Dr Anne Summers AO

An unwavering commitment to ending domestic and family violence remains at the forefront of Dr Anne Summers’ academic and research endeavors.

Dr Anne Summers AO is a journalist, commentator and best-selling author of nine books, including the classic Damned Whores and God’s Police, first published in 1975, and still in print. Her most recent book Unfettered and Alive, a memoir, was published in 2018.

Anne was appointed Professor of Domestic and Family Violence in the School of Business at the University of Technology of Sydney in 2023. She has been awarded substantial funding by the Paul Ramsay Foundation and UTS to continue her innovative data-based research into domestic violence in Australia. Her recent report The Choice: violence or poverty (2022) used previously unpublished ABS data to reveal the far greater prevalence of domestic violence than was previously known, and especially the shockingly high incidence among women who have become single mothers as a result. The report argued that the federal government is responsible for the ‘policy-induced poverty’ that is the fate of more than 50 per cent single mothers who are forced to rely on government benefits as their sole income.

Previously, Anne has advised Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, run the Office of the Status of Women, been Canberra Bureau Chief for the Australian Financial Review newspaper, been editor-in-chief of America’s leading feminist magazine Ms., editor of Good Weekend, chair of the Board of Greenpeace International and a Trustee of the Powerhouse Museum.

She has been an activist in the women’s movement since its inception and in 1974 was involved in establishing Elsie Women’s Refuge the first modern shelter for women and children escaping domestic violence.

She was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia for her services to journalism and to women in 1989; had her image on a postage stamp as an Australian Legend in 2011 and in 2017 was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame.