Badass Women of Sydney: Meet the Women Who Shaped the City

About this tour

A two-hour walking tour through Sydney's Macquarie Street and The Rocks that centres the women whose actions rebuilt and redirected the city's trajectory. Led by She Shapes History, you'll uncover stories of publicans, nurses, writers, and Chinese migrants whose agency shaped neighbourhoods and institutions—the people absent from most Sydney history. This tour asks the uncomfortable question: where do women actually appear in this city's past?

Highlights

• Walk Macquarie Street and The Rocks with a local guide
• Learn about female pub owners who ran thriving businesses
• Discover Chinese women's resistance and community-building
• Hear stories of nurses and writers who changed Sydney
• Explore heritage buildings preserved by women activists
• Step beyond the standard colonial narrative

What to expect

You'll cover familiar Sydney geography—Macquarie Street to The Rocks—but through an entirely different lens. Your guide will stop at specific corners and buildings where women made measurable decisions: opening businesses, defending heritage, organising communities. The pace is slow enough to take in each location properly. You're not ticking boxes; you're building a more honest picture of how the city actually developed. Expect to challenge assumptions about who 'built' Sydney.

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