist perspectives on Australia , edited by Elizabeth Windschuttle . Sydney : Fontana/Collins . [Google Scholar], 1983 Grimshaw , Patricia . 1983 . The Australian family: An historical interpretation . In The family in the modern world: Australian perspectives , edited by Ailsa Burns , Gillian Bottomley and Penelope Jools . Sydney : Allen & Unwin . [Google Scholar], 1987a Grimshaw , Patricia . 1987a . ‘Man's own country’: Women in colonial Australian history . In Australian women: New feminist perspectives , edited by Norma Grieve and Ailsa Burns . Melbourne : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar], b Grimshaw , Patricia . 1987b . Tasman sisters: Lives of the ‘second sex’ . In Tasman relations: New Zealand and Australia, 1788–1988 , edited by Keith Sinclair . Auckland : Auckland University Press . [Google Scholar], 1991 Grimshaw , Patricia . 1991 . Was biology destiny? Historical demography and white colonial women . Lilith 7 : 71 – 85 . [Google Scholar]); Grimshaw and Willett (1981 Grimshaw, Patricia and Graham, Willett. 1981. “Women's history and family history: An exploration of colonial family structure”. In Australian women: Feminist perspectives, Edited by: Grieve, Norma and Grimshaw, Patricia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]); Grimshaw and Fahey (1985 Grimshaw , Patricia , and Charles Fahey . 1985 . Families and Community in Nineteenth-century Castlemaine . In Families in Colonial Australia , edited by Patricia Grimshaw , Chris McConville and Ellen McEwen . Sydney : Allen & Unwin . [Google Scholar]); and Beer et al. (1989).

What is Happening to Women’s History in Australia at the Beginning of the Third Millennium?

In 2003 Australian feminist historian Jill Matthews declared that what feminist historians should do now is ‘acknowledge our successes graciously and turn our hands to other things’. Her recommendation was not received with enthusiasm, but her audience did publish it. What was going on? This article sets out to answer that question by tracing four strands in the story of women’s history in Australia during the past three decades.