RTB - The Mark

NATALIE:

Good evening everyone. Welcome. This year, the University of Western Australia is bringing Raising the Bar to Perth. What is it? It's ten academics in ten bars in one night. So we believe at the university that research and innovation shouldn't be restricted to the lab or to the lecture theatre. We're excited to make education a part of our city's popular culture through transforming local city bars into a place where you can enjoy a drink whilst learning about the impact that our research has upon the community. So we're really lucky tonight to have with us, professor Jane Lydon. Jane is a Wesfarmers chair in Australian history at UWA. Her research centers upon Australia's colonial past and its legacy is in the present. Jane explores the social and the political impact of emotions aroused by visual imagery including their application in evoking anti-slavery discourse, in visualizing violence on the colonial frontier, and through the magic lantern performances aiming to promote social reform. So I hope you'll enjoy Jane's talk tonight. Jane will talk for around 45 minutes and then we should have a good 15 minutes for questions at the end. So, please, welcome Jane.

JANE LYDON:

Thank you. Thank you very much, Natalie. Can everybody hear me? Yes, great. So I'd just like to start by acknowledging that we're holding this event tonight on the traditional country of the word (INAUDIBLE) Noongar people, and I wish to pay my respects to their elders past and present. This is particularly topical as I'll get to later on. So I just want to start, I'm gonna use this little pointer, by just explaining how... Tonight, I'm gonna be talking about the campaign of women for rides at the turn of the 19th, 20th centuries and the way they pioneered a range of spectacular techniques that still shape activism and protest today. So I just wanna start with a couple of quotations. First, from a prominent Western Australian feminist 1890s, Ginetta Griffiths Folks. She's saying, "We need to insist on every politician declaring his views of the subject. We need to get it out there onto the public agenda." And, again, even more famous, suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, "You have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else. Fill all the papers more than anybody else if you're really going to get your formula."

So I think this really sets the tone for what I'll be talking about which is the need to put your cause in the public eye. So before I start, can I just ask. Has anybody here been to a protest, demonstrated, pursued any form of political activism, whatsoever? Few hands going up. Can I just ask, what was the cause?

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

Refugees, climate change, South Africa. What about you. Did you put your hand up?

STUDENT:

Gay rights.

JANE LYDON:

Gay rights. Anybody else? Somebody over here, just interested. Yeah.

STUDENT:

Marriage equality and rural education cuts

JANE LYDON:

Yes, marriage equality, rural education cuts. Thank you. And did any of you dress up or make a placard or...? Yes? Yes, I saw hand just shoot up there. Or perform a stunt. Was there an element of performance about what you did? There was, yeah. So, and of course, the point is that you were trying to get your calls in the public eye, attract attention, and make people sit up and take notice. And so process and the history of the way that women campaigning for women's rights did that is exactly what I want to talk about tonight. So before, again, just to start with a definition and a timeline, so the right to vote is called the suffrage or the franchise. Female suffrage, therefore, the right of women to vote. And of course, at this time, the term suffragette was coined. These women had been called suffragists at the Daily Mail in Britain, supported their cause, and came up with the term suffragette or suffragette meaning get the vote and the women took it on and owned it very enthusiastically.

So if we look at who got the right to vote, surprisingly, it was Wyoming territory in the United States. Women there in 1869 were the first. Perhaps, counter-intuitively because this is very much the Wild West at the time. Then we've got South Australia in 1894 and Western Australia in 1899 leading up to Federation. Of course, in Federation, white women across Australia were given the vote and this was much earlier than British women who'd been campaigning since the mid 19th century. It took them more than 70 years before universal suffrage was achieved in the UK. But I just want to note this very shameful footnote here. Australian Aboriginal people were actually explicitly excluded from voting at the time of Federation. It wasn't until 1962 that they were, some people were given back that right. And I'll be talking about that again. Sorry, just... So just for the latecomers, we've been talking about what the vote is and the timeline. So here we are. Australia is actually pretty early in the 1890s. British women, not until 1927, and Australian Aboriginal people shamefully late in 1962. OK.

So up until women began their campaign, so I'm going to start by talking about the British movement, which was extremely intense and often quite militant, and then I'm going to talk about the Australian perspective on this movement. Before the women's campaign really took off, the sort of political tactics that people adopted, well, what we can see here in this very early photograph, this is a daguerreotype. This is taken within a decade of the invention of the medium of photography and it shows the Chartists. So they took their name from the Magna Carta and they were basically a radical workingman's movement. This is a very famous assembly. They were expected to actually be quite riotous in their behavior and the army was on standby. So the Queen was evacuated to the Isle of Wight. They brought the Duke of Wellington out of retirement. And if they did attack London, the army was expected to intervene. So they were expecting civil war. But as you can see, particularly from the clarity of the image, this was a very disciplined and regimented event and these men were lined up very much like soldiers. And you can even see here their placards and their banners as different branches of the movement gathered together.

So this is the very dignified form that a lot of political activism took at the time. So when women began to campaign for the vote in Australia and in Britain, they adopted these traditional techniques. So petitions, this was what was called the monster petition. This is still held in Victoria and 30,000 people signed it in in 1891. They faced a lot of opposition. So in Britain, in particular, a lot of people didn't want to get the vote.

They thought it was inappropriate, even a number of women opposed to campaign for the franchise. A lot of very nasty tactics and arguments we used against women at the time. So not sure whether you can all read this. Here we have a satirical cartoon a well-dressed... Suffragist says how dreadfully you've been treated by your husband. And this woman here has been beaten up basically. And the woman says, well, it might've been worse. Suffragist says, how could it have been worse? You're in pretty bad shape. And she says, well, I might have been in the same position as yourself having no husband at all. So in, in those days, it was actually very shameful to be a single woman, unattractive, ugly. And these were accusations often made against the suffragettes. And here on the right, again, I think you can see the very nasty verging on brutal tone of a lot of this this argument.

So a number of the suffragettes decided very early on in the 20th century in Britain that their peaceful tactics weren't getting them very far. The conservative British government of the day wasn't listening, refused to accede to any of their demands. So they formed what became quite a militant branch of campaigns called the Women's Social and Political Union, the WSPU. And this of course was led by the famous Pankhurst, the Pankhurst family. Has Anybody here seen the film suffragette? So many of you will know the character of Emmeline Pankhurst played by Meryl Streep in the film, for example. So let's see, here she is here. She usually takes center stage and you can see their banner with the slogan 'Deeds not words'. So this was a real turning point in their campaign. And here they are again Pankhurst Emmeline addressing a rally. And here she is with two of her three daughters also very prominent in the campaign. So Christabel and Sylvia. And so they too. They applied a number of these techniques and strategies for promoting their cause. We have some very good photographic records of this, and here you can see that, it looks like one of the Pankhurst in the front, Sylvia actually is carrying a port colors. So this represented the way that that the vote was closed to women, you know, it was a drawbridge that needed to be raised to let them in.

And you can also see these. Oops, they're carrying a lot of banners and placards as well. They held a sweet store. This might seem like a fairly minor fundraising activity, but it was actually extremely lucrative. And a lot of American campaigners sent them fudges and candies from America. So they raised, I think it was, worked out to the equivalent of around $30,000 Australian from running this store. And again, they're rally and their parade and these, in their suffragette colors you can see a banner representing a particular part of London, Hammersmith and the slogan 'Deeds not words."

They also adopted in, in a very sort of military way colors that represented the movement. So this is a way of branding themselves and signifying that they belonged to this cohort of activists. So the colors they chose were white for women, green for get and violet for votes, women get votes. And they used it for jewelry, for clothing and so on. And you can see here in their, one of their publications folks are women. They say, may we appeal once more to members and friends to dress in the colors purple, white and green. By doing so, they will help to make it understood that women are standing together and supporting one another in the great fight in which we are engaged. The

three colors are capable of producing the most delightful effects. And a big part of this actually was linked to marketing.

So when suffrages opened in Oxford Street, its owner was a supporter of the cause. It provided it's rooftop restaurant free of charge to WSPU meetings. And women were advised to go there to get kitted out in the appropriate dresses and outfit to attend the rallies. Different branches of the movement when to different stores. So you can see here Dairy and Tom's was another supporter of the movement. And it says charming hats for the June demonstration, special display. And so the women were sent off to support these, or to shop at these places.

Again, this is a board game called suffragette, or actually I think it was called Pank- A-Squith, which is a hybrid. From the surname of the Pankhurst’s and the prime minister Asquith, who we can see somewhere here up here, very opposed to the movement. And so he played this board game and play it out the drama of the movement. And (INAUDIBLE) of course, it's very powerful. I particularly like this one. So this is a kind of pointing out the double standard being applied to women at the time. We oppose votes for men because men's places in the army, because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this. While they innate tendency to appeal to force and isn't particularly unfit for the task of government. So they're sort of pointing out that these two, you know, two quite different ways of measuring men and women were being applied here.

And of course funny aprons, you can't go wrong with funny aprons. So they use the, you know, these, these quite visible tech... And performative techniques. And indeed there were men support it. So my son requested that I included the men who were involved. So there were a lot of men who were allies, of course, of the women. And a number of quite prominent politicians as well. But also I thought this was quite an interesting... So this group of men came down from Scotland, and somebody wrote a poem about them. We've come from the north and the head is on fire to fight for the women are only desire. So there was, you know, this very strong support from a number of male allies. And you can also see this actually when you look at the photographic record of their campaigns and the prominence of men fighting shoulder to shoulder with the women.

But after awhile, the police and the authorities began to adopt violent techniques. So this event was called Black Friday. It was the first time that their peaceful protests were met with violence from the police. Two women died and hundreds were arrested and many were injured as well. And actually, this is the example I was talking about. So this is a husband and wife here, and the man here in the top here is actually this woman's husband who's intervening to try and prevent her from being hurt any further. So at this point, the arrest started to get more violent. Women started to be, to suffer the effects and they decided that they had to change their tactics, and up their level of confrontation and intensity.

So Mrs Pankhurst acquired a bodyguard. So 25, so these were women. 25 women who were trained in the art of Jujitsu. And this woman, Mrs Garrett, trained the movement, she was apparently quite a small woman as you can see here. And these are photographs of her showing some of her techniques on a pretend policemen. But she became very well known and in fact the bodyguard was very effective in protecting the speakers on the platforms from the police who were trying to remove them. And in fact, I quite like this cartoon that sums it up. It says the suffragette, that new Jujitsu. And they're showing her, dealing with these attacking big burly policeman. So they also

started to adopt tactics such as vandalizing public property. Their policy was not to attack people, but they felt the property was fair game.

So, Mary Richardson was a particularly militant campaigner, and what she did was conceal a cleaver in her sleeve. And she went into the national portrait gallery. And when no one was watching, she thought she'd sort of chose her moment, she pulled out her axe and she hit the glass. And as she says here, when the glass started to fall to the ground, the guard who was on duty right next to the painting, thought that it was coming from the fan light above. So he walked around, you know, sort of looking up and try to work out what was going on and she said she got to the mall shots in.

And of course, she chose his painting which he particularly hated because it objectified and commodified women's bodies. It's since been repaired. But I believe that if you go to the National Portrait Gallery in London today, you can still see this painting on display and, in fact, you can make out the science of damage. But interestingly, in the interpretation, they don't mention this particular incident in the painting's history, which I think is a shame because it's actually very...it's very interesting and important. And then in 1912, they started their window smashing campaign. And here, you see an artist's representation of this. So what they did was coordinate their attack. At a certain time, they'd walk down the main shopping streets of London. They'd pull out their hammer. In some cases, the silver toffee hammer, or just a normal hammer, and they'd smash the plate glass windows of some of these big shops.

So, here, you see the aftermath. You know, next day they're coming back to fix it. Of course, these women were often very well dressed. The WSPU was led for most of its life by privileged middle-class women. And so this was also a technique of theirs. They create this damage and then, you know, in their very nice outfits, they would walk quietly away and the police would often overlook them. So these sorts of tactics, so as you can imagine, were extremely controversial and a lot of fellow campaigners questioned... There's probably (INAUDIBLE) at the back. Yeah? There's room over there as well. And so a lot of people actually questioned whether this was a legitimate form of protest both at the time but also now. So I think this is a very interesting debate whilst this OK, you know, to cause such damage. So here we are. This is the silver toffee hammer and this is a little commemorative brooch that the WSPU made. So very small and they would wear it on their lapel to signify their participation in the movement. And they caused real damage. So this is the aftermath of an arson attack at a railway station and this is a church they set on fire at Hatcham's St. Catherine's Church.

So you can see that this is pretty major and it made people very cross. I think this is quite interesting. You probably can't read this, but it's essentially a double page spread that records all the damage they did. So it starts off and they're just writing on pavements and then, you know, they start to become more and more violent. So they bombed different public sites. So Kew Gardens, The Observatory, they blew up post boxes, and they caused a lot of damage. They threw acid. They wrote votes for women in acid on the grass, the turf of golf courses as well which, of course, did not go down very well with the politicians at the time who were trying to play there. So then, of course, when they were arrested and locked up, a number of them came up with a tactic of going on hunger strike. So they refused to eat. And of course, this is where the authorities responded in a particularly brutal way. And in fact, many people, at the time, termed force-feeding a form of torture, which I

think is quite right. They were strapped down and a mixture of milk and egg was forced through a tube through their nose and that was how they were fed.

And of course, the force and the kind of discomfort of this caused a lot of damage. So perforated lungs caused debilitating illnesses that they had to endure for long after they were released from prison. The government also passed what was called the cat-and-mouse Act. In other words, they were released so that they wouldn't die from the hunger strike or their protests. But then as soon as they appeared on the streets again and participated in public protests, they were arrested once more. And of course, the ultimate sacrifice...some of you may know the story of Emily Wilding Davison who attended Ascot. And as the King's horse galloped by, walked out to try and hand him a leaflet and was knocked down and died three days later of her injuries. So here's her funeral. And, really, perhaps an unintended consequence of this terrible accident was that London and the British world really sort of sat up and took notice. So this made a tremendous impact and people took this very seriously. And here is her funeral cortege winding through London. And here she is here actually but before her death obviously leading a parade.

So this was the ultimate sacrifice really and of course leaning up to...this was at the climax of the movement leading up to the First World War when the campaign ambition was put on hold and there was a truce while the war was on. So I guess the question then is, what did Australian women think about this? What was the...how did Australian women participate in what was going on in Britain? And interestingly, although Australian women already had the vote, they were absolutely fascinated by the British campaign. And even very moderate Western Australian campaigners like Bessie Rischbieth, so very wealthy, her beautiful mansion is still standing in Peppermint Grove if you ever sort of walk through it. Even she, who adopted very different tactics, was absolutely fascinated by the emotional intensity of this British campaign. And there was a lot of movement backwards and forwards as Australians went to Britain. And they gave advice to their British counterparts who did not yet have the vote. So they were kind of turning the Imperial tables in one sense.

So as well as going there, another primary way that Australians knew what was going on was through magic lantern slide performances. So this is a new visual technology that became very popular during the 1890s at precisely the time that the suffragette campaign was reaching a peak in Australia and in Britain. These are magic lantern slides. These were also the first time that this kind of event that we're having tonight was possible. Everyone could gather together and share the experience of seeing images and hearing a story and witnessing a performance of this kind. So, of course, the suffragettes took it up as a tool of communicating and arguing for their cause. So, here is just your basic magic lantern slide. Here is a double projector. So that would allow you to move from one to the other and provide the illusion of movement, a kind of narrative sequence. And of course, the magic lantern slides themselves in these boxes were quite solid glass square objects.

If you'd like to go through this, a bit of room over there, it's up to you.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

OK. So I'll just give you a very, very quick idea of what these look like. So mission (INAUDIBLE), this is Livingston. This is called a chromatrope. This is just a kind of kaleidoscopic pattern. When you turn the handle, it moved. So it actually gave the appearance of...it wasn't static. And this is the solar system. So when you turn this handle, it moved and the stars and planets moved around. So quite dramatic and some innovative techniques. And of course, popular stories like Alice in Wonderland. So the suffragettes, as well, used this new technology and brought the thrilling and humorous episode of the Suffragette movement in Britain back to Australia. And they could be projected on the outside of buildings as well. So I want to talk specifically about Muriel Matters. Muriel grew up in Adelaide. He was Adelaide born. And so by the time she was 17, women in South Australia had the vote. She trained in elocution. I think you can tell that just from looking at the photograph. She was trained. She was a very talented performer. And in 1905 she went to Britain to join in the cause and work for, you know, shoulder to shoulder with her fellow suffragettes.

And while she was in Britain, she participated in a number of very high-profile stunts that got the cause a lot of publicity. She then came back to Australia and gave a series of these lectures, illustrated lectures. You can see here that... So they're saying, Muriel, famous in two hemispheres.

The women's war, vividly illustrated with pictures, fascinating, and rich in humor, and at least some of the stunts that she was involved in. That daring Australian girl and, you know, she talked about all of the different things that she'd been doing. So what were they? One of her most notable achievements was this stunt which was designed to drop handbills and a petition on the head of King Edward on the day that he opened Parliament. So the idea was that her airship would sail over Westminster and she would just drop these onto the parliamentarians. Unfortunately, the wind blew her south and she had to land on the edge of London instead. But, as you can see, it certainly achieved its purpose of attracting attention and she featured in a number of newspapers. So, here, she is with her loudspeaker in hand getting ready to take off. Another of her most well-known exploits was undertaken in the houses of parliament themselves, in the House of Commons. At the time, women weren't allowed on the floor. They had to sit in a special women's chamber with a big heavy grill that meant that they couldn't see or hear what was going on. They certainly weren't allowed into Parliament as politicians.

So Muriel chained herself to the grill with one of these interesting apparatuses and had to be removed by removing the entire grill. I don't have a photograph but here she is. This engraving shows her being removed. And as she went, they had to carry her out through the House of Commons and she was shouting slogans and calling out her demands the whole way, therefore, becoming the first woman to be recorded in Hansard in British Parliament. So, again, very successful stunt. But of course, she was arrested as well and locked up in Holloway in London. And so the suffragettes made very good use of this experience. Of course, it was fairly unpleasant, particularly, the hunger strikes. But when they were released again, they talked about their experience and it became a badge of honor. It was turned into something they were proud of rather than ashamed of. And I think we still see that sometimes today as well. Here they are waving their slogans through the windows of Holloway prison. Here are the Pankhurst's in their uniform.

So they complained about the uniform. Apparently, it was very rough and Scratchy. And of course, it was sewn all over with the broad arrow that signified that they were convicts. They went so far as to restage their scene. So when they had exhibitions and rallies... This is actually taken later, a mock

prison cell. So they had these bills and they posed in their uniforms to reenact their experiences in prison. And here they are again all lined up. So, sorry. Skipping ahead of myself. So Muriel was able to talk about these stunts and share them with women back in Australia as a way of creating this participation in a shared global visual culture. She also used this, her tour of Australia, as an opportunity to denounce the series of Rights that...or the restrictions that were holding women back. So she spoke out against sweating, so exploited of labor practices, they were seeking equal marriage rights, property rights, and so forth. And while she was in Adelaide, she worked with Vida Goldstein who was a prominent Australian campaigner and they sent a telegram to the British Prime Minister saying women in Australia have had the vote for some years now and everything is fine. So we encourage you to take this step yourselves. So she used this very successfully.

So what I want to do now is finish by talking about some of the ways that these sorts of tactics continue to be used and that protestors continue to perform and to use these spectacular techniques. So we've seen this in a number of places in a number of countries and at different moments and used for campaigning for different kinds of rights. So the sit-ins. So, as you know, in the United States, segregation and civil rights were very much an issue during the 1960s. So in the wake of the Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement developed a range of peaceful but also very high-profile public performances designed to attract attention and put their cause on the public agenda. So a number of black and white students, a number of organizations trained in these nonviolent techniques. So here we have two white and one black protester sitting here. And this group of hostile white people, mainly students from the nearby University, are trying to humiliate them and get them to leave by pouring sugar over their heads, for example.

But I think this is one of those great examples where that kind of conflict has actually been turned on its head. And when we look at this image, we now recognize the injustice that was at work and our sympathies lie with the protesters rather than the white audience. Again, these are very performative protests that were adopted during the 1960s and, you know, people would stage these events. That image hasn't worked. Luckily, I have another one. And again, you know, we see people dressing up. So, in this case, we see people dressing up as zombies in these gray outfits to protest in Hamburg, in the Ukraine in 2015. These are fireworks that were let off at a time when the Ukraine was protesting against its president and it was kind of caught between Russia and the West, the NRL. So these kinds of tactics where people adopt a uniform or they publicize a slogan in public places continue to be used. Again, Greenpeace goes into these very high-profile performances. This is another Greenpeace protest. And this is Batgirl, one of my favorites, who's protesting against a coal mine and who hung herself up overnight from a very high crane in a batgirl uniform to attract attention.

And actually, these images are from a friend of mine who is a performance activist. So during the Howard, some of you will remember the John Howard government in the Howard years, and so they dressed up. This is the John Howard Ladies Auxiliary fan club. And in fact, I might have time to just play you a minute or two of some of their work. But they were a performance group that dressed up. They call themselves the JoHos, for short. And they would go and they would try and accost politicians such as John Howard on his legendary early morning run. And you can see here, they're offering him the race card, they're offering him some yellow cake on a plate, and so on. And because they were dressed up in this very genteel and respectable way, much like some of the suffragettes actually, they often got very close to these politicians. And of course, the media loved them. So they

made a lot of political mileage. So my friend Liz Conner, her name is, who leads that performance group, has more recently switched to a different kind of climate justice activism inspired by the Weld Angel.

So some of you may know the Weld Angel who is a performance artist called Elana Beltran. And what she did was dress herself as an angel and chain herself to this very high structure up above...you know, up in the sort of canopy, the trees in the Weld's Valley in Tasmania more than a decade ago. And this prevented logging for quite a long time and really held up proceedings. So inspired by that action, the Climate Angels, as they call themselves, now dress up as angels and they staged these protests. So they lock on, they impede various processes, and generally, try and make their cause well-known when. So when my friend actually started doing this, she said, "Oh, Jane, you should come along and do this. You'd be a great angel." And I thought, "No, I don't think so. It's a bit girly for me." And she said a very interesting thing, which is that...she said, "Women dressed in white as angels will not be physically removed by police." She said this is a tactic that means that the police treat us very respectfully and, you know, they're taken very seriously. So I think that's quite an interesting thing to think about in their movement compared to organizations like Greenpeace.

This seems to work for them, you know, in a number of ways. This group also went to Paris for the climate conference in 2015 and they got a lot of publicity at that time as well. And I think they also enjoy it very much. And then just to finish with a few more, I particularly like Bogans Against Climate Change. And then on a more serious note, so I just wanted to finish actually by talking about the moment that women did get the vote here in Australia at the time of Federation. In two states, Aboriginal people did legally have the vote but there were property qualifications and other forms of legislation that meant that they...that kind of ruled them out. So, for example, if they were made a ward of the state, they, therefore, were excluded from voting. And of course, many Aboriginal people didn't know they had the right to vote. So they very rarely did. At the time of Federation when they were writing the new constitution, this was an explicit issue of discussion. So women in South Australia had the vote. And in order to agree to become part of the Federation, South Australia said, "Well, they can't lose that right. You know, we won't allow that to happen."

And so they did an explicit deal that stripped Aboriginal people of the right to vote in order to allow all white women to have that right across the country. So I think we need to remember that when we celebrate the achievement of women getting the vote. So I just want to finish with this. This is a very sad case. Many of you will know about the case of Ms. Dhu who was an Aboriginal woman who died in police custody. There was an inquiry into her death and charges of ill-treatment by the police. She was very ill. She didn't receive medical attention and she died overnight. So a number of campaigners seeking to keep her case before the public eye used what they called light graffiti. So they projected images of Ms. Dhu and her supporters on to Perth Street buildings to try and keep her memory and to keep her case very much alive. So slogans, unpaid fines, which is what she was in prison for, should not be a death sentence and Anna Carol Roy, a member of her family. So I think these are... You know, even though there are these humorous and exciting aspects to these processes, these are often life and death issues. And we shouldn't forget that. So I'll finish there. I just want to say don't forget women. Use your vote. Thank you very much

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

Yeah. I think we have enough room in here to just call out questions.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

Yeah, I'm happy. Yeah, absolutely. So if anyone has any questions or comments... Yes.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

That is an excellent question. So the question for those of you at the back is what was it about Australia that meant that women here got the vote ahead of women in the UK. And I think when women did get the vote in Australia, so you will have seen from that timeline Wyoming territory, very surprising. And long story short, it was politically advantageous for the men to give women the vote. So these are times, these are societies where the social order, the traditional English, often European social order, is under challenge. So in Wyoming, it was a wild west town, in Western Australia, in South Australia. Again, the social order was under-challenged by an influx of working classes. So in Western Australia, you know, the influx of gold miners, for example, threatened to provide this kind of working-class voting block that would challenge and undermine the leading politicians of the day particularly, of course, premier forests. So forests had explicitly opposed the franchise for women up until the late 1890s when he saw the women's vote as a way of supporting his own platform. So that's why.

So it wasn't a matter of saying, "Oh, that's the right thing to do," unfortunately, but the pragmatics made it attractive to people at the time. And I should say too for New Zealanders in the audience, my timeline was just indicative. So I do know that New Zealand women got the vote a year earlier than South Australian women in 1893. Sorry, woman at the back.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

So the use of fashion?

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

Absolutely. Yes. And in fact, this was a topic of debate amongst the movement because some suffragettes including some of the tankers in the WSPU argued explicitly. They said, "There's a stereotype that suffragettes are all these ugly old man-hating, you know, losers." But many suffragettes you'll see are elegantly dressed and they'll wear their uniform, you know, with ruffles and tucks and attention to detail, and they're exquisitely turned out. And of course, at the time, some of the campaigners thought that was really an inappropriate argument to make as well. They said, you know, "What does it matter what we look like?" And so I think it's interesting that this is something that I would say is probably part of these sorts of debates in our own time as well because we see that stereotype. So if you remember, Julia Gillard was called a barren spinster by somebody whose name I've mercifully forgotten some years ago. And she said, "Oh, so-and-so is living in the 19th century," and she was right. But I think those sorts of stereotypes are wielded against women. And you know, it's still something that... So Beyonce, for example, you know, very glamorous, calls herself a feminist and some people, you know, are critical of the way she presents herself, you know.

So I think these kinds of debates about how to comport yourself were very much part of the movement in the 1890s and early 20th century. And, yes, certainly, that idea that women could be well dressed and elegant and attractive and still be strong and had the voyage was part of the movement. So thank you for that.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

I beg your pardon. Sorry.

WOMAN 4:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

Oh, yes. Yes. Go, the Baron spinsters. Thank you I think there was another question and then you and then someone over there. There was someone at the back, wasn't there? Or maybe it was you, sorry.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

So as I understand it, so they kind of called a truce when war broke out and many of the...and they explicitly brokered a deal and many of the suffragettes were released from prison and they worked for the war movement. So I think that was the major impact that they'd...you know, they abandoned this, what had been an escalating campaign of conflict and violence. And I think that there's an

argument that the way they worked during the war actually won them standing and so forth after all. But of course, as we know, the war prompted a number of social changes in Britain and some people also see that that very rigid social order was challenged and undermined by the turmoil of the war as well. So perhaps we can see that ultimate success as part of those changes. Yes.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

So the question is, where are the other movements by women at the time that did not target people. So, yeah.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

Yeah.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

Well, I think they so that yeah. So I guess that's a very interesting question actually about women using violence and whether that's successful and whether that is something that is specific to women. I think yes you know, women, where it was very much disapproved of that women, were resorting to violence and these sorts of means. And I think that it was controversial enough to attack property. I think had they attacked people as well they would've all been locked up. I mean you know, I think this is a kind of pragmatic strategy that they developed.

But I think the question about whether women are inherently more likely to use these tactics than men, is quite an interesting one. A colleague of mine Sharon Crozier-de Rosa, is a historian who works at the University of Wollongong, has just published a book about shame and women. And so she has written a history of these movements and the way that women often did use violence. But also the responses to that and the way that women generally, they're not really meant to use violence.

And I think this it what was particularly shocking about these campaigns. They were getting out there and you know, using hammers and acid and arson and bombs. And there's quite a good description of a bomb they let off in The Royal Observatory. Apparently, it took a lot of you know, it was a huge bomb. And they had to, the fuse was kind of dropped down three or four levels of this

staircase and it caused tremendous damage. And the comment was, this was a very well planned exercise and they found you know, a packet of biscuits and various other traces of the working party that had made the bomb later.

So to answer your question if I understand you. Yeah, I think it's quite debatable about whether this is an inherently you know, female theme to use violence or not.

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

I think its a really interesting question to think about these parallel or sometimes competing rights. I also do research around the history of slavery and anti-slavery. And I think one very interesting paradox that appears in the literature is that the United States which is the worlds leading democracy took a long time to abolish slavery. On the other hand, Britain abolished slavery very early on in 1833. And yet it resisted reform of its social order and the demands of its radical working people.

So I think sometimes one set of you know, one campaign for rights can in competition with another campaign or another you know, demands for another set of rights. And I think in Australia we saw this with the women's cause versus Aboriginal rights. And you've raised the case of the Irish movement as well. So, very interesting.

I just wanna point out though that the women's movement at this time also had women who like Millicent Fawcett led a branch that stuck to pacifist means and refused to adopt these militant tactics. So I think that is important to remember they weren't all you know, window smashing, hammer-wielding, barren spinsters. But there was a lot of diversity within the movement as well.

Yes?

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

So the Country Women's Association of WA is militant?

STUDENT:

No.

JANE LYDON:

Sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE)

JANE LYDON:

Oh OK, did you all hear that? There was a cartoon published on Friday by Dean Austin showing the militant wing of the CWA of WA, bombarding Parliament House with scones (LAUGHS) so. Yes?

STUDENT:

(INAUDIBLE) do you think we're having our right to protest like this being eroded now? I mean how much longer will we be allowed to do this?

JANE LYDON:

(INAUDIBLE)

STUDENT:

What I was asking was I'm wondering in your opinion, how much longer will we be allowed to protest in this way. I mean do you see that being eroded by particularly the right wing?

JANE LYDON:

I think that's a very interesting question. I don't know that I have the answer. I think in many ways yes, you know that we can see that these sorts of restrictions are tightening up. I do a lot of work with visual resources and I'm very interested in the impact of visual imagery and there are some issues which are increasingly restricted from visibility and I think that's really worrying.

And so for example, historically the press used to play a very important role in Australian military conflicts overseas. From the time of Vietnam onwards, they've been increasingly restricted. So what many would argue is the democratic kind of check on you know, what the public learns about what our government does in our name. I think many would agree that that has been eroded.

I think also refugees locked up in places in offshore detention centres. We have no idea you know, what goes on there unless people contravene the law and the restrictions that officials have imposed on those places. And of course, this has become a real topic for debate. If we can't see what's going on, how can we respond to the problems and the situations of those people?

Yes?

STUDENT:

Do you think that with kind of new inventions such as like the commercialisation of the internet and specifically the millennial generation that's kind of grown up with that and has so much accessibility to discourse in that platform? Do you think that that has affected like some sort of disengagement at all with the younger generation? 'Cause I feel like there's a lot of division amongst students and university amongst whether protesting is, some people say it's not necessary anymore for our

generation or whatever. And it's a question that I've always kind of wondered what your opinion would, might be.

JANE LYDON:

I think that's a fantastic question because of course, technology is what enables these kinds of communication. And they and it's changed and it's changed forms of political protest over time. So I think actually, I was going to show a meme tonight that says this woman looking at a phone saying, what the...you know, I've shared this like 20 times and nothing's changed. And I think that speaks to your question really well.

And again, I don't know it's kind of hard to know but I think these you know, sort of public performances that target leaders and decision-makers, politicians are quite powerful because they have, it forces them to respond. So you know, the quotations that I started with by (INAUDIBLE), Griffith and Emeline Pankhurst. They're saying you've gotta get your cause out there. You've gotta make the politicians respond. So I think there's something in that. So at the end of the day, it's about power. Who's gonna vote for you and so on. But maybe we need to be constantly evolving new forms of protest and new tactics for that too.

STUDENT:

That just made me think. I was in the United States last week and the I guess the power behind the kneeling during the National Anthem, a very non-violent but wow that's caused a lot of discussion in the United States. And then Nike taking him on as an advertising. So it was interesting, a lot of people were saying that Nike would lose all their business. Apparently, it's gone up 30%, so it's yeah, interesting.

JANE LYDON:

Yeah, thank you. That's a great point and I think people were predicting that they would lose market share but actually yeah, that's right. Well, I think we might've drawn to a close.

SPEAKER 1:

And pretty much on time so thank you.

JANE LYDON:

So thank you, Natalie. Thank you, everybody, for coming.

(APPLAUSE)