Unbridling the Tongues of Women - The University of Adelaide

Unbridling the Tongues of Women
and ‘feminism’ did not enter popular political discourse until the end of the 19 th century. But
it would seem to be historically purist to a fault to eschew terms which describe an ideology
– ‘a distinct and identifiable body of ideas and aspirations, commonly known as the ‘rights of
women’, the ‘condition of women’ question, the ‘emancipation of women’ and so on’ – which
had existed for at least a century before that. See Linda Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right:
A Social History of Birth Control in America, Harmondsworth, 1977, p.xiv; Barbara Taylor, Eve
and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the Nineteenth Century, London, 1983, p.x.
3 C.P Gilman, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, New York, 1975, pp.142-3, 144-5, 167-8.
4 (Spence), Autobiography, p.70.
5 Meredith Tax, The Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880-1917, New
York and London, 1980, p.62.
6 Allen F. Davis, American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams, Oxford, 1973, pp.49-50,
53, 57, 63-4; Tax, The Rising of the Women, pp.60, 93, 96.
7 (Spence), Autobiography, p.76; C.H. Spence to A. Hare, 12 January, 1906, SAA.
8 Evans, The Feminists, pp.47, 49, 54; Tax, The Rising of the Women, pp.165-6.
9 Australian Woman’s Sphere, March 1901, p.60.
10 Aileen S. Kraditor (ed.), Up From The Pedestal: Selected Writings in the History of American
Feminism, New York, 1968, p.159.
11 (Spence), Autobiography, p.72. Tubman’s name is mistakenly printed as ‘Tribman’.
12 Dale Spender, Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done To Them: From Aphra Behn to Adrienne
Rich, London, 1983, p.362.
13 (Spence), Autobiography, p.72.
14 See Kraditor (ed.), Up From The Pedestal, p.98.
15 (Spence), Autobiography, p.73.
16 Gilman, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, pp.169-70.
17 C.H. Spence to Rose Scott, 20 September 1902, Scott papers, ML., quoted in Helen Jones,
‘Women’s Education in South Australia; Institutional and Social Developments, 1875-1915’,
PhD thesis, Adelaide University, 1980, p.248.
18 (Spence), Autobiography, p.75.
19 Ray Strachey, The Cause: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain, London,
1978, pp.105, 287; (Spence), Autobiography, p.76.
20 Stevenson, ‘Population statistics’, in Vamplew et al., South Australian Historical Statistics,
Kensington, 1984, tables 1-3.
21 Pavla Miller, ‘Schooling and Capitalism: Education and Social Change in South Australia,
1836-1925’, PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 1980, table II, p.391. I am grateful to Pavla
Miller for this reference.
22 Ray Markey, ‘Women and labour, 1880-1900’, in Elizabeth Windschuttle (ed.), Women, Class
and History: Feminist Perspectives in Australia 1788-1978, Melbourne, 1980, pp.89, 91.
23 David J. Gordon, Handbook of South Australia, Adelaide, 1908, p.176.
24 Edna Ryan & Anne Conlon, Gentle Invaders: Australian Women at Work 1788-1974, Melbourne,
1975, pp.42-3.
25 Helen Jones, ‘Women at Work in South Australia, 1889-1906’, Journal of the Historical Society
of South Australia, 2 (1976). I am grateful to Ian Davey for this reference.
26 Jones, ‘Women’s Education in South Australia’, p.179.
27 Miller, ‘Schooling and Capitalism’, table 23, p.402.
28 Jones, ‘Women’s Education in South Australia’, p.179.
29 Ibid., pp.180-196; Daniels and Murnane (comps), Uphill all the way, pp.170-178.
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