Nel Law stowed away on her husband’s ship to Antarctica. She was the first Australian woman to see its ‘crystalline strangeness’
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Monday, July 17, 2023
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In 1961, a woman might be barred from a university position post-marriage if unable to show medical evidence of a hysterectomy.
Key Points:
- In 1961, a woman might be barred from a university position post-marriage if unable to show medical evidence of a hysterectomy.
- A gay man was coyly, whisperingly, described as a “friend of Dorothy” (and might lose his job if word got out).
- She became not only the first artist in residence on an expedition, but the first Australian woman to step foot on Antarctica.
- Read more:
'No woman could paint': The Story of Art Without Men corrects nearly 600 years of male-focused art criticism
An artist’s tools
- Not to mention the tools of an artist: the advantages, nuances and limitations of oil, watercolour, charcoal, pencil.
- “Why should this place be only for them?” Nel asks the four necessarily “unattached” female fieldworkers who accompany her for part of the voyage.
- Read more:
'Suburban living did turn women into robots': why feminist horror novel The Stepford Wives is still relevant, 50 years on
Marriage’s choppy waters
- Nel’s voyage to Antarctica and back, through the choppy and frequently icy waters of a longstanding marriage, is the story of a woman’s right to be, to change, to grow and to love.
- Mead beautifully tracks Nel’s transition from being an interesting appurtenance to a man’s life, to an interesting woman in her own right.