Marian Quartly and Judith Smart’s Respectable Radicals: A History of the National Council of Women of Australia, 1896-2006 (Monash University Publishing) tells the story of mainstream feminism in Australia, of the long struggle for equality at home and at work. In these days we still need something of the optimistic vision of the leaders of NCWA. Respectable in hat and gloves to the 1970s and beyond, they politely persisted with the truly radical idea that women the world over should be equal with men.
The book will be launched in Melbourne in October by Professor Marilyn Lake.