AustLit

'Catherine Fisher’s Sound Citizens offers a valuable and much-needed account of the significant contributions of female broadcasters in Australia, tracking women’s involvement in radio from the introduction of radio broadcasting in 1923 to the introduction of television in 1956. Fisher organises this account around discussions of the significance of female broadcasters during the interwar period, through the Second World War, and in post-war Australia. Importantly, the book challenges the view that the designation of separate ‘women’s programs’ on radio merely reinforced patriarchal expectations of women’s civic role (i.e. as restricted to the home). Sound Citizens offers an important cultural representation of women’s voices in Australian broadcasting and in public discourse more broadly, demonstrating how women used radio to advocate for social change and to encourage other women to engage in local, national and global affairs—often by making important links between the ‘private’ and ‘public’ spheres. As Fisher convincingly argues, radio transformed women’s lives because it was a medium that women working in the home could engage with while doing unpaid or paid domestic work and care.' (Introduction)