Last night the State Library of Western Australia launched Wimmin’s Work. Created in collaboration with Women in Media, the project commissioned 10 female creators to tell the stories of women described as “trailblazers, peacemakers, homemakers, risk-takers, movers and shakers”.

The resulting exhibition of audio-visual stories includes activists, immigrants, mothers and entrepreneurs.

One of those featured is activist Barbara Darling, whose feminist values landed her in a psychiatric institution in the eastern states as a young woman, before she negotiated her release and hitchhiked to Perth.

“There’s a whole lot of education to be done and there’s a whole lot of men who need to be straightened out,” she says.

“It’s so important that we’re talking, we’re being heard and we’ve got to continue to be heard.

“I love being heard because I want to talk and I’ve got a few things to say – I’m 80 [and] I’ve been around the block a few times.”

Content creator Cindy Cartojano says the venture has made room for stories that would otherwise have remained untold.

“This project invites women back and says actually there’s a space for you and it gets the word out that they still exist so they can do more work in the future,” she says.

Fellow creator Lucy Torvaldsen says the project is a sign of much need change in the community.

“We’re in a new world as women and we’ve got to participate in it and we’ve got to use our voices,” she says.

“Post Covid-19 things have changed a lot.

“Working from home has opened so many doors for women to be able to be more present with their families and to do more.”

According to Curtin University Associate Professor in Journalism Kathryn Shine, women account for as little as 30 per cent of people seen, heard or quoted on the news.eard or quoted on the news.

Dr Shine says failing to elevate women’s voices influences what society considers important.

“If we’re always hearing from the perspective of men, we’re going to be much more focused on issues that affect men, so we are missing things that are important to women and we’re missing the experience of women,” she says.

“When men see women in authority [in the media] it can counter things like sexual violence and attitudes around gender-based violence, so it really does have a lot of impact in a lot of different ways.”