First Australian Women Elected To Parliament

Anyone know who this woman is...................

No ok I will tell you, she is Edith Cowan she was the first women in Australia to be elected to parliament this happened in 1921 she was in office till 1924.

She was born Edith Brown and was from Geraldton in Western Australia' on the 2^nd August 1861, she was born into an influential and respected family. At the age of seven after the death of her mother she was sent to a Perth boarding school run by the Cowan sisters whose brother James she would later marry.

When Edith was fifteen, her father shot and killed his second wife, and was subsequently hanged for the crime.

She was to become concerned with social issues and injustices in the legal system, especially with respect of women and children. In 1894 she helped found the Karrakatta club a group where women could educate themselves for the kind of life they wanted. In time she became the club's president. The Karrakatta Club was involved in the women's suffrage movement successfully gaining the vote for women in 1899.

In the new century she would turn her eye to welfare issues, she was really concerned with the health and welfare of disadvantaged groups such as childes and prostitutes. She would serve on numerous committees, she was largely responsible for the building of Perth's King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women in 1916.

She helped form the Women's Service Guilds in 1909 and was co-founder of the Western Australia's National Council of Women and served as president from 1913-1921 then as vice-president till her death.

She was a Freemason, admitted to the Australian federation of Droit Humain .

It was because she felt that children should not be tried as adults that she founded the Children's Protection Society, the society had a major role in the subsequent introduction of the children's courts in 1915, she was appointed to the bench of the new court and continued in this position for 18 years.

She also was one of the first female Justice of the Peace. In 1920 she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, (MBE).

In her final years she was an Australian delegate to the 1925 International Conference of Women held in the Untied States, she also helped found the Royal Western Australian Historical Society in 1926.

She passed away in 1932 and two years after her death the Edith Cowan Memorial Clock was unveiled at the entrance to Perth's Kings Park, this is believed to be the first civic monument to an Australian woman. There was a lot of opposition to the monument with many saying it was not appropriate form of memorial for a woman, and that she was not important enough to merit a monument in such a prominent location.

She has appeared on a Australian postage stamp in 1975, and in 1984 the federal Division of Cowan was created and and named after her and in January 1991 the Western Australian College of Advanced Education was renamed the Edith Cowan University.

She appears on the Australian $50 note which was first issued in October 1995.

Refrigerate after opening

Refrigerate after opening...............I am sure we have all seen that written on different jars but here is the question do you in fact refrigerate after opening.

I thought of this when I was making myself a bacon and egg roll, I was spreading cream cheese spread on the bread roll and thought about it as I looked at the jar that has been sitting on the bench since it was opened a week ago, the jar also says to use within 14 days.

How often do we see something written and just don't take any notice of it, is it because we think we know better or is because it seems like a silly instruction so we just take no notice.

I know with the cream cheese if I was to put it in the fridge it would go hard and would be difficult if not impossible to spread, hence the reason I don't refrigerate it during these cold winter months.

Also I have notice that it says to refrigerate after opening the tomato sauce and the BBQ sauce like who does that. Years ago the refrigerate after opening was also on the Vegemite and Peanut Butter but not any more and I can tell you I have never put the Vegemite or Peanut Butter in the fridge.

Of course you expect to see refrigerate after opening on your margarine and butter but I can tell you I don't put them in the fridge either during the colder months hell I don't often refrigerate during summer as well.

So what do you do, do you follow the instructions and place your jars in the fridge or are you more like me and just stick them in the cupboard, after all it isn't like you have ever got sick by said product not being in the fridge. 

A woman's right we now take for granted

"A woman's opinions are useless to her, she may suffer unjustly, she may be wronged, but she has no power to weightily petitions against man's laws, no representatives to urge her views, her only method to produce release, redress, or change, is to ceaselessly agitate."
Louisa Lawson, speech to the inaugural meeting of the Dawn Club. Published in July 1889.



How many people know about the suffragette movement from back in the late 1800's and early 1900's?

I think many of young women nowadays would have no idea about the movement and that I think is a sad thing, these women work hard for women's rights.

The term suffragette refers to the mobilisation of the suffrage movement in America, England, Australia and New Zealand between the 1880s and the 1920s.

There was a number of organisations that were instrumental in the struggle for women to be granted the right to vote. The Australian Women's Suffrage Society was formed in 1889, its aims was to obtain the same rights for women as were possessed by male voters.

They argued for equal justice and equal privileges in marriage and divorce, rights to property and the custody of their children in divorce. So not just for the right for all women to be able to vote in all elections which I think is what most people associate the suffragettes with.

New Zealand women had first in the world to be granted the right to vote in the national election on the 19^th September 1893.

In Australia it was South Australian women who were granted the right to vote first in 1894, followed by women in Western Australia in 1899, my state New South Wales granted women the right to vote in 1902, Victorian women were last to get the right to vote in 1908.
Australian women first voted in the second federal election in 1903, except for Aboriginal women. It wasn't till 1962 that Aboriginal women were granted the right to vote in federal elections.

However, Aboriginal males had the right to vote from as early as the 1850's although most people would tell you they didn't get the right to vote till 1967 when there was a referendum to have the constitution changed to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginals and to include them in the census.

However, as I said Aboriginals already had the right to vote although most of them didn't know it. Legally their rights date back to the colonial times. When New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia wrote their constitutions in the 1850's the gave the right to vote to all male British subjects over the age of 21 which included Aboriginal males.

In 1895 when South Australia gave women the right to vote and sit in parliament Aboriginal women were included it was in fact only Queensland and Western Australia that barred Aborigines from voting.

Very few Aborigines knew their rights so very few voted. But some eventually did. Point McLeay, a mission station near the mouth of the Murray, got a polling station in the 1890s. Aboriginal men and women voted there in South Australian elections and voted for the first Commonwealth Parliament in 1901.

Most states did not allow women to be elected to the state parliaments until the end of the First World War.

Another key association in the struggle for equal voting rights was the Women's Christian Temperance Union formed on the 16^th November 1887, the society sought social reforms which included establishing equal moral standards for both sexes.

My Special Girl is in so my Pain

Good morning, I am up nice and early today after a night of broken sleep. The reason well my special girl........aka.........Jessica rang me and I didn't answer so she rang her dad and he didn't answer so than she rang her sister Natasha and she answered the phone at 2.30am.

Yeah I know you are wondering what was wrong as people do not ring around trying to get someone to answer a phone at 2.30am for no reason.

So I will tell you she was in pain, two or three times a year she gets this back pain and the pain is so severe that all she does is cry, she is unable to move and it is terrible just listening to her cry. Anyway the pain was that bad that she just wanted her mummy, so I got my long pj's on and went to her place.

I took with me Ibuprofen and Voltaren Emulgel I gave her two Ibuprofen and rubbed the Voltaren into her back and then decided to get Leo up and bring them both back here.

She has had very little sleep and I was woken to her crying again at 5am I got up rubbed some heat rub into her back this time and gave her more Ibuprofen at 6.30am I said to her to give me a number for someone at work so I could ring them and let them know she is unable to go today and I also gave her a moonshine tablet I had here for my back pain, my mum gave it to me and I gave it to Jessica.

I have also made a doctor's appointment for her after I take Leo to school. Speaking of Leo he is so concerned about his mum and has asked me a number of times why can't I give his mum pain medication to make her pain go away. He is very concerned about his mum and gets upset when he hears her crying in pain.

So after a couple of attempts I managed to get onto someone and let them know she was unable to drive this morning, have to say the guy I spoke to was a cranky sounding man and hard to understand also but I managed to get him to understand that she is unable to do her school run this morning. I hope this doesn't go against her as it is not something she can help and I am talking her to the doctors at 9.45am this morning, thankfully I can book appointments online so was able to find her an appointment at 6.30am.

Wakefield School..............is a godsend for students like Dawson

Good morning all what to write about on this nice warmish Saturday morning, well I could tell you a bit about Dawson's school presentation day which was last Thursday and I of course went, I always go.

This year his father came and his stepmother although we don't like the term stepmother very much in this family, his mother didn't turn up she said she had to stay home as people from “docs” were suppose to be turning up even though she had told them she wouldn't be home but for some reason they said she had to be there so she didn't come.

Although I can say she usually comes, anyway his pop on his mums side came, he always goes and he took Landon who is Dawson's little brother on his mums side.

This time Dawson didn't get any awards but all the teachers had nice things to say about him, especially his woodwork teacher. He want on a bit about how Dawson was very talented and how he would be an asset to any employer as he has a good memory and would be great working in a warehouse as he would remember where things are without any problem.

When we went to his classroom his teacher said that Dawson is pretty good at most things and is quite good at things he does with his hands, as in putting stuff together which we all know as he loves to do Lego’s really complicated Lego at that.

He has spent most of the year working on a coffee table in wood work and everyone wanted to know what he would do with it when it is finished, of course he is giving it to his nanna because he is very much a nanna's boy.

For those who do not know Dawson attends Wakefield school which is a behavioural school it was established in 2002 and is located in a rural setting which is why it is bloody cold there.

It has up to only 28 students usually from years 5 to 8 who are identified as having emotional and behavioural problems in their mainstream school. Usually students are still enrolled in their home school and attend Wakefield for 2 or 3 days a week for up to a year till they are able to successful return to their home school full time.

Dawson however is one of a few students who now attend Wakefield full time and 5 days a week which is good as Dawson likes going there and only has a day off when he is sick, when he had to go to his home school he was always trying to get out of going. So fingers crossed he will be able to continue to attend Wakefield next year as well, as he does not do well in mainstream schools.

The school's mission statement is to:

“ Provide a safe, healing, educational environment where students can maximise their learning potential and develop appropriate problem solving and conflict resolution skills.”

Five Things Friday.........................Again.................

It's five things Friday again.

Bloody cold weather

Dawson's presentation day.............yesterday and it was bloody cold at his school needed a really warm jacket

Being Fat and having no one to blame but myself

A long day, needed an hours shut eye to get through

Pillows behind my back to stop back pain...........a must...........

World War 1 and Women

Family life and structure was completely changed by the First World War, many married women found themselves forced to work by the death of their husbands. Women were also drafted to work in industries because the men were off fighting in the war. In fact around 200,000 women took up jobs in governmental departments for the first time and something like 500,000 found themselves working in clerical postilions in private offices and then there were all the women who too working in agricultural type jobs but most women found themselves working in munitions factories which was of course dangerous work. In fact many more women did hard heavy work work the type of work that no woman would be seen doing prior to the war.

In some way the war gave so many women more independence for the first time in their lives. Also the fact that the women could do the jobs thought of as male only jobs and do the job well lead to change in attitudes about what women could do and could not do.

After the war ended over 8 million women were granted the right to vote and in November 1918 the Eligibility of Women Act was passed which meant women could now be elected as members of parliament. So there is no doubt that World War 1 was the catalyst for women to be given the vote, although it took another 10 years for women to be granted the vote on equal terms with British men.

Of course the were all the women who took a more active role in the war by becoming cooks, stretcher bearers, motor car drivers and interpreters, however governments did not allow this but it didn't stop them doing those jobs anyway. A number of women's organisations did become very active during the war, including the Australian Women's National League, The Australian Red Cross and the Country Women's Association just to name a few.

Nursing was almost the only area of female contribution that involved the women being at the front and experiencing the war. In Britain the Queen Alexandra Royal Army Nursing Corps, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and the Voluntary Aid Detachment were all started before the war. The Voluntary Aid Detachment were not allowed in the front line until 1915.

ore than 12,000 women enlisted in the United States Navy and Marine Corps during the First World War around 400 of which died during the war.

There was close to 3,000 women in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps during the war and it was during the war that the role of Canadian women in the military first extended beyond nursing. Women were trained in small arms, first aid and vehicle maintenance. Only 43 women in the Canadian military died during the war.

However, things were different if you were a Russian woman as there were a few Women's Battalions during 1917, these women fought well but failed to provide the propaganda value and were disbanded at the end of the year.

This woman can't imagine being on the front line of war and feel that these women must have been very brave.