"I have another duty, equally sacred, a duty to myself " Dora: A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen,1879
1. Welcome to Our Foremothers - "Here is one story ..."
3. Sara and Sheyda Rimmer - ; Where We Came In nee Curry, Cutts and Ritchie; Aboriginal Diaspora; Melbourne 1863
4. Smythesdale Goldfields - 'What a Woman on Ballaraat Can Do' and Justice for All
5. The Egalitarian Idea - 1870's-80's Free, Compulsary and Secular Education; Not Equal if you are Aboriginal
6. A Fair Go - Struggle in the 1880's - The Tailoresses Strike; The Coranderrk Petition; Orphans & Institutions; The Women's Suffrage Society
7. Going Backwards - The 1890's Depression; Warracknabeal; Women's Work
8. Running Free - Indigenous Exclusion; 'I have another duty ...' 'Hard Yakka', nursing
9. Women Were Not Quiet - 'A Hospital run by women and for women ...'; The Victorian Lady Teachers' Association; The 1891 Women's Suffrage Petition
10. Building Peace at Home WW1:The War to end all Wars; Conscription; Coming Home to Where? Coranderrk Closure; Free Trade; The Zurich Women's Peace Conference
11. A World Not Fit For Heroes - The Great Depression; Evictions; The Australian Aborigines League - 26th January Day of Mourning; Coping
12. Another War - WW2 - Working Together; After the War; Mixed Feelings
13. Howard's Way - the 1950's - Conformity and Hidden Poverty; Camp Pell: The Lake Tyers Struggle; The Union of Australian Women; Cold Charity
14. A Life Well Spent - The End
Our Foremothers is published by
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Telephone: 03 9486 1808
www.womensweb.com.au
womensweb@iprimus.com.au
© Geraldine Robertson except for study, social justice and feminist sharing.
Our Foremothers |
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9. WOMEN WERE NOT QUIET
On this Page:
SOCIAL STORY: The Hospital Run By Women For Women;The Victorian Lady Teachers' Association; The 1891 'Monster' Suffrage Petition - Vida Goldstein.
The Hospital Run By Women For Women
Queen Victoria Hospital
Women were forced to go to Canada, USA or England to study if they wanted to train and practice as doctors. Even then they had trouble getting work.
What was needed was a hospital for women and children that employed women – a hospital that was run by women for women. A Provisional Committee, led by suffragette Annette Bear-Crawford, was created to raise funds so the clinic could expand premises.
In 1897 the Shilling Fund – where every woman in the colony of Victoria was asked to donate one shilling (roughly $40 today) – was launched to coincide with the Silver Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
The appeal raised three thousand one hundred and sixty two pounds eleven shillings and nine pence.
The Queen Victoria hospital opened in Little Lonsdale St. in 1899.
qvwc.org.au
The Victorian Lady Teachers' Association
Formed in 1885, it was one of the first female trade unions in Australia. It used collective action to lobby around specific issues.
As a sex we are labouring under many and unreasonable handicaps. Men’s interests are not women’s interests, therefore there is a great need for solidarity amongst women. There are no prizes allowed us in the Education Department, we are excluded from all the higher positions.
As there is no valid reason why this inequality and discrimination should continue to exist, women teachers should demand, with one voice, that they be wiped away.
Marjorie Theobald, Knowing Women, Cambridge 1996
The 1891 'Monster' Suffrage Petition
Louisa Lawson:
Will it be believed, a hundred years hence, that such a state of things existed?
The Dawn
Women from the Victorian goldfields were not the first women in the world to get the vote. However, the women elsewhere were in touch with, and depended on support from, women from Victoria
In 1891 Vida Goldstein and many other women went from door to door collecting signatures for a petition demanding that women have a right to vote on equal terms with men.
They collected 33,000 signatures from all over Victoria.
1891 Women’s Suffrage Petition
“To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Colony of Victoria, in Parliament assembled.
The Humble Petition of the undersigned Women of Victoria respectfully sheweth:
That you petitioners believe:
That Governent of the People by the People, and for the People, should mean all the People, and not one-half.
That Taxation and Representation should go together without regard to the sex of the taxed.
That all Adult Persons should have a voice in Making the Laws which they are required to obey.
That, in short, Women should Vote on Equal Terms with Men.
Your Petitioners, therefore, humbly pray your Honourable House to pass a Measure for conferring the Parliamentary Franchise upon Women, regarding this as a right which they most humbly desire.
And your Petitioners will ever Pray.
Vida Goldstein said that the few women who refused to sign the petition were, 'almost without exception, those whose interest ended at the garden gate'.
Women won the vote federally in 1902 with The Commonwealth Franchise Act but it wasn’t till 1908, with the passing of the Victorian Adult Suffrage Act that women could vote in State elections in Victoria.
In 1903 Vida Goldstein became the first woman in the British Empire to stand for parliamentary election when she contested the federal senate election.
This was the first federal election in which women were eligible to vote and become a candidate and Vida Goldstein received 50,000 votes in a state wide contest in which the highest vote was 110,000.
Yvonne Smith Taking Time a women's historical data kit Union of Australian Women
Miles Franklin and Vida Goldstein SLV
