On March 17–18 1973, more than 600 women gathered in Sydney for a “Women’s Commission”. Speaking to broad themes such as motherhood, work and sexism, dozens of women recounted their struggles: to obtain contraception, or a decent education, to complain about the chauvinistic men in their workplaces. Women shared personal stories they had never told in public before, building trust, forging sisterhood.
While most of the media were excluded from the gathering, a journalist from the Australian Women’s Weekly was permitted to attend. She explained to her readers this was not just a chance to complain, but “out of a mass of personal testimony, the nature and extent of the problems facing Australian women were gradually revealed”.
The event’s goal was to transform personal stories into shared knowledge and ballast for political action. It was emblematic of the new politics of gender and sexuality in the 1970s, and it would go on to produce enormous transformations in the lives of women and sexual minorities.
