16/06/2026
Our next article spotlight is on ‘Feminising Social Credit’ by Simon Dowsett (Australian Catholic University, Australia) from Lilith: A feminist History Journal Number 31. This article tells the previously untold story of Lillie Beirne, an Australian Senate candidate, international public speaker and advocate for social credit, an economic and political movement of the interwar period. Here is an excerpt from Dowsett’s article:
“The shifting nature of women social creditors’ networks is evident in the company they kept and the causes they championed after WWII… the dividend offered a panacea to several established concerns of post-suffrage feminists between the wars—namely economic independence and freedom from the ravages of conflict and poverty—and was perfectly amenable to maternalistic rhetoric. But amid Cold War realignments, the subsequent trajectory of women social creditors could be unpredictable.” (pp. 49-50)
You can read the full article, available open access on ANU Press:
The 2025 Lilith presents four research articles focused on gender-based issues and experiences in twentieth-century Australia and Britain. The Australian-focused articles examine Lillie Beirne’s maternal feminism and related campaigns for social credit in the 1930s and 1940s, and how the ‘Citrus...
