The Australian Women's Register

Initiated by women already in the art world, the Women’s Art Movement (hereinafter named W.A.M.) was part of an international trend somewhat belated in Australia, which lead women artists to look at their position as women in society and to analyse their position as artists through a feminist frame. The W.A.M offered women artists support within an alternative group structure. The group began with the aim of supporting and promoting women artists, educating members on the problem of discrimination and working with one another to overcome sexism in the arts and society. Fifty women ranging in age from 18 to 65 attended the first meeting. As attendance numbers grew, funding was required. Such monetary resources were obtained from the South Australia Arts Grant Advisory Committee (A.G.A.C), the Community Arts Board (C.A.B), and the Visual Arts Board (V.A.B) for salary and administrative costs, workshops and the publication of the book Women’s Art Movement 1978-1979, Adelaide, South Australia, respectively.

The Australian Federation of Graduate Women (South Australia) Inc. was founded in 1914 as the Women Graduates’ Club, a sub-society of the Adelaide University Women Students’ Club. Its aims as adopted at the first meeting on 7 July 1914 were “To provide social intercourse among women graduates” and “to deal with questions primarily affecting University graduates”. From 1923 the association became an affiliate of the National Federation of Graduate Women (then known as the National Federation of University Women).

The national body of the Australian Federation of University Women was renamed to the Australian Federation of Graduate Women (AFGW) in December 2009. Presumably, this was when the New South Wales branch also changed its name.

The University of Queensland Women Graduates’ Association was established at a meeting in September 1920. It became part of the Australian Federation of University Women following the establishment of that organisation in 1922.

The Canberra Association of Women Graduates was formed in 1944 with the aim of facilitating ‘inter-communication and co-operation between women of universities of all nations’ (1944 Constitution). The Association was affiliated with the Australian Federation of University Women and the International Federation of University Women. Membership was comprised of women holding degrees from any university recognised by the Australian Federation of University Women.

In 2009, in line with resolutions of the affiliated National body, the organisation changed its name to the Australian Federation of Graduate Women (Australian Capital Territory) Inc.

Eleanor Mary Hinder (1893-1963) was a pioneer in the field of industrial welfare in Australia with her appointment as Superintendent of Staff Welfare for the department store, Farmer & Co. Ltd, in Sydney during WWI. She later achieved international prominence in this field. From 1926 to 1928, Hinder assisted in the development of the new industrial department of the National Committee of the Young Women’s Christian Association of China, in Shanghai . She held the position of Chief of the Industrial and Social Division of Shanghai Municipal Council from January 1933 until August 1942, when the Japanese occupation of Shanghai forced her repatriation to Britain. Hinder’s next appointment, from December 1942 to October 1944, was to the International Labour Organisation. in Montreal where she served as Special Consultant on Asian Questions., and she subsequently held several other positions with the United Nations. Outside of her professional life, Hinder was also involved with a numbers of women’s organisations.

The Australia Group of the Liaison Committee of Women’s International Organisations was formed in April 1950 to gain status and representation at United Nations meetings held in Australia and South East Asia. The Australian Group operated for some time to combine national and international functions, but in 1954 it was resolved to limit activities to those of “a group of organisations” specially concerned with such subjects as human rights, the status of women, and the nationality of married women.

The Australian Group organised Australian participation in various international-agency conferences in the South-East Asian area, notably the United Nations Commissions on the Status of Women, and the United Nations Seminar on Civic Responsibilities and Increased Participation of Asian Women in Public Life (1957).

In 1963 the Liaison Committee headquarters group in London voluntarily withdrew from consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and the Australia Group, feeling that the Australian Committee was no longer necessary, ceased to function later in that year.

Lady Phyllis Cilento was born in Sydney on 13th March 1894 and educated in Adelaide, graduating MB, BS from the University of Adelaide. She did postgraduate work at hospitals and clinics in Malaysia, New Guinea, London, Paris and New York. Later moving to Brisbane with her husband, (doctor and medical administrator, Sir Ralph Cilento) she became a prominent member of the Queensland women’s movement and highly influential in broader areas of public health. She was a medical columnist, broadcaster, journalist and author of several books. Her interests lay in nutrition, vitamin therapy, family planning and antenatal and childcare. She founded the Queensland Mothercraft Association in 1930; the Queensland branch of the Business and Professional Women’s Club and was president of the Queensland Medical Women’s Association (1938-1947).

The Zonta Club of Perth, a women’s service club, was founded in 1971. It is part of Zonta International, a world-wide organisation of business and professional women working together to advance the legal, political, economic and professional status of women. Zonta clubs support Zonta International service and award programmes, and also provide support for local community projects by fundraising or active involvement, particularly those dealing with women’s issues such as economic self-sufficiency, legal equality, access to education and health, and eradication of violence.

The Zonta Club of Adelaide was officially chartered on April 17, 1969. Allthea Tebbutt was elected as the first president of the Club, alongside Board Members Irene Jeffries, Dr Catherine Ellis, Geraldine Little, Joyce Cupples, Brenda Coulter and Judith Hay.

The Australian Federation of Medical Women (AFMW) is a non-profit, non-government society with member bodies in each state. The Federation was formed in 1927, from existing associations of medical women in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, to promote and develop the formal practice of medicine among women. The first medical women’s association was formed in Victoria in 1895. Historically it has worked to remove barriers to women’s participation in the profession. Currently, the Federation sponsors numerous networking and mentoring programs for women doctors. It has branches in all states and the Australian Capital Territory.

The Medical Women’s Society of NSW was founded in 1921 to advance the interests of medically qualified women in professional practice. It was active in establishing the Australian Federation of Medical Women and continues to work for medical women in New South Wales.

Miles Franklin’s place in Australian literary history was assured when on her death in 1954, she made provision for an award for Australian literature. The Miles Franklin Award is the most prestigious for an Australian author to receive. Although she spent almost twenty-four years away from Australia, working mainly in Chicago and London, she was committed to pursuing the notion of the unique Australian perspective in literature. Despite her early success with the publication of ‘My Brilliant Career’ in 1901, she struggled to gain the recognition she believed she was capable of achieving. Nevertheless on her return to Australia in 1932 she entered the Sydney literary scene enthusiastically and had many of her works published.

The Women’s Literary Society was formed in Sydney in 1889 with the object of ‘mutual help in the study of general literature’. Later its activities were defined as ‘searching out and bringing before the meetings such matters as shall be of interest and improvement to members. Discussion upon important topics of the day. Papers upon various matters of interest, criticism upon literary or artistic work or theories upon practical matters.’ It is believed to be the first Australian women’s group to meet at night.

Prominent members included Rose Scott, Maybanke Anderson and Dora Montefiore. In 1891 members of this group were instrumental in forming the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales.

One of a series, the Third Women and Labour Conference intended to encourage research and experience sharing which furthered women’s understanding of their participation in the workforce and Australian society. More than 100 sessions were conducted with papers and workshops covering topics such as women and work, technological change and its impact upon women’s employment, women and the family, the programs to assist women to take up “non-traditional” employment, migrant women, women’s studies, feminist theory and practice, lesbianism, women and ageing, women and the media, women and art, work and unions, feminist literary criticisms and the strategies for women in the 80s (discussed by guest speakers Deborah McCulloch and Bettina Cass). The conference aimed to ensure the participation of a wide range of women and to promote contributions on important topics.

The Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women (now BPW Australia) was formed in 1947 as an umbrella body for the then six existing Business and Professional Women’s Clubs across the country. The first Club had been formed in Melbourne in 1925. Membership was initially open to women holding responsible positions in a professional, business, industrial or educational organisation, and to women giving distinguished service to the community. It thus largely represented the interests of middle-class women. It is now open to women in the workforce more broadly.

The Federation was very involved in campaigning for equal pay and equal opportunities for women in employment. By 1980 the number of clubs in the Federation rose to almost 100, representing over 3500 members, although it has since declined. Since its inception the Federation has been affiliated with the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (now BPW International). The Federation continues to work to elevate the status of women generally, remove discrimination and to present the views of business and professional women to government.

It still also operates to provide a space for women’s networking.

The social activism of quite young women is graphically captured in the activities of the Girls Social and Political Union, which flourished between 1914 and 1917. It was a discussion group formed by Ellinor Walker in 1914, when she was just 18, with a friend, and around 20 other young women. The aims of the group were to promote mutual awareness of matters South Australian, Australian, Imperial and international to make the most effective use of their voting rights.

They discussed a wide range of social, political and economic topics, some of which bear currency today—’large pensions being granted to Government servants at the present time of so-called economy’; sweated labour; the wheat scheme, land values taxation.

The Civic League was inaugurated in Sydney on 25 October 1907 by members of the Women’s Club with the objects to inform and organize public sentiment in civic matters and to promote the study, careful framing and systematic agitation of measures of social improvement. It was resolved in 1909 to reconstruct the Civic League on a wider basis outside the Club.

The Association of Women’s Forum Club of Australia was established in 1941 with the aim fostering public speaking abilities in women. By 1988, some eighty clubs had been established although only thirty seven were currently active. In 1997 the Association, by now limited entirely to the Association of Queensland Women’s Forum Clubs, was renamed the Forum Communicators Association and was no longer exclusively a women’s association. The Association produces constitutions, syllabuses, newsletters and holds biennial conferences.

Millicent Preston-Stanley was a politician and first female member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1925-1927. She was involved in a wide array of women’s groups and issues and was President of the Feminist Club from 1919-1934 and 1952-1955. She was also Australian delegate for the British-American Co-operation Movement, 1936-1938. She married Crawford Vaughan in Sydney in 1934.

The Australian Women’s Conference for Victory in War and Victory in Peace was held in November 1943, organised around the theme ‘A War to Win, a World to Gain’. In a feat of organisational excellence, given the restrictions placed on interstate travel during war time, ninety-one women’s organisations from around Australia met in Sydney, Australia, to discuss post war reconstruction and the ‘problems that will effect women and children in the post war period.’ The Australian Women’s Charter, which documents the resolutions brought forward during the conference and is considered a landmark feminist manifesto, was an important outcome of the conference.

The United Associations of Women (U.A.) was one of the most radical feminist groups of the mid twentieth century. It was formed in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1929 by women who perceived a need for a more politically forceful alternative to the range of Australian women’s organisations already in existence. Concerned that groups like the National Council of Women and the Feminist Club had become, by the late 1920s, social clubs rather than political lobby groups, Jessie Street, who had been an office-bearer of both the aforementioned organisations, but had become increasingly frustrated by their conservativism, took action. A series of meetings late in 1929 involving Street and other like-minded women such as Linda Littlejohn, Ruby Rich and Adela Pankhurst Walsh culminated in the establishment of the United Associations on 18 December 1929. The UA was extremely active throughout the 1930s and 40s, and played a major role in organising the Australian Women’s Charter Conference in 1943.

Ray Alberta Cross worked for the New South Wales Bush Nursing Association from 1937 until 1944.

Enrica Vanzella migrated to Australia in 1929 to join her father who was already in the country. In 1936 she married Bill Vanzella and moved to the family orchard, ‘Alta Villa’ in Batlow, New South Wales. Enrica was president of the Batlow Women’s Bowling Club, the Southern Highlands District Women’s Bowling Association and the Batlow and District Garden Club.

Barbara Curthoys was an important figure in the history of Communism, feminism, the peace movement and the campaign for indigenous rights in Australia. An activist in the middle of the twentieth century, she was ‘one of that small band of women who fearlessly campaigned for racial and social equality and world peace at a time when it was politically risky to do so’.

Marie Kohn was an active member and office bearer of the Victorian Federation of Catholic Mothers’ Clubs, later known as the Victorian Federation of Catholic Parents’ Clubs. She served as president in 1969, secretary from 1972 until 1976 and again during the 1980s. During the 1990s she served as the regional representative for Essendon. She was active also in the Catholic Women’s League.