Into the Australian Bush - Women, Law and Courageous Acts of Rebellion

Scutt, Jocelynne (2020) Into the Australian Bush - Women, Law and Courageous Acts of Rebellion. Synergies : a journal of English literature and cultures. pp. 1-30.

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Abstract

Abstract Whilst Indigenous Australians made their complex civilisation in the bush, the Australian bush held fascination and terror for those coming to Australia from Britain in the late 18th century. Yet women and men built shacks and families, herded cattle and sheared sheep, planted crops and gardens, making their lives in the bush. Propelled by working just as hard as the men, in jobs men did and traditional women’s jobs, women as former convicts and free settlers developed a determination so that, when confronted with laws providing that men had rights but women had none, women rebelled. Women from the bush were in the forefront of changes to laws extending property rights to married women, child custody, access to education and employment rights, access to ‘male’ trades and professions, and equal pay or ‘the rate for the job’ and equal pay for work of equal value. Women struggled, too, for the most basic right – to vote and stand for parliament - and won. South Australian women won the vote and the right to stand for parliament in 1984, Western Australian women won the vote in 1899, and in 1902 Australia became the first country in the world for women winning not only the vote but the right to be members of Parliament. This chapter relates the struggle for women to gain gardens of their own, and rights commensurate with being human. Key Words: Australian bush, law, women’s rights, women’s activism, women’s suffrage

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