Revolution and Reform: The Women's Liberation Movement and the Whitlam Years

On April 8\, 1973 Prime Minister Gough Whitlam appointed Elizabeth Reid as his Adviser on matters relating to the welfare of women and children. It was an historic appointment\, the first of its kind in the world. Reid took on the monumental task of identifying and advocating issues that mattered most to Australian women and working for changes from within the new Whitlam Labor government. The Whitlam years (1972-75) transformed the Australian political\, economic and cultural landscape. But many of the ground-breaking reforms of Whitlam's government could not have occurred without the Women's Liberation Movement and the Women's Electoral Lobby. Many of these reforms are now taken for granted. From equal pay legislation and access to affordable childcare\, to the funding of women's refuges and health centres and the implementation of the Single Mothers Benefit\, women were demanding reforms that challenged long-held assumptions about women's place in society and the discrimination and disadvantage they faced. In this Whitlam legacy paper\, Elizabeth Reid revisits the feminist revolution of the Whitlam years and her place at the nexus of the Women's Liberation Movement and the Whitlam Government. As Reid recounts\, her appointment as women's adviser opened a floodgate and she received thousands of letters from women all over Australia who felt they finally had someone within government who would listen to their issues. And listen she did\, travelling around the country to hear first-hand from women about their struggles and what they most wanted the new government to change. But from her early days as an activist in the Women's Liberation Movement Reid understood that unless reform measures were accompanied by changes to the attitudes that disadvantaged women\, progress would only be temporary. Describing herself as 'a revolutionary in a reformist job\,' Reid's account of her journey through the corridors of power in government is remarkable. Her early involvement in the Women's Liberation Movement\, and the ideas and principles of a social movement that wanted things done differently\, highlights the transformation possible when a radical feminist movement works with a progressive government.