Physics has often been singled out as the most masculine of the sciences, at least in terms of the relative numbers of men and women in the field. Indeed, several histories argue that physics has been culturally constructed as a masculine endeavor in ways that subtly exclude women far more thoroughly than was the case for other sciences. I query whether, and to what extent, this was really so by discussing the lives of several women physicists from Australia - from Florence Martin in the late nineteenth century, to the women who were part of the early years of radio astronomy, to the new young Chair of Applied Physics at the University of Sydney, Marcela Bilek, I will make the following arguments: (1) that from the beginning, Australian women scientists experienced comparatively little direct discrimination (their counterparts in the United States were less fortunate); (2) that certainly indirect or structural discrimination contributed more strongly to limiting the career paths of women in physics than in many other fields of science, although this differed by area of research and by the personality of individual Professors; and (3) that the primary reasons for women’s comparatively low participation rate in physics lay in childhood and schooling. I will conclude with a brief discussion of some of the cultural influences on gender and physics in the past - ideas about machines and technology, mathematics and theory, and communication and interaction.