INCREASE WOMEN’S representation in places of influence
Enid Lyons List supports women who seek elevation to offices of influence.
In Australia, ‘Emily’s List’ was founded in 1996 and has since supported 284 women into state and federal parliaments across Australia through the Australian Labor Party. Promoting women’s access to abortion is a core value of Emily’s list. The Australian iteration of Emily’s List takes its inspiration from the original Emily’s List, founded in 1985 in the US to fund campaigns of pro-choice Democrat women. The election of Emily’s List women into federal and state parliament has directly led to the proliferation of wall-to-wall abortion-to-birth laws across Australia.
Enid Lyons List seeks to create balance by countering the power and influence of Emily’s List in Australia. Enid Lyons is a widely respected figure in Australian history as the first woman elected to federal parliament. She was a pioneer and champion of women’s rights to equal participation in the workplace and of child and maternal wellbeing. Enid Lyons was against abortion, although she was attentive and compassionate to the struggles of women seeking abortion.
As an iconic Australian, Enid Lyons is the ideal patron for a uniquely Australian, anti-abortion advocacy campaign. Although Enid Lyons List will have its head office in South Australia, it will promote abortion law reform and education across the nation by supporting the election of more women into Australian parliaments who are opposed to abortion.
Fittingly, South Australia was the first Australian jurisdiction to give women the right to vote and to be elected to parliament. Enid Lyons List takes its inspiration from the pioneering women who fought for women’s right to vote against the odds: the media was stacked against them and both political parties were opposed but a grass roots, ten-year campaign ultimately succeeded and laid the foundation for women to fully participate in civic life across Australia.
“In South Australia, success was the reward of hard and persistent effort and careful observation of the sign of the times. In the Upper House there were no votes to spare, we won and that was all. The dire results prophesised by opponents of woman’s franchise have not come to pass and you can see in this Convention: real live women who have voted in a Parliamentary election and remain much the same women as before. We have not heard of any domestic quarrels, or any neglected children as a result of the new departure and dinner was cooked on election day much the same as usual.”[1]
[1] Elizabeth Nicholls in her presidential address to the Australian Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1897 quoted in Torchbearers (1949) p 46.
Photo credit: Elizabeth Webb Nicholls in 1895. Photo source: Wikipedia