Jacqueline Kent’s latest non-fiction work, Inconvenient Women – Australian radical writers 1900-1970, follows the writer’s previous forays into the lives and works of unconventional and, sometimes, other ‘inconvenient’ Australian women who have left their mark on the cultural and political landscape of the country.
After her biography of Australia’s only female prime minister (to date) The Making of Julia Gillard, Kent has cast her net much wider to canvas the lives and literary careers of a swathe of writers and activists, from Marjorie Barnard to Dymphna Cusack, Flora Eldershaw, Nettie Palmer and beyond. Some will be very familiar names – Thea Astley, Stella Miles Franklin, Dorothy Hewett and Ruth Park all get a look in – while others may be well-known only to historians, literary scholars or political activists.
And that’s because Inconvenient Women could be construed as much an historical account of the Australia Communist Party (ACP, now the Communist Party of Australia) as it is a biography of the women surveyed within the book. Kent’s remit was prompted by the following inflammatory Henry Lawson verse from ‘Another Song of General Sickness and Tiredness’, published in Bulletin in 1913.
‘Tis notice she craves for her antics
And by her the country is cursed…
All women are natural liars
But political women are worst.
Yes, truly. Thank you for that, Henry. You may have been aiming that barb deep into the heart of your own activist mother, Louisa, but women across both the 20th century and the country felt its bite. Accordingly there is some righteous anger between these pages, as Kent goes into great detail about the political persuasions and actions of many of the assembled women. And to anyone with even a modicum of interest in the social, cultural and political history of the last 120 years or so, it undoubtedly makes for fascinating and illuminating reading.
Inconvenient Women: crossing paths
A clearer trajectory for each of the writers explored, however, would have perhaps made the information stickier… for want of a better word.
Clearly, the paths of her subjects cross and entwine, and cross again at various junctures, but it does make it a touch difficult to keep tabs on the individuals. Even something as simplistic as chapters examining an overview of each writer before delving into the pioneering and often challenging routes their determination to be heard took them on may have added clarity.
Read: Book review: The Haunting of Mr & Mrs Stevenson, Belinda Lyons-Lee
That said, Kent is to be commended for putting so many of these brilliantly bold and determined women (some of whom have possibly been all but forgotten) under the spotlight, and giving them the recognition and accolades they so rightly deserve. And, if nothing else, the whole publication is a marvellous ‘yah boo sucks’ to Henry Lawson for that misogynist morsel of verse…
Inconvenient Women – Australian radical writers 1900 – 1970 by Jacqueline Kent
Publisher: NewSouth
ISBN: 9781742237503
Pages: 320pp
Format: Paperback
Size: 234 x 153mm
Publication Date: 1 May 2025
RRP $34.99
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