Dr Anne Summers is the original multi-hyphenate

Dr Anne Summers is a doer. In the 50 years since she claimed squatters rights in what would be Australia’s first women’s refuge, the Walkley Award-winning journalist has authored nine books.

She’s also steered political and feminist mastheads, advised two prime ministers, chaired the board of Greenpeace International and, in her current post, leads research aimed at ending domestic violence. 

“I can never just do one thing. I’ve always got at least two or three or four things going at any one time,” Summers tells Helen McCabe as part of FW’s Too Much podcast. “That’s kind of been the pattern of my life.”

This surplus of pursuits could be why the UTS Business School professor has been told, throughout her extraordinary career, that she’s “too driven”. But that drive – and a dynamic skillset – has brought her this far.

Anne Summers giving her keynote address at the 2024 FW Leadership Summit. Image credit: Vienna Marie.

Summers recalls one point during the 90s when, while her public profile soared, her workflow stalled. 

“I was named one of the most influential people in Australia by the Financial Review. I was named a Woman of the Year by Vogue. I was given all of these accolades which made me sound like I was this incredible person doing all these things. [But] the phone never rang. I never got any commissions. I had no work. 

“For the first time in my life I went into a bit of a panic and thought, well, it’s too soon to stop. And in any case, if I did stop, what would I do? So I devised a way out.” 

This involved cold-calling the editor of national politics and culture magazine The Monthly – and pitching a “very tough profile” on conservative commentator Andrew Bolt. 

“That got his attention,” she recalls. “So I kind of wrote my way back into activism.” 

Summers’ push for change has long played out in published words and physical action. 

“I was very torn between the two things, because I considered them to be equally important.”

In 1974, she led a small group of feminists in claiming squatter’s rights to two vacant houses in Glebe. The group broke in, changed the locks and created Elsie Women’s Refuge. 

“We were just a bunch of young students [with] hearts in the right place, but didn’t realise what we were stepping into,” says Summers. “However, that’s often how history is made.” 

At the same time as she was co-founding the country’s first shelter from domestic violence, Summers was writing her first book – a feminist perspective on Australian History titled Damned Whores and God’s Police.

“I was very torn between the two things, because I considered them to be equally important,” she says. 

“At various times at the refuge, I said, ‘Look, I’m sorry. I have to go home and work on my book. And people used to say – quite contentiously – how can you possibly do something so frivolous and ridiculous when we’ve got all this really important work to do here?’” 

The refuge and the book are still, decades later, celebrated catalysts of the women’s movement.  

“I saw them as complimenting each other,” says Summers. “But sitting at home by yourself in a lonely room, writing a book, is a very different thing from being an activist, and trying to run a refuge full of traumatised people at the same time as going to the government and trying to get money.”  

Driven as ever, the feminist icon continues to prolifically write, speak and lead toward gender equality. 

“One of the things that I find hard to understand – and therefore hard to accept – is the timidity of so many young women today,” she says.  

“I have so many young women come to me and say, ‘I really want to do things. What do I do?’ And I say, Well, I can’t tell you what to do. You’ve got to work out for yourself, what do you want? 

“We wanted equal pay, we wanted contraception, we wanted abortion to be legal. All these things that we campaigned for were things that we wanted… So, what is it in your life that you want?”