In 1898, Ethel Mary Vaughan Cowan became the first female doctor at  children’s hospital, blazing a trail for many who came after her.

In 2024, she was honoured through the naming of Cowan Lane in Carlton, a short walk from the site of the hospital. Cowan’s legacy was just one of those recognised in 31 new place names that commemorated women in  last year, with 23 place names commemorating men.





Women are represented in just one in 10 place names in Victoria and only 3% of public art. History professor Clare Wright says patriarchy is to blame.

Kerry Wilson, the project lead of Put Her Name on It, said this was exactly the result she and her team had been aiming for, as they work towards the target of 70% set out in the government’s 2023-2027 .

“In 2022 women made up 25% of commemorative naming, 2023 \ 35% and now in 2024 the incredible accumulative result of years of work ” Wilson said.

Over the next three years as Victoria’s cities, suburbs, towns and regions continue to grow there will be more than 6,000 new places to name in Victoria. With about 25% of these places set to commemorate a person, Victorians are being invited to  by 30 June to be considered for a new place name.

“We know place names matter – they shape how we see our history and who we value,” Victoria’s minister for women, Natalie Hutchins, said.





Warrior Woman Lane in Carlton was named in honour of Indigenous poet Lisa Bellear in 2018.

Clare Wright, professor of history at La Trobe University, has devoted much of her work to addressing the under-representation of women in public life, and in 2019  to push for more statues honouring women.

Wright said that when A Monument of One’s Own started the group found just nine out of Melbourne’s 580 statues depicted historical female figures, with the disparity only now starting to be addressed by the state government.

“I could give you a one-word answer \ and that one-word answer is patriarchy,” Wright said.

“It’s a male dominated society, culture, politics, and that uses methods of instilling that power. One of those is to celebrate and commemorate the deeds of those who have been considered to be heroic or successful men”.

The City of Melbourne is also looking to address the gender imbalance in public monuments, , a suffragist and social activist who helped women gain the right to vote in Australia.





Suffragist and social activist Vida Goldstein.

“You just hope for the best”: rarely seen froglets – the length of a grain of rice – released into small patch of Victorian wilds. Photograph: National Library of Australia
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