Abstract
This chapter considers the experience of lesbian mothers in Australia from 1945 to 1990, exploring the routes women took into motherhood and the ways in which they conceptualised their roles as mothers. High marriage rates and powerful social taboos against homosexuality in the post-war decades prompted many women to marry and have children, sometimes despite previous same-sex attractions. A number of these marriages broke down and, in the 1960s and 1970s, the typical lesbian mother had conceived her children in a heterosexual marriage and had subsequently left to form a relationship with a woman. However, from the 1970s onwards, lesbian-identified women began to explore alternative routes into motherhood using reproductive technologies or drawing on connections with male friends. This shift prompted a change in the ways in which lesbian parents conceived of their roles in relation to each other and the children. Drawing on oral history interviews, this chapter traces the historical shifts in the practice of lesbian motherhood and considers the ways in which individual women made sense of their experiences.
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Notes
- 1.
Mary Waterford, Lesbians on the Loose 17 (May 1991): 10.
- 2.
See Rebecca Jennings, Unnamed Desires: A Sydney Lesbian History (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2015).
- 3.
Interview with Mary and Sylvia [pseudonym] on 22 December 2008. This chapter draws on 100 interviews conducted by the author with self-identified lesbians for two projects, one exploring lesbian life in mid-twentieth-century New South Wales and another (funded by the Australian Research Council) examining lesbian practices of intimacy and parenting in Australia since 1945. The participants resided across Australia, ranging in age from eighteen to ninety and came from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, although the women were predominantly of Anglo or European ethnicity. Thus, while the sample represents a range of experiences, it has been difficult to explore the impact of race in shaping women’s experience of lesbian motherhood.
- 4.
Interview with Sandra Mackay on 2 July 2007.
- 5.
Margaret Simpson, ‘The Simpson Case,’ Campaign 67 (July 1981): 12.
- 6.
Ruth Ford, ‘“Filthy, Obscene and Mad”: Engendering Homophobia in Australia 1940s–1960s,’ in Homophobia: An Australian History, ed. Shirleene Robinson (Sydney: The Federation Press, 2008), 100–101.
- 7.
A v A [1962] Victorian Reports, 619–620, cited in Ford, ‘Filthy, Obscene and Mad.’
- 8.
Letter dated 23 October 1973, reproduced in ‘Happy Families,’ Sappho 2, no. 9 (December 1973): 11–12.
- 9.
In the marriage of Brook, G.E. and Brook, H.L. (1977) FLC 90-325 at 76710.
- 10.
Interview by Ruth Ford with Elizabeth on 6 May 1992, Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives (ALGA).
- 11.
Letter to Society Five, 20 April 1975, ALGA Box 13/5.
- 12.
‘Cleo Adviser,’ Cleo 41 (March 1976): 76.
- 13.
Letter from Delphine, Maroochydore, Queensland to ‘Jane’s Column,’ Campaign 28 (1978): 56.
- 14.
See Rebecca Jennings, ‘Lesbian Mothers and Child Custody: Australian Debates in the 1970s,’ Gender and History 24, no. 2 (August 2012): 502–517.
- 15.
Campbell v Campbell (1974) South Australian State Reports (SASR) 9, 25–29.
- 16.
Richard Green, ‘Sexual Identity of 37 Children Raised by Homosexual or Transsexual Parents,’ American Journal of Psychiatry 135 (1978): 692–697.
- 17.
In the marriage of PC and PR (1979) FLC 90-676 at 78609.
- 18.
In the marriage of Spry, B.A. and Spry, R.W. (1977) FLC 90-271 at 76445.
- 19.
For example, in 1975, CAMP NSW organised six seminars on female homosexuality, one of which was on the ‘homosexual mother’: ‘First Workshop/Seminar for International Women’s Year,’ CAMP NSW 10 June 1975 (Ge 056207); Women’s Liberation Conference, 1979, included a workshop on lesbian mothers: Sydney Women’s Liberation Newsletter (Feb/March 1979): 4.
- 20.
Liz Ross, ‘Lesbian Demands,’ Scarlet Woman 4 (July 1976): 6.
- 21.
‘Child custody data compiled by Lesbian Mothers Group,’ Campaign 38 (1978): 8; ‘Gays Demand the Right to Care for Kids,’ Gay Summer Offensive Planning Group Leaflet, 14 December 1979, Papers of Judith Power, Victorian Women’s Liberation and Lesbian Feminist Archive, No. 55, Series No. 55/3/9, University of Melbourne Archives.
- 22.
For a detailed discussion of this event, see Barbara Baird, ‘An Australian History of Lesbian Mothers: Two Points of Emergence,’ Women’s History Review 21, no. 3 (July 2012): 1–18.
- 23.
Interview with Robyn Plaister on 20 December 2007.
- 24.
Papers of Judith Power, Victorian Women’s Liberation and Lesbian Feminist Archive, No. 55, Series No. 55/2/2, University of Melbourne Archives.
- 25.
Sydney Women’s Liberation Newsletter (July 1977): 13.
- 26.
See Catherine Kevin, ‘Maternity and Freedom: Australian Feminist Encounters with the Reproductive Body,’ Australian Feminist Studies 20, no. 46 (2005): 3–15.
- 27.
‘As Feminists, as Lesbians, as Mothers,’ Scarlet Woman 4 (July 1976): 20–22.
- 28.
Jean Taylor, Stroppy Dykes: Radical Lesbian Feminist Activism in Victoria During the 1980s (Melbourne: Dyke Books Inc, 2012), 86.
- 29.
Sydney Women’s Liberation Newsletter (June/July 1979): 1.
- 30.
Conference programme, Lesbian Conference, July 1991, Sydney, p. 13, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.
- 31.
Margaret Bradstock, ‘Old Woman, Old Woman, Who Lives in a Shoe,’ in Beyond Blood: Writings on the Lesbian and Gay Family, eds. Louise Wakeling and Margaret Bradstock (Sydney: Black Wattle Press, 1995), 38. See Rebecca Jennings, ‘The Boy-Child in Australian Lesbian Feminist Discourse and Community,’ Cultural and Social History 13, no. 1 (2016): 63–79.
- 32.
Marion Paull, ‘A Letter from Australia,’ in The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader ed. Joan Nestle (Boston: Alyson Publications, Inc, 1992), 177.
- 33.
Letter dated 23 October 1973, reproduced in ‘Happy Families,’ Sappho 2, no. 9 (December 1973): 11.
- 34.
Letter dated 30 October 1973, reproduced in ‘Happy Families,’ Sappho 2, no. 9 (December 1973): 11–13.
- 35.
Paull, ‘A Letter from Australia,’ 177.
- 36.
Interview with Claire [pseudonym] on 7 May 2012.
- 37.
Maura, cited in Mothers and Others: An Exploration of Lesbian Parenting in Australia ed. Prue Borthwick and Barbara Bloch (Jam Jar Publishing, 1993), 19.
- 38.
Bradstock, ‘Old Woman, Old Woman,’ 34.
- 39.
Bradstock, ‘Old Woman, Old Woman,’ 35.
- 40.
Deborah Dempsey, ‘Beyond Choice: Family and Kinship in the Australian Lesbian and Gay “Baby Boom”’ (PhD diss., La Trobe University, 2006), 55.
- 41.
Barbara Wishart, ‘Motherhood within Patriarchy—A Radical Feminist Perspective,’ in All Her Labours, ed. Women and Labour Publications Collective (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger Pty Ltd., 1984), 88.
- 42.
Paull, ‘A Letter from Australia,’ 178.
- 43.
Interview with Chloe Bardsley on 1 May 2012.
- 44.
Interview with Maria [pseudonym] on 6 October 2012.
- 45.
Paull, ‘A Letter from Australia,’ 178.
- 46.
Interview with Claire [pseudonym] on 7 May 2012.
- 47.
Mary Waterford, Lesbians on the Loose 17 (May 1991): 10.
- 48.
See Deborah Dempsey, ‘ART Eligibility for Lesbians and Single Heterosexual Women in Victoria: How Medicalisation Influenced a Political, Legal and Policy Debate,’ Health Sociology Review 17, no. 3 (2008): 267–279.
- 49.
Baird, ‘An Australian History of Lesbian Mothers.’
- 50.
Ruth Bacchus, ‘“Go Forth and Wrestle with the Legal System”: Some Perceptions and Experiences of Lesbian Parents in Rural Australia,’ Australian Journal of Social Issues 53, no. 1 (March 2018): 18–33. Lesbian and gay adoption has also now been legalised in all Australian states in legislation enacted between 2002 and 2018.
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Jennings, R. (2019). ‘The Most Radical, Most Exciting and Most Challenging Role of My Life’: Lesbian Motherhood in Australia 1945–1990. In: Pascoe Leahy, C., Bueskens, P. (eds) Australian Mothering. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20267-5_8
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