The creation of the women's auxiliary services was a very important feature of the war, yet they only represented 2.4 per cent of the total female population. Much changed, however, during World War II (1939–45) with the creation of the women's auxiliary services and the opening up of the female job market through the manpower shortages.

Sister Elsie Grant of the 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Station, sited near Ypres in mid 1917, would not have agreed with such an opinion as she lay huddled in a dugout while her hospital was shelled. Even nursing was marginalised due to a perception of its inherent 'safety', compounding the view that real war participation only meant being in the front line. With the exception of nursing, women's roles were not considered proper war work. Seen as 'watching and waiting', women were also 'giving 'til it hurts'. The importance of this traditional female war work has never been sufficiently acknowledged. The focus for much of this female wartime civilian activity was not just the Australian serviceman, but also his dependants, and the wounded and maimed. For Australian women, the home front was where the wartime action was-knitting socks, packing parcels, fundraising or undertaking quasi-nursing domestic duties as Red Cross Voluntary Aids (VAs).

Some Australian women, such as the novelist Miles Franklin and Red Cross worker Vera Deakin, did make it to the war as attendants, canteen directors, doctors or administrators.īut Australian women's main involvement in World War I was through a range of war charities or patriotic funds, far from the front line-indeed, on the other side of the world. During World War I (1914–18), the only official military roles available to Australian women were as professional nurses in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) or British nursing services such as Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS), or in associated wartime organisations such as the British and French Red Cross. They participated as patriotic war fund workers, school teachers and nurses-all traditional activities. In the Boer War (1899–1902), Australian women's roles were limited.

This book on Australian women and war explores this remarkable transformation. In 2004, dressed in regulation army camouflage and wearing trousers, Wing Commander Angela Rhodes was deployed to Iraq as the senior air traffic control officer at Baghdad International Airport.

In 1900, in her long skirts and stays, Matron Nellie Gould volunteered for the Boer War as a superintendent of a contingent of nurses from New South Wales.

Secret by Aubrey Irons