Three Lively Feminist Lives single work   review  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Three Lively Feminist Lives
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'These three books chronicle the lives of Australian feminists Germaine Greer, Iola Mathews and Anne Summers. By way of brief introduction: Summers is one of Australia’s best-known feminists. She was part of the collective that founded Elsie, the first women’s refuge in Australia, and in 1975 she authored the Australian feminist classic Damned Whores and God’s Police.Summers also worked as a journalist in Australia and internationally, and as a political advisor at the highest level of government to improve the lives of Australian women. Unfettered and Alive is the second volume of her autobiography, which begins in 1976 where her first, Ducks on the Pond (1999), ends. Iola Mathews started her career as a journalist at The Age and was one of the founding members of the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL), an organisation that sought reform of party politics along feminist lines. She also worked at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) where she pursued equal pay and paid parental leave. Germaine Greer wrote what is sometimes called ‘the classic text of the [women’s] movement’ The Female Eunuch (1970) and is a global celebrity, thinker and provocateur.' (Introduction)

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    y separately published work icon Lilith no. 26 January 2020 23529627 2020 periodical issue 'As we write this editorial, the COVID-19 pandemic is entering its third month. Our everyday lives have drastically changed, requiring us to come to grips with this new normal. In seeking to make sense of the tragedy and immense scale of this global health crisis, parallels have been drawn to other pandemics, particularly the 1919 Spanish flu, which in Australia killed an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 people.1 As feminist historians, we are especially interested in the gendered dimensions of pandemics past and present, including how they have impacted women. There is relatively little research on the gendered effects of the 1919 Spanish flu. We do know, however, that nurses, like those on the frontline today, would have been at higher risk of infection. The responsibility to entertain children, at home due to school closures, also fell entirely on women. Moreover, war widows or those with husbands still overseas who became ill were still expected to carry out their caregiving roles.2 Almost exactly a century later, the context in which COVID-19 is occurring is vastly different; but there are similarities. Opinion pieces proclaim that its flow-on effects have left women ‘anxious, overworked [and] insecure’ and that lockdowns are a ‘disaster for feminism’ as they have placed the burden on women to balance full-time employment with home-schooling and domestic chores.3 Household isolation has also led to a worldwide increase in domestic violence, prompting the United Nations to urge governments to ‘prevent and redress’ violence against women in their pandemic response plans.4 More broadly, it has warned that as a result of COVID-19 and its associated economic impact, ‘even the limited gains [towards gender equality] made in the past decades are at risk of being rolled back’.' (Rachel Harris and Michelle Staff, The Importance of Feminist History in a Global Pandemic : Editorial introduction) 2020 pg. 239-246
Last amended 2 Dec 2021 10:21:03
239-246 Three Lively Feminist Livessmall AustLit logo Lilith
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