Australian Women's Justice

Book excerpt: This book explores how women spearheaded the democratic suffrage campaign in colonial Queensland engaging with international debates on women’s activism, leadership, advocacy, print culture, and social movements. Australian Women's Justice provides a nuanced reading of the diversity and differences of the women’s movement in Queensland, from the time of first white colonisation, federation to World War 1 by new research on key women’s organisations: notably the Women’s Equal Franchise Association and the Women’s Peace Army. Framed through the lives of women suffrage participants, including their encounters with First Nations women, it also looks beyond microhistory to explore broader themes of the intersection of race, gender, property, war, and empire in the colonial context. Campaigns for enfranchisement and property rights and against conscription connect this story with larger international movements for women and labour, and organisations such as the League of Nations. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of Australian feminism and suffragism, as well as historians of feminist, labour, and peace movements both in Australia and internationally.