Mainstream Women's Organisations in Australia: the challenges of national and international co-operation after the Great War

The Australian National Council of Women

“…The formation of the AFWV and its affiliation to the IWSA caused friction when a delegation claiming to represent Australian women set off for the IWSA conference in Rome in 1923. Alarmed that their views would be misrepresented, the Western Australian and Victorian Councils proposed sending a cable denying the ability or right of the AFWV to represent their opinions or those of most Australian women (Smart and Quartly 2012). Twenty years later, in 1943, the Councils declined to join the Women's Charter movement, organised by Jessie Street to mobilise women behind an extensive feminist programme for postwar reconstruction (Lake 1999, 190).…”

“…From 1919, the international scene was further enlivened by the presence of a third peak body, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). In Australia, the WILPF provided an alternative international outlet for those women's peace organisations that had been disaffiliated by the National Councils for disloyalty to King and Country during the war years (Smart and Quartly 2012). ICW, IWSA and WILPF all formed links with the League of Nations, cooperating with each other through the Joint Standing Committee (later Liaison Committee) of Women's International Organisations (Rupp 1997) and, similarly, many state affiliates of the AFWV and WILPF reaffiliated or co-operated with the NCWs in the 1920s and 1930s, though tensions remained.…”

Australian and New Zealand women teachers in the First World War

“…Damousi (1994) argues that “war and conscription exacerbated existing differences between women’s groups” in Australia, but “pacifism did not split the women’s movement as dramatically as it did in Britain” (p. 100). Nevertheless, Smart and Quartly (2012, p. 64) identified significant tensions:During the Great War, peace activism was barely tolerated in most Australian NCW circles. Not only did Red Cross work often take over from the activities of the standing committees but, in Victoria in particular, peace and international arbitration work was seen as tantamount to treason.…”

“…Debates over conscription were especially divisive and violent. Women were key players on both sides of these debates, both as individuals and collectively in feminist organisations (Damousi and Lake, 1995; Damousi, 1994; Smart and Quartly, 2012). As far as women’s paid work is concerned, “the conventional wisdom is that the war had little impact on the working lives of Australian women” (Scates, 2001, p. 31).…”