This paper was developed to provide background information for the Our Voice Their Safety campaign launched by the Victorian Women’s Trust. The campaign aims to equip and empower Australian women to raise their voices against the unacceptable violence that is occurring against women being held in Australian detention centres, particularly in the Nauru offshore detention centre. As an active campaigner against domestic violence and a strong advocate for the rights of Australian women, the Trust could not remain as a silent bystander to the appalling harm being done to women detained in those centres.
Back in 2014 an Australian female composer commented to Mary Crooks AO, the Executive Director of the Victorian Women’s Trust, that women composers were not commissioned, or their works played, in numbers equal to men.
Could it be possible in 2016, that is was still the case?
The Trust decided it was worth doing some further investigation with a view to exploring how women were faring the world of music and indeed, in the arts more widely.
so that in this lifetime we will be:
