Dr Jo Wainer (Richardson ’63) is an international leader in understanding the implications of gender, particularly as it manifests in women’s health, the way women and men practise medicine, the impact on the medical workforce and the creation of medical knowledge.

She began this work locally in 1995, building on many years of experience in women’s health, and extended it to the international arena from 1998 onwards. Jo joined Monash University as an academic in the Medical Faculty in 1995 where she led the development of understanding about the needs of female rural doctors. She became an Adjunct Associate Professor in 2011.

In 1973, Jo worked with her late husband, a medical practitioner, to set up Australia’s first openly operating abortion clinic in Victoria. She has spent 40 years contributing to the public debate, and organising and lobbying for repeal of laws that made abortion a crime, culminating in the removal of abortion from the Victorian Crimes Act in 2008. In that time Jo became a feminist hero for her bravery in the face of years of threats to her life and those of her family.

Jo was awarded the Amnesty Victoria ‘Woman of the Decade’ award for the 1970s for her work to secure women’s reproductive rights. Other awards include her appointment in 2002 to the Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame in Alice Springs and her 2002 appointment to the Victorian Honour Roll
of Women.

In 2010, Jo became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her service to the community as an academic and researcher in women’s reproductive rights and female rural doctors.

Jo enjoys time in the bush and at the beach, reading, and sailing. Precious time is also spent with her family, including her daughter Zoe,
and grandchildren.

Updated January 2016