Over generations, Australian women have envisaged a world of freedom. This new collection of documents - letters, songs, poetry, diary extracts - charts the visions that inspired women and the obstacles that confronted them.
Exploring twentieth-century Australia,
Freedom Bound II
shows how intertwined were women's public and personal lives, and how bound by custom, ties, affections and duties. The different meanings of freedom have been shaped by the nature of women's oppression, their quests given focus by their different points of departure. Aboriginal women sought self-determination and the right to keep their children; migrant women sought to affirm culture and family ties, and escape discrimination and poverty. Overburdened mothers wanted relief from continual childbearing and a measure of self-fulfilment. Numerous women have campaigned for freedom from domestic tyranny and male violence.
Together with its companion volume,
Freedom Bound I,
which deals with the period of colonisation, this volume documents the dreams that inspired women, the pleasures and the pain that informed their politics and the desires that enthralled them, even as they bade them to be free. It is an essential resource for students and teachers of Australian women's history.