Louisa Lawson
Feminist. Trailblazer. Rebel with Many Causes.
There are more statues of animals than women in Australia (Guardian Sept 2023) so it was good to stumble on this statue of Louisa Lawson in Mudgee. You’ve probably heard of her son Henry Lawson and learnt about him as you travelled around this country. But his mum, born in 1848 was an absolute legend and gave the men of her time, a run for their money!
She was an intelligent child who rebelled against the expectations of women of her time and went on to marry a man who was quite a lot older than her. At the time, a women had no other choice but to get married if she wished to leave her family home. The editorials in her paper reflected her views on marriage.
Here are some extracts I found at the Henry Lawson museum in Gulgong.
“I married because it was the only way of getting a living recognised as respectable in the society in which I lived….”
“The man who talks of women as darling angles offers this exaggerated verbiage which no one believes, in lier of fair recognition, just as he who talks of chivalry offers a temporary homage to hide a permanent robbery of individual liberty, doffing his hat to the sex in general but keeping his wife well under his thumb”
