Look around your suburb: who is remembered on the street signs, statues, plaques and murals?
If your town is like most in Australia, the answer is mostly men even though women built, led, healed, taught, protested, farmed, wrote and shaped these communities just as much.
The good news?
This is an inequality that can be fixed and locals have enormous power to do it.
You don’t need to be an expert. You don’t need to be a CEO. You just need to know how to ask.
There is a quiet revolution already happening.
Since 2022, Victoria has been steadily fixing a huge historic imbalance. Thanks to work by Geographic Names Victoria and naming authorities across Victoria including local councils:
- In 2025, new commemorative place names honouring women reached 70% up from 26% in 2022.
But the change is slow and much more needs to be done. Because across Victoria there are still around 40,000 more places named after men than women. That’s not just a gap. That’s half of history missing.
Why are councils the key?
Local councils are the gatekeepers of memory.
They decide:
- What parks, roads and buildings are called
- Who is honoured in public art
- Whose stories are told on plaques and signs
Councils must actively consider gender equality in place naming and public commemoration, and achieve the 70% statewide target of all new commemorative place names to be of women.
So if your council isn’t acting, you have every right to ask why.
Three simple ways you can create change
1. Ask a Question on Notice
This is the easiest way to start. Anyone can write to their council and ask a formal question that must be answered at a Council meeting and recorded in the minutes. Try something like:
“What percentage of our council’s commemorative place names and public artworks currently honour women, and what steps is Council taking to close any gender gap?”
This does three powerful things:
- It forces council to check the data
- It puts the issue on the public record
- It alerts councillors that the community is interested
2. Request a briefing
Councillors can request a briefing that directs staff to act. If you’re not a Councillor all you have to do is email or meet a councillor and say:
“Would you be willing to request a briefing asking how Council is advancing gender equity in commemorative place naming and public art?”
The briefing should present:
- What percentage of our council’s commemorative place names and public artworks currently honour women?
- What steps is council taking to close any gender gap?
- What further steps can council take to advance and accelerate progress?
This approach puts public commemoration equality on the agenda for councils to be informed, discuss and could result in direct action and/or a formal report going to council for consideration.
3. Make a budget submission
Budgets are where values turn into action. A budget submission asks council to put real money and/or resources behind equality. At budget time of the year anyone can submit a budget bid.
Here’s what councils are being asked to fund across Victoria:
| What | Why it matters | Request |
| Audit | You can’t fix what you don’t measure | Internal 220 hrs or outsourced $22,000 |
| Gender Impact Assessment | Ensures decisions don’t entrench bias | Internal 20 hrs or outsourced $2,000 |
| Name Bank of local women | Makes it easy to choose women when naming places | Internal 150 hrs or outsourced $15,000 |
| Policy with a 70% target | Locks equality into everyday practice | Internal 150 hrs or outsourced $15,000 |
| Governance group | Keeps council accountable | Internal within existing resources |
| Action Plan | Turns goals into timelines | Internal 10 hours or outsourced $1000 |
| Staff or project role | Makes sure the work actually gets done | Minimum $40,000 for 12 months |
| Naming at least one woman each year | Guarantees visible progress | Business as usual |
| Public Art | Highly visible recognition | Allocate existing budget to art of women by women or $75,000 per annum to leverage |
Most of this can be done with small, once-off investments and then built into business-as-usual.
Place names and public art matter. They tell every person:
- What to think
- What to feel
- Who to remember
Right now, our streets quietly tell women and girls: you were a footnote.
We can change that. The most powerful thing about this? You don’t need permission.
You can:
- Write the question
- Email the councillor
- Lodge the budget submission
And suddenly, history starts to shift. Because when local people speak, councils listen. And when councils act, the map changes. And when we change the map and put more women on it… the story we tell about who we are and who matters changes.
Join the movement.
#puthernameonit #commemorativejustice #westandwithwomen #visiblewomen #putwomenonthemap #commemoratewomen #nominateher
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