Nearly 40 years before the phrase was coined, Dorothy Tangney broke a glass ceiling by becoming the first woman elected to the Senate.

One of her favourite keepsakes was also something she'd smashed: a fragment of a champagne bottle made into a wooden axe that she reportedly displayed in her Parliament House office.

"She was quite a refined lady," said Libby Stewart, senior historian at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MOAD).

"She had a lace tablecloth ... on her desk.

"But the rumour is that she had [the bottle axe] as well which was basically saying to men, 'Don't mess with me'."

Tangney decorated her office with flowers and a table cloth. ( Supplied: Museum of Australian Democracy )

Tangney launched the Navy frigate HMAS Shoalhaven in Maryborough, Queensland in December 1944.

In line with tradition, she was given the broken neck of the bottle she'd cracked against the vessel.

But the shipbuilders attached it to a carved handle with a note that read: "To be used as and when required."

Shipbuilders presented the axe with a label attached. ( Supplied: National Museum of Australia )

The unorthodox item is on display in the MOAD exhibition Breaking Through: 75 Years of Women in Parliament.

Trailblazer for female politicians

Dame Dorothy Tangney (1907-85) was born in Western Australia, the third of nine children of an Irish-born train driver and unionist.

Her mother was a strong Labor supporter.

Tangney started university part-time at the age of 16, trained as a teacher and worked with disadvantaged children.

After several failed attempts to enter both the state and federal parliaments, she was unexpectedly selected to fill a casual vacancy and was elected to the Senate in the Labor landslide of 1943.

Tangney headed the West Australian Labor Senate team from 1949 to 1961. ( Supplied: Museum of Australian Democracy )

At the same election, the United Australia Party's Dame Enid Lyons became the first woman to enter the House of Representatives.

Among their many other achievements, the women joined forces to lobby for a separate toilet for female parliamentarians.

Their request was not granted until the 1970s, well after they'd both left Parliament.

"They were trailblazers in more ways than one," Ms Stewart said.

Axe a symbol of women's ongoing struggle

Ms Stewart said the bottle axe symbolised the struggle women had to enter Parliament, more than 40 years after they were granted the vote and the right to stand for election.

"This axe just typifies the strength they needed," she said.

"These issues [are] still persisting, sadly, and the battles .. go on.

"I guess that makes this axe as relevant today as it was in 1944."

Breaking Through: 75 Years of Women in Parliament is open daily at the Museum of Australian Democracy.