Cockburn Sound Women's Peace Camp
1984Peace Camp photographs
- women with flowers in hair and painted faces, Right: Kate Makowieka
-1 balloons on the barricade
-2 women swimming with inflatables
-3 Judy Quinlivian and Jo Darbyshire
-4 Liz Wood (2 copies)
Liz Wood Collection.
Sound Women’s Peace Collective was formed from Women For Survival after their successful Pine Gap Women’s Peace Camp in 1983 to organize another national women’s protest at Cockburn Sound, WA.
The Western Australian group, Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament, played a key role in preparing this event. It was held in December 1-14, 1984 at Point Perron in Cockburn Sound, near the HMAS Stirling Naval Base on Garden Island and close to Fremantle where nuclear capable US warships frequently docked and utilized the services of local women for ‘rest and recreation’. An innovative Peace Train was organized with the railways and unions to bring women from the Eastern states for this action, but the costs became burdensome; the Peace train was transformed into a Road Train, a cavalcade of buses travelling together, but even this proved impossible to coordinate. The memory and idyll of the Peace Train remains however in posters and newsletter images, which are testament to its ingenuity.
The Cockburn Sound Women’s Peace Camp anti nuclear protest and encampment was held at the HMAS Stirling Naval Base (Garden Island) in December 1984. Women came from all over Australia to join the camp.
The local media painted the women as wild lesbians:
‘Anti-nuclear protesters stormed the gates to Stirling… 200 painted, chanting women worked themselves into a frenzy and pushed comrades over the fence. 75 were arrested. On one side is the strong lesbian element, butch hairstyles and boiler suits, and on the other those who genuinely wanted a peaceful protest.‘
Dale Kerford, The Sound Telegraph, 12 December 1984
‘The Cockburn Sound Peace Camp was not just about anti-nuclear politics - for me, it was also about personal and sexual politics. One afternoon I was walking back to camp when a rock was thrown at me by a group of young guys in a car. It was a confronting moment. I wondered, “Do they hate me for what I'm trying to do, or do they hate me because they think I'm a lesbian?” At that moment I appreciated just how much a person's sexuality – or a person's perceived sexuality – can be used not only to dismiss that person but also to demonise them.’ Liz Wood, 2002 (Gay Museum)
Written by Jo Darbyshire, 2024.
Details
Details
QAPE0062: Donor, Date:23/06/2024 ELIZABTH WOOD (LIZ) DoB: 1957
Liz Wood Collection
A series of photographs taken at the Cockburn Sound Women’s Peace Camp, December 1984, by Liz Wood.
Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Wood and her twin brother Paul were born in Perth in 1957. Liz attended Brigidine College in Floreat Park, and worked in a prawn factory in Exmouth before studying Women’s Studies and Humanities at Murdoch University. She became a journalist with the West Australian newspaper for 6 years and also worked as media advisor for Greens Senator Jo Valentine, in Canberra and Perth, during the 1980s.
Her twin brother Paul worked as a cameraman for commercial television, and at the time of Cockburn Sound was on the other side of the fence filming the protest, while his sister took these photos.
QAPE0062: Photographer, Date:1984 ELIZABTH WOOD (LIZ) DoB: 1957
QAPE0062: Image, Date:1984 ELIZABTH WOOD (LIZ) DoB: 1957
QAPE0023: Image, Date:1984 JO DARBYSHIRE DoB: Unknown
Donor of Gay Museum panels, ephemera, interviews
Source: GALAWA Donor List 2015
Liz Wood Collection
Australia
Open in Google Maps
Nearest geotagged records:
- Cockburn Sound Women's Peace Camp (0km away)
- Cockburn Sound Women's Peace Camp (0km away)
- POSTER - Fortress Fremantle Graphic Letter Batteries (1.76km away)
- Banner, Lespar Library (6.99km away)
- Banner, Lespar Library (6.99km away)
- Banner, Lespar Library (6.99km away)
- Banner, Lespar Library (6.99km away)
- Banner, Lespar Library (6.99km away)
- Banner, Lespar Library (6.99km away)
- Banner, Lespar Library (6.99km away)
View all geotagged records...