Cirrus@Austlit

'South Australia is a state of firsts when it comes to women’s history. In 1881, the University of Adelaide was the first university in Australia to award women degrees and, in 1894, South Australia became the first Australian state to allow non-Indigenous women the right to vote. South Australian suffrage leader Catherine Helen Spence became the first federal woman political candidate in 1897, while in 1965 South Australian lawyer Roma Mitchell became the first woman appointed to a Supreme Court. These are but a few of the many pioneering women who have contributed to the state’s social, cultural and political landscape. However, in a quirk of history, South Australia remains the only Australian jurisdiction not to have had a woman leader. How might this anomaly be explained?' (Introduction)