ABSTRACT
Of all the British Empire’s women, enfranchised patriotic Australian women considered themselves to be uniquely burdened with the responsibility of guarding against national shame. Many of them had not wanted the vote. But as new voting citizens, they had a direct hand in choosing how the honour of the young nation was protected. Their anxieties, therefore, were twofold. On the one hand, they worried that the new nation would not prove itself a mature and loyal member of the imperial family of nations and would instead bring shame upon itself and the Empire. On the other hand, patriotic women expressed a deep concern that women citizens would not perform this new role with the level of political wisdom and patriotic zeal required of them. This chapter analyses how painfully attuned newly enfranchised Australian women were to the ever-present threat of national shame. It also examines how these new female voters used shame in their attempts to protect the integrity of their identity as loyal British-Australian women.
