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Page 13 C. WOMEN’S LIBERATION – THE TIMES OF ZELDA D’APRANO
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90. WOMEN WHO WORK IN SHOPS PROTEST
Leaflet: 'Women who work in shops are underpaid and work very long hours ...
Next Friday and Saturday women from all walks of life are meeting to talk together, march together and offer each other support in the fight to alter the conditions under which women have been exploited for too long.
We Want -
- Equal pay
- Minimum wage
- Equal job opportunities
- Non-discriminatory job re-classification
- Child care centres in or near our places of employment, and in the suburbs
- Shorter working week
- Improved working conditions and staff facilities
- Reduction of competition in commission selling to a fairer, more honest basis.
We must join with each other to bring about these changes.
Friday, March 8th, Saturday March 9th, Women's Centre, 16 Little Latrobe Street, Melbourne Renee Remeril papers, University of Melbourne
91. WOMEN PICKET EVERHOT
The sacking of seventeen women workers at Daffin-Everhot, Bayswater, was a classic case of discrimination in employment.
As the dispute developed, it became even more plain that again, to solve economic difficulties and crisis of employment, the first answer to be thought of is to push women out of employment because they, theoretically, can be economically supported by husbands, fathers, brothers, sons etc., and second, because militant action from fellow workers will be lacking because to a large degree the men workers will support the theory that work for men is more important than work for women ...
(On) the fifth week "Picketing resumed on Thursday, with support from Women's Liberation and some from WEL ...
Women's Liberation says the whole dispute is blatantly a case of discrimination against women.
Vashti's Voice autumn 1975 See Appendix 5
92. WOMEN’S ACTION ALLIANCE et al BETRAYAL
We would like to make some connections between right wing groups, the nuclear family and women.
The right wing groups use an ideological attachment upon women to reinforce the nuclear family structure, as well as to maintain social control and to divert attention from the real issues that are at the basis of the social and economic crisis.
The resurgence of conservative attitudes towards women was taking its toll on women's participation in any form of public organisation, and the 'communist scare' continued to divide those women who remained active. Western Union Refuge Group See Appendix 4
93. “NOT WISHING TO HELP ASIO FURTHER …”
According to the Age (14/5/74), from late 1971 a "leading member of Women's Liberation in Melbourne" was spied on by ASIO. This included having her phone tapped. Not wishing to help ASIO further, we shall refer to this woman as Ms Z ...
We suggest to all women who have been involved in the Women's Liberation Movement that they write to the current Attorney General requesting to see their ASIO file.
They may be flattered to find out that they, too, are considered dangerous and a threat to society.
Vashti's Voice June-July 1974 Women's Liberation Archives University of Melbourne
94. RELIGION – CATHOLIC ACTION - NATIONAL CIVIC COUNCIL BETRAYAL
Santamariaism versus Industrial Democracy - Anyone attempting to summarize all the salient facts relating to the impact of Santamariaism ... is doomed to frustration.
The best that any writer can hope to achieve is to collate the highlights of published information from authentic sources and indicate the real purpose of this obvious neo-fascist movement in contra-distinction to that implied in the home culture of its propaganda ...
Closely knit and capably directed by Bartholomew Santamaria ... the organisation emulated the Communist Party and became increasingly active in all States with a measure of success in various spheres. Muriel Heagney State Library of Victoria See Appendix 4
According to the National Civic Council newsletter News Weekly B Santamaria formed the National Civic Council (NCC) in 1941:
"It is an organisation which seeks to shape public policy on cultural, family, social, political, economic and international issues of concern to Australia."
http://www.newsweekly.com.au/aboutncc.html See Appendix 4
It is essential for feminists to examine closely and expose the distortions of Women's Action Alliance letters, articles and actions. They are NOT working in our interest. Women's Action Alliance (and its assorted umbrella groups) must not be allowed to operate as feminist groups. RougeRivka Pile papers, University of Melbourne see Appendix 4
More than most right-wing groups, the National Civic Council (NCC) has a strong nexus within the family - its members are mainly Roman Catholic, maintaining a strict "morality" about sexuality. This is one reason why women's liberation subversion remains such a high priority within the organisation ...
Women are trained through NCC courses...
Rouge see Appendix 4
95. WOMEN MEMBERS OF NATIONAL CIVIC COUNCIL BETRAYAL
Women members of National Civic Council are the spokespeople for all Women's Action Alliance campaigns - even if the policies are decided by men.
As women they add authenticity and make the connection between their own lives and the conditions of women..
Rouge see Appendix 4
96. 1974 WAA “HOMEMAKER'S ALLOWANCE” BETRAYAL
Nearly a century ago it was promoted as a 'Wages for Wives'. The feminists at the time successfully resisted it and promoted, and got, a maternity allowance - child endowment; and as an entitlement for all women, not a charity for poor women.
Later, a half a century ago, it was the Australian Women's National League who promoted it, and Muriel Heagney argued against it with the similar or the same feminist arguments as are presented here, where the Women's Action Alliance (WAA) is promoting a 'homemakers' or 'housewife's' allowance. Geraldine Robertson
One of the most important campaigns of WAA is the establishment of a "homemaker’s allowance" of $40 per week so that "single-income families will not be disadvantaged." This campaign MUST be exposed.
1. It is a blatant attack on married women workers - WAA claims that such an allowance will "free" women to return to full-time "motherhood". This coincides with "Newsweekly's" campaign that married women are a major cause of youth unemployment ...
2. "Homemakers Allowance" institutionalises our role as domestic "servants" being paid a pittance to maintain a home, care for children etc. It reinforces women's position within the nuclear family.
One of the most outspoken proponents has been Dr Claire Isbister, much featured in the Australian Women's Weekly.
She is consistently quoted in WAA literature and Newsweekly...
We must ... counter this blatant attack on married women in the workforce. We can't ignore the WAA so-called "Giving Mothers Freedom of Choice" campaign.
Rouge see Appendix 4
Housework should be people's work, not women's work.
Women’s Liberation chant
97. I AM NOT A HOUSEWIFE
It appears to me that if wages for housework became a reality then when I wasn't working (and lots of times I don't) and was doing most of the housework, from choice and convenience, then I would become, in the files of the bureaucracy, a house worker/wife. It would then be so much harder to resist this definition of myself. I would find myself responsible for the housework.
I am not a house worker/wife. I do not want that responsibility and it appears that wages for housework would force that definition upon me.
Pat T Tess Maloney papers University of Melbourne
98. SOCIAL WELFARE CUTS
There is a shift from the philosophy that communities are responsible for the well-being of all their members at all times in their lives and in all circumstances. In its place we are faced with a philosophy which extols the virtues of ”individual initiative and achievement” in an economic and power sense only, albeit at the expense of others.
Today it is not economic reality that is the basis for the present Government's obsession to impose cutbacks in all social welfare areas, but rather a convenient excuse for a concerted ideological attack on selected groups.
There is ample evidence that the machinery required to administer and police the results is to be more costly overall compared with the resulting "savings".
Vashti's Voice 1976 Women's Liberation papers, Melbourne University See Appendix 5
It is an eternal truth that when the word "family" is uttered by apolitician, women, and therefore men, have everything to fear.
Carmen Callil Bad Faith A Story of Family and Fatherland Vintage 2007 p.211
99. WHOSE RIGHT TO CHOOSE?
Not the Church!
Not the State!
Women Must Decide Their Fate.
Women’s Liberation chant
Throughout history, few things have been more universal or known fewer national boundaries than the suffering of women from the denial of our rights to control our own lives, our own bodies.
The right of women to abortion, to full control of their bodies, is perhaps the most fundamental democratic demand of women.
Without this women are denied the right to decide when and if they will have children and if they will drop out of school or give up a job. Without this, women are often forced to become economically dependent on a man in order to support a child ...
The right to control our own bodies is the first step on the way to controlling our lives. National Abortion Action Coalition Women's Health Collective papers University of Melbourne See Appendix 3
We must not let our foremothers down.
We must not allow Far Right forces to erode all our gains.
We must preserve our democratic right to individual choice. Our reproductive freedom is at stake.
Ruth Schnookal Right to Choose Newsletter
100. BEYOND EQUALITY
Kerryn: We do not want equality.
It’s a common misconception, even among women, that women’s liberation is directed at a conquest of the privileges of men in the patriarchy.
For a long time I pursued the doomed attempt to be freer and more equal by adopting male habits, male ideas about sex, male striving, competition and overt toughness…
What I took to be the real world is wholly defined in the terms of the men who live in it. When I was fourteen I knew that I’d have to break with my family’s values, and I tried to do that. But it never occurred to me (and how could it?) that I would have to go on and break with something that lies behind my particular family and also deeply inside my own mind.
It’s because of the patriarchal structure, the patriarchal values inside my own head (and everywhere else too) that I, like most of us, was silly enough to suppose that the boundaries stand for exclusion, that the battle was to get over into that “real”, male, world…
And then the dawn. The realisation that no role is living, that every role is a subtraction from reality, a hiding away from ourselves, a disguise of the fact that we are all just human beings – no more, no less…
Equality with men means another role, a different incapacity to live honestly and freely. Everything that is given is part of the patriarchy. It’s only by weeding out what is given, and coming into contact with our many-sided, multi-lateral selves that we can hope to find a way to live…
In the end, we have to challenge everything. Not just the nuclear family, the couple, the discrimination against us etc. but the way we ourselves have been taught to think.
July 1973 Melbourne Feminist Collection of Writings See Appendix 5
Jenny: Sisters, change is a living possibility.
July 1973 Melbourne Feminist Collection of Writings See Appendix 5
I am woman hear me roar,
In numbers too big to ignore /
And I know too much to go back and pretend /
‘Cause I’ve heard it all before,
And I’ve been down there on the floor /
No-one’s ever gonna keep me there again.
August 1971 Helen Reddy song Women Working Together suffrage and onwards appendix
For those who embrace the women’s movement now and in the future, standing firm when necessary –
we applaud you