Anne Summers

Anne Summers has been a central figure in Australia's cultural and political life for decades, a writer and activist whose work has consistently held power to account. She burst onto the scene with her explosive 1975 book 'Damned Whores and God's Police,' a groundbreaking social history that dissected the entrenched stereotypes of Australian womanhood and became a foundational text for the nation's feminist movement. Summers never confined herself to the page; she lived the struggle, moving from sharp journalism to hands-on advocacy. As the editor of Ms. magazine in the 1980s, she brought a global perspective home, and later, as a senior advisor in the Hawke government, she worked from inside the system to advance women's policy. Throughout, her columns and books have served as a relentless audit of Australia's progress—and regressions—on equality, making her both a celebrated and a contentious voice in the national conversation.