Ann Moyal

THE FEMININE CULTURE OF THE TELEPHONE. PEOPLE, PATTERNS AND POLICY

Few detailed studies have been made in any country of telephone usage. This paper reports a qualitative national study of 200 women, metropolitan and country, which embraces women of diverse conditions and ages across Australia. It presents evidence of a deeply entrenched, caring, feminine culture of the telephone which underlies our family, community, and national development. Importantly, it conveys the voices and attitudes of women to a communication technology which, locally and internationally, is undergoing policy change. At a time when a ‘new telecommunications framework’ is being considered in Australia, the data challenge traditional ‘malestream’ conceptions of telephone usage and telecommunications policy, and focus the point that women and men make significantly different use of, and have very different access to, decision-making about technology.

INVISIBLE PARTICIPANTS. WOMEN IN SCIENCE IN AUSTRALIA, 1830 — 1950

There is a great deal of contemporary pressure to examine why women are not going into science, to encourage them to do so, and, among a growing band of feminist scholars, to question and challenge the long male-centred structuring and domination of the ethos of science. Deep cultural forces survive that continue to locate most women in the professions lower ranks; the place of women in science leadership and policymaking in Australia is conspicuously small, while the very architecture of science and its invisible colleges and networks appear to perpetuate the expectation that science is a masculine world. How has this scenario developed in Australia? What part have woman played in the society and community of science? How widespread has their participation been? And what, in a sweep across a century or more, are the inhibitors that have kept women out of ‘mainstream’ science? This paper examines the background in Australia.

INVENTION AND INNOVATION IN AUSTRALIA: THE HISTORIAN'S LENS

There is a strong body of opinion that Australia‘s present technological achievement and poor attitudes to high technology development remain essentially ’colonial‘. This notion is a misconception. An overview study of some 100 inventors, technologists, and entrepreneurs indicates that vigorous attitudes to innovation prevailed in the Colonies in the nineteenth century and established for Australia some significant technological leads. Lessons from these attitudes both underline the continuing importance of the ’lone inventor’ and hold relevance for education, management, and technology policies today.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN AUSTRALIA: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, 1854-1930

Australian history has been conspicuously short on the examination of the history of technical subjects and of the role technological development has played in the countrys evolution. As early as 1961, Geoffrey Blainey observed: “We historians are uneasy outside the old triad of political, social and religious history; we are inclined to avoid the history of technical subjects even more than did the historians of the last century with their narrower compass of history.” The comment remains valid today. The history of technology in Australia stands as a broad and relatively empty canvas on which to depict the major underpinnings – and their social interconnections – of an increasingly industrialised society.

Invited commentary Prometheus—a founder's view

One arena of congratulatory reflection over 20 years is the Book Review section of Prometheus. This comprehensive section has played an outstanding role in bringing a telling array of international publications, both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, to scholars ‘Down Under’ and, in turn, exposing Australasian books, both historical and contemporary, to a growing stream of researchers around the world. This two-way flow has further been imaginatively served by an editorial policy laid down at the outset and carried on by successive Book Review Editors, of drawing the widest range of cross-national reviewers to the task. As a historian of science and telecommunications with connections in science and technology policy, I note with interest the reviews across the years which draw attention to the enlightening relevance of history in contemporary affairs—in telecommunications, print media, and science communication—a state that has led one author to observe ‘the burning issues of the day most frequently are replays of the past’.1 It is, hence, very encouraging to see that an invitation for contributions on historical aspects of Prometheus’ fields of interest continues to form part of the journal’s aims. From its founding Australian emphasis from 1983 to its growth and international development since 1997 when Carfax took over its publication, Prometheus continues to offer its readers, through its book reviews, penetrating dips into a literature expanding dynamically on every front. Across the board, and two decades, under its general editor, its associate and regional editors, and richly representative Editorial Board, Prometheus maintains ‘the distinction of making and publicizing interconnections’.2