Bücher von Grace Barnes

In 1912, against a backdrop of growing feminist and national movements, the Australian public united behind a fundraising campaign to send two female swimmers to Stockholm to compete, for the first time, at an Olympic Games. Coogee resident, Mina Wylie, was one of those women, and after winning silver at the 1912 Olympics she went on to become one of the greatest swimmers Australia ever produced. Her career coincided with a growing view of beach culture and swimming as essential to a unique Australian way of life, and Mina became a role model for the vigorous and healthy 'Australian Girl'. As one of the first female sporting celebrities, she typified the new modern woman as she travelled to Europe and the USA, maintained an independent lifestyle and disregarded societal conventions. In 1975, Mina was selected as an Honoree to the Florida based International Swimming Hall of Fame. When her request to the Federal Government for expenses to attend the induction ceremony was denied, a nationwide fundraising campaign launched Mina back into the spotlight. Sixty years after the Australian public had sent Mina to the Stockholm Olympics, the populace re-embraced the forgotten champion and sent her to Florida to take her place amongst the Greats of international swimming. The book rediscovers Mina Wylie, a woman who twice inspired a nation, sixty years apart. And a woman who was determined not be written out of Australian sporting history.

Audiences for musical theater are predominantly women, yet shows are frequently created and produced by men. Onstage, female characters are depicted as victims or sex objects and lack the complexity of their male counterparts. Offstage, women are under-represented among writers, directors, composers and choreographers. While other areas of the arts rally behind gender equality, musical theater demonstrates a disregard for women and an authentic female voice. If musical theater reflects prevailing societal attitudes, what does the modern musical tell us about the place of women in contemporary America, the UK and Australia? Are women deliberately kept out of musical theater by men jealously guarding their territory or is the absence of women a result of the modernization of the genre? Based on interviews with successful female performers, writers, directors, choreographers and executives, this book offers a unique female viewpoint on musical theater today.