User:Prabjotkaurucla/Biff Ward: Difference between revisions

 

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Ward is also known for her non-fiction works, ”Three’s Company” (1992), ”Father-Daughter Rape” (1984), ”In My Mother’s Hands” (2014), and ”The Third Chopstick: Tracks Through the Vietnam War” (2022).

Ward is also known for her non-fiction works, ”Three’s Company” (1992), ”Father-Daughter Rape” (1984), ”In My Mother’s Hands” (2014), and ”The Third Chopstick: Tracks Through the Vietnam War” (2022).

== Early Life & Professional Career ==

== Early Life & Career ==

Biff Ward was born in New South Wales in 1942<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ward, Elizabeth (Biff) |url=https://www.womenaustralia.info/entries/ward-elizabeth-biff/ |access-date=2025-11-23 |website=AWR |language=en-AU}}</ref> She grew up in [[Australian National University]] housing in [[Canberra]] and had two siblings: an older sister, Alison, who died as a baby, and a younger brother, Mark. Her mother, Margaret Ward, experienced mental illness difficulties and abused Biff as a child. Biff’s father, [[Russel Ward]], was a vocal member of the [[Communist Party of Australia|Communist Party]], and because of the anti-communist attitudes in their community, the family had rocks being thrown at their house and nails put in their car tires.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hardy |first=Karen |date=2014-06-18 |title=Biff Ward’s untold stories In My Mother’s Hands |url=https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/biff-wards-untold-stories-in-my-mothers-hands-20140619-zsdeu.html |access-date=2025-11-17 |website=The Age |language=en}}</ref>

Biff Ward was born in New South Wales in 1942<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ward, Elizabeth (Biff) |url=https://www.womenaustralia.info/entries/ward-elizabeth-biff/ |access-date=2025-11-23 |website=AWR |language=en-AU}}</ref> She grew up in [[Australian National University]] housing in [[Canberra]] and had two siblings: an older sister, Alison, who died as a baby, and a younger brother, Mark. Her mother, Margaret Ward, experienced mental illness difficulties and abused Biff as a child. Biff’s father, [[Russel Ward]], was a vocal member of the [[Communist Party of Australia|Communist Party]], and because of the anti-communist attitudes in their community, the family had rocks being thrown at their house and nails put in their car tires.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hardy |first=Karen |date=2014-06-18 |title=Biff Ward’s untold stories In My Mother’s Hands |url=https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/biff-wards-untold-stories-in-my-mothers-hands-20140619-zsdeu.html |access-date=2025-11-17 |website=The Age |language=en}}</ref>

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Elizabeth “Biff” Ward (born in 1942) is an Australian-born writer, feminist, social activist, and author.

She is known as one of the founding members of the Canberra Women’s Liberation Group (CWL), and has contributed to the group’s activist efforts through theoretical debates and papers.

Ward is also known for her non-fiction works, Three’s Company (1992), Father-Daughter Rape (1984), In My Mother’s Hands (2014), and The Third Chopstick: Tracks Through the Vietnam War (2022).

Biff Ward was born in New South Wales in 1942^[1] She grew up in Australian National University housing in Canberra and had two siblings: an older sister, Alison, who died as a baby, and a younger brother, Mark. Her mother, Margaret Ward, experienced mental illness difficulties and abused Biff as a child. Biff’s father, Russel Ward, was a vocal member of the Communist Party, and because of the anti-communist attitudes in their community, the family had rocks being thrown at their house and nails put in their car tires.^[2]

In the early 1970’s, Ward attended some of her first women liberation meetings in which she came out with an interest and awakening about her life as a woman.^[3]

Ward’s earliest documented piece of feminist writing are found in Mejane, a women’s liberation newspaper, in 1972.^[4] Ward also played an important role in the early feminist organizing that took place in Canberra.^[3]

Biff Ward was one of the founding members of the Canberra Women’s Liberation Group^[5], which was founded in June 1970, and served as a prominent figure in the women’s movement in Canberra as a writer, activist, and political thinker.^[3] The Women’s Liberation Movement in Australia reached Canberra, Australia, in 1970, and a Women’s Liberation group, the Canberra Women’s Liberation Group (CWL), was formed in June of that year.^[6] The CWL, which fluctuated between six and fifty members, began its activism through consistent meetings and by publishing the Women’s Liberation Newsletter in October 1970, which they used to advocate for women’s rights issues for 5 years.^[6] From February 1972 to January 1975, their main base was the Women’s Liberation House on Bremer Street, Griffith, and this was where CWL activists like Ward helped secure a new Women’s Centre on Lobelia Street.^[6] This centre housed the Women’s Information Service, Abortion Counseling Service, a feminist bookshop, and office/meeting space for the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL), the Women’s Refuge, and the Rape Crisis Centre.^[6]

The Canberra Women’s Liberation group campaigned on issues such as housework, childcare, reproductive rights, and sexual violence and contributed to the establishment of women’s services in the city, including a women’s centre, refuge house and rape crisis centre. Women’s rights were the central focus for the CWL, which led to the set up of a printmaking workshop in the garage of their home office at the Women’s Liberation House in 1972 to further publicize their advocacy.^[5] During 1972 and 1973, CWL members printed posters concerned with women’s issues. Biff Ward participated in CWL’s work, explaining in a piece that CWL would have “these big screen-printing working bees … working really hard, printing, printing, printing. We’d print posters for meetings and public meetings, and maybe demonstrations.”^[5]

Ward’s primary activism lay in her contributions to theoretical debates within the CWL. In one 1974 meeting, Ward argued that women’s liberation was “not about gaining power” and that the CWL activists opposed the concentration of power in anyone’s hands, reflecting their skepticism toward hierarchical politics.^[6] In meetings in the early 1970s, CWL members discussed working for “two revolutions”, an external, socialist revolution and an internal revolution of personal and social relations, and Ward argued that the group was not seeking to gain power but to challenge the very idea of concentrated power.^[6] Her writings also extended to experimenting with the benefits of communal living and community on children, as part of broader feminist attempts to rethink domestic life.^[4] Writing in the feminist newspaper Mejane in 1972,^[4] Ward outlined plans for a commune she hoped to establish with fellow Canberra women’s liberationist Julia Ryan.^[4] In that article, Ward argued that raising children collectively could allow them to form independent relationships with their peers and with a wider range of adults, learn cooperation “from birth,” and gain “tremendous advantages” from being able to love and learn from “a lot of adults.”^[4] In 1975, at the Feminism-Anarchism conference, Ward drafted a paper titled “The Politics of Feminism,” which mapped the women’s movement across several spheres of activity and articulated an “anarchist–reformist” conception of revolution, stressing that “the means is the end” and that “getting there is living the revolution.”^[6] At the Marxist Feminist Conference in Sydney in 1977, she described the “initial exhilarating flush of feminism” as grounded in acceptance, support, personal change, and collective development, highlighting “sisterhood” as central to feminist practice.^[7]

1972 essay in Mejane

In Mejane (1972), Biff Ward said that communal living situations could be better for children, as they would be living with several adults and have an opportunity to socialize and make non-familial friends.^[4]

In February 1975, Biff Ward spoke to a small group of activists and read from her text to start planning for the Feminism-Anarchism Conference. Her ideas were written down for the first time.^[6]

Biff Ward reflects in a paper she presented at a feminist conference in Sydney in 1977 on the tensions in the feminist movement, and also on the excitement and hope that she’d initially felt.^[7]