Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Feminism – Australia – History'
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Skyes, Gillian E. "The new woman in the new world : fin-de-siècle writing and feminism in Australia." Phd thesis, Faculty of Arts, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/16473.
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Donovan, Jennifer. "The intellectual traditions of Australian feminism : women's clubs and societies, 1890-1920." Thesis, Faculty of Arts, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/16478.
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Cully, Eavan. "Nationalism, feminism, and martial valor: rewriting biographies of women in «Nüzi shijie» (1904-1907)." Thesis, McGill University, 2009. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=32363.
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This thesis examines images of martial women as they were produced in the biography column of the late Qing journal Nüzi shijie (NZSJ; 1904-1907). By examining the historiographic implications of revised women's biographies, I will show the extent to which martial women were written as ideal citizens at the dawn of the twentieth-century. In the first chapter I place NZSJ in its historical context by examining the journal's goals as seen in two editorials from the inaugural issue. The second and third chapters focus on biographies of individual women warriors which will be read against their original stories in verse and prose. Through these comparisons, I aim to demonstrate how these "transgressive women" were written as normative ideals of martial citizens that would appeal to men and women alike.Cette thèse examine les images de femmes martiales reproduites dans la rubrique biographique du journal Nüzi shijie (NZSJ; 1904-1907) publiée à la fin de la dynastie Qing. En examinant les implications historiographiques des biographies révisées des femmes, j'essai de démontrer l'importance de la façon dont les femmes martiales étaient décrites come citoyennes idéales à l'aube du vingtième siècle. A travers une exploration des objectifs posés par le journal et mis en évidence dans deux éditoriaux extraits du premier numéro du journal, mon premier chapitre essaie de placer le NZSJ dans sa propre contexte historique. Le deuxième et le troisième chapitres se concentrent sur les biographies individuelles des femmes guerrières, lesquelles sont juxtaposés aux histories originales écrites sous forme de vers et prose. A travers ces juxtapositions, mon projet démontre la façon dont ces "femmes transgressives" illustraient l'idéal normatif du citoyen martiale, lequel attirait les hommes ainsi que les femmes.
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Brankovich, Jasmina. "Burning down the house? : feminism, politics and women's policy in Western Australia, 1972-1998." University of Western Australia. School of Humanities, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0122.
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This thesis examines the constraints and options inherent in placing feminist demands on the state, the limits of such interventions, and the subjective, intimate understandings of feminism among agents who have aimed to change the state from within. First, I describe the central element of a
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Anderson, Emma Kate School of English UNSW. "Representations of female sexuality in chick-lit texts and reading Anais Nin on the train." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of English, 2006. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/27319.
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My critical essay uses Foucault???s theory of discursive formation to chart the emergence of the figure of the single modern woman as she is created by the various discourses surrounding her. It argues that representations of the single modern woman continue a tradition of perceiving the female body as a source of social anxiety. The project explores ???chick-lit??? as a site within the discursive formation from which the single modern woman emerges as a paradoxical figure; the paradoxes fundamentally linked to her sexuality. This essay, then, essentially seeks to investigate representations of female sexuality within chick-lit, exposing for scrutiny the paradoxes inherent in and around the figure of the single modern woman. My fictional piece is a work of erotica. It is divided into four sections: The Reader, The Writer, The Muse and The Critic. Essentially it explores the relationships between female sexuality and literature; between female sexuality and feminist, post-feminist and patriarchal values and between literature and issues of truth, perspective and representation. The two works complement each other to illuminate the paradox of female sexuality: one from a theoretical perspective and the other from a fictional perspective. The critical work focuses on female sexuality and its relationship to, and development within, the current social context. Chick-lit, as a new and immensely popular genre of fiction which holistically explores the lives of single modern women was useful for examining the relationship between the sexual persona of the single modern woman and society. The fiction is concerned with a narrower focus: specifically the sexual life of the single modern woman. Through the creative process, it became apparent that working within the genre of ???erotica??? would be not only more useful than working within chick-lit, but more powerful in exploring the themes I was interested in. The creative work draws on numerous points of interest raised in the critical work from, for example, the grander notions of the relationship between object and discourse ??? in this case female sexuality and literature ??? and the female body as a source of social fascination and anxiety to finer observations such as what it means to have sex ???like a man.??? In essence, the creative work seeks to examine the many faces of the single modern woman as a sexual being and to illuminate, on an intimate level, the many conflicts between and surrounding those faces and to suggest that while paradox remains in female sexual ideology, the single modern woman will remain suspended in a kind of sexual paralysis.
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Miguda, Edith Atieno. "International catalyst and women's parliamentary recruitment : a comparative study of Kenya and Australia 1963-2002 /." Title page, table of contents and abstract only, 2004. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phm6362.pdf.
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White, Deborah. "Masculine constructions : gender in twentieth-century architectural discourse : 'Gods', 'Gospels' and 'tall tales' in architecture." Title page, contents and abstract only, 2001. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phw5834.pdf.
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Includes 2 previously published journal articles by the author: Women in architecture: a personal reflection ; and, "Half the sky, but no room of her own", as appendices. Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-251) An examination of some texts influential in the discourse of Australian architecture in the twentieth century. Explores from a feminist standpoint the gendered nature of discourse in contemporary Western architecture from an Australian perspective. The starting point for the thesis was an examination of Australian architectual discourse in search of some explanation for the continuing low numbers of women practitioners in Australia. Hypothesizes that contemporary Western architecture is imbued with a pervasive and dominant masculinity and that this is deeply imbedded in its discursive constructions: the body housed by architecture is assume to be male, the mind which produces architecture is assumed to be masculine. Given the cultural location of Australian architecture as a marginal participant in the wider arena of contemporary Western / international discourses, focuses on writing about two iconic figues in Western architecture; Le Corbusier, of international reknown; and, Glenn Murcutt, of predominantly local significance.
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Baguley, Margaret Mary. "The deconstruction of domestic space." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1998. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/35896/1/35896_Baguley_1998.pdf.
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Introduction:
I find myself in the pantry, cleaning shelves, in the laundry, water slopping around my elbows, at the washing line, pegging clothes. I watch myself clean shelves, wash, peg clothes. These are the rhythms
that comfort. That postpone. (The Painted Woman, Sue Woolfe, p. 170)
As a marginalised group in Australian art history and society, women artists possess a valuable and vital craft tradition which inevitably influences all aspects of their arts practice. Installation art, which has its origins in the craft tradition, has only been
acknowledged in the art mainstream this decade; yet evolved in the home of the 1950s. The social policies of this era are well documented for their insistence on
women remaining in the home in order to achieve personal success in their lives. This cultural oppressiveness paradoxically resulted in a revolution in women's art in the environment to which they were confined. Women's creative energies were diverted and sublimated into the home, resulting in aesthetic statements of individuality in home decoration. As an art movement, women's installation art in the home provided the similar structures to formally recognised art schools in the mainstream, and include: informal networks and training (schools); matriarchs within the community
who were knowledgable in craft traditions and techniques and shared these with younger women (mentorships); visiting other homes and providing constructive
advice (critiques); and women's magazines and glory boxes (art journals and sketch books). A re-examination of this vital period in women's art history will reveal the
social policies and cultural influences which insidiously undermined women's art, which was based on craft traditions.
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Cheers, Rebecca. "Knowing Anne Brennan: Lyric poetry as feminist biography." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2020. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/206891/1/Rebecca_Cheers_Thesis.pdf.
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This practice-led thesis explores the use of lyric poetry as a form of feminist biography through the writing of a poetic biography, No Camelias, on the life of Anne Brennan, a figure of Australian literary history whose life has been sparsely recorded, and whose existing historical profile is marred by misogyny and indifference. The creative manuscript is accompanied by an exegetical essay which analyses poetry by Natalie Harkin and Jessica Wilkinson, two poets who explore marginalised histories through contrasting poetic approaches to archival research. Together, these connected components re-present Anne Brennan’s life through feminist grief, subjectivity and empathy.
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Thompson, Susannah Ruth. "Birth pains : changing understandings of miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death in Australia in the Twentieth Century." University of Western Australia. School of Humanities, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0150.
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Feminist and social historians have long been interested in that particularly female ability to become pregnant and bear children. A significant body of historiography has challenged the notion that pregnancy and childbirth considered to be the acceptable and 'appropriate' roles for women for most of the twentieth century in Australia - have always been welcomed, rewarding and always fulfilling events in women's lives. Several historians have also begun the process of enlarging our knowledge of the changing cultural attitudes towards bereavement in Australia and the eschewing of the public expression of sorrow following the two World Wars; a significant contribution to scholarship which underscores the changing attitudes towards perinatal loss. It is estimated that one in four women lose a pregnancy to miscarriage, and two in one hundred late pregnancies result in stillbirth in contemporary Australia. Miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death are today considered by psychologists and social workers, amongst others, as potentially significant events in many women's lives, yet have received little or passing attention in historical scholarship concerned with pregnancy and motherhood. As such, this study focuses on pregnancy loss: the meaning it has been given by various groups at different times in Australia's past, and how some Australian women have made sense of their own experience of miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death within particular social and historical contexts. Pregnancy loss has been understood in a range of ways by different groups over the past 100 years. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when alarm was mounting over the declining birth rate, pregnancy loss was termed 'foetal wastage' by eugenicists and medical practitioners, and was seen in abstract terms as the loss of necessary future Australian citizens. By the 1970s, however, with the advent of support groups such as SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Support) miscarriage and stillbirth were increasingly seen as the devastating loss of an individual baby, while the mother was seen as someone in need of emotional and other support. With the advent of new prenatal screening technologies in the late twentieth century, there has been a return of the idea of maternal responsibility for producing a 'successful' outcome. This project seeks to critically examines the wide range of socially constructed meanings of pregnancy loss and interrogate the arguments of those groups, such as the medical profession, religious and support groups, participating in these constructions. It will build on existing histories of motherhood, childbirth and pregnancy in Australia and, therefore, also the history of Australian women.
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Weeda-Zuidersma, Jeannette. "Keeping mum : representations of motherhood in contemporary Australian literature - a fictocritical exploration." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2007.0054.
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[Truncated abstract] This thesis argues that the non-representation and under-representation of mothering in contemporary Australian literature reflects a much wider cultural practice of silencing the mother-as-subject position and female experiences as a whole. The thesis encourages women writers to pay more attention to the subjective experiences of mothering, so that women’s writing, in particular writing on those aspects of women’s lives that are silenced, of which motherhood is one, can begin to refigure motherhood discourses. This thesis examines mother-as-subject from three perspectives: mothering as a corporeal experience, mothering as a psychological experience, and the articulations and silences of mothering-as-subject. It engages with feminist, postmodern and fictocritical theories in its discussion of motherhood as a discourse through these perspectives. In particular, the thesis employs the theoretical works of postmodern feminists Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva in this discussion . . . A fictional narrative also runs through the critical discussion on motherhood. This narrative, Catherine’s Story, gives a personal and immediate voice to the mother-as-subject perspective. In keeping with the nature of fictocriticism, strict textual boundaries between criticism and fiction are blurred. The two modes of writing interact and in the process inform and critique each other.
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Conte, Susannah. "The Fifth Sparrow: In Memory of Mollie Skinner." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2018. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/2080.
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This thesis offers a case study in adapting Australian literary biography to the theatre, specifically in the form of a one woman show or monologue performance. The thesis consists of a novel play script, together with exegetical writing which outlines the source materials used and the process and themes under consideration. These themes include those of family (specifically a difficult relationship with her mother), love (including a lesbian affair), life as an aspiring writer, and the protagonist’s difficult to shake sense of damage, pain and struggle. The play offers a portrait of West Australian writer Mollie Skinner (1876- 1955). Sources included her autobiography (both the original manuscript and that edited and published by Mary Durack), Mollie’s novels and her letters—particularly her extensive correspondence with the British author D.H. Lawrence, who she met in WA—and secondary writings. Skinner’s writing has been described as akin to an “untended garden,” rich in imagery, but scattered and often difficult to follow. In recognition of this, my play takes the form of a series of vignettes and images, a succession of heightened moments, choreographed with sound and movement elements for dramatic impact. Mollie’s life thereby emerges as one marked by pain and suffering, yet suffused with rich language and visions. Although Mollie was more than just a friend of D.H. Lawrence, it is nevertheless clear that the better known author offered her support and encouragement that few others did. Together with her Sybil these two figures emerge as Mollie’s only true loves and companions, figures physically separated from her, yet who enabled her life and many of her joys. Skinner emerges then as a modest but indomitable spirt, poised on the veranda, looking at the world through her failing eyesight; touched by the beauty of it all.
The aim of the play is thus to do justice to the spirit of Skinner, without presenting an exhaustive account of her entire life, and in doing so, to present her story to a new generation of West Australians.
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Hanna, Bronwyn Planning UNSW. "Absence and presence: a historiography of early women architects in New South Wales." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. Planning, 2000. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/18217.
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Women architects are effectively absent from architectural history in Australia. Consulting first the archival record, this thesis establishes the presence of 230 women architects qualified and/or practising in NSW between 1900 and 1960. It then analyses some of these early women architects' achievements and difficulties in the profession, drawing on interviews with 70 practitioners or their friends and family. Finally it offers brief biographical accounts of eight leading early women architects, arguing that their achievements deserve more widespread historical attention in an adjusted canon of architectural merit. There are also 152 illustrations evidencing their design contributions. Thus the research draws on quantitative, qualitative, biographical and visual modes of representation in establishing a historical presence for these early women architects. The thesis forms part of the widespread political project of feminist historical recovery of women forebears, while also interrogating the ends and means of such historiography. The various threads describing women's absence and presence in the architectural profession are woven together throughout the thesis using three feminist approaches which sometimes harmonise and sometimes debate with each other. Described as "liberal feminism", "socialist feminism" and "postmodern feminism", they each put into play distinct patterns of questioning, method and interpretation, but all analyse historiography as a strategy for understanding society and effecting social change.
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Faulkner, Natalie. "Section 24 of the criminal code : navigating veracity and verisimilitude in verbatim theatre." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2007. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/16641/1/Natalie_Faulkner_Thesis.pdf.
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This research project comprises a stage play Section 24 of the Criminal Code, and accompanying exegesis, which focuses upon the experience of a woman accessing the Criminal Justice system after she is raped. The play is in the verbatim model and draws upon court transcript, which is deconstructed to reveal the workings of Defence counsel 'storylines' and meta-narratives of gender, sexual availability and power. The exegesis investigates attitudes toward rape and rape victims perpetuated by Australian popular culture, and the way that myths about false rape complaints and 'deserving victims' continue to influence the reporting and conviction rates for rape. The thesis argues that recent reforms have yet to make an impact on the conviction rate or experience of women accessing the Justice system, because of entrenched misogyny within the system itself. Several factors contribute to widespread ignorance of the reality of our own Criminal Justice system, and the thesis proposes that a work of verbatim theatre may redress the paucity of understanding that enables the dysfunction of the current system. The paper explores the different approaches taken by Verbatim theatre practitioners and the appropriateness of the Verbatim theatre model for communicating this particular (lived) experience. Questions of ownership over one's story, and representation in that story indicate the emancipatory potential of a work. Where practitioners do not have a personal connection to their subject matter or material and access material that is already in the public domain, they may feel a greater freedom to manipulate story and character for dramatic effect, or to suit an activist agenda for change. It is shown that a playwright with a personal connection to her material and subject must address issues of ownership, ethical representation, veracity and verisimilitude when creating a piece of verbatim theatre. Preferencing the truth of the Complainant Woman's experience over the orthodoxies of the well-made play may contribute to a negative response to the work from male audiences. However, the thesis concludes that the subject of rape and its prosecution invokes a gendered response in itself, and ultimately questions the desirability of presenting a play that delivers a palatable story rather than an unpleasant truth.
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Faulkner, Natalie. "Section 24 of the criminal code : navigating veracity and verisimilitude in verbatim theatre." Queensland University of Technology, 2007. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16641/.
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This research project comprises a stage play Section 24 of the Criminal Code, and accompanying exegesis, which focuses upon the experience of a woman accessing the Criminal Justice system after she is raped. The play is in the verbatim model and draws upon court transcript, which is deconstructed to reveal the workings of Defence counsel 'storylines' and meta-narratives of gender, sexual availability and power. The exegesis investigates attitudes toward rape and rape victims perpetuated by Australian popular culture, and the way that myths about false rape complaints and 'deserving victims' continue to influence the reporting and conviction rates for rape. The thesis argues that recent reforms have yet to make an impact on the conviction rate or experience of women accessing the Justice system, because of entrenched misogyny within the system itself. Several factors contribute to widespread ignorance of the reality of our own Criminal Justice system, and the thesis proposes that a work of verbatim theatre may redress the paucity of understanding that enables the dysfunction of the current system. The paper explores the different approaches taken by Verbatim theatre practitioners and the appropriateness of the Verbatim theatre model for communicating this particular (lived) experience. Questions of ownership over one's story, and representation in that story indicate the emancipatory potential of a work. Where practitioners do not have a personal connection to their subject matter or material and access material that is already in the public domain, they may feel a greater freedom to manipulate story and character for dramatic effect, or to suit an activist agenda for change. It is shown that a playwright with a personal connection to her material and subject must address issues of ownership, ethical representation, veracity and verisimilitude when creating a piece of verbatim theatre. Preferencing the truth of the Complainant Woman's experience over the orthodoxies of the well-made play may contribute to a negative response to the work from male audiences. However, the thesis concludes that the subject of rape and its prosecution invokes a gendered response in itself, and ultimately questions the desirability of presenting a play that delivers a palatable story rather than an unpleasant truth.
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Miguda, Edith Atieno. "International catalyst and women's parliamentary recruitment : a comparative study of Kenya and Australia 1963-2002 / Edith Atieno Miguda." Thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/22210.
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"November 2004"Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-263)
xi, 263 leaves ; 30 cm.
A comparative study of the impact of international catalysts on women's entry into the national parliaments of Kenya and Australia and whether they have similar impacts on women's parliamentary recruitment in countries that have different terms of incorporation into the international system.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, Discipline of Gender Studies, 2005
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Dillon, Joanne. "Thirty years of feminist activism : women in welfare education reflect." Thesis, 2007. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/30246/.
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This thesis traces the economic and socio-political changes in Australia over the final
three decades of the twentieth century from the perspective of 25 women engaged in
social work and welfare education. A period of significant change in its social,
economic and political history, Australia moved from Keynesian inspired trends to
social democracy under Whitlam, through the corporatist experiment of the
Hawke/Keating regime to an embrace of free market economics under the current
Howard coalition government. Utilising a narrative approach and framing the
research within feminist historical materialist standpoint, after Smith (1991) and
Naples (2003), I explore the ways in which this group of women experienced changes
to the policy context, theories as they informed their education and practice and, of
particular interest, changes to feminist theory and the impact of the women's
movement on social policy, service delivery and in each woman's personal lives.
Participants reported general feelings of frustration at the erosion of hard won gains,
especially for women and living the adage 'the personal is political ', and increased
pressures in their work and private lives over time. There was a sense of distancing of
social work from social policy alongside increasing alienation from a women's
movement that they saw as largely out of touch with an increasingly diverse and
globalised world. In this context however, the women generally remained positive for
the future, providing clear strategies as to the contribution a reinvigorated feminism
and women's movement could make to social work and social policy of the future.
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Chion, Loretta Ravera. "The female dilemma : subversion and art in some novels by Australian women writers." Master's thesis, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/139376.
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Burke, Nicola. "Mills and fur : feminism and femininity in the supernatural romance." Thesis, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:58691.
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The contemporary supernatural romance genre is frequently dismissed as one dimensional and low quality; a genre for an undiscerning adolescent female audience that reproduces traditional and conservative ideologies of gender and sexuality. In this thesis I contest this dismissal of the supernatural romance, arguing that the genre contains multiple representations of femininity and female sexuality. These representations expose and rehearse the complex attitudes surrounding and held by adolescent girls regarding sexuality, femininity and romantic relationships in the early twenty-first century. My research focuses on analysis of Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce (2010), Low Red Moon by Ivy Devlin (2009), Red Riding Hood by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright (2011) and the Wolves of Mercy Falls series, Shiver, Linger, Forever and Sinner, by Maggie Stiefvater (2009, 2010, 2011, 2014). I argue that the texts feature progressive representations of adolescent female sexuality, presenting female sexual desire and pleasure as positive elements of adolescent girlhood. Simultaneously, however, traditional and repressive ideologies of femininity are reproduced, specifically the construction of women as inherently domestic as well as contemporary discourses on beauty, authenticity and effort. In doing so, the texts reveal contemporary ambiguity within attitudes surrounding adolescent girls and girlhood. My analysis is organised around four main themes common to the texts: the representations of the supernatural, domesticity, scent and smell and food and feasting. I argue that these representations are determined by the contemporary supernatural romance’s location between or within not only the romance genre, but Young Adult (YA) fiction and the fairy tale tradition. Each of these genres explores liminal spaces that complicate binaries such as human/animal, masculine/feminine and real/supernatural. Within the texts studied, the influence of these genres on the four themes allows for complexity and contradictions within representations of femininity, female sexuality and (heterosexual) relationships. In conducting this research, I not only analyse the contemporary ambivalence surrounding adolescent girls and girlhood as it is represented within the texts but emphasise the importance of popular literature as a site in which these attitudes and anxieties can be explored, resisted and reproduced.
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Muirden, Sallie. "We too shall be mothers : her story, our story, history: feminism and postmodernism in the contemporary historical novel." Thesis, 2001. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/18195/.
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This Master of Arts thesis is in two parts : a novel, We Too Shall Be Mothers,
(WTSBM) and an exegesis which positions the novel in relation to several
strands of contemporary theory and fiction. The novel is set during the French
Revolution in the southern French city of Avignon and in Vienna, the capital of
the Hapsburg Empire. WTSBM tells the story of a fictional nun, Marie-France,
who leaves her Carmelite convent and embarks on a journey towards
motherhood and fully sexualised adulthood.
The exegesis contains three main strands of theorisation. First, it illustrates
the profound influence of feminist psychoanalytic theory on WTSBM, but also
argues that the novel reformulates and departs from specific aspects of the
feminist psychoanalytic paradigm. Second, the exegesis argues that WTSBM can
be classified as a 'postmodernist, revisionist, historical novel', which can be
positioned alongside other postmodernist, historical literature. Third, the
exegesis argues that WTSBM can be located within contemporary issues of
feminist politics, particularly issues of gender, sexuality and relationship, which
are also evident in Jeanette Winterson's The Passion (1987).
The research material for this thesis has come from a range of sources.
Primary sources include field visits to the European cities of Avignon and
Vienna. Secondary sources include literary theory, novels, and newspaper
reviews, as well as historical monographs and works of religious philosophy and
autobiography.
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Hayes, Debra N. A. "Provisional disclosures: a genealogical reconceptualisation of the shift from differential to equitable provision in Australian educational discourses since the 1970s." Thesis, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1312535.
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Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Notions of fairness and equality are commonly associated with Australian society and culture. This thesis examines how these notions function in discourses of educational provision. It is argued that despite the shift from differential to equitable provision in educational discourses in the 1970s, markers of difference persist in producing differential outcomes from schooling. Foucault's historical method, known as genealogy, is utilised to make the shift in educational provision in the 1970s as a shift in discourse and, therefore, as a shift in relations of power. This shift is also marked in historical terms and for its place in the story of feminist advocacy. Consequently, the theoretical framing of this thesis is informed by twp juxtapositions: (1) history and genealogy. ; and (2) feminism and genealogy. A number of genealogical approaches to reconceptualising the shift from differential to equitable provision are explored. These genealogies work with the same documents as history but they trace the descent of discourse - reconstituting subjectivities, challenging taken-for-granted categories, and destablising already fractured and fragile effects of discourse that attempt to pass as fixed and fundamental forms. The genealogies in this thesis share some similarities with history. Even so, it is argued that they are uniquely genealogical in character reflecting the potential of genealogy to produce forms of analysis that are always hopeful and at times disturbing. The usefulness of this potential to feminists working in education is one of the projects of agency identified early and treated throughout this thesis as part of the date to be accounted for.
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Scerri, Jane. "The power and the passion : representation of single mothers in Australian fiction since Whitlam and a novel, The Verge." Thesis, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:67190.
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This creative practice dissertation comprises an exegesis and a novel. The exegesis explores single motherhood in Australia and its representation in literature, concentrating on the period since the introduction of the Supporting Mothers Benefit in 1973. It suggests that despite negative rhetoric and the obstacles facing the single mother, both historically and contemporarily, single motherhood represents a site for change, agency and becoming. Detractors of such a claim may contend that historically single mothers have been ostracised and vilified, which is true; that they exist on the fringes of society, which is true; that patriarchy reveres motherhood, while simultaneously enforcing its entrapment; which is also true. In this dissertation, while acknowledging the constraints of single motherhood, I argue that when a woman becomes a single mother by her own choice, she has the potential—to the extent that anyone within their material and imaginative capabilities does —to re-imagine her life as both a mother and a woman. As I outline in the exegesis, SMC (Single Motherhood by Choice) has gathered momentum in Australia since the second wave of feminism. Literary depictions of single motherhood have also increased, enhancing the depth and breadth of the representation of a single mother’s lived experiences; an enrichment that coincides with the inclusion of women’s writing into the Australian literary canon, especially since the early 1980s. Feminist philosophy is foundational to this discussion which oscillates between two polar positions: on the one hand, there is the very real oppression and ongoing lack of equality of single mothers, and on the other, single motherhood’s contestable and visionary space for becoming and potential for liberation. The exegesis teases out the great contradiction of single motherhood: while patriarchy enforces gendered and repressive values upon single mothers—thereby limiting their opportunities for transcendence—as a liminal “in-between” space, single motherhood represents an escape, a chance for re-imagination. I explore this re-imagination through a textual analysis of the following works: Elizabeth Jolley’s Cabin Fever (1989-1993) trilogy; Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip (1977), and novella, Other People’s Children (1980); and Amanda Lohrey’s Camille’s Bread (1995). My novel, The Verge, which follows the exegesis, also explores escape and re-imagination, tracking a young woman’s decision to become a single mother in Sydney in the 1990s.
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Trainor, Johanna Jane. "Australian urban squatters of the 1970s: establishing and living a radical lifestyle in inner‑city Sydney." Thesis, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1420912.
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Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Insensitive urban renewal projects and invasive freeway constructions in the inner‑city of Sydney provoked widespread resistance throughout the 1970s. This thesis traces the interconnections between the highly contentious squatting campaigns that took place in 1973 in Victoria Street, Kings Cross, and the concurrent Glebe anti-expressway movement which opposed the decimation of the historic suburb by the New South Wales state government’s planned radial expressway system. Both of the mobilisations claimed a “right to the city” and demanded the decentralisation of political control over the urban environment, the retention of low-income housing and community participation in the decision-making processes. The Victoria Street occupation demonstrated the power of people over their living conditions and uniquely combined self-help with protest while simultaneously expressing an alternative vision for social organisation in an urban environment. At the same time, the Glebe anti-expressway movement successfully halted the state government’s radial expressway scheme, saving not only housing in the historic suburb of Glebe from demolition but also all of the remaining houses purchased by the Department of Main Roads in the eastern suburbs. These actions together paved the way for the Glebe Estate to become a microcosm of alternative living and politics. This thesis argues that the alternative political and social spaces created by the Victoria Street squatters ignited city-wide squatting campaigns. Drawing on oral history interviews with the participants and personal archival materials, and informed by theories of urban social movements, this research also explores the collective social enterprises and women’s services initiated by the feminist movement and ex-Victoria Street squatters in vacant houses on the Glebe Estate. The study identifies other protest actors who realised the potential of collective empowerment through autonomous political action and who established housing co‑operatives and creative social enterprises in vacant Department of Main Roads properties on the other side of the city in Darlinghurst and council properties in Pyrmont. In contextualising and identifying the interconnectivity of these protest actions, this research presents a case study of a mid-20th century international phenomenon: the ways in which contested urban environments could generate radical experiments in alternative living arrangements, social services and political action which challenged not only conventional government decision-making but also the authority of the state in the realm of daily life.
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Conway, Judith (Jude). "The Newcastle women’s movement in the 1970s and 1980s through the lens of Josephine Conway’s activism and archives." Thesis, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1430745.
Full textAbstract:
Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)From the late 1960s, women in the Australian industrial city of Newcastle, New South Wales (NSW), joined women around the world in agitating for a broader role in all areas of society and Josephine Conway was one of those women. Josephine raised awareness of, and campaigned on, many of the feminist causes of the 1970s and 1980s. She was passionate about women’s healthcare, protested against women’s objectification in the media, and lobbied for legislation that offered legal parity for women. She fought never-ending battles for the right to legal and affordable pregnancy terminations; and campaigned for equal employment opportunities and the provision of childcare services. Josephine supported women’s activism in the peace movement and for women’s ordination; and was involved in the blossoming of feminist spirituality and creativity in Newcastle. Using Josephine’s extensive archives as a lens, supplemented with oral histories from campaign allies, the thesis explores their pathways to feminism and shared activism. It dissects the women’s groups which Josephine joined, and the modes of operation and relationships within them, as well as the actions that were carried out in pursuing their feminist causes. The themes that emerge are, first that Josephine’s role in the women’s movement was that of the ‘committed individual’ posited by Gerda Lerner as necessary for social change. Second, the thesis demonstrates the wide range and value of the macro and micro-actions undertaken by Josephine and her cohorts in mounting and maintaining effective campaigns. Third, this study reveals the web of relationships and the flow of ideas, tactics and artefacts along transnational and national feminist pathways, and between the capital cities and the regions, which were essential for bringing about nationwide change. In doing so it reveals an important regional story which has not previously been included in histories of the Australian women’s movement.