In this episode of the Invisible Woman podcast we are featuring questions and answers from the live panel discussion Put Her Name on It Q&A: Public Commemoration Here, Now and Future, which was held at Melbourne Town Hall in March. We will be releasing more parts of this discussion over the next few weeks.
The invisible woman project funded by our social enterprise's impact program promotes awareness and actions for women and gender-diverse people. To age with dignity, security, and safety. Find out more on justgoldwomen.net or on our socials @justgoldwomen.
Hosted by Kyriakos Gold
Edited and produced by Carley Bishop
This is a Just Gold podcast.
[00:00:00] Carley Bishop: This is a just gold podcast.
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[00:00:02] Carley Bishop: Captured on the lands of the peoples of the east Eastern Kulin nation. We pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
[00:00:25] In this episode of The Invisible Woman Podcast, we are featuring questions and answers from the live panel discussion. Put her name on it, q and a public commemoration here now and future, which is held at Melbourne Town Hall in March. We will be releasing more parts of this discussion over the next few weeks.
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[00:00:49] Ella Gauchi Seddon: My name is Ellen Gti Edin. I'm a Senior Landscape Architect at City Design here at the City of Melbourne. I'm also the gender equity lead at City Design. Finding her is a regional. Tourism and history project dedicated to making the stories lives and achievements of women and gender diverse people visible in public space. It maps over 100 women and gender diverse people who have shaped Victoria.
[00:01:14] And it links the places and monuments that they're connected with to videos, stories, and photographs of their lives by our QR code on the site that they are commemorated at.
[00:01:26] Sally H: My name's Sally Hasler. I'm a director in the Office for women in the Victorian State government. And I have had the pleasure of overseeing our women's public art program, which is a million dollar investment in women's public art and our leadership and representation programs more broadly. And I'm delighted to be
[00:01:41] here.
[00:01:42] Sandra G: Hi everyone. I'm Sandra Ji. I am a creative director of my own design practice called Sandra Gaji Studios. I'm also an R M I T lecturer who teaches into the Bachelor of Interior Design. My interests are within curatorial activism and ways of creating equitable environments through design discourse and I guess expressions of spatial outputs.
[00:02:02] Rafe Benley: Rafe Benley, team leader with geographic names Victoria. We've been supporting gender Equity Victoria and put a name on it on the work that we'll be talking about in geo course. But the work that we do in geographic names Victoria is naming, assisting, naming authorities, councils to name, roads, features, and localities across Australia.
[00:02:21] And it was the Anza then the aboriginal traditional owners that we've been supporting. And now the next thing that we're doing is gender equality. So it's A very diverse interesting role. And I've been in this space for about 15 odd years from the uk and now we're here in Australia.
[00:02:36] Pleasure to be here.
[00:02:38] Kyriakos Gold: So let's start with some facts and stats. What does our public landscape, our public landscapes, tell us about the role of women and gender diverse people in history? Let's start with you
[00:02:52] Sally H: sadly. Thank you. So I suppose from the office women's perspective, we're interested in the representation of women, whether that be in workplaces or parliaments or in governments, any public places as well.
[00:03:04] And I'm pretty sure I'm telling this that to a room that already knows it off by heart. But the first time I heard this from Claire Wright, who I'm sure is if she's not here today, she'll be listening or has inspired many of these conversations that 10 of Melbourne's 580 public statues are of women.
[00:03:21] And that is, is really quite an indictment on our city in a way. And the stories that we've chosen to tell and celebrate at the expense of others. And I think those of us this morning heard that there are more statues of horses than there are of women. There's more statues of dogs.
[00:03:36] And every time we say that stat, we say real women because there are other statues that include fairies and nips and angels. And that the actual depiction of women is that low. So I think, I suppose that tells a quite a story about, as a society about what it says about women and what does it, what message does it send to women about engaging in those public spaces and the representation
[00:03:57] Ella Gauchi Seddon: of women as leaders.
[00:04:00] Sandra?
[00:04:00] Sandra G: I'm interested when you think about commemoration, right? About the terminology coming from an academic background, that's where I start. And thinking of the word from, its kind of Latin origin. Commemorate meaning to bring into remembrance an idea of memory. And oftentimes statues are revered as these monuments of history.
[00:04:18] But I tend to argue that it's not really about history. It's really about memorialization and importance and where we place importance. Who do we revere? And in a sense there has been an erasure of women, like Sally was saying, because it hawkens to a particular period of time when oftentimes it's, white cisgendered men who are, prominent within societies.
[00:04:37] And because of that erasure of women from these public domains, it then tells the public that we are not of importance in a way. So I guess just interested in how we think of society's values and where we place that and how that's changed and how that can then be. The public problem.
[00:04:56] Rafe Benley: Re what's your take on the yeah, I've got some stats here. Put to bear by Kerry from, put her name on it. When we started the campaign around the L G A agenda survey of the 79 local government areas 29 are named after aboriginal language. Names 24 are named after men. 23 are named after towns, rivers, or mountains.
[00:05:17] And there are three named after women. Now, when you actually look at those three, you go aine, mythical creature, and a queen. So it's not really much local connections to our no doubt, strong Victorian women that have been around it. It's becomes pretty obvious that many places are named after men and few are named after women.
[00:05:37] As you've already called out there. We are upstanding members of the community. I'm sure they had strong women supporting them and no doubt had things worthy of commemoration. Some of the work done by some of the councils, I think gender. Equity commission has been, has got case study on its website with Bascos Shire Council, and they've done some great work into looking at the number of localities and rows and features and what the split is, and I won't go right down into the deed a, but essentially a third of those places of the numbers that they've looked at are named after women, and there's many that aren't, don't have any gender.
[00:06:13] So let's, acknowledge that we, it is not just all commemorate of naming, there's things of flora and fauna, and we're not commment of naming. But certainly the numbers that have come out about a third that are named they're commment. Only a third of them are named after women. They have done some great work recently naming a couple of roads after women.
[00:06:31] So Davidson Place in Wonthaggi after Ruby May Davidson which was a local that's supplying produce from a farm since the 1930 fives. So that's a great connection to places. It's really important that we. Preserve those connections to place. And another example was Gilmore Track in Cape Pet Peterson after Annie Gilmore, who's a surf lifesaver teacher.
[00:06:52] So trained many young people on being proficient in the sea. Really strong links to place. That's what we really like to see in geographic Names Victoria. So it's pleasing to see that. And I guess another pretty prominent one is the Joan Kerner Women in Children's Hospital in Sunshine that was named in 2019.
[00:07:09] She was the first female premiere of Victoria. Passionate advocate for women and children who lived in Melbourne's West. They're just some unique stories about some of the women here in Victoria. And clearly we are just beginning this journey around unfolding some of these stories. And there's a lot more work to do, which is great to see.
[00:07:27] Finding her taking.
[00:07:28] Carley Bishop: The invisible woman project funded by our social enterprises impact program promotes awareness and actions for women and gender diverse people. To age with dignity, security, and safety. Find out more on justgoldwomen.net or on our socials justgoldwomen