Everyday revolutions : remaking gender, sexuality and culture in 1970s Australia / edited by Michelle Arrow and Angela Woollacott.

The 1970s was a decade when matters previously considered private and personal became public and political. These shifts not only transformed Australian politics, they engendered far-reaching cultural and social changes. Feminists challenged 'man-made' norms and sought to recover lost histories of female achievement and cultural endeavour. They made films, picked up spanners and established printing presses. The notion that 'the personal was political' began to transform long-held ideas about masculinity and femininity, both in public and private life. In the spaces between official discourses and everyday experience, many sought to revolutionise the lives of Australian men and women. Everyday Revolutions brings together new research on the cultural and social impact of the feminist and sexual revolutions of the 1970s in Australia. Gay Liberation and Women's Liberation movements erupted, challenging almost every aspect of Australian life. The pill became widely available and sexuality was both celebrated and flaunted. Campaigns to decriminalise abortion and homosexuality emerged across the country. Activists set up women's refuges, rape crisis centres and counselling services. Governments responded to new demands for representation and rights, appointing women's advisors and funding new services. Everyday Revolutions is unique in its focus not on the activist or legislative achievements of the women's and gay and lesbian movements, but on their cultural and social dimensions. It is a diverse and rich collection of essays that reminds us that women's and gay liberation were revolutionary movements.

1. Revolutionising the everyday: The transformative impact of the sexual and feminist movements on Australian society and culture / Michelle Arrow and Angela Woollacott -- Everyday gender revolutions: Workplaces, schools and households. 2. Of girls and spanners: Feminist politics, women's bodies and the male trades / Georgine Clarsen -- 3. The discovery of sexism in schools: Everyday revolutions in the classroom / Julie McLeod -- 4. Making the political personal: Gender and sustainable lifestyles in 1970s Australia / Carroll Pursell -- Feminism in art and culture. 5. How the personal became (and remains) political in the visual arts / Catriona Moore and Catherine Speck -- 6. Subversive stitches: Needlework as activism in Australian feminist art of the 1970s / Elizabeth Emery -- 7. Women into print: Feminist presses in Australia / Trish Luker -- 8. 'Unmistakably a book by a feminist': Helen Garner's Monkey Grip and its feminist contexts / Zora Simic -- Redrawing boundaries between public and private. 9. A phone called PAF: CAMP counselling in the 1970s / Catherine Freyne -- 10. Discomforting politics: 1970s activism and the spectre of sex in public / Leigh Boucher -- 11. Creative work: Feminist representations of gendered and domestic violence in 1970s Australia / Catherine Kevin -- 12. 'Put on dark glasses and a blind man's head': Poetic defamation and the question of feminist privacy in 1970s Australia / Nicole Moore -- Re-gendering language, authority and culture. 13. Changing 'man made language': Sexist language and feminist linguistic activism in Australia / Amanda Laugesen -- 14. 'A race of intelligent super-giants': The Whitlams, gendered bodies and political authority in modern Australia / Bethany Phillips-Peddlesden -- 15. Cleo magazine and the sexual revolution / Megan Le Masurier -- 16. Male chauvinists and ranting libbers: Representations of single men in 1970s Australia / Chelsea Barnett.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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