Health and social policy

![CDATA[A small group of Australian women made significant and enduring constributions to health and social policy during the Whitlam years. The four chapters here recount the journeys of those women, who were central to Whitlam's gendered equality reforms in those key areas. The authors demonstrate the significance of placing women at the core of plicy reforms and the intergenerational outcomes of women's leadership in government. The Whitlam years saw the possibilities of redressing women's health and social policy inequalities galvanised to advance gendered equality and opportunity for women. Fifty years later, Australian women remain the beneficiaries of such incredible foresight. We are able to get a divorce on our own terms, receive payments as mothers of children born outside of marriage, and pursue, to a large extent, our goals for education and professional change. Medical and health care, such as breast screening, pap smears, along with appropriate public maternal health, remain cornerstones of our public health system. As the child of migrants growing up in the working-class suburbs of Western Sydney, I too have been directly gifted by the tenacity and persistence of these women, and their continued activism and commitment to gendered equality policies.]]