historian ~ gender, activism, emotion, memory
historian ~ gender, activism, emotion, memory
At 16, Kathryn Joy applied for a passport. To do this, they had to obtain their mother’s death certificate. After growing up in a house in which their father had killed their mother – an act he refused to talk about – Kathryn learned exactly how their mother had died: “gunshot wound to the head”.
The bare brutality of this information shocked them into looking anew at their father, escaping from small town to big city, spiralling into trauma-induced mental anguish, and embarking on a journey of self-discovery through tracing their family’s violent history.
Eight years of this journey are documented in the new Australian documentary Killjoy.
We tend to be told that feminist history happened in disconnected chunks – in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and now 4th “waves”. While there were certainly generational differences, if we peel back the curtains on this one failed reform in Elizabeth’s Legacy Paper [the women’s library], what we find is a rich history of multiple generations of feminists, whatever their differences, all working together to protect and preserve feminist memory – knitting the feminist past, present and future together – all campaigning for a women’s library and archive.
Elizabeth Reid | Revolution and Reform Launch 2023 | Whitlam Institute | 28 September 2023 | at National Archives of Australia | Click here to watch the whole event ~
On 28 September, 2023 a distinguished panel of speakers joined Dr Elizabeth Reid AO to launch Revolution and Reform : The Women's Liberation Movement and the Whitlam Years.
Introduced by the Minister for Finance, Women and the Public Service, Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher, and moderated by Virginia Haussegger AM, the discussion featured the ANU's Professor Emerita Margaret Jolly AM, First Nations advocate Cathy Eatock, journalist and podcaster Professor Mark Kenny and feminist historian Dr Sharon Crozier-De Rosa.
Learn more and download the paper here.
This event was presented in partnership with the National Archives of Australia.
My NLA Fellowship presentation 2022 ~ Memory Keepers.