Anne Summers AO (b. 1945), writer and feminist, became involved in women's rights while studying politics at the University of Adelaide in the 1960s. In 1969 she was one of five women involved in founding the Women's Liberation Movement group in Adelaide. She then moved to Sydney and in 1973 was part of a cooperative that established Australia’s first refuge for victims of domestic violence, Elsie. For her doctorate at the University of Sydney, Summers wrote her first book, Damned Whores and God's Police (1975), a landmark text in Australian feminism that has sold over 100,000 copies. As a journalist for The National Times she investigated NSW prisons, which led to a royal commission and a Walkley Award for Summers in 1976. She then worked as a political correspondent for the Australian Financial Review. Appointed head of the Office for the Status of Women in 1983, Summers was instrumental in the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Act; in the 1990s she worked as an adviser to Prime Minister Paul Keating. In New York from 1986 to 1992, Summers was editor-in-chief of Ms magazine; and later edited the Good Weekend. Deputy President of Sydney's Powerhouse Museum from 1999, she also chaired the board of Greenpeace International from 2000. Her autobiography, Ducks on the Pond, was published in 1999; and her book The Lost Mother: A Story of Art and Love (2010) was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. In 2013 she published The Misogyny Factor, an analysis of the status of women in contemporary Australia. Her memoir Unfettered and Alive was published in 2018. Based in New York, Summers is a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald.
