The Australian Women's Register Blog

Congratulations to Professor Ingrid Scheffer: L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science award Asia-Pacific laureate.

Nikki Henningham — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:27:34 +0000

Female scientists in Australia do not get the recognition, funding or careers they deserve. But serious steps are being taken to change that.

Founders, Firsts and Feminists available for purchase now!

Nikki Henningham — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:46:37 +0000

Founders, Firsts and Feminists is a collection of studies of individual women leaders in 20th-century Australia. It seeks to redress the gender imbalance in existing scholarship of leadership in this country, but it also aims to complicate understandings of leadership itself. In doing so it deals with questions such as: what was it that made a woman a leader during that period, or what made her contemporaries see her as such?

To find our more, including how to download copies of chapters, and purchase the book, go to the Founders, Firsts and Feminists webpage.

A history of active citizenship: the Australian Women and Leadership Project

Nikki Henningham — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:39:19 +0000

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Come to a free public event at the State Library of Victoria. Dr Judith Smart and Dr Nikki Henningham will talk about work being undertaken for the Australian Women and Leadership Project.

Date: 22 March, 2012
Time: 5:30 -7:00 pm
Venue: Village Roadshow Theatrette, State Library of Victoria.

For more information, including information on how to register, go to What’s on at the State Library of Victoria.

Hassiba Boulmerka: Defying death threats to win gold

Nikki Henningham — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:35:55 +0000

It’s an Olympic year and for those of us living in Australia, the focus on athletic performance tends to overshadow the social and cultural importance of the events in other nations. In 1992 Algeria’s Hassiba Boulmerka ran to victory at the Barcelona Olympics. Her achievement wasn’t just her country’s first Olympic gold – she showed women everywhere how they could overcome prejudice to achieve their goals. Read more about her courage, what it meant to the people of Algeria and, as she said, ‘the women of the world’. Who says that sport is a trivial pursuit?
Hassiba Boulmerka: Defying death threats to win gold

The 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge – Get on Board!

Nikki Henningham — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:06:42 +0000

Did you know that 2012 has been designated the National Year of Reading? Did you also know that women are missing from the literary pages (rhetorical question), represented at a rate of about one gal to every seven blokes? Which provides the rationale behind The Australian Women Writers Challenge.

This challenge hopes to help counteract the gender bias in reviewing and social media newsfeeds that has continued throughout 2011. It actively promotes the reading and reviewing of a wide range of contemporary Australian women’s writing throughout 2012, the National Year of Reading.

For more information go to The Australian Women Writers Reading and Reviewing Challenge.

Has anyone out there read Anna Funder’s All that I Am? You should!

Conference: Women, Leadership and Democracy

Nikki Henningham — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 03:44:08 +0000

1-2 December 2011

The Women, Leadership and Democracy Conference will be held at the Museum of Australian Democracy in Canberra, on 1 -2 December 2011. Don’t miss it!

This national conference aims to bring together a diverse range of people interested in women’s history, Indigenous studies, gender studies, political history, political science, democracy, and industrial relations in Australia. The conference is being conducted as part of the ARC Linkage project Women and Leadership in a Century of Australian Democracy, and the proceedings will be published as part of the project’s outcomes.

For more details, including how to register and the final programme, go to the conference website.

Leadership: Does Gender Make a Difference?

Nikki Henningham — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 03:36:42 +0000

Earlier this month, the the Australia and New Zealand School of Governance convened a panel of high-achieving women to ponder the whether gender does make a difference to the nature and quality of leadership we experience in Australia. The event was held at the National Press Club in Canberra and hosted by ABC journalist, Virginia Hausseger. The panel included: former Democrats leader, Natasha Stott Despoja; former chief of Victoria Police, Christine Nixon; company director, Wendy McCarthy; and ACT Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher.

You can download the program from the ABC Big Ideas website. Go to Leadership: Does Gender Make a Difference?

The First True American Woman Road-Racer

Nikki Henningham — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 02:35:21 +0000

OK – she isn’t Australian, but I reckon the story of Julia Chase-Brand is worth telling to as wide an audience as possible. To a generation of women who enter fun runs and road races every second week; give thanks to Julia Chase-Brand, who defied the authorities who told her that she couldn’t run 10K because her uterus might fall out…

Read the story of Julia Chase-Brand, a pioneer for women who like to run.

World Boxing Federation Wants Female Boxers to Wear Skirts

Nikki Henningham — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:07:42 +0000

Women will get a chance to box in the Olympics for the first time in 2012 in London but if the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) has anything to say about it, they will be wearing skirts.

It has introduced a trial alternate uniform, asking female boxers to wear skirts because (apparently) it will make the women easier to distinguish from the men.

New Theatre – Women, Power & Culture – Then and Now

Nikki Henningham — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:02:11 +0000

It’s amazing to think that it’s taken Australian white women over 100 years to get from casting the first vote to nailing the top job. So, how far have we really come? Sydney’s New Theatre dared a group of Sydney’s leading and emerging female playwrights to tell the stories that lie behind the triumphs and struggles that mark women’s contribution to our political, social and cultural life.

The festival includes a SPECIAL FREE EVENT on November 5th.
Sexing the Act – Saturday 5 November @ 2pm
A free public forum questioning how far we have (or have not) come since the passing of the historic Sex Discrimination Act 1984.

Join moderator Adele Horin (Sydney Morning Herald) and panellists including advertising guru Jane Caro (The Gruen Transfer), feminist icon Eva Cox, former State Labour MP Verity Firth, journalist and activist Katrina Fox, Gabe Kavanagh (University of Sydney student leader), Muslim women’s advocate Maha Krahem Abdo, Hetti Perkins (former Senior Curator, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales), plus special guest, former Federal Labour Senator and current Age Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan, for what is bound to be a highly entertaining event!

Read more about Women, Power and Culture.