AustLit logo

AustLit

Isobelle Barrett Meyering Isobelle Barrett Meyering i(10926934 works by)
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 [Review] Winning for Women: A Personal Story Isobelle Barrett Meyering , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Historical Studies , vol. 51 no. 2 2020; (p. 310)
— Review of Winning for Women : A Personal Story Iola Mathews , 2019 single work autobiography

'The last few years have seen a spate of new memoirs and biographies charting the lives of Australian women who were connected in various ways with the second-wave feminist movement. Iola Mathews’ Winning for Women: A Personal Story is a valuable addition. As a journalist, trade unionist and politician's wife, Mathews was uniquely placed to observe not only the internal workings of the women's movement but its impact on some of the country's most influential political institutions, including the Labor Party and Australian Council of Trade Unions. Her book is directed primarily at a feminist readership interested in questions of women, work and family. However, Mathews’ insider account should also prove useful to historians of Australian politics, industrial relations and the media more generally.' (Introduction)
1 Germaine Greer’s ‘Arch Enemy’ : Arianna Stassinopoulos’ 1974 Australian Tour. Isobelle Barrett Meyering , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , vol. 31 no. 87 2016; (p. 43-61) 'In 1973, Arianna Stassinopoulos published her anti-feminist tract,The Female Woman. Specifically formulated and marketed as a response to Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch(1970), the book went on to become one of the bestselling backlash texts of the 1970s. This article examines the impact of this opposition on popular understandings of Greer and second-wave feminism, through a case study of media coverage of Stassinopoulos’ visit to Australia in November 1974. Although The Female Woman capitalised on Greer’s celebrity for the purposes of backlash politics and Stassinopoulos’ own career, I argue that its invocation of Greer ultimately served to extend the mainstream media’s engagement with feminism. While one effect of the book and the publicity around it was to perpetuate a view of Greer as synonymous with women’s liberation, media coverage of the tour also helped to extend discussion about the nature of leadership and representation in feminist politics. Furthermore, Greer’s own popularity proved to be a key factor militating against Stassinopoulos’ appeal. In this instance, Greer’s celebrity – the very quality that Stassinopoulos sought to exploit for her own benefit – served as a powerful countervailing force to anti-feminism, moderating the traction that Stassinopoulos was able to achieve.' (Publication abstract)
X