Introduction

In 1987 Mary Genevieve Gaudron, a trailblazing woman lawyer, took her place on the High Court of Australia, the first woman to serve on the Court since its establishment in 1903. She retired in 2003 well before the constitutionally prescribed retirement age of 70. The High Court of Australia, the highest court in Australia’s judicial hierarchy, is comprised of seven judges meaning that three women judges constituted a near majority. The historic first period of an almost equal gender balance on the High Court coincided with a time in which women also held peak positions within various branches of government in Australia. In Prime Minister Gillard’s experiences and, indeed, the revelations about Heydon’s conduct, authors are reminded just how deeply ingrained assumptions about gender relations and the regimes of practice built around them are within Australia’s political and legal institutions.