Alarums and Excursions: Out of Bounds in the International Arena

Not only did the equal pay struggle cross state and territory boundaries. Campaigning women built and maintained links with women abroad. This was not a new approach. Through the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, women were accustomed to welcoming women journalists, public speakers, and leaders of women’s organisations when they came south to the antipodes to exchange ideas and strategies on enfranchisement and a raft of demands including women’s property rights, the rights of women as mothers, women’s economic independence, claims for separation and divorce rights, freedom from violent and abusive husbands, freedom to walk the streets unmolested. Women were even more familiar with going abroad themselves, raising funds for the journey by holding raffles and lamington drives, rigorously saving what they could from their unequal pay packets, contributing travelling money to colleagues and friends who went as delegates to conferences in the Pacific, the Middle East, US and Europe, toured Eastern Block countries including Russia. South America, Scandinavia, China and Africa were on the list, too. As a trade unionist, Muriel Heagney went to United Nations/International Labour Organization (UN/ILO) meetings in New York. Jessie Street sought international support for her Women’s Charter. Bessie Rischbeith persuaded the Prime Minister to ensure that women would be included in League of Nations delegations. Earlier, Vida Goldstein toured the US and with Margaret Fisher (wife of Andrew Fisher, Australia’s Prime Minister), British and Commonwealth suffragists and suffragettes led the 1911 women’s suffrage march through London. Alice Henry and Stella Miles Franklin made their home in Chicago. Australian women contributed to the equal pay struggle abroad, exchanging letters and newsletters and, when abroad, speaking at conferences and to local groups, spreading the word about their campaign. And all the while, women at home in Australia paid attention to what was happening elsewhere, gains and losses, winning and losing strategies. Thus, Australian women honed their campaign, determined to gain equal pay.