In 1898, Ethel Mary Vaughan Cowan became the first female doctor at Melbourne’s children’s hospital, blazing a trail for many who came after her.
In 2024, she was honoured through the naming of Cowan Lane in Carlton, a short walk from the site of the hospital. Cowan’s legacy was just one of those recognised in 31 new place names that commemorated women in Victoria last year, with 23 place names commemorating men.
Last year, 57% of new commemorative place names in Victoria were named after women, representing the first time that more places were named after women than men.
Kerry Wilson, the project lead of Put Her Name on It, said this was exactly the result she and her team had been aiming for, as they work towards the target of 70% set out in the government’s 2023-2027 gender equality strategy and action plan.
“In 2022 women made up 25% of commemorative naming, 2023 [it was] 35% and now in 2024 the incredible accumulative result of years of work ” Wilson said.
Over the next three years as Victoria’s cities, suburbs, towns and regions continue to grow there will be more than 6,000 new places to name in Victoria. With about 25% of these places set to commemorate a person, Victorians are being invited to nominate an unsung hero of their community by 30 June to be considered for a new place name.
“We know place names matter – they shape how we see our history and who we value,” Victoria’s minister for women, Natalie Hutchins, said.
“By putting more women’s names on the map, we are ensuring their contributions are recognised for generations to come.”
Among the women recognised through place names in recent years are Lisa Bellear, a Minjungbul, Goernpil, Noonuccal, South Sea Islander poet and activist who was memorialised in 2018 through Warrior Woman Lane in Carlton, a name chosen from words that feature in one of her poems, and the late Divinyls singer Chrissy Amphlett, who was commemorated with Amphlett Lane in the CBD in 2015.
Despite moves in recent years to address the gender gap, women are represented in just one in 10 place names in Victoria and only 3% of public art.
Clare Wright, professor of history at La Trobe University, has devoted much of her work to addressing the under-representation of women in public life, and in 2019 co-founded A Monument of One’s Own to push for more statues honouring women.
Wright said that when A Monument of One’s Own started the group found just nine out of Melbourne’s 580 statues depicted historical female figures, with the disparity only now starting to be addressed by the state government.
“I could give you a one-word answer [for the gender gap] and that one-word answer is patriarchy,” Wright said.
“It’s a male dominated society, culture, politics, and that uses methods of instilling that power. One of those is to celebrate and commemorate the deeds of those who have been considered to be heroic or successful men”.
The City of Melbourne is also looking to address the gender imbalance in public monuments, including with a new statue of Vida Goldstein, a suffragist and social activist who helped women gain the right to vote in Australia.
“There are more statues of fairies and nymphs [in Melbourne] than there are of actual real women,” the city’s lord mayor, Nicholas Reece, said.
“Vida’s presence in the heart of the city will signal to young people both girls and boys that you do not have to accept the status quo, you can push for change and achieve great things”.
