International Women’s Day 2019 Speech – Antonietta Cocchiaro

Good evening, Ladies, my name is Antonietta Cocchiaro and I want to thank the wonderful women volunteers of Radio Italiana 531 for asking me to speak with you this evening as we celebrate International Women’s Day. As volunteers for the radio, you bring joy to many people but especially the elderly who are at home, in retirement villages, and in nursing homes, so thank you for your dedicated service.

International Women’s Day is celebrated in many countries and it’s the day that we recognise the achievement of women throughout the centuries but also acknowledge the hardship they had to endure and for many women they are still enduring today.

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125 years of women’s suffrage in South Australia

The South Australian women’s suffrage campaign

Following its colonisation in 1836, South Australian settlers lived under British common law which made women subordinate to men in that they were subject to their fathers, and then to their husbands. Their property, income and children were the legal property of their husbands. As the nineteenth century rolled on however, certain progressive legislative changes began to occur that separated women’s legal identity from this archaic system, such as the 1858 Matrimonial Causes Act that allowed divorce, and the Municipal Corporations Act of 1861 that allowed owner/occupiers of property (including women) to vote in local government elections.

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