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'In 1975 Anne Summers set out to describe the way in which Australia's history and culture had limited women's participation in our own society. The result was a devastating and totally original view of Australia that had a profound effect on a generation of women, a book that stands beside the best of feminist literature and Australian history.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Culture Wars and Corporatism : The Cultural Mission in Australian Non-fiction Book Publishing, 1958–2018
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , April vol. 35 no. 1 2020;'In this article I investigate four phases in Australian non-fiction publishing between the late 1950s and early 2000s, focused on works of current affairs, politics and popular history. Many such books, I argue, were published as part of a ‘cultural mission’ in Australian non-fiction book publishing, where an imperative for reform motivated many publishers to publish books they believed to be of greater than commercial importance. The paper first defines ‘cultural mission’ publishing. I then argue that such publishing has played a crucial role in Australian culture wars and struggles over national identity since the late 1950s and that these struggles have played out in four overlapping phases that reflect shifts in national debate and the commercial imperatives of book publishing. These consist of, first, a ‘renaissance’ phase from the late 1950s until roughly the late 1960s; second, an ‘insurrectionist’ phase from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s; third, a ‘reaction’ phase from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, and fourth a ‘corporatist’ phase that gathered pace in the late 1990s.' (Introduction)
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[Review] Damned Whores and God’s Police: The Colonisation of Women in Australia
2017
single work
review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 41 no. 3 2017; (p. 399-400)
— Review of Damned Whores and God's Police : The Colonization of Women in Australia 1975 single work non-fiction -
Is the Personal Still Political?
2016
single work
essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 75 no. 4 2016; (p. 38-46)'Is Nikki Gemmell right and if so, how does this relate to the 'sexual revolution' we spoke of in the liberationist days of the early 1970s?' (Publication abstract)
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How Much Has Changed since 1975
2015
single work
column
— Appears in: Australian Author , December vol. 47 no. 2 2015; (p. 22-25) -
Transported to Botany Bay : Imagining Australia in Nineteenth-Century Convict Broadsides
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Victorian Literature and Culture , June vol. 43 no. 2 2015; (p. 235-259) 'The speaker of this ballad (circa 1828) laments the fact that, though he was born of “honest parents,” he became “a roving blade” and has been convicted of an unspecified crime for which he has been sentenced to “Botany Bay,” a popular name for Australia. Although he addresses his audience as “young men of learning,” the rest of the ballad implies that he, as is conventional in the broadside form, is a working-class apprentice gone astray. Like this fictional speaker, approximately 160,000 men and women convicted of crimes ranging from poaching hares to murder – but mostly theft – were transported to one of the new British colonies in Australia between the years 1787 and 1867. Minor crimes such as shoplifting, which today would merit some community service and a fine, yielded a sentence of seven years, while other felons were sentenced for fourteen years to life for more serious crimes. While non-fictional accounts of the young colony of New South Wales were published in Britain almost as soon as the First Fleet arrived there in 1788, these were written by people with at least a middle-class education, whereas the vast majority of the convicted felons who were transported came from the working classes. Since books and newspapers were expensive and the level of literacy among working-class people varied considerably, few of them would have had access to such accounts of the new colonies. Several descriptions, mostly borrowed from the writings of the officers who accompanied the First Fleet, were published in cheap chapbook form, while occasional letters from convicts to their families were printed and distributed, and of course there were unpublished letters plus word-of-mouth reports from convicts or soldiers who did return. But none of these were broadly disseminated among working-class people.' (Publication abstract)
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Damned Whores ... Sexism Australian Style
1976
single work
review
— Appears in: Refractory Girl , March no. 10 1976; (p. 27-28)
— Review of Damned Whores and God's Police : The Colonization of Women in Australia 1975 single work non-fiction -
[Review] Damned Whores and God’s Police: The Colonisation of Women in Australia
2017
single work
review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 41 no. 3 2017; (p. 399-400)
— Review of Damned Whores and God's Police : The Colonization of Women in Australia 1975 single work non-fiction -
Feminism and the Generational Divide : An Exploration of Some of the Debates
2007-2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies , vol. 10 no. 2 2007-2008; (p. 46-55)'In recent times, a generational divide has emerged within feminism with discussion often centered on the differences between Baby Boomer feminists and younger women, regularly referred to as Generation X. This paper seeks to understand the intergenerational tensions by exploring the debates as they are played out in a number of popular texts. Karl Mannheim's theory of generation is mobilised in order to deepen our understanding of generations. His work has the potential to broaden the feminist generational debates beyond the well-worn stereotypes and offer new ways of thinking about generational discourse.' (Penelope Robinson).
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Intergenerational Dialogue in the Age of Post-Feminism
Mary Walsh
(interviewer),
2010
single work
interview
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , June vol. 25 no. 64 2010; (p. 235-239) A conversation between Anne Summers and Emily Maguire, Australian Political Science Association Conference, Women's Caucus, Macquarie University, 27-30 September 2009. -
Building on Gendered Ground: Space and National Identity in Brenda Walker’s The Wing of Night
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Journal of Australian Writers and Writing , May no. 1 2010; (p. 4-13)'On Anzac Day 2005 John Howard proclaimed that Anzac soldiers had 'bequeathed Australia a lasting sense of national identity'. Howard's speeches and other efforts to revitalise Anzac Day have generated questions about his vision of the Australian nation...
Brenda Walker's award winning fourth novel The Wing of Night entered this debate about the control and uses of the Anzac image in 2005, the year that marked the 90th anniversary of the Anzac landing at Gallipoli. By honouring and remembering a variety of men and women that Howard's version of the Anzac legend ignores, Walker challenges a limited, gendered image of the nation.' (p. 1) -
Animal Handlers : Australian Women Writers on Sexuality and the Female Body
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Outskirts : Feminisms along the Edge , May vol. 26 no. 2012; 'The year 2011 saw the igniting of mass protest around the issue of sexual double standards for women with numerous marches worldwide called 'SlutWalks'. Thousands of women across a range of countries including America, Europe, Britain and Australia took to the streets to defend the right of women to dress and behave freely without stigmatisation and violence. The 'SlutWalks' started in reaction to a local policeman in Toronto telling a class of college students to avoid dressing like 'sluts' if they did not wish to be victimised (SlutWalk Toronto site). The public protest in response to this incident demonstrates resistance to historically embedded discourses that demean women's sexuality and blame women for abuse and rape they suffer. Terms such as 'slut' perpetuate a virgin/whore dichotomy fundamental to the oppression of female sexual self-expression. These marches are a recent example that follows on from a tradition of mass protests for women's sexual equality and right to safety such as 'Reclaim the Night'. Drawing on writing and conversations with poets Dorothy Porter and Gig Ryan, novelists Drusilla Modjeska, Kate Grenville, Carmel Bird and Melissa Lucashenko and playwright, Leah Purcell, this article offers insights into individual creative women's responses to this theme of women's sexuality. I argue that the work and ideas of these women are examples of the unique and powerful dialogue that can happen through a focus on creativity and female stories in Australia.' (Author's introduction)
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Aboriginal Gothic
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Darkness Subverted : Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film 2010; (p. 11-29) In this essay, Althans ‘treats the Gothic as being a mode which continues to endow genres with a certain set of menacing stock elements and unstable characteristics of which the interrogation of boundaries, binaries, and identity are particularly useful in an Aboriginal Australian context’. (p.11-12)