In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, acclaimed political historian and biographer Dr Judith Brett chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Fearless Beatrice Faust: Sex, Feminism and Body Politics.
‘Beatrice Faust’, Helen Garner said, ‘is not scared of anybody’.
Fearless Beatrice Faust
Beatrice Faust was an influential Australian feminist who, from the 1960s to the 1990s, helped shape Australia’s debates on sex, feminism and body politics. In Fearless Beatrice Faust: Sex, Feminism and Body Politics, Judith Brett paints a portrait of Faust as both a pioneering activist and a complex woman. Brett’s biography highlights Faust’s fearless advocacy for abortion law reform and sexual liberation alongside the private struggles that fuelled her passion for change.
Proud author, March 1981.
Photo Barry Stevens, Sydney Morning Herald.
A Pioneering and Fearless Advocate
Founding the Women’s Electoral Lobby in 1972, Faust was instrumental in forcing politicians to take women’s issues seriously. She was active in the campaign to decriminalise abortion. And in an era when public discussion of sexuality was constrained both by censorship and convention, Faust spoke openly about sex and women’s right to control their bodies.
Private Struggles Behind the Public Persona
Behind Faust’s confident public persona lay a more complex, troubled personal story. She endured a motherless childhood and struggled with chronic illness throughout her life, later battling an addiction to prescription drugs. Yet she refused to let these hardships define her.
Bea in matric, the day after she had won the ‘I speak for Australia’ award, 27 July 1956.
Brett explores the tension between Faust’s public presence and her private pain, portraying a gifted woman who refused to be a victim. Faust turned personal trauma into political action. Her mother’s death, after being advised that continuing her pregnancy would risk her health, was the defining fact of Faust’s life. She became a vocal advocate for safe, legal abortion, sex education and easily available contraception.
Portrait by Henry Talbot, 1970.
Helmut Newton & Henry Talbot Pty Ltd.
State Library of Victoria.
A Life Mirroring Social Change
Faust came of age as the conservative 1950s gave way to the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, a period of sweeping social change in Australia. The arrival of the birth control pill in 1962 helped remove the fear of unwanted pregnancy and ushered in a new openness about sexuality. Faust embraced this liberated era, seeing sex as one of life’s great joys and insisting that open conversation and education replace silence and shame.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as attitudes toward women’s rights and sexuality evolved, Faust remained at the forefront, sparking public debates and advocating for legal reforms. Judith Brett uses Faust’s story to show how one outspoken woman both shaped and reflected these social transformations.
The Writing Process
Why Beatrice Faust’s Story Matters Today
Half a century later, many of the battles Faust fought remain unresolved. Debates over reproductive rights, sexual agency and gender equality continue in a culture that is at once highly sexualised yet often puritanical. Faust’s fearless example continues to inspire us today, showing that one person’s courage can spark lasting change.
Praise for Fearless Beatrice Faust
A terrific read but also such a fascinating account of the greatest shit stirrers in Australian history.
Annabel Crabb
A superb biography of a brave, independent—and seriously important—sexual revolutionary.
Frank Bongiorno
The Women’s Electoral Lobby enriched so many women’s lives, including mine. Its founder, Beatrice Faust, deserves our gratitude.
Carmen Lawrence
Marvellous…Really important reading.
Virginia Haussegger
Excellent…Clever, companionable and careful…Fearless Beatrice Faust is an apt title, but it could also have been called the fretful, riotously funny, exquisitely fashionable and utterly fascinating Beatrice Faust.
Alecia Simmonds, Inside Story
A frank, psychologically rich biography.
Michelle Arrow, Conversation
Energetic and compelling…A portrait of a complicated woman at a time of huge change in Australia…Brett’s skills as a historian are evident.’
Michael Williams, Qantas Magazine
A refreshingly analytical approach provides depth, complexity, and insight which makes this beautifully written book compelling to read…Brett provides a highly nuanced understanding of Faust and her times, where biography becomes a rich intellectual, political, and psychological history…Biography at its best.
Elegantly constructed and exhaustively researched…A biography that feels both precise and alive.
Fearless Beatrice Faust Interviews and Reviews
ABC News
ABC Radio National: Late Night Live
Australian Book Review
Conversation
Inside Story
Saturday Paper
Virginia Haussegger on Facebook
Dr Judith Brett is a political historian, biographer and emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University. Among her books are Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People: Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class, The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, which won the 2018 National Biography Award, and From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage, which was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award.