The land rights movement would not have survived had it not been for the role of Aboriginal women … [T]he strength of nameless hundreds of women, tempered by years of direct conflict with bureaucracies (police, welfare agencies, schools) in defence of their children, played an important role in the development of Aboriginal organisations and the general demand for land rights. Yet while the land rights issue has passed from the hands of the young male miltants of the late 1960s and early 1970s to the National Aborignal Conference (predominantly mature males), Aboriginal women have consistently demanded that the needs of women be taken into account in land rights …
Category: Event
Black and Minority Ethnic Women and the Sea in World War 2
… seasickness was the main feature of the voyage. The Atlantic can be particular unpleasant in winter and the Ile de France’s zigzagging worsened it. One of the post women, Miss Rhoden, said she had to hang on with all her strength the veering was so severe – and noisy: ‘the sirens, the banging, the horns, and the whistles; the galvanized cans were banging and clanging.’ And in their cramped cabin women’s perfume and cosmetics whizzed off the shelves, ‘flying through the air like marbles.’
For My People – Part 1
One of my earliest memories of her was when I was quite young, at a time when so-called ‘half-caste’ children were taken away from Aboriginal families. Some gudia came to the house. They were wanting to take me. My grandmother wouldn’t let them and chased them out of the yard. That is a powerful memory of a strong Black woman.
‘As a Woman I have no Country …’
Why it is that US First Ladies are held in such reverance and high esteem, with a prominance not extended, generally, to ‘political wives’ in other countries – Britain, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, France, Germany, the USSR (as it was) was not addressed by the presentations, yet it remains an issue for historical and cultural exploration and analysis.
Music & Liberation: Music and Activism in the UK WLM, 1970-1989
… I’ve been handed countless audiotapes of recordings of practices, live performances and demos that have been lurking at the back of cupboards or underneath beds, unheard for decades. Some are the only recordings of the bands in existence, and you will be able to listen to them at the WLMA & Music & Liberation Exhibition …
Porno-Chic and Advertising in Women’s Magazines
Despite the reconfiguration of gender roles experienced in the West over the last half century, advertising has remained anchored within a conservative and sexist frame. On the one hand, advertisers have attempted to devise campaigns addressing a self-sufficient and independent woman, while on the other they have repeatedly argued that society demands from them the display of nude women selling themselves through a pornographic lens.
A Revolutionary Political Campaign – Yet (Women’s) World Moves Slowly …
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.’
Captured by Germans – WWI Women Seafarers
German crew … wondered at the women’s calmness. ‘Aren’t you afraid of being shot?’ they asked. After all, Edith Cavell had been executed by firing squad just seven months earlier. ‘“We are Englishwomen” was considered sufficient reply,’ claimed the women’s company magazine …
Who Are All These Friends? Denial & The Language of ‘Security’
… these bodies, their names, their stories, and the infinite preciousness of their lives, were dissolved not by the sea but by a deadly language of ‘national security’ that licenses both cruelty and indifference to them. This language removes the unnamed ‘asylum seekers’ into the category and name of ‘outlaws’, out of the protection of the law of the land or of the law of the sea. And this language removed them out of the category of friends to whom the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises we have a duty to act ‘in a spirit of brotherhood’. This language tells those who would follow them that they have no right to escape desperation, inequality or persecution, and that no security in law will be provided to them if they do attempt to escape.