Feminism in Flux : Indigenous Rights Activism and the Evolution of Feminism in New South Wales, 1930-1960

Abstract

From the 1930s in Australia, white female voices of protest regarding Indigenous affairs were prominent. While undoubtedly emerging from philanthropic concerns, this thesis argues that more can be elicited from white women’s interest in Indigenous affairs. My focus is feminist organisations in Sydney between 1930 and 1960 where Indigenous affairs were continually a part of a ‘progressive’ feminist agenda which in the period shifted to the left of the political spectrum. A feminist interest in Indigenous rights is used to illustrate the radicalisation of feminism from the conservatism of the 1930s to the antecedents of the politics of female liberation in the 1950s.