Maiden Australia

During and after World War I, pubs closed early, and returned Australian soldiers routinely moved on to brothels in the early hours of the morning. One night in Perth, a returned soldier arrived with a loaded gun. He demanded to be let in, raised his fist and fired through the peephole. Madame Monnier was shot and what happened afterward tells us a lot about the era and how women in her line of wo...

Sex work is one of the oldest occupations in the world, and in early twentieth-century Australia, it was one of the few pathways to financial independence for women. It was risky and fraught with corruption, but for many, it was worth it to have a life of their own. One of those women was Marie Monnier, aka Josie De Bray. In 1902, she migrates to Australia from Paris without speaking English and w...

It’s the 1950s in Melbourne: under the Moreton Bay fig in Carlton Gardens, a woman stands before a crowd. The woman’s name is Margaret Tucker: a singer, a writer, an advocate for First Nations people. As she spoke of justice and truth, people listened. Her story is one of unimaginable hardship, and one every Australian must acknowledge. Learn her name. Share her story. Speakers: Tania Rossi Associ...

In 1856, on the Australian Goldfields of Castlemaine, hundreds of rugged miners in dirt-streaked trousers gathered to cast their votes. But among them stood an outlier—Fanny Finch. A business owner. A single mother. A woman of colour. Draped in blue silk with flowers in her hair, Fanny Finch was a strong and defiant character—she stood up for herself and other women. And that made her a target. Le...

Imagine the 1960s: a woman sits in the gutter, a cigarette between her fingers, eyes burning. Rosaleen Norton—Witch, artist, and outsider. To the media and authorities, she was a 'Devil-Worshipper,' a dangerous woman who had to be stopped. She was silenced, ridiculed, and hunted—but not completely forgotten. Learn her name. Share her story. Speakers: ​Professor Marguerite Johnson: Sexuality in Gre...

Maiden Australia began as part of my PhD. While researching Australian media, I became aware of the repeated exclusion of women’s lives and labour from historical records and media archives. While not always obvious, the decision to remember and commemorate some stories over others has had a major influence on our national identity. It impacts who we deem worthy of celebrating, the voices we ampli...