Contemporary Australia: Women

26 The Brisbane Feminist Collective and the South Australian Feminist Collective are active online and off, as are a large number of small but committed grassroots feminist groups across the country. And then there are the artists and writers and musicians. Living in a culture where you never see people like you reflected in literature, film or art tends to create what the American poet Adrienne Rich called ‘psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing’. 5 For our psychic health then, we need artists who show us ourselves. But more than that, we need them to show us what life is like for people not like ourselves, so we can grow in empathy and build solidarity. And we need them — perhaps most of all — to show us what we might be as individuals and as a society: to inspire and incite and challenge us to be more and better. It’s brilliantly encouraging that women in the arts have, in the past couple of years, kicked things up a giant notch: ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ (2008) at the Carlton Hotel in Melbourne; ‘Feminism Never Happened’ (2010) at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; ‘A Time Like This’ (2008) at the Victorian College of the Arts; ‘The View From Here: 19 Perspectives on Feminism’ (2010) at the Next Wave Festival, Melbourne; and, now, ‘Contemporary Australia: Women’ (2012) at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. These exhibitions draw attention to the incredible power and diversity of the work being produced by women artists in Australia right now. Women of Letters — a Melbourne-based monthly event in which female entertainers, writers, artists and thinkers read letters they have composed around a theme — is consistently sold-out month after month. The online Australian Women Writers Challenge, which encourages readers to redress the well-documented mainstream bias against reviewing women’s books by publishing reviews of their own, has, at last count, attracted almost 300 reviewers. A group of Australian women reacting to that same lack of female representation in literary pages, as well as in literary prize short lists, has established the $50 000 Stella Prize, to be awarded annually to an Australian woman writer of any genre. for decent childcare facilities, for personal safety on campus and for a youth allowance that will put them above the poverty line. And when they’re not doing that (or studying or trying to earn enough to live), they’re organising Reclaim the Night Marches and coordinating conferences like Network of Women Students Australia and fundraising so everyone who wants to attend can do so. One particularly active and inspiring university student, Marita Cheng, was named 2012 Young Australian of the Year for founding Robogals, an organisation that runs robotics workshops in schools as a way to encourage girls to pursue careers in engineering and technology. A similar initiative, Tech Girls are Chic (not just Geek!) was started by two IT professionals in their 20s who wanted to encourage teenage girls to get into and get ahead in tech industries in Australia. They’ve also gathered enough sponsorship to enable them to distribute their book free to schoolgirls throughout Australia. Then, of course, there are the more traditional professional organisations like the Australian Women Lawyers association that works not only for the advancement of women in the legal profession but also to eliminate discrimination within the justice system and make it more responsive to women’s needs. Or the International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation whose members organise networking, social, educational and training events for women working in what is one of our least gender‑balanced industries. Or the National Association of Women in Construction, or any of the other many industry and professional women’s groups that are extremely active in this country. Some of these organisations don’t explicitly identify as feminist, but their agendas are inarguably feminist ones. If it is explicit, unashamed feminist action and discussion you’re after, then there’s been plenty of that going on, too. In 2010, the inaugural F Conference in Sydney brought together a diverse range of speakers discussing everything from sex work to Indigenous women’s knowledge. There was a similarly wide-ranging program at the Melbourne Feminist Futures Conference in May 2011, and, since early 2010, Melbourne feminists have been gathering monthly for the laid-back, inclusive Cherchez La Femme feminist discussion salon.