In the archives of The Women’s Library London the first ever political campaign by a woman politician is conserved.  This valuable archival material, carefully preserved for posterity by Vida Goldstein, tells of her first political campaign in 1903 when as a woman of thirty-four she set out to win a Senate seat in the Australian Federal Parliament.

Her campaign was followed enthusiastically by women and men around the world with The Age newspaper reporting on 11 August 1903:

‘The people of Australia must be well aware that, in this matter, the eyes of the whole world are upon them.’ 

Vida Goldstein’s challenge in 1903 Australia meant she had to deal with thousands of years of discrimination to win over the public.  At the heart of her campaign was her recognition of the power of visual technology, making Vida Goldstein the first politician in history to use visual technology for political purpose and gain.

 The whirrings of the technological age had only just begun with photography and the (now defunct)  ‘Limelight/Magic Lantern’ technology, a forerunner to the movie business, today a massive industry.  Vida Goldstein elected to employ both. Radical and innovative, she made herself known, bringing in the crowds and spreading the message that women and men should be equal politically, legally and in society.

Vida Goldstein’s political photograph – the photograph used on all her campaign material and provided to media and supporters – was expressly designed for political distribution.  She was the first in the world to do this, seeing the importance of how she was portrayed visually and that it was vital to exercise control over her own image. Greatly sought after, her photographs were reproduced in newspapers passed among journalists and between ordinary people, making her a political pop icon. She was the ‘first woman in the world standing for political office’.

Straddling high and low culture and championing the importance of appealing to every ‘level’ of the polity – ‘high’ and ‘low’, Vida Goldstein maximised the Magic Lantern or Limelight stereopticon technology, which involved projection through the use of lime as a light source of two still images on glass slides resulting in three dimensional images. This took skill and perspicacity, as well as care and attention to technicalities: the medium was sometimes prone to bursting into flame.

Vida Goldstein’s carefully crafted political campaign ignited the public’s imagination, attracting hundreds to each session.  Calling it a ‘chat’, showing 52  stereopticon slides entitled To America and Back and charging a ‘silver coin’ for admittance, she primed the population for political revolution by aligning herself to the most powerful man in the world, United States’ President Theodore Roosevelt.  Her description of her meeting with Roosevelt meant that the public immediately saw her as a powerful woman with powerful friends.  Roosevelt was ‘the ally’ but also an ally who objected to ‘political corruption’: in this Vida Goldstein was and was seen by many to be encouraging and bringing on board ‘good men’.

‘I met President Roosevelt last year. I could not be in his presence for five minutes without recognizing his strength of character.  You know that you are speaking to a man of dominating and magnetic personality.  His whole public career has been one of continual work, of storm and stress, for he has been the uncompromising enemy of social and political corruption.’

Vida repeated the stereopticon lecture over and over again in towns and cities across Victoria and the neighbouring state of South Australia, recognising the power of conflating the two messages, as is evident in her own words:

‘I believed that people would come to my meetings out of curiosity to see the wild woman who sought to enter Parliament.  They came, they saw, I conquered – that is, my arguments did.’ (V. Goldstein, 1943)

Injustice and discrimination were central to Vida Goldstein’s campaign, as in her statement:

‘We thought that we lived under a democracy, but it was a male-ocracy and the fact is that women want our political customs changed so that they can have a say in matters themselves.’

But just as print media is vital to the success or otherwise of a political campaign or politician so it was for Vida Goldstein.  So skilled was she that her every word, gesture and political repartee was recorded. Yet as her campaign successfully gained ground the media men and their powerful counterparts throughout society embarked on a vicious campaign to discredit her:

‘The candidature of Miss Vida Goldstein for a seat in the Federal Senate can scarcely be taken seriously by the electors, but it nevertheless calls for comment.  In the latter event it would perhaps be the best thing that could happen to the “emancipation” of “woman” movement if the temerity of this venturesome young lady was made to suffer the stern and effective discouragement of monetary penalty.’

This was a reference to the fact that if a candidate won fewer votes than a set minimum, the candidate’s ‘registation’  or ‘nomination’ fee would be forfeit.

Similarly the Warnambool Standard newspaper was clearly unapologetic about what they saw as the ‘problem’ – namely, that Vida Goldstein was a woman, so on 3 December 1903 saying:

‘The principal objection raised against her candidature is that she is a woman, and this is the feeling that she has to overcome if she is to be included amongst the successful.’

Despite doing extremely well in garnering votes, Vida Goldstein was unsuccessful in gaining a seat. She blamed the print media for her failure – particularly The Age.  In 1904 she wrote an analysis of the campaign, concluding:

‘The world moves slowly my masters, woman’s world especially, but it does move, and that’s something to be thankful for.’ 

Vida Goldstein’s political campaign led the way for the women who have followed.  Just over one hundred years later Australia has voted their first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Nevertheless, albeit one hundred years later the discriminatory residue lingers strongly.

In the latest turn of events Prime Minister Gillard continues to be vilified by the media with Alan Jones, a radio personality well-known in Australia, suggesting:

‘Julia Gillard should be put in a chaff bag and thrown out to sea.’ (1)

And from the leader of the opposition Tony Abbott:

‘The trouble with Julia Gillard is that she just won’t lie down and die.’ (2)

Just as with Vida Goldstein the vilification centers on the Prime Minister’s being a woman – the world indeed ‘moves slowly’. Nonetheless, it does more. And just like Vida Goldstein Julia Gillard has said:

‘I will not lie down and die.’ (3)

Karen Buczynski-Lee © July 2012 

Karen Buczynski-Lee is a Filmmaker, Writer and Researcher. This contribution based her MA (Research) Film and TV thesis, entitled ‘Mourning Becomes Electric: Vida Goldstein Takes On Politics’ and ‘When Vida Met the President: A Documentary Drama – Film Script’.  

Editor’s Note: Karen Buczynski-Lee’s researches led her to find a small book written by Vida Goldstein, which had been mislaid amongst the Melbourne State Library stacks and out-of-print for decades. Karen Buczynski-Lee succeeded in having the Victorian Women’s Trust (VWT) reprint it for sale and distribution to schools and libraries: the VWT acknowledges it as the most successful production the VWT has ever managed, and the book continues to be reprinted regularly.

References:

(1) Alan Jones quotation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsaVpepMyA8 (accessed 2 August 2012)

(2) Tony Abbott quotation:  http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/julia-gillard-wont-lie-down-and-die-says-tony-abbott/story-fn7x8me2-1226370429139 (accessed 4 August 2012)

(3) Prime Minister Gillard quotation: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/pm-offers-olive-branch-to-sydney-after-g20-snub/story-fncynkc6-1226426336093  (accessed 4 August 2012)

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Margaret Bondfield (1873-1963) was the first Labour woman to become a cabinet Minister and the first UK cabinet Minister. The year was 1929, some six years after she had been elected to Parliament. It was not the first time Margaret Bondfield was to be a ‘first’. In the year she took her place in Parliament, she became the first woman to chair the Trades Union Congress (TUC), a consequence of her trade union activism and her commitment to trade unionism.

Yet this – commitment and activism – was not all that promoted Margaret Bondfield into posts where no woman had sat or stood before. It took tremendous will, a belief in herself and in the ideas and ideals she espoused, the courage to keep going when the going was tough – as it so often must have been – and the will to continue to affirm that politics, trade unionism and, indeed, engagement with the world of rights, power, influence and authority was right where women should be.

Not quite a century has passed since Margaret Bondfield made the great stride for women into the British Labour Party cabinet room. In 2029 celebrations of the feat will be significant, with Labour women affirming the central role played by this dedicated woman and her importance in advancing women’s rights and the rights of women to perform in the public arena. Yet will the revelry take place in circumstances where women share an equal number of places in cabinet, or in the Parliament? Although Labour is doing relatively well, with a woman as Deputy Leader (Harriet Harman) and, of some twenty-seven places,  a dozen women serving in the shadow cabinet, will the numbers remain roughly equal from now on, and will there be another woman Prime Minister? Will there be 300+ women in Parliament, making up the numbers on both sides of the chamber?

To bring about the radical change needed to propel women into elections and safe or winnable seats and, hence, the possibility of women being there in numbers anyway akin to those of men, the Labour Party has adopted the running of ‘Women’s Lists’ for candidate selection in stipulated seats. In the upcoming round, Peterborough, Norwich, Carlisle, Redcar, Bristol West and Dover are committed to all-women lists, whilst Crewe and Nantwich, Cambridge, Chatham and Aylesford, North Windon and Bedford are running ‘open’ lists. All-women lists do not always ‘happen’ where they are scheduled to occur. Some grumbling or rumbling is heard occasionally within and without the Labour Party. Nonetheless, the principle is accepted ‘in principle’ that affirmative steps must be taken to ensure that women may be represented in Parliament in greater numbers and that the goal of equal representation may be met. Are there precedents?   

 When in the early 1940s Robert Menzies determined to create the Liberal Party of Australia by combining the United Australia Party (UAP) with smaller conservative-leaning groups, he faced a determined group of women when he sought support of the conservative women. They had terms and conditions, non-negotiable if their numbers were to strengthen Menzies’ proposed new political force. Their support was contingent upon Menzies (and his supporters) agreeing to affirmative action for women in the Party: places in the administrative wing and on the executive were to be ‘reserved’ for women, so that women would have a voice in Party policy and organisation. The women won their point, and Menzies secured their votes.

Years later, however, when the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was brought to acknowledge the need for affirmative action, setting the goal in the first instance as 30 per cent of women preselected for parliamentary seats at state and federal elections, Liberal Party women scoffed at the idea. Bronwyn Bishop, a Liberal MP who had striven for years to be preselected for a winnable seat – eventually succeeding – was particularly scathing. Her contention was that affirmative action was degrading for and to women: that women should succeed on ’merit’ and that positive steps to advance women would see inferior candidates who would always be regarded in this light through not ‘making it on their own’. The media was also divided.

At that time, a large slew of women were elected in what was seen as a ‘landslide’, when the Keating Government was defeated and John Howard came to power as Australian Prime Minister. On that basis, many contended that ‘merit’ had parachuted those women into Parliament and no other action was required. Yet the numbers did not persist, with subsequent elections resulting in some new members holding on to their seats, whilst others saw their seats returning to the left side of politics.

Meanwhile, women recognised the importance of funding and resources in running political campaigns: seats could not be won by talent alone. Early Money is Like Yeast – Emily’s List – was born in the United States to provide women candidates with basic funding, or at least ‘seeding grants’ to get their campaigns off the ground. Joan Kirner, the first woman Deputy Premier, then first woman Premier, of Victoria, was the leading force in bringing Emily’s List to Australia. Granted an AC (Companion of Australia in the Order of Australia awards – the ‘Australian CBE/OBEs’) in the June 2012 Honours List, Joan Kirner was quoted as saying she was looking eagerly for the next Victorian woman Premier: she did not want to remain the ‘first and only’. Emily’s List continues to support women candidates and, hoped Joan Kirner, it would ensure that women Premiers took their place in a long list begun with her ascension.

Is there any counterpart in the United Kingdom? The Conservative-Liberal-Democrat Coalition Government has its women members and women ministers. Yet the numbers are not equal: of twenty-three in the ministry, five are women: Therese May, the most senior, as Home Secretary, Baroness Warsi as Conservative Party Chair (presently standing down), Caroline Spellman, Environmental Secretary, Justine Greening, Transport Secretary, and Cheryl Gillan, Welsh Secretary.  As for Members, the House of Commons comprises 650 MPs. Of these, 505 are men, with 145 women.

Some years ago, Lesley Abdulla established the 300 Club, organised to advance women’s parliamentary numbers. That goal lies distant, and does not appear to be on target for 2029. Recognising this, Labour Women’s Network (LWN) launched the Margaret Bondfield Club, with aims paralleling those of Emily’s List as well as, more broadly, being ‘a new way of doing more … in making sure women play a full part in the life of the Labour Party and its future’. 

Power lies in the political arena,  just as it does in law, business, ‘The City’ and all our institutions. Ultimately, however, these institutions will not be ‘ours’ in the sense of women and men having equal involvement, exercising equal authority, influence, rights and power – until women and men participate equally at all levels. History shows that capabilities, talent and ability are not enough. It remains to be seen what effect affirmative action may have in the longterm, and whether initiatives such as the Margaret Bondfield Club achieve their founders’ hopes.

Margaret Bondfield did her bit last century. LWN’s stated desire is that the Margaret Bondfield Club will do its bit in making room for a multiplicity of giant strides by women, for women, this century.

Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt is a filmmaker and historian, whose films include ‘The Incredible Woman’ and ‘A Greenshell Necklace’ (with Karen Buczynski-Lee) and the DVD Installation ‘Covered’ – www.theburqahdebates.com/  Her books include The Sexual Gerrymander – Women and the Economics of Power. She is a member of LWN.

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