"I’d like to start by reflecting on the people who went before us here today. The Aboriginal clans who gathered peacefully around Oyster Bay over many thousands of years. I lived in Swansea, just up the road for three years, and regard this bay as a female place – its energy is nurturing, gentle, sheltering and beautiful. Especially when you sit under a she oak tree and watch the moon rise over silver waters.

I also learned respect for the settler families of the east coast, and of this incredible property in particular – Piermont. Its social history is well told by Susan McCrae, the great great great grand daughter of Robert and Mary Webber who built the homestead in 1838. A social history I think that could only be told by a woman.

In her book Piermont, self-published in 2023, Susan writes how her family lived here for 170 years. “Good and decent people they worked hard on the land in consistent pursuit of their dreams”. Susan writes history from a female perspective – and this is the kind of history we as women need to tell ourselves. If we’re not speaking our stories – and speaking doesn’t necessarily mean shouting – we are in a way silencing our own story.

To mark International Women’s Day 2025, we meet on Paradarame Nation, and ask: what are the unique challenges and opportunities faced by women on the east coast of Tasmania? We’ll also explore the power of female-led nurturing systems and the potential we unlock when we support one another.

Talking to the three women on this panel in preparation for today, we all have something in common: we’ve all holidayed here as children and young adults. Maybe there’s something in the way we’re drawn back to where we grew up, and the places we played in, that makes us care for this beautiful coast. It’s in our very being.

When you consider where we live, we don’t have much to complain about in a world that’s quite nuts. In the context of Donald Trump’s America, its male oligarchs and tech billionaires; with war in at least four countries, and violence against women on the increase… we live in a hyper masculinised world.

As a woman’s magazine editor in a former life, in the 90s, working as deputy editor of British Cosmopolitan magazine and editor of New Woman in Australia, we banged on about feminism for years.

I thought about this the other day when a painter from Hobart came into the perfumery. She said as a tradie, she’s always overlooked at the trade counter when making business purchases; attention instead going to the male tradie standing next to her. She said the hardware counter assistants think she’s after "a bit of paint for home decorating", even though she’s fully kitted out in paint splattered tradie overalls.

Some things haven’t changed for women - you could argue they’re going backwards. But we don’t need to BE like men. It’s so much nicer being a woman, right?

BUT, we live in a man’s world – at least, the world dictated by men who crave power. And we don’t get to make the rules. So, how are we making the rules suit us? And does living on the east coast of Tasmania enable us, as women, to live the lives we’ve always dreamed of?"

The East Coast Tourism Tasmania International Women's Day panel consisted of:

Julia Fisher, co-founder and owner of Freycinet Marine Farm, Coles Bay.

Bec Polmear, Head of Creative + Communications, Waubs Harbour Distillery, Bicheno.

Jacqui Dolan, Head Winemaker, Milton Vineyard.