Five Ingredients for Effective Advocacy:

8000 tenacious women
370 branches
100 years of history
1 non-partisan organisation
A copious amount of baking and knitting

A crisis in the bush. The preventable deaths of close to 10,000 women and 20,000 newborns in NSW over thirty years. This was the inciting issue that led to the foundation of the Country Women’s Association (CWA) in 1922 by nurse Grace Munro — to establish an organisation to address the needs of women and children in rural areas across NSW. These deaths could have been prevented through the provision of adequate country maternity wards and rural training for nurses. [1] Within a year of Grace Munro’s call to action, the CWA was firmly established as an organisation for women with sixty-eight branches across NSW and QLD. Demonstrating their commitment to addressing the needs of women, the Millthorpe branch successfully fundraised 78 pounds (approximately $4500 nowadays) for the hospital in Orange and Blayney in under twelve months. [2]

The CWA has been crucial in advocating and creating spaces for women who are isolated. If you imagine a classic Australian country town it is likely one populated by pubs are areas historically for men coming from their farms who had a place to gather and socialise. No space was set aside for women where they could gather together and care for their children in privacy. [3] The CWA saw this need and created over 288 restrooms for women and children. [4] They provided hospitals in remote areas, holiday homes for those who lived in the Western Plains, rest homes for women who had to seek medical care away from their homes, hostels for schoolgirls, and prenatal apartments. [5] The CWA has provided a network for women who have historically been spatially isolated, creating a place where women can gather together and advocate for issues that impact them. [6] This advocacy has been acknowledged as providing ‘decades of well-researched, stubborn and diplomatic lobbying on behalf of rural women’. [7] In 2022, the CWA is still the largest women’s organisation in NSW with 8000 members and continues to advocate for issues that impact country women. [8]

The diminishing of the CWA, as an organisation that is constantly arguing that it is more than tea and scones, points to a more insidious understanding of women’s work. Skills that are typically perceived as feminine and have generally belonged to the domestic sphere such as cooking and sewing have historically been devalued in society, seen as unintellectual and not requiring great skill. [9] As a side note, this understanding has bled into how much we, as a society, are prepared to pay nurses, teachers, and childcare workers, as they are taking on historically feminine roles of caring for the vulnerable and raising children. [10] The work undertaken by the CWA is often devalued as it has focused primarily on the needs of women and children and issues within the domestic sphere. By belittling the work of the CWA it shows disdain and disinterest for the needs of women and children.

After 100 years, the CWA is still battling the same issues that led to its inception. There is still a significant gap in health and experiences of isolation for those living in the country than those that live in metropolitan areas. [11] The CWA also directly confronts contemporary issues facing country women. They have advocated for the introduction of domestic violence operative teams in all police commands and police districts across NSW which is particularly important as abusers tend to weaponise the isolation inherent to the country alongside the lack of anonymity, to prevent women seeking help. [12]

Grace Munro sought in 1922 to fix a simple problem — women’s healthcare in rural areas was not a priority for governments. Women and children were dying as a result of indifference. 100 years after the CWA was founded, it continues to prove that when women have spaces to gather together, they advocate not only the improvement of the lives of women but the betterment of their communities.

[1] Julia Power, ‘Initiators, fighters’: Why the CWA is More than Scones’, Sydney Morning Herald, (Sydney. 14 January 2022).

[2] ‘Country Women’s Association’, State Library New South Wales Archive (Web Page) <https://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/history_nation/agriculture/communities/cwa.html>, Julia Power, ‘Initiators, fighters’: Why the CWA is More then Scones’, Sydney Morning Herald, (Sydney. 14 January 2022).

[3] Elizabeth K Teather, ‘Remote Rural Women’s Ideologies, Spaces and Networks: COuntry Women’s Association of New South Wales, 1922/1992’ (1992) 28(3) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 369, 372.

[4] Ibid, 372.

[5] Ibid, 372-373.

[6] Ibid, 373.

[7] Ibid, 370.

[8] Julia Power, ‘Initiators, fighters’: Why the CWA is More then Scones’, Sydney Morning Herald, (Sydney. 14 January 2022).

[9] Katherine Grayson, ‘The Art of Embroidery: Why a Traditional ‘Woman’s Craft’ became a Popular Form of Feminist Expression’, Harpy (online, 8 April 2021) <https://harpymagazine.com/home-1/2021/4/7/the-art-of-embroidery-feminist-expression>.

[10] Julia Power, ‘Initiators, fighters’: Why the CWA is More then Scones’, Sydney Morning Herald, (Sydney. 14 January 2022).

[11] ‘Rural and Remote Health’ Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (Web Page, 22 October 2019) <https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/rural-remote-australians/rural-remote-health/contents/summary>.

[12] Monica Campo and Sarah Tayton, ‘Domestic and Family Violence in Regional, Rural and Remote Communities’, Australian Institute of Family Studies (Web Page, December 2015) <https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/domestic-and-family-violence-regional-rural-and-remote-communities>.

Written by Isabella Newton and edited by Peimin Mandy Li