Work by Merilyn Childs, shared on . Posted in Showcase

The Amazons First Ladies Fire Brigade, Australia

“What shall we do with our girls” is a personal narrative that tells a little of the journey that emerged as a result of uncovering “The Amazons” and subsequent images. The photographs were generative of other creative works. As a result of the photographs, I collaborated with costumier Gracie Matthews to reproduce the operational and dress uniforms of The Amazons. These were then paraded by contemporary female fire fighters as part of my key note address to the Australasian Women in Fire Fighting Conference, Sydney Australia, June 2006.

This is a work in progress – I hope during 2013 to reconsider and rewrite my personal narrative as an article.

I’m interested in the possibilities offered by digital documentary story-telling.

The Flickr slideshow also show reproduced uniforms of the Women’s Fire Auxiliary (WFA), NSW 1941-1945. I’ve also included a link below to a slideshare presentation (Childs, 2012) re visual representations of women and firefighting. I’m keen to hear from others who have an interest in reclaiming the story of early female firefighters. I’m also interesting in the the way the social imagination is shaped by images. Cultural understandings and expressions of “firefighter” promote heroic, masculinist, sexy iconography. Sometimes female firefighters attempt to compete with this iconography – eg through female firefighter calendars. Stereotypes contribute to a complex cultural story. One way of understanding firefighting labour may be through equity and diversity research and campaigns (which I’ve been involved in) but another is through visual studies.

View Flickr slideshow

Related links

Women in Fire Fighting (Australia)
Visual representations of female fire fighters, and women in relationship to fire fighting.
What shall we do with our girls

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    If it’s far away, it’s news, but if it’s close at home, it’s sociology.

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    For any picture, ask yourself what question or questions it might be answering. Since the picture could answer many, questions, we can decide what question we are interested in.

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    Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.

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    Sometimes one picture is equal to 30 pages of discourse, just as there are things images are completely incapable of communicating.

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    The function of sociology, as of every science, is to reveal that which is hidden.

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