Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Anne Summers, Allen & Unwin, $39.99.
“A compelling memoir of a magnificent woman” just about sums up the essence of this memoir of Anne Summers, who has been prominent in Australian media, politics and a feminist activist for the past four decades.
Summers tells it like it is. “I was born into a world that expected very little of women like me. We were meant to tread lightly on the earth, influencing events through our husbands and children, if at all. We were meant to fade into invisibility as we aged. I defied all of those expectations and so have millions of women like me.”
Having already done more than what she dreamed was possible, this is an inspiring autobiography of one of Australia’s most influential women, from award-winning journalist to policy maker to change agent at large.
Her core beliefs and values have guided her. Her recollection of events and her honesty are admirable. Summers shaped her future through her choices, decisions, she found valour and displayed determination.
Anne shares revealing stories about the famous and powerful people she has worked with or reported on … and shares stories of family, personal trauma and reconciliation.
The road to becoming the woman she is today is long and, at times, meandering. Her life has been a patchwork of the unplanned and unpredictable, with all the inherent risks, but also it’s about the intense enjoyment of the unexpected.
While being a woman is intrinsic to the story, Summers also finds that along with herself, the very idea of what woman is has also changed. A confident, fearless woman who became an editor and even had her image on a postage stamp says, “we are still discovering, and inventing, what it means to be a woman”.
The story described in this book is what it was like to become a woman living in an advanced western economy during the last quarter of the 20th century and the early decades of the 21st. What’s more, it’s also about what it means to ‘still be evolving as a woman going into her eighth decade’.
