Dr Clare Wright, historian, TV presenter, 43

AS an award-winning historian and author you've taken a special interest in some extraordinary women in Australia's history. Who have been the strong women in your own life?

AS an award-winning historian and author you've taken a special interest in some extraordinary women in Australia's history. Who have been the strong women in your own life?

I reckon these historical women I admire so much have filled a certain void in my own life. My mother brought me out to Australia from Michigan when I was five after separating from my father, so I had no extended family. I stayed in Arnhem Land for six months a few years ago and was in awe of the community of strong women there.

Your new doco, Utopia Girls, shows how a small group of Australian suffragettes led to the vote for women. They were considered radicals at the time, right?

Yes, but they weren't on the margins of society. They were very well connected with people in the establishment - barristers, politicians, philanthropists, writers - who believed in the cause of gender equality.

In 1902, Australia became the first country in the world to give women the right to both vote in federal elections and stand for election in federal parliament. Why was Australia so ahead of the pack?

We had a perfect storm of progressive forces: feminism, federalism, non-conformism, unionism. Campaigner Vida Goldstein also claimed the willingness of Australian men to fight for the cause made it different from other countries.

Who were the main opponents of giving women the right to vote?

Conservative men. They argued that it would mean the end of the family unit; women voting went against the "natural" order of things; women were too emotional to make sensible political decisions.

What was the Church's position?

The traditional churches did not speak out in favour of votes for women, though many suffrage campaigners were devout Anglicans.

What was it was like to be a woman in late 19th-century Australia?

If you were working class and in the city, you could either work in domestic service or in a factory. If you were poor and you got pregnant out of wedlock and the bloke ran off, you were stuffed. There was no welfare system for sole parents.

Your book Beyond the Ladies' Lounge showed many women were horrified when women-only bars disappeared in the early '70s ...

Yes, that was because the ladies' lounge had become a place for women in working-class areas to socialise away from the men. And yes, it really was where they took their knitting, and shelled their peas, in the afternoons before their husbands got home - and the 6pm swill began.

Is feminism dead among young women today?

Young women don't like to attach the label "feminist" to themselves. But the things they believe in - freedoms of choice, expression and movement - are what women before them fought for more than a century to achieve.

Gloria Steinem has said that the women's movement, the anti-racist movement and the gay movement are linked. What's your view?

What women, blacks and gays have historically shared is the need for freedom from social, legal and political oppression. But history is not linear, and discrimination needs to be policed every day.

What do you see as the major advances for women in the past 50 years?

The right to equality and protection from sexual discrimination is now enshrined in law. You can't beat that.

Utopia Girls airs on ABC1 on Thursday, June 14 at 9.30pm

Greg Callaghan