In summing up and commenting upon a series of articles which examined the “postwar social contract” in International Labor and Working-Class History, Charles S. Maier observed that one theme which the authors raised but did “not systematically scrutinize [was] the role of gender differences” in the making of that contract.Charles S. Maier, “The Postwar Social Contract: Comment,” International Labor and Working-Class History 50 (1996):150. This article takes as its point of departure the importance of this remark both for and beyond the United States. It argues that in Australia, a country where postwar reconstruction was marked by intense labor factionalism, gender relations were in fact central to labor relations and to union strategy. Specifically, arguments and policies concerning women's rights to paid work, to equal pay, and to an active role in unions in large part defined the lines of internal labor movement division in unions with large numbers of women as members. This article charts these developments in three major areas of women's work and unionism: the clothing and footwear trades and in clerical work.