Robin Joyce

Part 1

Myths which limit women’s role and the perception of that role are abundant. The political arena is no exception and the negative images significantly undermine women’s perception of their heritage as legitimate actors in the political process. Women’s political activity in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the early 1900s in Western Australia effectively undermines the myth that they were political housekeepers rather than political activists.
Discussion of women’s work for the party in this early period has concentrated on what has traditionally seen as women’s work: tea making, fund raising and supporting male activists. Although many women undertook these tasks it is also true that many were active in areas which have been seen as exclusively male. Women members made a major contribution to establishing the Western Australian  Branch of the ALP. They were active in both the political and industrial wings of the movement, at times concentrating on the Party and at others on trade union activity, often combining the two. There was also a strong overlap with the women’s organisations in the Party and non-party political women’s organisations. Women were involved in a wide range of activities from the early 1900s in suburban, country and goldfields branches and unions. They organised new branches (women’s and mixed), addressed election rallies, enrolled people to vote and worked at all levels of the party except that of parliamentary office. Their union activity also took place on a wide scale, geographically and industrially.
Although some figures stand out, notably Jean Beadle from the early 1900s and Cecilia Shelley from the 1920s, a large number of other women also participated. Some of these women’s names are recorded, many are not. However, the extent of the women’s activity and its success indicates that there was strong group of women who believed in the ALP and women’s rights and responsibilities within that party.

Jean Beadle, (1) ultimately known as the ‘Grand Old Lady of Labor’, had a long history of activism in the ALP and trade unions. Although the title was apparently an accolade representing the labour movement’s respect for Beadle’s work it has been part of the process of maintaining the myth about women’s political activism. It suggests a woman who remained within the traditionally acceptable role for women  and effectively subsumes the radical woman who in the early 1900s made feminist demands on the labour movement.  Her militancy in the organisation of women in industry is also rendered invisible , a position which seriously limits the way in which women in industrial relations are portrayed in Australia in the early part of this century. The woman who held open air union meetings at the Cottesloe Rope Works in the middle of winter, who fought for the right of unmarried women to be permitted access to a maternity hospital in 1896 and who was described as ‘worth a small army of men or other women’ (Evelyn Wood Papers, Battye Library, Perth) appears forgotten. Although it is unlikely that her admirers who described Jean Beadle as a grand old lady wished to efface her they were successful in changing the image she projected to one which fits more tidily into the myth that women were ‘housekeepers’ rather than activists.

From her arrival in Western Australia in 1901 Jean Beadle became an unpaid organiser in the ALP, firstly on behalf of women and eventually as a full participant in Labor politics. Her work included state wide travel where she conducted numerous public meetings, publicising Labor philosophy and enthusing women and men to found branches of the ALP. Not only was the work arduous in a physical sense but a heavy responsibility in political terms. One meeting was held in hot summer conditions on the goldfields during a violent dust storm, another after travelling over boggy roads in the rain. Such travel over long distances in indifferent transport was not unusual. In a South West tour of four days three branches were formed and electioneering also undertaken by women took place under similar climatic conditions. The task of enrolling voters also often fell to women, a task that required enthusiasm and tactics in a period when voting was not compulsory. It is clear that Beadle and other Labor women who worked in a similar way were required to have stamina and political expertise. The latter was  necessarily a part of Beadle’s role; to be asked to fulfil the functions of organiser, Party platform speaker and purveyor of Labor principles she must have had status as a politically acute, committed and intelligent Party member.

Perhaps she was too able as  vituperative comments in the press attest’: she was referred to as ‘…a tough snag to bump against in any argument reflecting on the newly arrived woman politician’ (The Sun, 13 September 1908); some reports demanded that she return home and ‘mind the baby’; and  others derided women’s political activism (EWP).

Despite such coverage, Beadle stood for Senate pre-selection in 1931. She failed to gain a safe place on the Labor ticket, possibly because of her age (64), maybe because legitimacy as a female political activists fell short of a parliamentary position. (2) However, she had a high profile role in various administrative positions in the Party: delegate to Eastern Goldfields and Metropolitan Councils, positions at Labor Women organisations and Conferences, and the Sate Executive which interpreted policy between Congresses.  She was also a delegate to most Congresses and a member of the Agenda Committee. In 1917 she became the Woman Organiser, with the responsibility of organising unions in which women predominated. She contributed to policy committees and made proposals for Workers’ Compensation Legislation.

So, for Jean Beadle there was some political housekeeping, a requirement at all levels of a political party and also similar to that undertaken by men active in the ALP. At the same time, she was involved in a multitude of political tasks that cannot be named as anything by political activism.  She was one of the most well known, but not the only, Labor woman who undermined the myths surrounding women’s political roles in the early 1900s in Western Australia.

(1) Unfortunately, the only photo of Jean Beadle available can only be viewed on line. It is protected from being shown here as it is ‘All Rights reserved’ to the Battye Library, Perth.

(2) The first Labor woman senator was Dorothy Tangney, elected in 1943.