Wicked women making history
Do you know about the historic ocean pool that was built as a women’s bath? The popular Wollongong hotel that was run by a team of spirited women? The women who had to fight tooth and nail for a job at the Steelworks?
She Shapes History are bringing these local stories to the forefront in their Wicked Women of Wollongong tour. The two hour tour from Flagstone Lighthouse to Wollongong’s CBD explores the city’s history through the experiences of women spanning back to the 1800s and presents numerous stories of resistance, resilience and ambition such as that of Anne Fuller or Pearl Gibbs. If you don’t yet recognise those names, you’re sure to be well acquainted by the end of the tour.
Participating in the tour myself, I had the pleasure of chatting with one of the fabulous new Wollongong tour guides, Shane Moon. Ms Moon’s excitement and passion for these women’s stories was contagious, and even though it was her first time conducting the tour, her storytelling was simply captivating.
“I have always been an advocate for women, mostly in the entertainment side of things,” Ms Moon said when I asked why she had become involved with the Wollongong tour.
“I’ve always been that advocate for the underdog, and women forever have been the underdog. It’s just been an amazing way to share the stories.”
With only a few of the women featured within the tour holding a plaque or some means of recognition, many of the stories – as is often the case with history – would’ve been otherwise lost on the average passerby.
According to Ms Moon, it’s predominantly a lack of documentation, particularly older information, that has made it hard for these women’s stories to be recognised even today.
She Shapes History founder Sita Sargeant was also present on the tour and had been visiting from Melbourne to work with our new Wollongong guides.
“I think that there’s a real respect gap as well,” she added.
“It’s an ongoing conversation, and there’s still this huge lack of respect for women in Australia combined with an information gap, and the respect gap led to the information gap, but now the information gap feeds into the respect gap.”
This respect gap has been especially present in some of the online responses to the initiative with She Shapes History captioning the tour in one social media post as “the only tour in Wollongong that gets hate mail”.
Ms Sargeant said that this negative reaction in itself can be considered a testament to the lack of women’s representation in history.
“The fact that people get upset by the idea that women have shaped history really shows how much they’ve been erased,” she said.
“Women have been so erased from the record that the very idea that they’ve done anything is confronting.”
Thankfully, Ms Sargeant was able to assure me that the tour has gathered considerably more support than hate, emphasising how appreciative the majority of people are that these stories are not only being preserved but shared.
Ms Moon said the tour has provided a greater love for Wollongong and its history.
“I now walk down to these places going ‘oh that’s good information’, and it just makes you think and wonder,” Ms Moon said.
“Even today through doing the tour people are going, ‘oh, there’s a Brooker Avenue in Tarrawanna’, or ‘there’s a street name here’. It’s really then starting to question why are these things here, and that there is a story behind it and there will always be a woman’s story behind it, we just have to find it.”
For those interested in attending and learning more about the women who have helped shape Wollongong, the Wicked Women of Wollongong tour runs every Saturday and Sunday from 10am with tickets available for purchase online. Be sure to use the discount code “UOWSTUDENT” for 15% off for the Wollongong tour.
