Squatting, kidnapping and collaboration: Australia’s first women’s shelters were acts of radical grassroots feminism
- Written by Emma McNicol, Research Fellow at Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University
50 years ago, there wasn’t a single women’s shelter in Australia.
Then feminists squatted two terraces in Sydney, opening “Elsie”, Australia’s first domestic and family violence refuge.
Commissioned by Elsie co-founder Anne Summers, I’ve recorded oral histories with the women who built and sustained...