When Pearl Gibbs came to our flat another early morning, her patience now worn thin, she looked over her cup and said: ‘You want to get off your behind and give us a hand.’ Over the tea and toast we planned a movement. It was a movement that should involve both Black and white, Jews and gentiles, political and non-political – but dominated by none. We joined forces.
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A Good Innings – Part 1
After my father died and the boys left home to work on farms in the district, I often caught my mother weeping and between her sobs she hummed the verse of a sad hymn. My heart ached terribly for her but I did not have the strength to comfort or help release her pain. As the family thinned out she caught me to her, r0ping me in. I was being fastened to her emotionally.
For My People – Part 2
I returned to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs: a hard time with a high executive position for a woman, getting no support from the men in the Department. I thought: ‘There must be more in life than this.’ Maybe it was time to look at studying law. I sent off applications and chose Melbourne. When I got in I said: ‘That’s it, I’m throwing this job in. Thank you every much but I’m going.’ I have not regretted it.
For My People – Part 1
One of my earliest memories of her was when I was quite young, at a time when so-called ‘half-caste’ children were taken away from Aboriginal families. Some gudia came to the house. They were wanting to take me. My grandmother wouldn’t let them and chased them out of the yard. That is a powerful memory of a strong Black woman.
Winner of Book Prize 2012
The winning entry of the 2012 competition was Katie Barclay’sLove, Intimacy and Power: Marriage and Patriarchy in Scotland, 1650-1850 (Manchester University Press, 2011). Congratulations to Katie for a book that the judges commend as ‘an important and original study’, ‘intellectually ambitious’, ‘impressive in its…
Suffragettes and Tea Rooms
Even as late as 1911 a woman’s presence still caused consternation in some places of public refreshment. Kate Frye, staying in a hotel in a small Norfolk market town while organizing suffrage meetings, notes in her diary:
22 March 1911 ‘Had my lunch [in the hotel dining room] in company with four motorists. It is funny the way men come in here and, seeing me, shoot out again and I hear whispered conversations outside on the landing with the waitress. Then they come in very subdued and make conversation one to another and try not to look at me. Awfully funny – they might never have seen a woman before – but I suppose it does seem a strange place to find one.’
‘As a Woman I have no Country …’
Why it is that US First Ladies are held in such reverance and high esteem, with a prominance not extended, generally, to ‘political wives’ in other countries – Britain, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, France, Germany, the USSR (as it was) was not addressed by the presentations, yet it remains an issue for historical and cultural exploration and analysis.
From the Bush, to Sales, to the Airforce – Reflections on the Beginnings of a 20th Century Life
… As a junior, I didn’t serve any customers for almost 12 months, because that was the seniors’ job. Juniors weren’t allowed to speak to a customer. We had to run the messages and tidy up … The seniors at Farmers were trained in what we’d now call customer relations. The juniors were trained too. When I first went there, even though it was only for three weeks, for a sale, I had two days training before beginning in the department. I was paid to be taught where the items were in the store, how to write out dockets, how to speak to people …
ISSUE 69, Summer 2012
Angela Davis on Understandings of ‘home’ in the memoirs of Vera Weizmann, 4-8 Susan McPherson and Angela McPherson on Norah Dacre Fox, a suffragette turned fascist, 9-17 Sheena Evans on Janet Vaughan and Spanish medical aid, 18-25 Karen Flynn on Caribbean nurses in Britain and Canada, 26-35 Book Reviews…