My parents are strong Catholics who were born and bred in Queensland, Australia. They have lived in Queensland all their lives and in spite of it all are surprisingly tolerant and considerate of other people’s ‘differences’. I am the youngest of three children and was always considered to be the ‘tomboy’, fix-it person and general hand around the house. There was little choice as my older sister was generally obscured by books and my hyperactive brother would be running around the neighbourhood somewhere. This all made for a remarkably independent and risk-filled childhood – risks like those encountered in climbing the roof of our high-set house to clear the guttering of dead leaves and refuse. I escaped my household duties as often as possible, usually in the company of other young refugees from domesticity.
When I was about twelve-years-old my sister became involved in the Women’s Movement. At first I was repulsed by her missionary zeal, particuarly her strident efforts to ‘raise my consciousness’. We talked lots about sexuality and the roles women and men are forced to live, and I came to realise that my beliefs fitted comfortably with feminist ideology. Over the following years I met many of my sister’s friends and became more involved with feminists and political activists. Then, the civil liberties campaign for the right to march in Queensland was at its height and I began to attend demonstrations.
Finishing school at the end of year ten I decided to leave home. My sister was living in a communal house with other women and I moved in with her for a short time. When my parent’s fears were allayed, I moved into a house with two other women. These friends were communists as well as feminists. One of them in particular was to influence me greatly.
The year I left school I began a pre-vocational trade-based course at Eagle Farm Technical College in Brisbane. Even getting to this stage was a battle of wits against obstructive careers officers and bureaucrats in the Commonwealth Employment Office. At the employment office I was told that my job preferences – listed as (1) motorbike mechanic; (2) motor mechanic; and (3) – – were unrealisti: they would have to be changed. Working Women’s Charter members picketed the employment office. I was eventually allowed to keep my original preferences.
Senator George Georges heard about the incident and arranged for me to have a mechanical aptitude test. Much to the consternation of all those paternal careers officers who had tried to push me into hairdressing, my results revealled above average mechanical ability. I applied to the pre-vocational trade-based course which teaches basic principles in most trades – fitting and turning, bricklaying, carpentry, mechanics, electrics, sheetmetal work – and counts as credit towards an apprenticeship.
Later I discovered the college had an affirmative action system of selection: ten percent of positions were reserved for women, ten percent for black Australians, ten percent for the disabled, and the other seventy percent for boys. This is a well kept secret. I was the only woman who applied to the course, out of 750 applicants (which was probably because I was the only woman in Brisbane who knew the course was available to us) so I got in straight away.
I was the only woman in the company of 150 adolescent boys. They had done between two to four years of woodwork, metal work and technical drawing. I had done two years of typing and shorthand. When the boys realised I was good at my work and didn’t rely on them to carry things for me or favour me with their chivalry, they began to make life difficult. Boys constantly tripped me up and down stairs, threw food and soft drinks at me and put gum in my locker so I couldn’t get my books out (making me late for classes). They smashed my carpentry and bricklaying. Then, on the way to the train station, they’d throw stones at me.
School was horrific. I’m sure I would have abandoned the course if not for collective action taken against the boys. Women friends decided to see how brave males were when faced with a group of women instead of me alone. About thirty women met the train from college. We grabbed the worst offenders, pushed them around, and questioned them about their continued harassment of me. They were terrified and tried to scramble across the platform to their next train. There was no attempt to fight us as a group. It was every man for himself. After their defeat, they made up stories exaggerating our toughness: they were confronted by a bikie gang arriving with crowbars and chains. This about a group of women – teachers, students, social workers, my mother, public servants and unemployed.
I was moved to another class. They were to be my ‘protectors’ on the instructions of the principal who had questioned me about the train station incident. To me, this showed how little the college understood. They demunaised me by saying I was in need of protection, then appointed my potential attackers to the position of protectors. Finishing the course, I came second in my class. At graduation, I was ignored by the principal and teachers . They commented only on how well the boys had performed.
I went overseas. When I returned to Brisbane I found an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic. But not without trouble. Prospective employers could not ignore my good results, but neither could they ignore my sex. It took me six months to find an employer who was prepared to employ a woman.
I have never fitted very well into the submissive femnine stereotype. In that way I suppose dormant feminist traits were always there. My moment of awakening came when I was doing the course at technical college. The harassment was directly related to my being a woman, and being a woman who wanted to do something different. I realised then how much I needed the support of other women. Thinking about it now, five years after it happened, I can hardly believe I was able to withstand the pain and complete the course …
… Of course , my own experience reveals acceptance of women in career roles does not extend to all areas of the workforce. Women have an increased awareness of their personal worth and rights as human beings. I think women are also more aware of their sexuality, with greater freedom to enjoy its expression.
Even so, we still have a long way to go. Ideally people should not be treated differently because of their sex. Women and men should have the same opportunities and responsibilities in education, career choice, relationships and childraising. Feminist action has taken us a good way in this direction. Feminism is to me the most important issue; it affects my life daily. My lifestyle allows me to confront sexism. Issues such as world peace, land rights and the like are vitally important. I support these causes by attending demonstrations and rallies. But at present I do not feel the same attraction that draws me to feminist issues.
For myself, I hope one day to have an all-women’s garage.
Emel Corley (c) 1985
Emel Corley was 20 years of age and an apprentice motor mechanic at the time of writing. She had been active in the Women’s Movement in Queensland, Australia, from the time she was fifteen.
Extract from ‘Emel Corley’ published in Growing Up Feminist – The New Generation of Australian Women, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, Australia, 1985 (Jocelynne A. Scutt, ed.).
