The Royal Commission on Human Relationships and the Australian Women’s Weekly, 1977–1980: The Personal, the Political, the Popular

ABSTRACT

The Australian Women’s Weekly (the Weekly) has long been regarded as a publication that built its success upon espousing a traditional femininity to Australian women through its features on home, family and fashion. The advent of second-wave feminism in the early 1970s prompted swift and radical critiques of the role of women in Australian society, with women’s magazines one key focus for these critiques. To maintain its cultural relevance and mainstream appeal, it was necessary for the Weekly to keep pace with social change, compelling the magazine to question the role it played in perpetuating the inequality of women. This article explores the Weekly’s engagement with the Australian women’s movement of the 1970s, with particular emphasis on the ways in which the Royal Commission on Human Relationships influenced the publication’s reporting between 1977 and 1980. The Commission’s commitment to making the personal political through listening to people’s experiences, especially those of women, was replicated in the Weekly through its 1980 Voice of the Australian Woman project. Analysis of the magazine during this period reveals the ways in which the ideas of the Australian women’s movement had permeated the mainstream by the later 1970s.

KEYWORDS:

• Australian Women’s Weekly
• feminism
• 1970s Australia
• Royal Commission on Human Relationships
• women’s movement

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Marjorie Ferguson (1983, 119) has argued that editors of women’s magazines serve as ‘high priestesses to the cult of femininity’, therefore guiding the reader’s expectations of womanhood.

2 Buttrose remained highly involved in the Weekly’s operations when she was promoted to the role of editor-in-chief of Cleo and the Weekly in 1976, and publisher of all Australian Consolidated Press women’s magazines in 1977. Dawn Swain was appointed to the role of editor in Buttrose’s place.

3 For examples, see ‘The Amazing Popularity of Sterilization,’ Australian Women’s Weekly, 18 June 1980; ‘Why Australian Women Prefer Marriage,’ Australian Women’s Weekly, 21 May 1980.

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Notes on contributors

Leah Nichol

Leah Nichol holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Monash University. She is currently studying a Master of Social Work at the University of Melbourne.