The Edna Ryan Awards celebrate women who contribute to improving the lives of womEn and girls
Women who persist, strive, advocate and fight to make a feminist difference.
Women who are often unsung and unrecognised.
The Edna Ryan Awards are named in honour of a woman who fought valiantly for equal pay and equal rights for women.
The fight continues and so do these awards.
Nominations are now open
Nominations close June 30, 2022
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“Only when a society values distributive justice and multi-vocality, will the voices of its entire people be free. Only then will it be safe for each of us to add our narrative to the dominant social and political discourse. Only then will our country be equipped to engage in a fair and diverse feminist debate which has the potential to empower all.”
“I have always known that as a woman I would need to work harder than my male counterparts to be seen as an equal, and I have made it my life’s work to do just that. It is important that we show the future generations of women that we can forge success in the face of oppression and sexism. We need to always remember that we are valuable, powerful, and we should never doubt ourselves.”
Erin Wen Ai Chew
Entrepeneur, social activist, founder of the Asian Australian Alliance
2021 Award Recipients
Brittany Higgins | Grand Stirrer & For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Awardee, Brittany Higgins has become the figurehead and inspiration for a new force, an influence in reminding previously silenced women that they indeed have a voice.
Mentor Walks, Adina Jacobs | For Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring
Awardees, Adina Jacobs and Bobbi Mahlab are co-founders of Mentor Walks, an organisation premised on the belief that good women help good women.
Ann Reynolds | Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Awardee, Ann Reynolds is the convenor of the Women Write Wiki group which was inaugurated in March 2017 at The Women’s Library in Newtown.
Mentor Walks, Bobbi Mahlab | For Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring
Awardees, Adina Jacobs and Bobbi Mahlab are co-founders of Mentor Walks, an organisation premised on the belief that good women help good women.
Catherine Gander | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Awardee, Catherine Gander is a feminist role model for many younger women, spending hours supporting and empowering individual women to find their voice and strength.
Charmaine Huisman | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Awardee, Charmaine Huisman was a proud trade unionist and feminist. She was a passionate advocate for justice in the workplace and champion of women everywhere.
Claire Couson | For Making a Feminist Difference in the Arts
Awardee, Claire Couson is a filmmaker, and in 2019 she founded the Radical Womyn Film Festival, which is a yearly film festival focusing on short films made by women.
Clair Jackson | For Making a Feminist Difference in the Arts
Awardee, Clair Jackson has a strong commitment to build safe spaces for women and girls to develop and grow.
Danielle Villafana | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Awardee, Danielle Villafaña is co-founder of Youth Against Sexual Violence, which is elevating the voices of young people in the national conversation about sexual violence and misogyny.
Denise Thompson | For Making a Feminist Difference in Media/Communication
Awardee, Denise Thompson is an independent scholar who has been writing about feminism and the status of women for over four decades.
Diane Hague | For Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce
Awardee, Diane Patricia Hague (1952-2021) initially worked for the Public Service Association focusing on women’s issues. She joined TAFE NSW as a Business Studies teacher and worked with a large group of women to organise the Socialist Feminist Conference at UNSW: Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves.
Dulce Munoz | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Awardee, Dulce Munoz is the National Convener of Mums4refugees, a grassroots network of mothers and carers that provides emergency aid to people seeking asylum.
Elaine Evans | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Awardee, Elaine Evans (1936-2021) played a pivotal role in shaping the establishment of women’s legal services across Australia, including Indigenous women’s programs within those services.
Elizabeth Hill | For Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce
Awardee, Elizabeth Hill has worked through advocacy and research evidence, to change government policies on gender inequality and to shape the strategies of national and international non-government organisations.
Emily Mayo | For Making a Feminist Difference in Media/Communication
Awardee, Emily Mayo mentors young women unionists and has been involved in the founding of ground-breaking campaigns and movements like ‘Destroy the Joint’.
Georgie Dent | For Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce
Awardee, Georgie Dent was one of the co-founders of the Women’s Agenda – a hub which shares the latest news and views affecting how women live and work.
Hayley Foster | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Awardee, Hayley Foster has improved the status of women through her commitment to making NSW and Australia a safer place for women through law reform, education and training.
Jess Hill | For Making a Feminist Difference in Media/Communication
Awardee, Journalist activist Jess Hill has led a significant national public crusade to build awareness of the domestic violence crisis through the writing of her award-winning book ‘See What You Made Me Do’ and the follow up TV series on SBS.
Jo-Anne Cahill | For Making a Feminist Difference in the Arts
Awardee, Jo-Anne Cahill has used her decades-long diverse experience in theatre to raise the status of women through the Older Women’s Network Theatre Group.
Kim Loo | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Awardee, Kim Loo joins the remarkable women worldwide who have been proactive in reversing the impact of global warming.
Kittu Randhawa | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Awardee, Kittu Randhawa has been working as an individual in the Sikh and Indian community from the mid-1990s onward, and established the Indian Crisis and Support Agency (ICSA), the first NGO of its kind in the Indian community.
Lynda Coker | For Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring
Awardee, spends a significant amount of time pro bono mentoring, championing and supporting female entrepreneurs.
Our Bodies Our Choices | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Awardees, Our Bodies Our Choices (OBOC) is the group tasked with running the community campaign to decriminalise abortion in NSW
Patricia Ranald | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Awardee, Patricia Ranald organised a public forum on the impact that the ‘Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership’ (CPTPP) will have on women in Australia and worldwide.
Robynne Murphey | For Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce
Awardee, Robynne Murphy was involved in building of the Women’s Liberation Movement. She helped set up the Bread and Roses group which focused on the needs of working women, like childcare and equal pay.
Rosell Flatley | For Making a Feminist Difference in the Arts
Awardee, Rosell Flatley is a founder of New Moon Collective 2018, a community art and engagement collective program at Thirning Villa, Ashfield.
Sunita Gloster | For Making a Feminist Difference in Media/Communication
Awardee, Sunita Gloster is an advisor to UN Women Australia (UNWA), and the driving force behind the gender equality campaign that asked #whenwillsheberight?
The Loveys | For Making a Feminist Difference in the Arts
Awardees, The Loveys is a band of four women who individually and collectively, have served and continue to serve the community with their charity work as well as in their present or former employment.
Yvette Kinkade | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Awardee, Yvette Kinkade has created an incredibly successful community that celebrates women’s participation in motorsport.
Recipients 2021 –
The Ednas Recipient list, 2021 –
Past AWARd recipients
fEMPOWER | Grand Stirrer
The Grand Stirrer Award. For inciting others to challenge the status quo.
Helen L’Orange | Leadership
For leading feminist changes in the public sphere.
Mary O’Sullivan | Community Activism
For feminist activity in the community.
Marilyn Hatton | Leadership
For leading feminist changes in the public sphere.
Deborah Brennan | Education
For a special contribution to the education of women and girls.
Pearlie McNeill | Arts
For creative feminism.
Margot Oliver | Media
For consistent promotion of feminist perspectives in the media.
Leonie McGuire | Community Activism
For feminist activity in the community.
Lee Lewis | Arts
For creative feminism.
“Pinch me, it’s a miracle handed out on my birthday. It could have been decided years and years ago. We’d given up hope, and now, bang, here it is in writing,”
– Edna Ryan, aged 68, writing in her diary after the National Wage Case decision in 1972 that gave one and a half million women equal pay with men.
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Older Women’s Network NSW
8-10 Victoria Street,
Newtown NSW 2042, Australia.
+61 – 2 – 9519 8044
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we work and live, and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.
We acknowledge the sorrow of the Stolen Generations and the impacts of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Edna Ryan Awards supports the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the call for a First Nation's Voice enshrined in the Australian Constitution and a Makarrata Commission to oversee agreement-making and truth-telling.