Citizens of their World: Australian Feminism and Indigenous Rights in the International Context, 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

Inter-war Australia saw the emergence of a feminist campaign for indigenous rights. Led by women activists who were members of various key Australian women's organizations affiliated with the British Commonwealth League, this campaign proposed a revitalized White Australia as a progressive force towards improving ‘world’ race relations. Drawing upon League of Nations conventions and the increasing role for the Dominions within the British Commonwealth, these women claimed to speak on behalf of Australian Aborigines in asserting their right to reparation as a usurped people and the need to overhaul government policy. Opposing inter-war policies of biological assimilation, they argued for a humane national Aboriginal policy including citizenship and rights in the person. Where white men had failed in their duty towards indigenous peoples, world women might bring about a new era of civilized relations between the races.