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- Title
THE BATTLE FOR CUSTODIANSHIP OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY IN NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES.
- Authors
Conway, Jude
- Abstract
International Women's Day (IWD) began as a socialist campaign tool for women's rights and was celebrated in the industrial city of Newcastle NSW from 1931. The local IWD committee of mainly 'old left' women sought to improve the status of women through the labour movement and were suspicious of 'bourgeois feminists'. Their sole organisation of IWD was disrupted after 1970 with the arrival of women's liberation, coinciding with the split in the Communist Party of Australia and the emergence of 'new left' women who no longer believed that socialist revolution would give them equality. Drawing on archives, interviews and newspaper articles, I argue that the intersection of these changes resulted in more diverse IWD committees, which organised the first public airing of reproductive issues and feted feminist cultural activism. Old left concerns of peace and Aboriginal self-determination remained important, but the focus on socialist internationalism lessened. While the changes did not occur without ideological frictions, the new diversity contributed to the continued vitality of IWD in Newcastle. This examination of the annual ritual provides a rare lens on women's activism in the city.
- Subjects
AUSTRALIA; INTERNATIONAL Women's Day; WOMEN'S rights; COMMUNIST Party of Australia; CULTURAL activism; ACTIVISM; HISTORY
- Publication
Lilith (08138990), 2017, Issue 23, p47
- ISSN
0813-8990
- Publication type
Article