Dowse, Sara (1938 - )

Sara Dowse is a prize-winning writer of reviews and Canberra-themed fiction. A feminist and women’s rights activist, she was a member of the Women’s Liberation Movement and the Women’s Electoral Lobby-ACT. She became the inaugural head of the Women's Affairs Section of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (now Office of the Status of Women) for the Whitlam government.

(This entry is sponsored by generous donation from Christine Foley.)

• Rosenthal, Dale Sara (name on birth certificate)

She studied Arts at Sydney University, and after experiencing sexism as a pregnant student and in society generally, she became what has been described as an ‘old-style feminist’.

She arrived in Canberra in 1968 and worked as a journalist, publisher’s field editor and tutor at the Canberra College of Advanced Education. She was a member of the Women’s Liberation Movement and the Women’s Electoral Lobby-ACT, and became the inaugural head of the Women's Affairs Section of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (now the Office of the Status of Women) for the Whitlam government. At the time of her appointment, she was dubbed ‘Supergirl’ by the press.

Dowse became spokesperson for 130 organisations that opposed the removal of lawfully performed abortions from the medical benefits scheme.

After a publicised resignation from the public service, she worked as a teacher at The Australian National University, a reviewer for newspapers and journals, and became a writer of novels and short stories. She has also been an interviewer for the National Library of Australia’s Oral History Program. She was forty-five when her first novel, West Block, based on her experiences in the Prime Minister’s department, was published in 1983.

Dowse’s other books include Silver City (1984), Schemetime (1990), Sapphires (1994) - a largely autobiographical work about rediscovering Jewish roots - and Digging (1996). She has contributed to Worth Her Salt: Women at Work in Australia (1982); Leaving School, It's Harder for Girls (1983); Women, Social Welfare and the State (1983), Sisterhood is Global (1984) and Home Grown Anthology (1993).

She was a member of Seven Writers - a group of seven Canberra-based writers whose work vividly portrayed life ‘beneath the surface of Canberra’ - and as part of this collective she contributed to Canberra Tales (1988), republished as The Division of Love in 1996, an anthology of short stories about life in Canberra. The work received an ACT Bicentennial Award.

Dowse has also been awarded the AIPS/APSA Women in Politics Prize (1982); 3M/Royal Blind Society Talking Book of the Year (1994); ACT Book of the Year (1995); ACT Book Reviewer of the Year (1995 and joint winner in 1997 with Marion Halligan). She was short-listed for the Steele Rudd Award (1995) and long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Prize (1996). She has also been the recipient of an Australia Council fellowship; a Harold White Fellowship (1991) and an ACT Literary Fellowship (1996).

Sara Dowse has five children.

Membership

• Seven Writers (1980 - 1998)
• Women's Electoral Lobby (1972 - )

  Dowse was a founding member of the WEL's ACT branch.

• Women's Liberation Movement

Related Corporate Bodies

• Office of Women's Affairs (1974 - 1977)

  Sara Dowse was appointed the first head of this office, created in 1974

  [1974 - 1977]

Related Events

• Revolution and Reform - 1975 and Beyond (2006 - )

  Sara Dowse spoke at the August 6 2005 'Day of Celebration' about '1975 and after'.

Related People

• Barbalet, Margaret Evelyn

  Member of Seven Writers

• Edgar, Suzanne (1939 - )

  Member of Seven Writers

• Eldridge, Marian Favel Clair (1936 - 1997)

  Member of Seven Writers

• Halligan, Marion Mildred (1940 - )

  Member of Seven Writers

• Horsfield, Dorothy (1948 - )

  Member of Seven Writers

• Johnston, Dorothy (1948 - )

  Member of Seven Writers

• Reid, Elizabeth Anne (1942 - )

  Sara Dowse was the first head of the Office of Women's Affairs (later the Office of the Status of Women), appointed to lead the bureaucratic support unit for the Prime Minister's first women's adviser, Elizabeth Reid

  [1974 - ]

• Ryan, Susan (1942 - )

Books

• Barbalet, Margaret et al, The Division of Love: Stories, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic, 1995, 258 pp. [ Details... ]
• Dowse, Sara, West Block: the hidden world of Canberra's mandarins, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic, 1983, 290 pp. [ Details... ]
• Dowse, Sara, Silver City, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic, 1984, 198 pp. [ Details... ]
• Dowse, Sara, Schemetime, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic, 1990, 295 pp. [ Details... ]
• Dowse, Sara, Sapphires, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic, 1994, 219 pp. [ Details... ]
• Dowse, Sara, Digging, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic, 1996, 193 pp. [ Details... ]

See also

• Adelaide, Debra, Australian women writers : a bibliographic guide, Title Australian women writers : a bibliographic guide / Debra Adelaide. Published, Pandora Press, London ; Sydney, 1988, 208 pp. [ Details... ]
• Lake, Marilyn, Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, New South Wales, 1999, 316 pp. [ Details... ]
• Sawer, Marian, 'Femocrats and Ecorats: Women's Policy Machinery in Australia, Canada and New Zealand', United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1996, http://www.unrisd.org/html/op/opb/opb6/op6.htm. [ Details... ]